Eric & Fernanda, 1219-1220 CE

by The Modern Typewriter

Eric de Clermont has spent the last fifty years overcoming the losses of his human life and coming into his own as the young son of Hugh de Clermont. Back in the 21st century, Addison has spent the last six months trying to make sense of her mind and the world around her. Finally getting back on her feet, the last thing she wants or needs is a trip to 13th century Spain.

10. Spring, Cordelia

Overlybored you beautiful, brilliant human being. Thank you for adding this story to your favorites!

Chapter Ten: Spring, Cordelia

Jacqueline showed him the empty room.

She told Jean Luc all that she knew.

Jean Luc told Hugh.

This happened while Fernando and Idir, Balder and Guillaume rode hard to the village – to the church where they suspected Benjamin and the rest of his brood had hidden.

This happened while Eric pondered his cousin's motives at the mouth of a cave.

And while they learned, and searched and pondered the motives and actions, musings and plans of a man they did not know – but were responsible for nonetheless – the servant who aided Benjamin disappeared without a trace too.

All the while the young Fernanda remained safe and blissfully unaware. At peace for the first time in months, asleep in her bed.

They cleared out the church, right under the priest's unassuming nose. The dead were many. Benjamin was not among them.

Over the days and weeks that followed, the men of La Ithuriana picked apart the mountainside. Razed the blood rage colony to the ground. Undid the damage Benjamin's children had wrought. They said their prayers for the families of the human victims. Burned the manjasang dead. Moved on as they had done for countless centuries. Through countless wars.

Under Fernando's command, Idir and the two knights of Lazarus created a perimeter of safety around the Gonçalves de Clermont territory. Marked and cleared their borders. Restored peace to the land Benjamin had brought his havoc to. With time and coordinated effort, La Ithuriana was once again a pillar of safety at the heart of their mountain home.

But still no one could find the elusive Benjamin. They couldn't find him or the servant girl who had run off to be with him.

Hugh maintained control of his territory from inside La Ithuriana's fortress-like walls. Fernando spearheaded every raid. And Eric charted his own course. Searching out his elusive cousin in the dark corners of the mountain, the small places where no one else would think to hide. He put himself in the mind of this killer who mocked him at every turn, stalked his mate, and all but begged for him to respond. There was no stone left unturned. No village unsearched. No cave unexplored.

He caught his scent more than once.

Tracked it. Lost it. Moved along.

Eric stalked the outer boundaries of his land like a lion paced the edges of his domain. Watching. Waiting. Knowing there were hyenas lying in wait just beyond the ridge. Waiting for him to drop his guard. Waiting to press into his territory and wreak havoc on his mate. On all who were under his protection.

All the while Fernanda passed her time wondering what everyone else was doing with their days. Safe at the heart of a strictly guarded cage. Under Hugh's watchful gaze, and Jacqueline's helpful hands.

The snow melted.

Winter turned to spring.

And she could walk once again in the gardens.

She and her maid spent time in them every day. Wandering amongst the beds of roses and lilies. Picnicking among the asphodels and forget-me-nots. She learned how to love the maze again and noted gratefully that the groundskeepers redesigned the place where she had found the farmer's body, so it no longer evoked the image of the dead man and his severed limb.

She quietly thanked them while they worked, when she passed them on the first day.

She often sat on a bench under a great beech tree that had only just begun regrowing its green. She passed her time for a small while, sewing cross stitch patterns which were now commissioned by Hugh. He claimed to find her odd language and designs all the more intriguing for the mysteries they posed. One day she gave him an eloquent veni, vidi, made it awkward-i, and he had been intrigued by her small knowledge of Latin as well as the embellishment at the end. She had patted his hand and told him he would understand when he was ready.

If she'd been smart, she would have held onto that hand and made him tell her everything he knew about what was going on with the rest of the household. If she had been smart, she would have held on and never let go.

The only thing worse than being kept in ignorance, is finding out that it's been deliberate.

Hugh got more secluded as time went on. And Addison started to feel her isolation more. No more cross stitch commissions. Just the same old walks through the same old gardens. No Eric or Fernando but for in passing.

And only Jacqueline for company.

She loved Jacqueline. Jacqueline was her only friend.

But she was distinctly aware of the fact that she had traded one keeper for another, and still she was no less lonely. She was happier, but she was lonely.

