Chapter 1

Beginning To Look Like Fate

New Mayhem, America 2004

Jager sighed, unwilling to close his eyes, should he lose the image that graced his vision. She was asleep, her tinted skin, already pale compared to the tan it was in life, glowing softly as the moonlight streamed down on her through the window. Her dark auburn lashes cast shadows on her high, smooth cheekbones, making her more and less the semblance of an angel in Jager's eyes. She was utterly still, her dreams black, and her breath dead in her lungs. But the one thing, Jager guessed, that made her all the more beautiful in her sleep, was that she was quiet.

He'd known that Scars were long-winded, liable to bore a vampire out of his mind before striking the killing blow, but not until he'd spent time with one had he really known the truth of the stories. He waited a moment, savoring the absence of her harsh ridiculing comments, before he began to hunger for the undercurrent that pulsed through the New Mayhem air. It took a slight strain of his ears, before the thrumming bass of dance music permeated his vampiric hearing. Las Noches was several blocks away, but on nights like this, its call could be heard all through the village, like a swift, exited heartbeat, of which the undead craved. Sometimes Jager wondered if that was why vampires were so fond of the nightclub. A chance to have a heartbeat again? To feel it reverberating through their bodies, like a living pulse? To maybe, for one simple night, be alive, in drink, in dance, to flirt like mortals, flashing fanged smiles, and witty remarks, only to kill their dates after the pleasantries were finished? Jager smiled. From experience...the answers were all yes.

He stood, slowly, and as quietly as he could. The slightest noise could wake his sleeping creation, as her hearing was twice as good as most younger vampires. Not only did she have Jager's blood working in her favor, but still swirling through her body, was the strong, undying blood of a Scar. The scent surrounded her, making it impossible to deny the fact that this creature, vampire though it was, was very much an ex-vampire hunter. Jager could only hope none of the more powerful of his kindred found themselves in New Mayhem alongside her. It's been five years, but the intoxicating scent of a quarry's blood never truly left a vampire's memory. Especially quarry as infamous as Symia Scar and her softhearted shadow of a husband Orpheus Velvet.

Jager made his way through the door, and outside into the streets of New Mayhem. Walking idly, even humming some ancient lullaby under his breath, he turned his gaze to the heavens. The moon was full this night, and its harsh silver light burned across the dark ground, and Jager's own African tinted skin. Its rays were harshly powerful, casting their own lunar spells that were millennia old, beyond the memory of living creatures, and beyond the comprehension of even the oldest magic-users. Human sight couldn't possibly be able to see the moonlight as powerfully as the undead and the cursed, for mortals were too often blind to the magic that the Earth itself wove into its tapestry. Jager himself was an atheist, sometimes playing religion into his games of the time, but never truly believing in any one deity. The only real thing he grasped was that the Earth had her own games she played, and the laws of nature rivaled the religious commandments of any one belief. He played by his own rules, yes, but he followed guidelines, set down by the uncontrollable forces of nature...which were chaotic in their own design.

At least, he followed them most of the time.

It was a law of nature that emotions got in the way. The only way to keep things running smoothly is to only look at the opposite sex as certain form of reproduction. Love was needless complication. Love got in the way. Love was a sin. And Jager himself had been damned within an inch of his immortal life.

Kaei, the Hawaiian beauty that stole his black little heart with extravagant flowers blooming from the sheet of silky black hair that fell down her gently curving back, was only one of the many that had gotten him into trouble. His eyes were dangerous to catch, as well as the beauty that caught them. In the end, Kaei burned down the ageless village of Mayhem, the hidden vampire haven. And before her...there was Fala, who's captured Jager's heart with far less innocence than Kaei had displayed, even before she torched Mayhem. She, with her raven hair, the color and texture of the Egyptian princesses themselves. She, with deep, black-brown eyes, always alight with some mischief. At the time of her changing, Jager had seen a soul mate. Now, all that remained was the vain vampiress she'd become, a dark, jealous creature, always so sure that her vampirism protected her from anything, and everything, as well as the famous sire she bore, never once considering that not all vampires fear Jager's wrath, or especially her so called power. She was clueless to the fact that she wasn't nearly as invincible as she believed herself to be. Fala was a mistake, and Kaei was as well. There had been numerous others, so many in fact, that he had earned himself a record reminiscent of Silver himself, who was the source of his line's affinity. Or curse. This fact wasn't a good thing.

