Hi All! Once again, thank you all so much for the reviews. One of you had a great couple of comments, and I'll respond to them down at the bottom. :)

Where had she been?

It felt like she had walked for miles. She was so sore.

She remembered walking around the castle for what seemed like days. After Adrian had ditched her - and before Vlad had 'found her.' But that was then, not now.

Where was she now?

A dream, a memory, a thought?

A forest.

She had been in a forest.

Isabel opened her eyes - and the world was a hazy blur of dim colors. A blink, and then another - and it began to clear. If only just barely, she began to understand where she was. She was lying in an a bed. Covers were pulled up over her to her chest, but tucked under her arms. She could feel the soft cloth under her hands, which lay atop the sheets. She felt both cold, and hot, all at once. The bed had a canopy overhead, decorated with rich, dark fabric spanning the posts. Like one you would always wish for as a child, but as an adult you realize how utterly impractical they are.

The thought of her childhood skipped over her mind like a rock on a the surface of a pond. She didn't have a childhood - not one of her own, anyway. Memories were all that anybody ever had of their lives, and all her memories of being young were from the lives of others. Stitched together like a bad quilt. Scraps and bits and pieces, arranged into a whole. None of the pieces were hers, but the quilt was her creation, at least.

A fever - that's what she had, she realized. That explained her wandering mind and heavy head. The world swirled and swayed around her. The flickering of candles arranged on a table nearby danced shadows across the ceiling - orange and yellow. Spectres in a waltz. It was dark in this room, with no gas or electric lamps lit. Why? Why keep it so dark?

Oh.

For the solemnity of the occasion.

Isabel remembered then - the dagger.

She was dying.

Consciousness fluttered like a bird in a cage, ready to escape at any time. It took a great deal of focus to force herself to stay in the present. Death was a breath away. She could feel it. If she willed it, she'd be back in the forest of her soul.

It was then, through the haze of the fever, that the sensation of pain returned. She hurt. She ached everywhere. Not just the wound in her throat which stung like a nest of bees had made its home there - but all of her body felt like lava were flowing through her veins.

Dracula's blood is a poison, she remembered through the haze. He had fed her his own blood in the hopes of saving her life. Had it worked? Or was she a vampire, now? Or was this burning and horrible ache the poison that had killed all those women in the glass coffins?

Isabel felt so weak - so heavy, that she couldn't even muster the strength to cry out in pain.

She turned her head to finally look about the room and not just at the ceiling and fabric canopy overhead. It was Vlad's chambers - it took her that long to recognize where she was in the dim lighting. As she turned her head, the room threatened to keep moving - or move in an entirely unwelcome direction. Nausea flooded her for a second, and she had to take a moment to keep from letting it overwhelm her.

A chair had been pulled beside the bed. A chair that did not sit empty. A figure - dark clothed, sat with his broad shoulders slumped forward. An elbow on his knee, and his head in his hand. Long black hair fell alongside his face, obscuring it from view. He was the vision of hopelessness. Of sorrow.

His other pale, sharp-nailed hand lay on the bed next to hers. The room was silent but for the ticking of a clock in the background - quietly going about its duty with no mind to their troubles.

The clocktower. Oh right... All of that fucking mess.

Isabel watched the vampire for a time. Her current opinion of him was… complicated. And her mind was hardly clear enough to start reasoning through it now. He sat, unmoving - and his misery filled the room, thick as fog. Isabel couldn't leave him like that. She moved her hand, which was nearly as pale as his. It took a great deal of effort on her part even just to lift her fingers - and barely, just barely, she brushed her fingers along his. She didn't have the strength for anything else.

His head raised - still shrouded in shadow in the dim light of the room. Her hazy, feverish mind tried to keep track of him as he shifted from the chair towards her. He wasn't moving quickly - but any motion at all sent her mind toppling over itself in her feverish state. Vlad sat beside her on the bed, and she felt his gentle touch on her forehead, as he stroked her hair away from her face. "My little dove…"

She opened her mouth to speak - but no noise came out. Nothing happened - except the stinging in her throat redoubled its efforts. She cringed, and tried to fight the urge to cough. But it was useless. The pain in her throat forced her to try to clear her throat and all she managed was a horrible wheezing noise that left her mouth tasting strongly of blood.