She missed her household, and she panicked when they weren't home. She panicked when they were.

---

"Jacqueline," she had asked one morning as she sat at her vanity. The maid in question was tying her hair back to fit under her wimple. Addison was toying with the small mirror Eric had gifted her, the one with a swallow perched on a set of perfectly balanced scales.

"Yes, my lady?" Jacqueline asked her, a pin between her teeth while she fidgeted with a braid.

"Have there been any more murders?"

Jacqueline looked up, met her eyes through the clear glass of the small mirror as Addison flipped it open.

"I don't believe so, my lady."

"Oh," Addison said with a frown. She flipped it closed again, and turned in her seat, drawing an exasperated groan from the maid who adjusted her stance to follow her fidgety mistress's hair. "You'd tell me though," Addison said. "Right?"

Jacqueline was silent as she removed the pin from her mouth, fastening another strand before looking down into Addison's searching eyes.

"I always strive to be honest with you, my lady."

And then she turned to grab Addison's fillet, pressing it under her chin and urging the younger girl to hold it in place while she fixed her wimple. Addison frowned but at the clicking of the maid's tongue, begrudgingly did as she asked.

"That wasn't an answer," Addison said after a beat, cringing a bit as she watched the wimple squish her cheeks like a fish.

Jacqueline was silent. Addison looked back at her again and huffed when deft hands took her chin and gently directed her to face forward once more.

"What do you know?" Addison asked when Jacqueline remained silent.

The final knot was tied and hidden neatly from view. The veil was added, and Jacqueline turned to ready the final layer of Addison's dress. Addison stood and pressed a hand down onto the fabric where it lay on her bed. Intervening before the vampire maid could dress her and disappear without another word.

"Jacqueline," Addison pressed earnestly.

She watched as the maid bit the inside of her cheek, avoiding her gaze with a contemplative frown.

"Please," Addison tried again. With a sigh the blonde's shoulders sagged, and she looked up at her young mistress with an exasperated expression.

"I cannot say, my lady," Jacqueline said finally.

"You cannot say?" Addison asked, mind spinning over whatever that could possibly mean.

"Please, my lady," Jacqueline said. "I cannot defy Lord Hugh, and he does not wish to burden you with any more information than that which has already been given."

"So, there have been more murders? Is that where everyone has been?"

"I told you my lady," Jacqueline urged her to lift up her arms so she could dress her while they spoke. Addison gave her an exasperated look, but lifted her arms, nonetheless. "I do not wish to be dishonest. I spoke true, there are no more murders that I know of personally."

"Fine," Addison sighed. "But you do know more than that?"

She looked over her shoulder to where Jacqueline had begun to do up her laces. The blonde shot her a look and once again urged her to face forward while she worked. Addison didn't budge though, arching an eyebrow at the maid and waiting stubbornly for more.

"I cannot say, my lady," she said. "You must speak to Lord Hugh for more."

They were interrupted by a knock at the door. Jacqueline moved answer it, but Addison waved her off, calling out to the person on the other side to enter right as the maid finished her final lace.

The door opened to reveal Jean Luc and Señora de Medina, the head housekeeper. Hugh's manservant nodded at her in silent greeting. It was Señora de Medina who spoke.

"Begging your pardon, my lady," she said and gestured to the threshold. Addison nodded at her and both of the servants stepped in. "We thought you had left your chambers for the morning, otherwise we would have waited—"

"It's not a problem at all," she smiled at the kind woman who had taken to showing her how the house is kept and maintained in the absence of Prudhomme.

That was another thing... Jean Luc's keen eyes examined her chambers, flickering on occasion to the windows that overlooked the trees...

The random household inspections.

Fernando came home with that scar above his eye one day. Prudhomme left. Addison got Jacqueline. And then out of nowhere Hugh's manservant and the head housekeeper did almost daily sweeps of the property, inspecting rooms and questioning servants. Even in moments of peace, the household seemed tensed for something.

It was making everyone nervous these days, Addison included. She caught the whispers of maids and footmen who noticed her too late and ducked into hasty curtsies and bows. She caught the looks shared between servers when the men of the household switched languages or fell silent on her approach. The halls were alight and abuzz with an energy that made Addison itch for more information.

And Jacqueline knew.

Everyone knew.

But Addison didn't.