You would have thought that this reputation would have taught him a lesson on falling for mortals, but no. He just had to chase after those broken images, that fiery hair, those copper eyes, the blood that caked her blade at all hours of the night. He just had to let his heart, dead as it was, be vulnerable to another. To allow one pretty face to change everything that he had worked hard to become...It had seemed so absurd...the last Scar, the forbidden child that escaped the thirst of the vampire underworld, who was still hunted and feared today, five years after Jozelyn's parents met their gruesome demise, could influence him as none of the others ever had. That she could barely exist in reality, and still the shadow of fear that was her existence could down their numbers by the dozens nightly...But there she was, despite his hopes, safe and sound in England, bathing the streets in immortal blood, and spreading her own dark tide of retribution for her being made an orphan. Jager himself, who danced in fairy rings, and played his games of magic with Wiccans that were mockeries of the witches of his ancient Egypt, who bore the name of the Trickster, who was the Jackal incarnated in vampiric form...had fallen for the most taboo of mortal infatuations. He had done the unthinkable, and brought not only his own weakness into the stark light of vampire society, but exposed the hidden legend of the last Scar. Jozelyn was no longer a figment of vampiric paranoia. She was real, and in their reaches. Jager, who had angered many because of his careless nature, and extraordinary power, could be easily subdued. Destroying his temptation could thoroughly break him. It was two birds with one stone.

Jager stopped midstride. He had reached the end of the path where the black rosebush grew. He'd walked strait past Las Noches while occupied by his thoughts. He muttered a quiet, yet unfrustrated curse under his breath. Maybe he didn't need a night of Las Noches. Maybe all he needed was a night to sort through his troubles, and to overcome the mood that Jozelyn had put him in…Besides, a hunt was much better for his stress than bottled blood from the bar. He sighed, filling his dead lungs with oxygen that would never reach the magic-rich blood that flowed through his veins. The air was alive with the smells of a full moon. Supernatural creatures roamed the shadows, in search of their own prey, and the prey, unaware, made their own oblivious ways through the darkness, enchanted by the spell that such a silver-soaked night cast.

Jozelyn awoke with a start, confused from the transition of dreaming in total darkness to waking up in it. Her eyes adjusted, supernatural sight filtering in light and magic so that Jozelyn could see as well, if not infinitely better, than she could if it was day. Her first thought was that she would have to complain to Jager about the dismal impersonal decor of his house. Not only was the vampire's home eerily clean, but it was also so Spartan in it's interior design, that Jozelyn was under the constant impression that she was in a museum. Hung upon the walls were slightly unsettling, if not beautiful paintings, of Egyptian culture and religion. Throughout the rest of the house, gorgeous portraits of the wild animals of Africa stared hungrily at passerby, creating the atmosphere of being hunted, which was ironic, considering what the owner of the house was. Jozelyn sighed, rising from the couch to tinker with Jager's collection of gold Egyptian artifacts, which glittered in the moonlight above the dead fireplace. She was going over exactly what she could say to the leech when he chose to show himself when she realized that he would have been by her side when she awoke, had he actually been inside the house. Which meant that her undead host was missing in action.

The red-haired huntress blinked in annoyance and turned her now black eyes toward the wide, open window that was faced toward the paved streets of New Mayhem. In the dark, blue-violet sky, a heavy, white-hot full moon glared down on the vampiric city, almost mocking the fact that Jozelyn was now officially part of her black dominion, the shadowed, chaotic stretches of otherworldly reign that was the night. Jozelyn could sense traces of Jager's aura, which had departed the museum-like house not too long ago. Jozelyn scowled and stepped outside.