Darkness wrapped its fingers around her mind and began to pull her back into unconsciousness. Her body was too weak to fight it - her mind too hazy to struggle. But with Dracula's hand upon her skin - as she descended back into her feverish mind - she did not go alone.

Isabel sat on a park bench, looking out at the playground in front of her. She knew this memory well - but it had been a very long time since she had revisited it in person. The sun was shining, and young children were running about, laughing and shrieking as they ran about the steel and wooden structures of the park. It was an extremely poor neighborhood - but the people who lived here seemed to make the best of it. To children, play was play. It didn't matter how expensive the surroundings happened to be.

"To where have you brought us?"

Isabel glanced up at the figure standing next to her, who looked ridiculously out of place in his current surroundings. The dour vampire king stood in his long, black peacoat - garbed otherwise in dated, if otherwise elegant formalwear that was his preference. At least he looked like a man from the forties, and not of the fourteen forties. Progress.

'Updated' clothing or not, no one could ever be fooled by what he actually was. The pale skin, long black hair, and red eyes that glared at the scene in front of him, bore a seriousness that commanded instant respect and fear. He could be dressed in a t-shirt and jeans and he'd still stand out like a sore thumb.

"My first memory," Isabel looked back to the scene in front of her. "Well, at least it's the first memory I remember having. It isn't mine." Isabel leaned back on the bench and crossed her legs in front of her. "1960's Ukraine, as far as I can figure. Judging by the language and the clothing."

"Ah."

They both watched the scene in for a moment before speaking. Finally, Isabel felt the need to supply more - unable to just let the silence linger. "That girl there - the one on the swings." She pointed briefly. "This is her memory. I was in a car crash when I was thirteen or fourteen that killed my parents and the other driver. I don't remember anything of my life prior to that. An old woman was in the other car - and this is her childhood. I guess we wound up touching somehow during the wreck, I don't know."

"I see," he said. She looked up at him, and she could hear the discomfort in his voice. Silence descended again. He very clearly did not know how to, or didn't want to, start the inevitable conversation they were about to have.

"Do you know, every day I look in the mirror - I wonder if I'm a person at all," she said, finally breaking into the silence between them. The playground was still a jabber of sounds, but yet the nothingness between the two of them seemed to far outweigh the din of children playing.

That garnered no response from him. So, she plodded on, even if he didn't feel like contributing. "Who am I, really? Sometimes, I really don't know. Am I even my own person, or just the result of everyone I've ever touched or come across? If every moment connects the next - then every memory effects who you are. Every decision you've ever make is a product of the live you've lived. Your context. My context - isn't really mine. All I am is a train car filled with everyone else's... baggage."

Still, Vlad stood silent.

"Wraith asked me how he was any different than you. He got the comparison wrong. How is he any different than me? He had the misfortune of being created with the memories of a hundred thousand deaths. He's the product of what he can remember. No wonder he's fucking insane."

Isabel gestured with her hand, and the memory froze - locked in time. A ball, which had been the means of a simple game of catch between two young boys, was now hovering in midair. The swings were caught in time, part way along their arcs. The sound of children laughing and shouting sharply cut off into silence.

Isabel folded her arms across her chest, idly kicking the foot that was crossed over the other. They had a great deal to reconcile between the two of them. And he appeared to want to leave it to her to begin.

It seemed wrong, to argue with him in a place like this. So, she allowed the memory to fade and transition to something more suitable for what was about to transpire. Now, instead of sitting on a park bench, she was sitting on a table-top tomb of some old burying ground in Charlestown, just outside of Boston. She had broken into a crypt here with her friends on some job, ages ago. The hill in the center was adorned with a single tree and an obelisk dedicated to some important guy somewhere - John Harvard, maybe? The ancient stones seemed much more fitting a background scene for the angry vampire king.

Dracula took a moment to look about himself and see where she had brought him. It seemed the sight of the graves were what finally inspired him to speak. "You are dying," Vlad said quietly, his dark voice carrying now through the silence with little effort.

"No shit, Sherlock. I'd be dead by now if your pet building hadn't come and tried to talk me out of it," she replied. She wasn't trying to be spiteful, but it was hard not to be.

He was silent for a long moment. Isabel could sense his turmoil. He was a whitewater rapid of anger, loathing, and pain. But anger towards whom, she didn't know. Her reply had cut him to the quick. That it was not for him that she chose to fight for life.

"What said it, to change your mind?" Vlad responded, with a seething anger threatening to boil over under the surface.