She frowned, turning to Jacqueline, and telling her she would like to study her letters in the garden today while the sun was out. The maid nodded and left her to gather the necessary items for their day outside. And Addison nodded at the pair of servants who inspected her rooms, leaving them to their chores.

---

She tried for all of a day to get Jacqueline to crack, but eventually knew that it was best to give up. The maid looked increasingly uncomfortable in the position she'd found herself in, caught between a determined Addison and her word to the de Clermont. Addison understood what it was to be a maid. She knew how precarious it could feel.

But she couldn't bring herself to go to Hugh yet. He was Hugh. It didn't take a genius to know that there would be no cracking that enigma. Addison knew how to pick her battles, and more importantly she knew how to play other people's weaknesses.

If anyone with any power in this household was going to tell her anything, it was going to be Eric.

She set out to look for him the next morning, starting at his study and then his chambers. When she was met with no answer and a series of locked doors, Addison moved on down to the stables. Dismayed to find those empty too, aside from a stable boy who had stuttered and tore his hat off at her unexpected presence.

She had left a message with him for Eric if the boy saw him and the boy had ducked into a hasty bow, promising her on his life that he would do as she asked. After several attempts at assuring him it wasn't anything as serious as that, she finally gave up when it only made the boy more nervous. Addison made her way back to the main house.

Later, Addison heard the telltale clamor of hooves in the courtyard, and she ran out to meet the riders. Footmen scrambling to pull the doors open in time for Addison to burst through them. She stopped herself at the top of the steps, out of breath, wimple falling out of its carefully constructed knots, only to feel herself deflate a bit.

In anticipation of Eric, she found only Balder and Guillaume. They were halfway up the steps when she had burst out to meet them, thinking they were someone else. Guillaume seemed entirely unfazed. Balder arched an eyebrow. Addison clutched at her cramping side and did her best to catch her breath and recover some sense of dignity in front of Eric's fellow knights.

"My lady," they murmured in unison.

"H-hi," she stammered out, the word catching on the cramp in her side that had somehow hitched itself to her vocal cords.

Balder quirked his lips. Guillaume's face remained unchanged.

"Can we help you, my lady?" Balder asked after a beat.

"No," she said with an easy smile, waving her hand in an attempt to appear nonchalant. But then frowned and shook her head. "Yes."

The men waited patiently for her to make up her mind.

"No," she said again and turned back to scan the courtyard. They nodded and began to move past her into the house. When she saw no sign of Eric, she changed her mind.

"Yes." She said again and they stopped, turning back to her respectfully if a bit amusedly. It was then that she noted they were covered in gore. And that their armor had the distinct smell of death on it. Addison blanched. Staring at the serene Guillaume covered in the remnants of some battle.

"My lady?" Balder drew her from her shock.

"I—" she started but she was still staring at their armor. "You were fighting."

She snapped her eyes up to look at them, both men wore unreadable expressions.

"Yes, my lady," Balder said finally after a long, deliberating pause.

"Why?" She demanded. "What's happening? Where is Eric?"

"I'm afraid we are not at liberty to say, my lady," came Guillaume's soothing voice. But Addison's frown only deepened. She didn't feel any better for the tone of it.

"Why not?" She demanded – chest tight with aggravation.

"We are under orders, my lady," Balder said.

"Whose orders?"

Another long silent beat.

"Lord Hugh, my lady," Balder said, his voice matter of fact and unmoved by the stricken expression she wore.

Addison frowned but waved them off when they asked if they could help her with anything else. They went inside to no doubt clean themselves off. Addison turned back to the courtyard, the people working there, and the hills that spread out far and wide on all sides.

She had put all her money on finding Eric and making him tell her what was going on, but she couldn't find him. He wasn't here. And everyone else seemed to constantly be directing her toward Hugh.

---

She dined alone with Balder and Guillaume that night.

Hugh had sent his apologies and excuses, as had Fernando. There'd been no word from Eric or Idir.

It had been awkward.

She was pretty sure Guillaume was caught up in a long running meditation that had lasted for at least a couple decades if not centuries, and Balder was an antisocial rock of a man who had little taste for even the rarest cooked meats or nuts or berries. He ate each bite begrudgingly out of respect for the human girl who glared daggers at him over her cup of wine. And Addison, after glaring the great bear like man into submission had eaten each bite of her own dinner in a quiet simmering resentment for this family of hers that lied and kept secrets.

