Erika was holding a tray of blood. She had been ordered to take it to Marcus. She personally had never known the elder. She hadn't been a vampire that long but she had heard stories of him. Stories that were getting more frequent now that he was awake. They say his eyes were always the ice blue of a vampire, and that they never changed back. Another rumor was that if you looked him straight in the eye you would turn to stone. She doubted these were true though. Many of the Death Dealers had been to talk to him and none of them were turned to stone.

Erika composed herself and looked into the opaque mirror. Suddenly it turned transparent and revealed a vampire. He flipped a switch and the stone door opened, as did the glass. Erika took a deep breath and walked in.

Everything looked the same as it had been before. Marcus's coffin took the place of Viktor's on the altar. Erika looked at the stone disks on the floor. Viktor's body and Amelia's body (or what was left of it) had been returned to their coffins and would be buried upon Marcus's word. But there was something wrong on Marcus's stone disk. It was missing a piece, as if part of it had been torn off. Odd… Erika thought to herself.

" Yes?" came a somewhat annoyed voice from a shadowy corner.

Erika jumped a bit. Marcus's voice was strong and firm, edged with ice. She tried to get down on one knee and bow to her elder and hold the tray flat at the same time. " I b-brought you blood…m-my lord."

There was silence for a moment. "Bring it here."

Erika got up and walked toward the voice. As she got closer she could she a man, maybe in his thirties or forties, standing there, looking at carvings on the wall. He had on a crimson trench coat that went a little past his knees and had the same markings on it that Viktor's did. He was wearing a black silk shirt and black pants with black boots. His hair was kind of blondish and short and spiked up.

Erika walked closer and he turned to face her. She cold see his piercing ice blue eyes and immediately averted her gaze to the floor.

Marcus looked at this vampire wench and gave a half smile. He took the blood from her tray and hungrily gulped it. Then his face got scrunched and he took the glass away from his lips.

" Something wrong, m-my lord?" Erika asked.

" Nothing beats blood straight from the vessel. I never really like O positive much. And this human must have been scared to literal death, the blood is so salty you can hardly taste anything else." Marcus said, looking down at his cup.

" I- I could go get you some more, if you wish, m-my lord"

Marcus looked down at the wench, who was still on one knee. " Child, stand up."

Erika looked at the vampire over lord with a confused look on her face, before obeying his orders and getting to her feet.

" The blood is fine. Now please, leave me, I have much thinking to do."

" Y-yes. Yes m-my lord. Th-thank you."

Ravyn was perched on top of a building, peering down at all of the weak minded mortals below. She found it hard to believe that she used to be one of them. She shook her head. Not anymore.

Ravyn stood up and walked away. She walked over to the opposite end of the building, which opened up into an alleyway. She walked back to the abandoned house, down the stairs, and was eventually back in the common room. Lycans were moving about as usual. She walked through the hallways until she came to Aubrey's door. She knocked twice.

" Who is it?" she heard Aubrey's voice.

" Me." She replied.

Seconds later the door opened. She walked in to see Selene, Michael, and Raze there. "What happened?" she asked.

" Michael and Selene are having joint dreams and they are acquiring physical pain from them." Raze answered.

" I still don't understand how it's possible." Michael said, looking to Raze.

Raze looked up, his voice booming as usual. " Well, you and Selene share a very strong blood link. Normally, when one is becoming, the one who is being bitten acquires the memories of the one who is biting."

Michael nodded. Sometimes he still woke up in a cold sweat from Lucian and Selene's memories, such horrible pasts they both had.

Raze continued. " Well, now, because your blood is so special Michael, when it got transferred into Selene's system, it bonded you two together, explaining why you are sharing the dreams…" Raze looked about him, seeing puzzled faces. " It's just a theory…"

" And it's the only one we have to go on right now." Aubrey spoke up.

" So what do we do about it?" Selene spoke up.

" Well…there's not really much we can do right now. We just have to wait and hope it doesn't get any worse." Aubrey replied, thinking hard.

Is answer did not satisfy Selene though. She folded her arms across her chest and looked at one corner of the room.

Ravyn looked around confused. She saw the scar on Michael's cheek, and the slash marks on Selene's suit. This didn't look good. And if she was asked to predict it, it didn't look like it was going to get any better either.