"It showed up to talk to me out of self defense, not for any concern for me. It said you were going to destroy the castle as whole - and reminded me that if you did that, you'd be murdering the people I care about. Adam and Eric will probably die, thanks to you - but if I let you destroy this place, they will absolutely die." Isabel paused. "And Lyon and Adrian don't deserve it, either. I'm sure there are others. You're holding a gun to their heads - of course I had to try to come back to save them."

"Then you plan to betray me to the creature Wraith, to save your friends."

Isabel laughed, a sad and cruel laugh directed only at herself, and shut her eyes. She knew he was holding back his fury. "No, Vlad. I won't. That's why I did what I did. I can't betray you. I can't betray my friends. You both put me with an impossible choice. I have no path forward from this. So I removed myself from the equation."

"Pray tell, what keeps you from saving your dear friends? Is it not their safety that you covet so highly, you threw yourself upon my mercy when all this began?!" Vlad snarled, and his anger was so thick it finally made her stand up from atop the tomb where she sat, and turn to face him.

His red eyes shone in the darkness, catching what little light there was from the nearby streets, causing them to glint.

"What keeps me from saving them?! You can't be serious," she said through an incredulous laugh.

"Humor me," he seethed.

"You, you idiot!" she yelled at him. "How can I betray you?! How the fuck am I supposed to chose between the 'creature' that I love, and the only family I've ever known?!"

He was on her in an instant - covering the distance between them in a blink of an eye. His hand was around her throat, and she found herself trapped between him and the edge of the tomb. He was bending her backwards over the lip, arching her back and throwing her off balance. His other hand was on top of the ancient stone - she could hear his nails digging into the rock surface like it were clay. "How could you love me as you say - and leave me watch you die by your own hand?! Do not lie to me once more, Isabel! I shall willfully suffer much from you, my little empath… But no more will I condone such falsehoods uttered to my face." He was snarling angrily down at her - his fangs extended in his rage.

It was hard to muster words through his fury, and the grip on her throat. But anger was a hard emotion to mute. "You think I'm lying?!"

"Think of me what you will. I am no fool, child…"

Isabel tried to push him off of her, but he wouldn't budge. She felt tears stinging at the corners of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. "If you despise me this much, then let me die…"

"Do not mock me!" he hollered at her, his eyes now red from lid to lid in his fury. His hand dug harder into her throat, and if they were in the waking world, she knew he'd leave a bruise. "Why must you seek to belittle me, to seek to exploit my weakness towards you?! Why must you torment me so?!"

He pushed away from her then, leaving her holding on to the edge of the tomb for support. He stormed away from her. With a howl of rage, he punched a stone obelisk near him - shattering it from the blow, sending the top half toppling over as rubble.

"I am unable to read your heart and mind," he said finally, his anger having cooled, if only barely. "Even joined in blood and body, you are guarded from me. Oft have I tried to thrall you to my will to learn the truth. Yet every time I seek to peel away the veil that keeps your motives secret to me, I am denied. Your will cannot be bent."

"So I'm a liar, then - because you don't have proof?! Am I supposed to be thankful you haven't tried to hypnotize me - or whatever the hell you're talking about?"

"The harm I would have to cause you to see such proof for myself is perhaps beyond even my capacity for cruelty. It would surely leave you a shell in its wake. So yes, perhaps you might recognize the depths to which I could still drag your soul," he threatened, his back still to her.

It felt so defeating - so demoralizing. It felt the same as when she turned the knife on herself. And if she had the chance in this moment, she'd do the same again. "That's what this whole thing is about. Giving Wraith my friends. You wanted proof that I loved you - more than them. If I sacrifice them, it's the proof you need. If I don't, if I betray you - you're vindicated. Either way you're 'right.'" Isabel's eyes teared up, and she swiped at them angrily. "What I don't understand - what I can't even begin to grasp - is why do you care at all?! What does it matter to you, whether I love you or if I'm lying?!"

"Do not ask foolish questions."