When dinner ended, she pushed her chair back with an agitating scrape that made Balder scowl and Guillaume smile at her and hold up his cup in a silent salute.

She made her excuses and retired early for the evening. Not wanting to sit in silence with the two knights in the drawing room while they kept their secrets and Addison scrambled around in the dark for more.

Jacqueline had been waiting for her in her chambers, anticipating her lady's sour mood. Apologetic for her role in it. It had taken all of Addison's self-control to rein in her ire and respond kindly to Jacqueline. She was frustrated with Hugh, Fernando and Eric. She was not mad at her friend. Not really.

She said as much, and the set of the blonde's shoulders had relaxed a bit at her words.

Addison was now in her favorite dressing gown. The fine golden one, decorated with brown and green vines. The one she wore the night Eric first came to her door all those months ago. Jacqueline had turned to unmake her bed when a knock sounded at her door. Addison rose to answer, but Jacqueline made a noise and Addison remembered yet another lesson her maid was teaching her.

Ladies do not answer their own doors.

Their maids do it for them.

Addison shot her an apologetic look and allowed the older girl to do her job, stepping back and out of the way.

Jacqueline cracked the door, barring the person on the outside from looking in without her leave. The blonde manjasang acted as some sort of final barrier between the lady of the house and all the world that threatened to invade here.

A quiet rumble, and Addison felt that little spool in her belly tighten and begin to unfurl as it had done so many times in so many lifetimes that she had somehow lived since meeting him. A thread spooled out of her. Invisible, it extended from her body all the way to his.

"Let him in, Jacqueline," Addison said, heart leaping into her throat.

Her body buzzed with an energy that urged her to launch herself out into the corridor. She didn't know if she wanted to wrap her arms around him or wrap her hands around his throat, but she did know that either way Jacqueline and the door were the only things standing in her way.

"But my lady," Jacqueline turned back to her with wide eyes. "It is improper, you are in no state to receive—"

But Addison was already shaking her head, moving to open the door herself, though how she would pry it from a vampire's hands she had yet to determine.

"It doesn't matter—"

"Lord Fernando wouldn't like it, my lady—"

"Then the old grump can come and tell me himself," Addison said and tried to keep herself from whining like a child in the face of Jacqueline's resistance.

Jacqueline shot her an exasperated look but finally sighed and backed away, allowing the door to fall open, revealing the most infuriating and beautiful man she had seen in all the world.

He stood there, freshly bathed, wet hair curling around his shoulders and neck. He had a scar on his cheek and bruises on his knuckles. But the twinkle in his eyes suggested, whatever he'd been up to, he'd gotten the better end of the deal.

When he saw her something in him unwound, and he sagged a bit as though alleviated of some great hardship.

Addison melted a bit at the sight of him. He looked distinctly huggable in that moment. She wondered if he would smell more or less of mint and fallen leaves after bathing. She wondered what he would do if she kissed him now.

"Mo chridhe," he said, and his voice was a pleasant rumble in the quiet of her corridor.

Jacqueline stood over her shoulder, a silent witness to their exchange. Jacqueline who had been told to keep secrets. Jacqueline who knew more than Addison did about whatever it was he had been doing.

He had left again. He had left again without saying goodbye.

She crossed her arms over her chest, forced the giddiness to simmer back down. Gallowglass watched her arms cross. He watched her frown. His lips drew down to match hers, confused.

"Mo chridhe?"

"Apologies don't mean anything if you don't change your actions, mo chridhe," she said quietly. Her voice still kind, somehow, despite the bite behind her use of his name for her.

His eyes lit up in understanding, and then simmered back down a bit to realize the source of her anger.

He nodded, looking away thoughtfully.

"A reasonable conviction," he supplied with a shrug and a nod. "I will strive to do better in the future."

"So, you're not leaving again tomorrow?" she asked though she knew it was likely untrue.

He watched her with wary eyes.

"I cannot say."

"Yes, you can," she said throwing her arms up in defiance. "Tell me what's happening, Eric. Please, everyone in the house knows and I am in the dark and it's for no good reason at all."

He sighed. His eyes were both sympathetic and resolute.

"I cannot," he said.

"Don't lie to me," she bit out.

He reached for her; she drew back with a frown.

He looked over her shoulder to Jacqueline.

"We require a moment's privacy," he said, his voice not unkind but not particularly accommodating either.

Addison frowned.

