Author's notes: Ok first ever chapter of 2006 so please be gentle with it. All of my stories are being re-written and new chapter will be placed up as and when a review is submitted. It can be from anyone about anything as long as I get one (oh dear god pandering for votes)

Disclaimer: I only own the woman in this story….the rest belongs to whomever it belongs to.

Chapter 2

It had taken time for me to arrange to create fledglings. I had wanted to move quicker and see if I could create them sooner, being different from the rest of my kind. Of course all the attempts at doing so failed. The chosen one died or went insane with grief and met the morning sun before I had a chance to stop them. I cursed the sun and my apparent inability to create something that seemed so simple to Vorador. I hated him and realized why he had been reluctant to tell me how to create in the first place.

It is a very different thing to create a fledgling and to actually keep it alive. I also knew that by experimenting to see if I could keep a fledgling alive was weakening both my self and the people I sired. I could tell that my body was slowly draining itself and I was barely 500. I hadn't gone into an evolutionary stupor for 250 year and I was starting to know about it. I felt weak and instead of causing my prey to feel happy when I bit them it pained them to the point of awakening others in the area. I still had yet to meet my female friend. I had made my request to her almost as long ago as my last evolution sleep. She had promised to return to me when the time for me to raise a true fledgling would be right.

I stumbled out of the nearby town and collapsed on the rocky outcrop that was nearby. In this town it had not been the humans who had driven me out but the vampire who knew me for what I was. They hated and loathed me…seeing me as a monstrosity and not another vampire. I had yet to feed this night and could feel the hunger coming across me in waves. I knew though that to hunt here would surely mean my death for there where others making sure that I harmed none of their herd. It seemed Vorador had put the word out that I were to be killed if I caused trouble. It seemed he still had no liking for me.

I knew that no one would help me feed and that I needed to find some form of sustenance before dawn or whatever life sustained me would leave me to be a rotting corpse. I often wondered if it would not just be easier for me to do that instead of living this awful half existence. But tonight the thought had not crossed my mind, my thoughts where centered on the food that I would need…on survival.

I stumbled around the corner finding nothing worthy of note or of feeding on. I was tired and a stream lay ahead of me. Its babbling would have been soothing had it not reminded me of the life blood I so lacked at this moment. I fell to me hands and knees feeling ever muscle in my body burn and boil as if there was holy water instead of blood. Crawling was all I could manage at this moment and I was distantly aware of another presence nearby, another vampire maybe?

I crawled along slowly, painstakingly towards that force. I needed its life force to sustain me, and I would take it by force, ripping it from its owners shell. Unless it was more powerful than me, but the hunger does funny things to one so weak. It causes you to go into frenzy until you are satiated. I knew I was getting close to this point and needed what ever I could get hold of.

My body muscles tightened and the threshold had been breached. My hunger consumed me and with it the frenzy. I was up onto me feet in mere seconds, moving too fast for even another of my kind that was unaware to register. My mind had a thought that was disjointed from my mood and it caused me to check my step. If it was older than me I was in great trouble. My body did not care, it needed the food source.

I took a running jump at the creature, seeing its black hair and sensing its true power only a moment later. I spread my claws and tried to catch the shoulders before it turned at my own exposed throat. But alas my luck had well and truly run out. It was an elder like me…but with more power and less weakness. He caught my shoulders with a force that would have crushed me if I was merely human. He only managed to catch my hands but I felt rather than heard my bones crack as he dislocated both my wrists. It hurt but not nearly as much as what followed, he was reaching for my ripped shirt and trying to tear it from my body. I struggled with the pain of my hands and tried to claw myself out from beneath his weight. Unfortunately the frenzy was fading and with it my life. I'd become too used to breathing and I found myself suddenly suffocating. I found it a strange sensation that forced the fog of death from my mind. I kicked and writhed trying to throw the man off me but everything I tried resolved in more bones clacking in and out of place. It was an agony I had no idea what to do with it.

A noise from the bushes next to me caused me to let out a primal shriek. All I could think of is that there where more coming to help this one. I was done for and all I could do was roaring my defiance at them. It was pitiful but I could do nothing. Suddenly his entire body was lifted from me with the strength of someone even older than him. I thought that who ever it was had just jumped him and them where rolling in the dust to my left, but as I lifted my head to where two people should have been there was just one. He stood and extended claws to whoever was on my right. "He's mine Fledgling." He managed to growl through fully extended fangs that made him look more bestial than human. I took this chance to scuttle backward out of the way and so I could just see the two fighters.

"No creature…he is not yours." In my dimly primal state of mind I could remember the woman who had made me a promise. I tried to look up at her but it didn't work…I had blood in my eyes and was fast fading from this life. "In fact I think you are mine." She launched herself of tense legs and arched over me hitting the other vampire in the chest and sending him flying. It was all moving so slowly, though I knew that if I was in a fit state I would not have seen that move coming. Again I felt him stretch his power out to her and she replied, flexing a little more than she did with Vorador but still only a minor amount. The creature recoiled from her in fear.

Even I, with my life force slipping away from me, oozing into the ground; I had to smile at this. You were a fool if you could not see, feel or register her power, that raw power that was inside her. She had his head at an angle that seemed most unnatural. The slurping sounds of feeding echoed in my head and I found myself crawling towards her.

"Stay where you are vampire." She intoned lifting her head from her meal. Her lips glittered red in the light of false dawn and I knew that there was not much time left…I would die soon. She dropped the body as close to me as she dared and I fell upon it like a ravenous dog.

The sweet coppery taste of blood filled my mouth and satiated any thirst I had. It healed my wounds and cleansed my body of some of the corruption I had in turn forced upon myself. Such power in the blood of an elder… I looked up at her through a haze of red and could understand now why she stayed her distance. I was still hungry and the power in this creature had healed me…but still I wanted more. If the blood of this elder could do such wondrous things what would her blood….the blood of an ancient be able to do to me? I could only imagine.

She watched me finish my feasting in silence holding her arms crossed over her chest. I'd finished and drained the body dry though I still felt the need for more. I watched her as a predator watches prey knowing that this one might be the end of me if I attacked at all. She nodded her consent and I stood to approach her.

"How long have you been like this?" Her voice was soft, like silk across my skin.

"Only this night,"

"I meant like a ravenous dog and not a vampire, an elder with no evolution?" I watched her carefully. Apparently she had not expected me to be so far gone.

"I could say the same of you. You have no visible evolution to you either. I would say you are older and more powerful than Vorador yet there is no sign of it at all." She smiled and pointed lightly at the air. It darkened visibly and the feint hint of dawn disappeared.

"You do not need to have physical body changes to have evolved." She sighed and moved around me, "But you…I can not sense any change in you. Not since we last met."

She was monitoring me as you monitor a horse from Market. It annoyed me but I stayed still, not wanting to spoil my chances of getting at her blood. I could feel the elder's blood rushing through my veins and knew that I would have no need for evolution soon. She smiled at me and waved over at the corpse. "You're going to regret that soon." She then pointed to her self, "And my blood mixed with his would probably kill you." She grinned evilly and the winked at me. "Of course before I help you do anything we are going to have to wait out a day or two."

"Why is…" I collapsed and felt my body be wracked by pain. I couldn't see or breath and I felt a scream be ripped from my throat.

"You see he is going to give you all you need."

Author's notes: Ok short chapter with nothing better to do than give me a way to reintroduce my girl back into story. Sad huh? Anyway will put up other chapter when I get one review.