"Humor me," she mimicked him from earlier. He was silent, his head lowered, hands balled into fists. He still did not turn around to face her. He refused to answer. "I thought it was because you couldn't stand the idea of being stuck with me for eternity as your 'companion.' I thought it was because you finally realized I'm a weak little mortal, and you were sick and tired of having to save me. I thought you left me to deal with Wraith to watch me dance at the end of your sick little strings. But now, why do you care if I die?! I saved you the trouble of doing it yourself when you finally get bored of-"

Her words were cut off as his hand clamped over her mouth, keeping her from speaking. He had appeared in front of her again without moving. His eyes, red from lid to lid, were narrowed in pure fury. Isabel tried to shrink away from him, but his other hand held her upper arm in a vice grip.

"Do not play naive, empath!" he hissed. "You speak of games? You speak of dancing upon puppet strings? And yet you claim innocence?! You know my heart and soul, as they are an open page before you. You see through to my very core - and all the secrets of my millenia upon this earth are yours to wander like a petty tourist. Yet you claim it is beyond your comprehension why your death would send me to destroy all that I know?! Why I would pitch a hundred thousands souls unto the void, in grief?!"

His grip on her arm tightened, and she winced in pain. The tears that she had struggled to keep from falling escaped her eyes now that she couldn't wipe them away. "If you require me to say the words aloud - to debase myself at your feet for your own sick joy, very well." He paused for a moment - and he said the words through such hate, it would have made her laugh if she weren't so terrified. "I love you, my little dove..."

The words caved him in, destroying his rage. He released her, and she staggered backwards, leaning up against the tabletop tomb once more. She retreated from him, looking down at the ground - her mind reeling from his words. Isabel felt left behind in the dust - that the train had ripped past her, leaving her at the station. "I…" she was at a loss for words. "I didn't… I didn't know."

"Now I am certain you lie," Dracula said with a dark chuckle.

Isabel shook her head no. But how? How couldn't she know?! How couldn't she have felt it? Her mind reeled for answers, tripping over itself trying to figure it out. She leaned against the tomb, and stared down at her feet, unable to meet his piercing gaze. "I've never known what it's like to be loved… Not once. Like a sister, maybe… But not - not like that. Either I don't know what it's like - so I have no way to recognize it - or…" Isabel paused, not wanting to say the words. Not wanting to admit it. But there wasn't any point in hiding from him - not now, not ever again. "Or I thought it was too impossible."

"Explain."

Isabel shut her eyes, and wrapped her arms around herself. "Why would you love me? Look at all of the creatures that serve you - powerful, unique, unstoppable, beautiful… Here I am, a weak, helpless little mortal, unable to even protect myself. Looked what happened to Lisa. The same - or worse - could happen to me at any moment." Isabel had said the words to Adam and Eric - and she had meant them. "I don't know what you see in me. It must be boredom. The fun of having somebody love you. A new toy to play with - ready to throw aside the moment you get bored."

"You cannot be truthful," Vlad responded incredulously, stepping towards her. She tried to avoid the urge to step away from him. "To think yourself as below this damned wretch you see before you…?" A hand cupped her chin, and turned her face upwards. His eyes searched hers - as if to see through her. As if to see the truth. His anger had been replaced with sorrow. Heartbreak. Whatever he found there, seemed to break him in two.

He kissed her, then. It wasn't a heated kiss, as often they were. It was desperate, begging, longing. Loving. It bared himself to her, and she found her hands wound into the fabric of his vest, holding onto him like he was the last thing in the world.

Finally, after what felt like eternity, the kiss ended. His arms wrapped around her, and he held her to his chest, as if she would fly away at any moment.

His words were soft, barely above a baritone whisper in his chest. "My heart was stolen the moment I laid eyes upon you. When I found yourself lost inside my mind, a place no one has ever tread but I. Innocent and wise, young with the memories of a thousand years inside you… And such compassion to melt the hardest soul… I loved you then. I had to have you. I hunted you, sought to make you mine in all ways - in hopes I could make you feel the same."

He paused for a long moment, as if searching for words. "So much do I despise what I have become, I sought to see a liar where there was none… I thought that you must know my heart - and sought to use it against me…" He rested his forehead against the top of his head, his words heavy. "I do not know how to mend the wrong that I have dealt you - but I will find a way..."

The world faded into nothingness, then. His presence left her mind - and she wasn't sure why. Was he pulled away? Was she dying? She didn't know.

But the blackness took her all the same.

Isabel's next cohesive thought was the sound of people yelling.

God, it hurt. Not just everything else - but the angry sounds. Her mind was past the ability to sort the syllables into words. It could have been Swahili for all the good it did her. She forced herself to open her eyes - even though they felt like they'd much prefer being shut. The room swirled dangerously around her for a moment, before stilling.