Around an hour later Selene found herself back in her and Michael's room. She was pacing about anxiously, as she usually did when she was thinking. First thing's first, she needed a new leather top, and one was found, she needed something to wear. She went over to the dresser and opened Michael's drawer. She was surprised to see a few very nice black silk shirts, no doubt loans from Aubrey. She pushed passed them and found what she expected. T-shirts of different colors and designs. She pulled out a simple black one and replaced her leather top with it. That, and a pair of dark blue jeans she had loaned from Ravyn would make up her outfit for now, though she still had her gothic leather boots.

She went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked different, normal even. She disliked it and liked it at the same time. She liked it because the clothes she wore now were much more loosely fitting and therefore allowed her to move in places she normally would not be able to. She disliked it because she looked so different. She looked almost mortal, except for her unearthly pale skin and elongated and rather sharp canines. She hated that fact. Then she scolded herself for caring about how she looked.

Michael walked in the room just in time to catch a glimpse of Selene looking at herself in the mirror. Then, he looked more closely and could see that she was not wearing her normal gloomy outfit. Jeans and a t-shirt? Was he seeing this right? Was that really Selene, or another trick his mind was playing? As Selene turned around in surprise to face him, he found his breath being taken away from him, much like the time he first saw her in the subway station.

Selene was taken off guard by Michael's shocked silence. Did he really think that she looked that bad? Selene caught herself in this thought. Why did she care what Michael thought of her? She didn't need his approval…right?

" What?" she finally asked him.

" Nothing…it's just…"

" Just what?"

" You look so…" he wanted to say beautiful, but decided against it.

" What?"

" Different. You look different. I've never seen you out of black leather." He scrambled, covering up for himself.

Selene took a final glance at the mirror, mumbling to herself, " Neither have I." Of course this was an exaggeration, but it was almost true.

" You look nice." Michael added, instantly regretting it. But the reaction her got was not what he expected.

" Thank you." She said in reply. A moment passed between them, when Michael and Selene looked at each other with absolute sincerity.

A knock came at the door and the moment was gone, but surprisingly enough, Michael was the first one to look away, not Selene.

Opening the door, there stood Aubrey, grinning as usual. " 'Ey Michael. We're going out on a patrol, you wanna-" Aubrey's words were cut off as Michael opened the door further to reveal Selene standing behind him. Aubrey was in almost as much shock as Michael was. He even blinked a few times, to make sure that he was really seeing what he was seeing.

But Selene had had enough with all these shocked silences. She grabbed her coat, swung it on, and walked over to the door.

" Ready when you are." She said to Michael.

Michael blocked her way through the door.

" What are you doing?" she asked.

" You're staying here." He said firmly.

" What are you talking about? Last time we went on a hunt I came."

" Yeah, and I carried you home while you were unconscious. I'm not letting that happen, not again."

" Michael, I was unprepared last time. I'll be fine."

" And what happens if you're unprepared again this time Selene? I don't want you getting hurt. You're staying here." The last sentence he said even more firmly. He stared into her eyes for a minute before she finally looked away and backed down.

" We'll be back before sunrise." He said as he grabbed his coat and left.

Michael, Aubrey, Jared, Frost, and Nikolas had picked off two-dozen humans that night. Though Michael didn't like it one bit, he was starting to realize that he didn't belong to their species anymore. He had his own. Though, his mortal side still showed through a little bit, as he only allowed them to go after men. No women and defiantly no children. Though two dozen was barely enough to hold the pack over for very long, he decided it was enough for now.

Nikolas, Jared, and Aubrey took the bodies back, careful not to get spotted, as Michael and Frost went on patrol.

" So," Frost began as they peered down from the rooftops of the city. " You and Selene, huh?"

" Yeah, if you could call it that…" Michael said as they moved from roof to roof.

" Lady trouble?"

" You could call it that…"

" I must say, I've never heard of a lycan kickin' it with a vampire since way back Lucian's day."

" Well, I knew I loved her before I became a hybrid, or a lycan even. I just wish I knew is she felt the same way or not."

" Well, the way I see it, women are to complicated to know what they want at any given time. Give her time and maybe she'll come around to you."

Michael looked at Frost. He looked to be in his thirties. He had very broad shoulders and toned features. His eyes were a very deep brown and he had a strong jaw, with spiky brown hair. " Thanks." He said.

