[A/N]

New chapter, yeah! haha. So, I don't know if anyone has ever read the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton but I started reading it recently, finished like 10 of the books and liked them but realized that the character Damian really needs some love... I suppose Bartolome is my Damian, though his vampire tricks and such are certainly different... hopefully things will turn out better for him in my story. [no offense towards Laurell or any of her fans intended.] And if you have never read the Anita Blake series, don't worry about a thing, hahaha.

Hope you all enjoy.

:D

[Ruby's P.O.V.]

"H-how can you see me?" Domina gasped.

"I… don't understand…" Bartolome just sat there; wreaking of old gore, stained with the brown crusting smears of old blood and staring up at Domina, dumbfounded.

We all stared at him for a while until Stefan finally broke the silence. "Perhaps it is your blood, still in his system, that allows him to view her…?" He offered.

"But how much was even transferred into him?" I asked. It couldn't have been that much… I'd only been standing over him for a few moments…

"It doesn't take much.." Stefan said.

"So true." Bartolome agreed. "Blood is such a sensitive substance… Most times it can be a glimpse into the life and mind of our meals…"

"And too many of us abuse that…" Stefan was staring off into some distant memory, as was Bartolome who had hummed in agreement.

"So because my blood is still in your system, you can see Domina." I said softly.

Bartolome looked away from whatever distasteful past memory he had been recollecting to say, "Perhaps that is so… but I still do not understand who this woman is or why she can not be seen by everyone else…"

Shit… I guessed that the quickest way to help him understand would be to just throw everything out in the open. He'd been a member of Marsillia's seethe, so maybe he already knew what I could do... but if no one had let him in on it, this was going to be strange news. "I am related to the Fae, which has given me the ability to copy the supernatural abilities of others on command and use them for myself." I felt naked, almost. We'd all been making such an effort to keep it a secret that throwing the knowledge at him so suddenly was like baring myself to him, revealing my deepest secret… but I guess I was... "Before I had some control over my power, I accidently copied Adams Lycanthropy. We suppose that since I did not truly 'Turn' like all wolves do, a wolf that already existed was bound to me. Domina." I gestured to her then and he looked her way. So did the others but they were blind to where she really stood. "She was a wolf centuries ago. She lived and she died. I don't know why the magic chose her or why everything turned out the way it did, but that's what happened." I explained. "I hear her voice in my mind and smell her scent when she surfaces from wherever she hides when I do not feel her presence. I see her walking around like she is one of us… like she is real. When the wind blows her gown ripples, her hair dances softly…" Domina was staring at me, a mixture of love and sorrow filling her eyes, threatening to spill over. She reached out to me with one pale perfect hand and I took it. "I even feel her skin, warm and pulsing with life when she touches me… but you all can not understand. Except for Bartolome, now." I looked over to him as Dominas sadness poured down my cheeks.

"So if we are bound together…" Bartolome started.

Charles continued his thought. "Then perhaps you will see her always."

"She will be as real to you as she is to Ruby." Mercy finished.

Suddenly I felt the overwhelming wave of Dominas power and I knew she was taking me over…

[Stefan's P.O.V.]

All I wanted to do was grab Ruby and make her understand how sorry I was. She'd seen us… Sweet Christ she'd seen us… I hated that she wasnt letting me explain myself but what did I expect? I'd taken her in… kissed her lips and held her… What's more is I had wanted to do those things and I had enjoyed it. I'd let her see that I'd enjoyed it.. For her to have seen me and Marsillia must have been devastating but what choice did I have! And how could I ever have foreseen that she'd be there…? I set those thoughts aside because, even though they were immensely important, I had even bigger problems to worry about. Problems like Bartolome… His reasoning for wanting to be bound to Ruby was sound but that didn't mean he wouldn't warp the situation to his advantage. None of them know Bartolome like I do. Weak as he is, he has always been able to woo the women of any century… and I'm sure he's just itching to reveal all of his abilities to Ruby... and not just the healing ones… It is times like this that make me wish I'd inherited more from Marsillia than teleportation…

The prickling wave of Ruby's power spread to me suddenly, pulling me from my stressful thoughts.

"We will do this exchange." Domina's words from Ruby's mouth. I could always tell when it was her, even if I didn't feel her power. Ruby was a forceful woman but Domina was on another level entirely. She could speak in such a way that made you want to bow before her… Something Ruby was too young and innocent to convey.

"Ruby didn't look as certain as all that." Adam growled. I assumed his now hostile look was due to the suddenness of Domina's presence and the quickness of her power spreading through the room. Soon, he regained his composure.

"I have seen the answer in Ruby's mind." Domina continued. "Still she contemplates it, but we both know the conclusion she will inevitably come to. She cannot abandon this one to die alone. " She gestured towards Bartolome. "It would be immoral for her to do so… and I want to make it abundantly clear…" She leaned forward, somehow making the t-shirt/boxer combo she was wearing seem elegant and Queen-like. "I want this."

Bartolome stared at her thoughtfully. "Why such urgency on my behalf?"

She stood and slinked to the center of the room. Something about the way she moved and the way she looked at all of us was so old… Domina was powerful, ancient and without words she reminded us of that. "I am invisible." She said. "A phantom when I am not inhabiting this girls body. Happy to have my existence back, no doubt, but what is that worth if I am but a ghost in the corner of Ruby Talbot's mind?" Her Sapphire eyes shimmered with tears, her voice became strained with the pain of loneliness and all I wanted to do, rather it was her or Ruby standing there, was to kiss her lips and mend her. "If you can see me," She looked down at Bartolome. "then I want you to see me always… I want you to turn your head when I enter a room… I want you to look my way and ask my opinion on any matter and to say hello or farewell when I come around or go to leave." She sat back down and turned her head away from us. "I want to exist to someone other than Ruby…"

[Bartolome's P.O.V.]

I never realized how refreshing existence could be, free from Marsillia's reign. Battered and bruised as I may be, I feel a great darkness has been lifted from me. Too long had I been so desperate to please her, the only woman in my long existence that I could never satisfy. Six centuries under her command and she could toss me aside as if she'd met me only the day before… Now it was all over and I could have a new Mistress. One dose of Ruby's blood and I knew. She was the perfect choice, not that I realized then that I'd be released from Marsillia's seethe or that Ruby would come rampaging through to kill what she could… but when I was cast aside, all I could feel was her. When Marsillia's life force left me all I could hold on to was the swirling of Ruby's blood in my gut… I can understand now why Andre looked crazed after drinking from her… I can only imagine the taste… Even now I can feel her power, pulsing. There is such rage in her, such anguish that she never releases… aside from the night at the seethe… but even through all of that anger there is kindness, love even and she is so very young. She couldn't be older than twenty-five, could she? So much time ahead of her to grow and mature into something so… powerful…

When I felt the wave of power roll off of her and the other woman speak of keeping me, of binding Ruby to me, I knew I was saved. My stomach roiled with pleasure at the thought. She would be my new mistress, so powerful yet I knew she would be good and just. I knew she would protect me. I would give anything to have a keeper like her but obedience and a few healing tricks from me would never compare to anything she could give… So how would I repay her for saving me from the sun… how would I repay her for taking me when the others wanted to throw me away? I almost grinned to myself… I knew exactly how, and I could not wait to show her…