She was where she was before - Vlad's bed, in his chambers. Blinking, she turned her head to look for the source of the sound. It wasn't hard to find. Standing halfway across the room, Vlad and Lyon were yelling at each other. They hadn't come to blows - but it looked like they might.

The din of the argument was making her head pound, made everything throb like a migraine was trying to rip her brain out of her ears. It had to end. This pain had to end.

Isabel opened her mouth to speak - but no noise came out. The bees were back, but this time she managed to hold back the cough that would have probably knocked her unconscious again. Even if she could speak, she was sure it would be too quiet for them to hear her over the ruckus they were creating.

So she did the only thing she could think of. She yelled - in her mind, at them - as loud as she could. Vlad would hear her. They needed to stop - more than anything else in the world right now, she needed them to stop.

Will you two shut up?!

It'd be a hard game to try and figure out which of the three of them looked more surprised. The moment she 'shouted' silently - the two of them stopped short. Their anger vanished in the blink of an eye, and they found themselves staring at each other - confused and out of place. It was as though in one moment, their anger was taken away. Or more aptly, 'overwritten.'

"What in God's name…?" Lyon muttered, looking very much like someone had slapped him in the face with a wet rag.

"I do not believe God had anything to do with it…" Dracula responded, and and turned to look at her, lying in the bed. With blatant confusion, he scrutinized her.

"I assume, then, it was your voice I heard. I am glad to see you awake, Isabel," Lyon said sincerely, smiling gently at her. "As unsettling a greeting as that was."

"You heard her?" Vlad narrowed his eyes, thinking. Then, he seemed to finish piecing together the puzzle before him. "You have survived the poison of my blood, it seems. I did not know what manner of effect it would have upon you. I think, perhaps, it has changed the nature of your gift."

Isabel tried to respond, and only managed to hack once - a weak sound with nothing to back it. She touched a hand to her throat - at least her limbs didn't feel so heavy. A bandage was what she found under her fingers. How long was I out? She asked Vlad, silently. Am I your companion, now?

A day has passed since last we spoke, he responded in kind. And no… not yet. Once more, I believe, will end the ritual. One way or another.

Isabel sighed, at least she could do that much. She tried to sit up, and Vlad went to assist her - helping her move to rest her back against the headboard. He handed her a cup of water that she took with a faint smile, and sipped it. God, it felt amazing. You think I had anything to do with your fight stopping? She asked.

"I believe you commanded our emotions… and demanded we stop our argument," Vlad responded aloud. He sat on the edge of the bed, and looked over at Lyon. "As is likely for the best. Oft in this past week we have had topics to dispute. Avoiding another scuffle is preferable to us both."

Lyon only smirked. "The blood of the original vampire is bound to have… unpredictable effects. No one has ever survived through this process as long as you have, my lady. It gives me hope that you may endure."

Isabel smiled back, and sipped the water again. She tried to think towards the priest. It was weird - but it wasn't any different than how she had learned to communicate with Dracula. Thanks.

"You are very welcome," he replied with a bow at the waist - confirming that he had indeed heard her voice a second time. "I will take my leave of you both. My Lord, we will finish our… 'conversation' another time." And with that, he was gone in a swirl of mist.

Isabel coughed suddenly, and she tasted blood in her mouth again. Dracula took a handkerchief from the nightstand and held it out to her. She took it, and coughed into it as she tried to clear her throat. Finally, her coughing stopped - and when she took it away, it was flecked with blood. This is what consumption must have felt like, she observed sarcastically.

"Not an entirely inaccurate observation," Vlad said, his voice barely above a whisper. His hand stroked her hair gently, and handed her the glass of water again. She took a sip, glad for the water to dilute the coppery flavor in her mouth.

It hurt to breathe too deeply - so she resigned herself to shallow breaths for the time being. Isabel tried to reach up to touch his face - and could barely muster the strength to do so. Seeing her struggle, he took her hand in his, and lifted it, kissing her palm before letting her hand settle on his cheek.

His voice was quiet as he saw her struggle with the pain, a baritone rumble in his chest that was barely above a whisper. "Forgive me… but I could not let you go." He combed his hand through her hair gently, tucking a strand behind her ear. "I am a marvel that you, who can see into my very soul, could not discern there, amongst the shadows and the death - the extent to which I love you."