The streets hummed with the suppressed mischief that the night of a full moon held, and Jozelyn knew that within the moon shadow, creatures that she was familiar with (and those she wasn't) roamed in search of their own agendas. Not willing to cause trouble in this awkward magic-propelled body, but still all too ready for a fight, Jozelyn crept away from the house, tilting her head for the sound or smell of anything that could lead her to her wayward sire. It wasn't that she wished to find him because she missed him. On the contrary. She wanted to give him a piece of her mind for leaving her in his creepy house all by herself. Just looking at the fragments of Egyptian past put Jozelyn in the mind of ancient curses, and rather gory embalming processes. Symia Scar may not have approved of Jozelyn missing training for school, but the days that she had attended had given her an almost permanent repulsion of ancient Egypt culture.

Suddenly, she caught the sounds of heavy footsteps rushing down the pavement. Whatever was coming this way, it was in a hurry to do so. Jozelyn recoiled into the shadows, which was easier than ever thanks to her new vampire body. She squinted in the direction of the footsteps, hoping to see the walker before it reached her hiding place. A young man materialized from the haze of the night, wearing a simple gray muscle shirt and dark blue jeans. His features were soft, boyish, and his eyes and hair were a striking tawny brown. He looked so strangely familiar, that Jozelyn almost left her hiding place in order to get a better look at him.

He stopped his frantic walk and tilted his head back, breathing deeply. Jozelyn figured he was picking up some scent. She shivered. She hadn't yet learned how to mask her own scent. With resolution, she mimicked his movement. If he were to pick up on her, she might as well know exactly what he was...

And he wasn't a vampire. As Jozelyn sorted through her memory, she was surprised to find...that this man smelled like a witch. But not any vampire-hunter line that she knew of...He smelled like her father.

The man smiled wickedly, and for a moment, Jozelyn thought that he had picked up on her own scent, but he merely faced forward and continued on his way, steps quick and balanced, carrying past her and away before she could even shrink away in fear of discovery. After he had disappeared, Jozelyn stepped from her shadow and stared in the direction he had gone. It was the same direction that Jager had left, according to his trail. Without fully knowing what she was doing, Jozelyn began to follow him.

The young woman was blonde, with large, expressive dark blue eyes. Her body was full, curvaceous, so sensually exquisite that even the dead would find her arousing. Which Jager did, of course. He was male, after all. But the first thought that ran through his head was "She's nothing like Jozelyn..." So, she became his dinner. Oh, and what a feast that was. Her fresh, sweet blood, running over his tongue, and down his throat, washed away every disturbing thought that had occupied his find up until now.

As he let her drop to the forest floor, he took a moment to savor the life that her blood had held. Then, licking his lips, he turned to her sleeping boyfriend. They had been in the middle of...well, he believed the correct phrase for this day and age was "making out", when he arrived, so with a quick command, he'd sent both young lovers into slumber.

He was currently trying to decide whether or not he should let the boy go, when he heard movement behind him. The movement of someone who could easily be much quieter but chose to let their quarry know of their presence. Without an indication that he'd heard, Jager walked over the boy and ran his hands through his silky, pale blonde hair. He tilted the boy's head, listening once more, and upon hearing no one, decided to continue his game to draw whoever it was out of hiding. In a fluid, slow, almost loving movement, he buried his head in his prey's neck.

It took a few moments for the ruse to work, but it wasn't long before a tawny-haired man appeared from the forest and crept almost silently toward the apparently feeding vampire. In a flash of fangs, Jager erupted from his prey and had the man by the throat, held several inches off the ground.

His expression softened, and he smiled sarcastically at the young man. "They send guys like you to jail, you know." He said. Nonchalantly, Jager glanced at the boy and girl lying side by side behind him, one dead, one in an enchanted slumber. "You can rent movies for this kind of stuff."