" Anytime." Then, something caught Frost's attention. He looked down to a building below the one they were currently on. " Whoa, head's up. Vamps, twelve 'o' clock."

Michael followed Frost's gaze and saw a group of six vampires perched on the same building. If he was still human, he would have easily dismissed them as some of the many grotesque gargoyles that watched over the city, but their scent radiated up to his nose.

" I got the three on the right, you take the three on the left." Frost said.

Michael nodded. He realized this was the first fight he'd be going into without Selene around to help him. He shook his head and they both began to shed their human skin, Frost going into his buff lycan form, and Michael bulking up into his lean, but still very muscular, hybrid form.

They both jumped silently off from the building. They plunged down to the vampires. But to their disadvantage, one of the vamps spotted them and commanded his buddies to open fire.

Michael managed to avoid most of the bullets, though he got his with a few. They were normal silver ones and didn't affect him to the point of immobility, but he was injured. He hit the roof of the building and, with a loud roar, launched himself at the three vampires that were his marks.

Selene was still in the bedroom. She was trying to contemplate what had just happened. Michael had actually beaten her in an argument. It was extremely new to her. She saw Michael as a simple pacifist who would never get firm with anyone. But he did. She wondered if it was simply his lycan instincts taking over or if it was really him. But then, now that she thought about, the lycan was him. It was a part of him now. She shook her head. The only time she had ever seen him do anything like that was when he was fighting. And why had she given up? Why did she stand down? Was it because she really didn't believe she could win, or was it because she was transfixed in Michael's gaze?

Selene shook her head again. She realized her stomach had a weird feeling. It wasn't pain. It was a weird kind of floaty feeling. It made her want to run around. It had just started recently, and it was only happening when she was thinking about, or around Michael. What was happening to her?

Michael was in pain. He was in a lot of pain. He had killed his three marks, but since then, four more had arrived. He was handling them, while Frost was busy taking down his three and avoiding bullets like mad. They had the potential of actually killing Frost, while they only burned Michael badly.

He snapped one vampire's neck while another attacked him from behind. He jumped up in the air and then came back down and landed on his back, stunning the vampire. He avoided a shower of bullets as he ripped the vampire's throat out and moved on to the next one. He could see out of the corner of his eye that Frost had been shot a number of times. Just a few more and he'd be stuck in his human form, and even worse, dead.

Michael knocked the two remaining vampires' heads together with tremendous force and then snapped both their necks. He took a seconds' breather before running over to help Frost. He launched himself onto one vampire's back, clawing at him with all his might until the vampire fell, dead. Then, with he and Frost back to back, they used each other as support and pushed up of the ground, kicking the vampire in front of them, flipped, and found themselves facing each other's opponent. Michael ripped his mark's throat out as Frost snapped the neck of his.

They both were breathing hard and in a lot of pain. But suddenly, something unexpected happened.

Selene, having been fed up with sitting in the bedroom brooding, decided to head down stairs. She looked like one of them now. Now that there was no Death Dealer's garb to separate her from them, she blended in a little better. Most lycan's didn't recognize her at first glance, but then did a double take, and realized who she was. This time, most of the lycan's smiled at her and gave a nod, or greeted her warmly, but there was still those select few that had their bitter feelings, probably spouse's or daughters/sons who had lost a dearly loved one in battle. She let herself smile at the little lycan children moving about and playing with one another. Suddenly a ball came flying at her head, but thanks to her vampire reflexes, she caught it before it even came close. A little boy, probably six years old, came up to her.

" Wow, how'd you do that?" he asked.

She gave a small smile. " Years and years of practice."

" Will I be able to do that one day?"

She looked at him a second. She had a pretty good guess of this child's future. If nothing happened to change the war, he would grow up and fight in it, and probably die young protecting his pack, his family. Selene looked into the young boy's eyes and saw the hope and joy and innocence she remembered from her niece's eyes, they weren't battle worn, having seen to many grotesque things, as hers probably were. She smiled at the boy. "You'll be able to do that, and so, so much more."

The young boy gave her a toothy grin; he was already developing his lycan canines. She smiled back at him and gave him his ball. She was a vampire, and they were lycan's, and yet here she was, walking among them, neither one master nor slave. They were equal. Selene looked around; she actually looked, at each and every single lycan. Suddenly she realized what side she was on, and what she was fighting for…