It was another full day before Isabel could get on her feet. Her legs felt weak, unstable - but she made herself walk. She was sore and stiff, but all things considered, she felt… okay. It was Dracula's blood at work again, she was positive. There's no other way she could heal this quickly.

But her voice was not returning.

The feeling of bees and the coughing up blood had stopped - but now when she tried to speak, nothing came out. Vlad had now taken her to see one of the castle's 'physicians.' As close to a doctor as they had. Vlad had argued with her during the entire lead-up to the visit that the castle was, in fact, in all ways superior to human mortal science. That due to their lack of stigma and the dark ages, the Castle had medical capabilities far beyond those of any 'normal' hospital.

She had pointed out (silently) that they probably didn't know how to treat 'humans' if they themselves weren't 'human.' She had then pointed out that to an outside observer, his one-sided argument must make him look suitably crazy.

Either way, she lost the debate, and now she sat in a room, looking like every sketch of a Victorian doctor's parlor - if they had borrowed enough technology from the twenty-third century to make them happy, and cobbled the two things together in bizarre ways. No wonder Eric was so happy here. The reminder that he, and Adam, were trapped with that monster Wraith didn't do much for her mood.

The doctor - who mostly looked human, but wasn't fooling anybody - had carefully unwrapped the bandage at her throat. She hadn't seen it personally yet, and he peered at the spot where she had put the knife through her throat. He made a 'hm,' noise, and taking a piece of cotton soaked in alcohol - swabbed at it.

Isabel winced - expecting it to sting… but nothing happened. She looked over at Vlad, confused.

The wound has healed, he said to her silently. He was brooding by one wall, watching the unfolding scene carefully. There is a small scar, nothing else.

The doctor then ran tests - peering down her throat, or holding up some strange contraption over her throat and then examining the results. It felt halfway between 'Star Trek' and a Jules Verne novel to her. Finally, the tests ended.

"It is possible," the doctor began, turning to scribble into a notepad, then turning his pen around to tap on the page with the back of it thoughtfully as he spoke. "That due to the order of events in which things occurred - your injury, loss of blood, and then the reintroduction of Lord Dracula's blood… It is possible that your wound healed, but did not repair your vocal chords. IT has all the appearance of a wound long healed. Now, I am not certain. Your voice may return in time."

So you're saying I might never speak again? She asked the doctor, silently. It was a strange trick, learning to think 'at people' to communicate - but it worked.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. "One might say you can still speak," he pointed out to her dutifully. "There is a chance, yes, that your voice may stay the way it is. But it may return. These things take time - especially with mortal physiology. I am afraid there is nothing else I can do."

Isabel sighed. She supposed she literally only had herself to blame. She nodded, and stood from the table, and smiled to him - thanking him for his help. Vlad reached his hand to her, and she took it. In a roar of fire, they were gone.

Adrian had spent the past few days, allowing himself a few moments of nostalgia. It was unlikely he would ever have the opportunity to once again wander his childhood home in peace.

It was on the ramparts that he met a figure he did not recognize. Well, that is not entirely true - the creature that stood in front of him was in a form that he knew. Orlock. But Adrian's senses were keen enough to know when something was… awry.

"Hey there, pretty boy," the vampire said, grinning wickedly. It was a phrase that ill-suited the ancient creature.

"Who are you?" Adrian asked, his hand on the hilt of his blade.

The figure of the ancient vampire laughed, and leaned on one foot, in a manner that was foreign to the creature that Adrian had known. "Oh, buddy-boy... You're about to find out… Mind if I snag a ride?!"

As one of you noted - yes, this is getting close to the end. I think we'll have one, maybe two chapters left after this. I have a hell of an ending in mind. I can't thank you enough for the compliments - it really means a lot and it makes it feel like I'm writing for more than my own amusement.

I am planning on writing a story that focuses on Adrian next - he's the hardest one to write for to be honest. (Seeing as he was basically a walking brick in the game.) So I was getting a feel for him - and, he served a nice purpose. I have my main characters in mind, I just need to figure out a little more of the framework. But I'll get that going right when this one winds up. It'll be titled 'Halfway Between.'

Dracula was amazing fun to write with - he's got a lot of dimension to him, and, as you can tell - he's so inherently sexual it's just great to start a scene and 'watch what happens.' ;)

Stay tuned!