"Witty." Said the man cockily, giving a cheeky smirk to the vampire even while his face turned a pale shade of blue. "Somewhat of Jozelyn's type I suppose." Jager returned the smirk with a disgusted sneer, and dropped him. Much to his annoyance, the man landed on his feet.

"You are Jager, right? The sire…of the last Scar?"

Jager growled in answer, the very thing he'd been dreading playing out before his eyes. "Why do you ask?" he said, trying to play a little of his own cockiness into the banter. But the mention of Jozelyn had thrown him thoroughly off, and his usual carelessness was draining.

"Because, my good vampire." He said, a hint of British accent playing on his words. "If you are…you've stolen property, which is rightfully mine."

"Since when does a Scar woman, rightfully belong to anyone besides themselves?"

"Since they all died out, and the little wench found herself in the arms of a Triste, instead of her own blood." He said, all lightly stated and accented, but venom tinting each word. Jager sneered at him again, feeling dangerously on edge.

"You shouldn't call a vampiress a wench in front of her sire." He said, baring razor canines threateningly. "It's hazardous to your health." On the last word Jager lunged toward this newcomer, sinking those fangs deep into the soft flesh of his throat. With a wet tearing sound, Jager began to pull back, intending very nearly sever the man's head, when he hissed in pain. An electronic jolt coursed through his body, thousands of years dead. Far from being able to regain life again, the shock still created a pulse through his limbs, and it left Jager thoroughly shocked.

"It's funny," commented the man as he stepped away from the traumatized vampire, wiping the blood from the wound on his neck, though he looked as if it did not pain him. "That no vampire hunter has thought to use this devise." He held up a small stun gun and waved it at his attacker. "As little as it aids us werewolf hunters, it does wonders on you vampires." He pocketed the electrical weapon and leaned against the tree, almost as if he was waiting for Jager to recover.

As he did, Jager growled malevolently, clutching his chest where the electric shock had done the most damage. "Say your peace, Velvet, for you have already broken one law tonight, as I shall when you're done." His voice was strained and all the modernization in his voice was gone.

"Oh, Jager, you already have. So much blood yet unpaid by the Scars to your kind. Jozelyn's undeath has been a betrayal to your brethren, vampire. She, who has killed countless in her few years….she, who hales from one of the most notorious hunters in your world. Why Jager, your own fledglings would kill you in a moment, if just to be rid of that little red-headed whore."

Despite the effects of the stun gun having yet to ware off, Jager growled weakly at the man's description of Jozelyn. "I'll kill you…" he managed, sounding weaker and less threatening than he would ever have, if the topic was not Jozelyn Scar.

"I suspect you could try…you might even succeed. But once I get your precious little Scar, not even you could lay a finger on me." The man leaned forward, cockily trusting Jager not to attack him. It only annoyed Jager more that he could not. "You have no idea the power she holds. Her blood…why, it's the most powerful mixture of lines in the history of the witches turned hunters. And once I have it, Jager, once I have every last drop, spilled from her lovely, gaping, throat, then I will be a force to be reckoned with, bowed down to by vermin, by the lines, by all of humanity!" A small amount of spittle glittered ominously on his lips, adding punctuation to the vehemence of his words…despite the almost frightening madness they were spoken in, Jager found himself slightly apprehensive.

After his rant, the man stared into space for several minutes, the maniacal and more than a little demented look in his eyes burning brightly. Jager found that he himself was staring at him with genuine amazement. This man could be one of the craziest people, dead or alive, that he'd ever met, just from his aura. And that was saying something…a few thousand years of living tended to make a person more out of their mind than the average rabid bear.

"You're mad." Jager voiced his opinion, an almost appraising look on his face.

The stranger laughed in response. "No." he said. "I am Leonius Velvet, and soon to be the most powerful hunter there ever was. Do you understand?"

Jager glared instead of responding. "Linus," or whatever his name was, got on Jager's last nerve.

"Good. Now…you're going to play a very important part in my little plan…" His eyes glittered again, insanity fiery in their tawny depths. "You're going to deliver her to me…along with another, more difficult to obtain, component of my spell."

Jager was sure of it. The man was out of his mind. "Like hell I am." He said, so quietly and venomously, that there was doubt that there was anything Leonius could do to change his mind.

"Yes. Exactly like hell you are. As the damned, you damn others, and I am the devil you shall deliver them to…"

Jager stared incredulously.

With a laugh, Leonius was gone, leaving Jager furious and confused. A leaf crumpled underfoot a few feet from him, and he spun around snarling to behold none other than Jozelyn, as innocent as her nature would allow her to look, and obviously every bit as confused as Jager was. She had heard a good deal of the conversation between Jager and Leonius, and the latter's knowledge and opinion of her was startling. Not only that, but what he'd said was the most offense that anyone had ever dared grant Jozelyn besides, of course, Symia Scar and the Triste Appolonia, her so called "Aunt".

"What do you know of that man?" demanded Jager, his emerald eyes fading to black in his distress.

It took Jozelyn a moment to break away from her stare into Jager's eyes to actually answer his question, and when she did, she was indignant. "I've never seen him…" She trailed off, for she had seen him somewhere before, but she couldn't recall where. She could, however, recall who he reminded her of…Orpheus Velvet wasn't the kind of man who's striking tawny eyes and hair was easily forgotten.

"That's impossible! He bears your father's name!" Jager yelled, so close to her that her ears rang from his voice, and her senses reeled from the blood on his breath. She hadn't fed since the night before, and though she'd hoped that the lust had left her, it still lingered, deep inside her. Her taste for blood was strong, and it did more than dampen her plans of never draining another human being. It made her nearly forget them.

"I know…" Jozelyn replied, puzzled by that fact. "But it doesn't change that I don't know him." She sneered, the first characteristic that she'd displayed that was like the Jozelyn she was but a few hours ago. "What, do you not trust my word?" She asked in pure sarcasm.

"I do." Jager answered, staring at her in the same way he'd done when he'd changed her. He turned away from her for a moment and closed his eyes.

Jozelyn was at a loss for words.

When Jager turned back to her, his eyes were panther emerald again. She blinked, confused once more by his strange antics. He'd acted so different…so vampiric when he'd faced Leonius, and here he was, the same big puppy that she'd taken him for in London. Was he that way with her only?

"I must go now, Jozelyn, but I can't leave you on your own. Return to New Mayhem, and find a vampiress, by the name of Risika. Tell her who your sire is, and ask her aid in helping you find Acara, a friend of mine. But you must ask nicely, for she is often in a dark mood, and won't look twice at you before killing you with a blink, should you disrespect her. She is powerful, despite being young."

"What?" Jozelyn said impulsively, having trouble taking in everything that he'd said…For he'd said it very fast.

"She'll be easy to find, for she is also known as the Tigress, and the reason will be obvious once you see her."

"But where are you going? Who's Acara?"

"I've told you already. Acara is a friend, and I can trust her not to kill you, at least until I return." He smirked ruefully. "She'll want to know where I am, so tell her the truth."

"But that's my question!" Jozelyn yelled, becoming impatient. "Where are you going?"

"To hunt." He replied, and disappeared before her eyes.

Jozelyn cursed to the darkness where he had been. "Damn you Jager…" She whispered. Suddenly, she was distracted by a quiet moaning sound. She turned to see a very handsome young man shaking himself out of a vampiric sleep, his throat bared so tantalizingly that Jozelyn could feel her canines lengthening in the desire for his blood. She turned and walked quickly away.

By the time she had reached New Mayhem, she had called Jager every unsavory name that she knew, and even some that she didn't. Now that her sire had disappeared, she was in an even greater dilemma. She still had no clue of how to control her undead body's magic. Vampires could teleport, fight with their mind, even read others' and protect their own. These were necessities for basic vampire survival, Jozelyn knew that much. But as for mastering them, she had depended on Jager for that.

But with him gone off to hunt the mysterious werewolf hunter, he had officiously, and royally, screwed up her plans.

She had originally intended to gain power, and the proper knowledge of how to use her current body, to leave Jager behind and search for the truth behind the American witch that had restored mortality to a child-bearing vampiress. The stories went that the witch had died in the process of the spell. But if Jozelyn could find a way around the death of one of her fellow witches, she could become human again, even more powerful and wise than she was before, and hunt down Jager to exact her revenge.

So could she trust this new vampire to train her, and then not stand in her way as she became mortal again? And who exactly was this Acara? The name was unfamiliar to her, and Jozelyn had taken a sort of pleasure and pride in the fact that she was well educated in the names and aliases of all of the more powerful vampires. So what was she to do now? Go to this Risika, a powerful vampire, yet with so little was known about her, and ask her way to Jager's Acara? What would that do her plans?

With a huffed sigh, and not a clue as to why she was doing this, Jozelyn set off toward Las Noches, and her first meeting with the Tigress.

Risika had never discarded her stripes, nor the golden eyes of her tiger form, since that fateful night with Aubrey. The mirrors of Las Noches still bore the spider-web cracks that the two of them had dealt during their squabble that had forever freed her from his oppression. They were bitter-sweet memories, and as she looked upon them, reminiscence soon consumed her as it was apt to do. Tora's cage had been filled with a younger, more vibrant and lively tiger, whose spirit wasn't made for the cage that he'd been sentenced to. He related to Risika , in the way that they both wished to be free of the loneliness that their fates had dealt them. Though the battle that night had freed her of both Aubrey, and her brother's ghost, it had left her with no other purpose in her immortal life. Since then, her enemy from so many centuries past, had left his damaged pride behind in favor of the young writer Ash Night. The very Jessica that she'd known of while she was writing her own story.

It was madness. A vampire, to fall in love, and leave behind the wilderness, and the freedom, for an emotion so human…She closed her golden eyes, to erase the hollowness that these thoughts instilled inside her.

"Risika…The Tigress." said a voice. Risika frowned lightly, for she recognized the scent of the speaker. With a hiss, she opened her eyes and gazed at Jozelyn incredulously. Impossible! Her mind screamed. There is no way Jager would be foolish enough to change the last Scar, when she has been hunted so…She thought better of it. What am I kidding, of course he would…

Jozelyn reacted in her usual attitude toward her prey. She sneered.

Risika composed herself, laughing softly. It was ironic, that Jager's new love interest should approach her the very moment she thought these thoughts. It would have been no stranger than if Ash Night herself had walked up to her.

"Yes, that is I. What of it?" she said.

"My sire sent me…to ask for your aid." It looked as if the mere process of speaking to a vampire, without the eventual intention of killing said vampire, was excruciatingly painful for the young huntress.

Which was rather amusing to Risika. "Jager? Needs my aid? For what, dare I ask…?"

It took a moment for Jozelyn to react to Risika's words. She was busy staring at her illusions, and pondering over all the possible reasons that a vampire would go through such lengths to retain such an elaborate appearance.

Risika smirked. "Does my appearance confuse you Jozelyn?" she asked.

She scowled. "Mildly. I expected you hold it for the purpose of frightening your victims in the moments before you slaughter them."

The Tigress laughed, loudly this time. "A typical guess, I suppose, by a huntress from that particular line. But you're wrong." She reached up and twirled a jet-black strand in her cold, pale fingers. "The stripes and eyes are in memoriam, of a friend of mine, lost to a rival."

"Another leech, who deserved the killing." Jozelyn snapped, tired of the pleasantries. Jager's warning had left her mind.

"On the contrary. She was a Bengal tiger."

The comment was such a foreign idea to Jozelyn that she had to take a few moments to digest the vampire's answer. "I don't believe you." She said at last.

Risika shrugged and stood up. "It makes no difference. What is it that I am to help your sire with?"

But Jozelyn was not finished yet. "It is truly sad. That leeches like you would make up such stories to corrupt the mortal minds of young vampires. I am not so naïve.."

In a moment, Risika was at the younger vampire, her right hand wrapped tightly about her throat and her left pressed deftly against her silent heart. Vampires and humans moved away, such skirmishes common in Las Noches. It was lucky for Jozelyn that all present at Las Noches this night, were younger fledglings, weak, and clueless to the infamous name of Scar, and what her presence at Las Noches meant.

"I could twist your head from its perch, and crush that Scar's heart into oblivion." Said Risika, baring fangs. She looked so inhuman, less than even a vampire should, that even Jozelyn was unnerved by her. "But I chose not to, for though you might not be naïve, you are stupid to the ways of our kind, and what we are capable of in the terms of human emotion, and mercy. I respect Jager too much to kill the one he loves, and so I'll let you live this time, to learn from your mistake, and to maybe finish what you came here to do."

Risika released Jozelyn, and stood back as the younger of the two regained her senses. Her head was reeling, not because of her injured pride, nor the fact that she'd never been over-powered by a vampire before, but because Risika had said that Jager…loved her.

"Now. The aid you came to ask for."

Jozelyn stared at her for a moment, before voicing it. "He met a man in the woods…a werewolf hunter, a Velvet. He attacked Jager, and then said some rather…offensive things, and once the man was gone, Jager told me that he was leaving to 'hunt' him. And that I should find you, and ask you to take me to another vampiress, by the name of Acara, a friend of his I could stay with, and who could…train me."

Risika took a moment to stare at Jozelyn after she'd finished speaking, and then erupted in a fit of laughter, cold, yes, but full of true mirth, as if what Jozelyn had said, had been absolutely hilarious.

Jozelyn, her mind still stuck on the idea of Jager being in love with her, frowned deeply at her, confused once again by the sides of these vampires that she had never known existed.

"You don't know who Acara is, do you?" asked the Tigress.

"No." Jozelyn replied simply.

More of that chilling laughter. "Then I suppose you'll find out. And I could accurately guess that Jager didn't warn you about her, did he?" Risika calmed herself, her lips still curled in humor. "He'll be sorry."

"What are you going on about?" snapped Jozelyn, baffled at this point.

The elder vampiress said nothing, and only smiled the smile of someone with holding an inside joke. She held out a hand for Jozelyn, knowing that she would have to transport the huntress, considering Jager had yet to teach her how to do it herself. Reluctantly, Jozelyn took the offered hand.

The setting of Las Noches faded away.

The Scar line is also famous (or would be famous, if any of them had been changed) for the fact that they make extraordinarily powerful vampires. Their blood is almost as magical as a vampires is (without all the necromancy to keep them alive and stuff) so when they are changed, the bloods mix, and instead of the vampire blood killing the witch/hunter blood, the Scar blood remains, giving Jozelyn the lingering scent of her line…unfortunately for her.

This is Jager's opinion. I mean no offense to any practicing Wiccans. I just write the guy, I don't share his ideals.

Jager is referring to the law that no werewolf hunter is allowed to hunt vampires or kill them, and no vampire, is allowed to kill a werewolf hunter…See, werewolves and vampires are at opposite ends of the spectrum, and as Jozelyn was taught, the prey and the hunter are both acquiesced to stay out of business not concerning their worlds. So, Leonius broke an understood law, and Jager intended to kill him in return, thus breaking the other one...democracy is complicated.

This is referring to the law that you can't interfere with another vampire's pursuit of revenge. I think this law was discussed in "Demon In My View" but since I haven't got the book, I can't really be sure of the finer points of it. If the law in that book is in any way unrelated to what I was referring to, then let's just say I made another law up….