Jacqueline looked to her to determine what she wanted her to do. After a beat, Addison nodded at the maid with a smile.

"We'll only be a moment," she said.

The maid nodded and left Eric and Fernanda to themselves.

They watched her go, before Addison drew back and held her door open for him to enter. He ducked his head under the weight of her scrutiny and did as she bade him.

Addison released the door and watched as it swung closed before turning to face the man she hadn't seen in days.

"Fernanda," he said and held out a hand for her to come to him.

She crossed her arms and regarded him with no small amount of defiance. She would not go to him. Not right now.

He sighed and dropped down into one of the chairs situated in front of her hearth.

He propped his elbows up on his knees and regarded her with a searching expression.

"I apologize for not telling you I was leaving," he began. "I promised to say goodbye and I broke my word. For that I am sorry."

She sniffed, strung up between the urge to hold it against him and the urge to go to him and let him hold her in his arms.

"What's happening, Eric?" She asked him, relaxing a bit after his apology, but unable to let her frustration go just yet. She needed to know.

He frowned and shook his head, looking up at her regretfully.

"I still cannot say, mo chridhe."

"Let me guess," She bit out. "Hugh's orders?"

His eyes lightened a bit, lips quirking as though he was trying to hold back a laugh. She failed to see what was funny. Her lips turned down for every notch his quirked up. He huffed out a small laugh and shook his head.

"I can see your mind working behind those eyes, and while I suspect you'd give it a valiant effort, I don't recommend butting heads with my father any time soon."

"So, you admit that Hugh ordered you to lie to me," she urged him, losing some of her bite in the face of his good humor but adamant that her suspicions get confirmed.

"No," he said with a shake of his head. "I didn't say that."

His lion's mane hair was drying around his shoulders, and she found it only a little bit distracting. She hadn't been alone with him since they'd kissed in his study. Her eyes dropped down to his lips, watching them while he spoke. Watching as they stretched into a wide, self-satisfied grin. She snapped her eyes up to his and found him regarding her like the cat who got the canary.

She sniffed, jutted her chin.

His grin widened.

"So, you're keeping it from me, all on your own?" She asked him, cocking her head to the side and watching the grin twitch and fade, his eyes became a little more tired, his shoulders a lit rounder as he sagged.

"No," he said. "Though I wish you would let me worry about these matters for you, without—"

"How can I determine what matters to let you worry about without me, if I don't know what matters need worrying about?" She asked him, chest hot with defiance. The thread in her belly still somehow unraveling in his direction despite her aggravation.

"I suppose you can't," he shook his head and spread his hands out peaceably in front of him. "And yet my hands are tied. For now, I would ask that you trust me until such time they are unbound."

"Bound by whom?" She asked again, not budging despite his plea.

He frowned. "I cannot say—"

"You must," she responded stubbornly.

He was silent for a beat. His face grim.

"He has your best interests at heart—"

With that she knew all she needed to know.

"Tell me—"

"Please do not be cross with—"

"Tell me—"

"Fernando," Eric conceded with a shake of his head. "I know you do not understand his methods, but he only wishes to protect you. We only wish to protect you—"

"So, you agree with him?" she asked, her voice pitching higher in disbelief.

"I—" he started, and she gave an exasperated sound.

"I do," he said. "The situation is delicate, and you have been through much—'

"I know what I've been through," she said, and she hated that it sounded a little more pathetic than self-assured.

"I know," he conceded, his voice calm and reassuring. "I know you do. So does Fernando."

"Then why the lies?"

Eric huffed out an exasperated laugh, shaking his head at the entirety of their exchange.

"Don't laugh at me, please," she said, and her voice was a bit small. This hurt. The secrets. Being kept in the dark. His laughter.

Eric looked up at her, shocked by her tone, the hurt in her voice that hid behind the ire.

"Oh, Fernanda," he said, startled and shaking his head. "No, mo chridhe, that wasn't my intention."

Her face scrunched up to bite out a retort that she wouldn't be able to take back, but he rose from his seat and came to her, cradling her face in his hands even as she fought the urge to bat him away.

"I wasn't laughing at you—" he started. "I swear, I wasn't. I can only imagine how frustrated you feel, and I am so terribly sorry to have made you feel that way. I laugh because you are unlike any other woman I've ever known—"

"Save the spiel," she mumbled, losing some of her steam as his thumbs rubbed gentle patterns on her cheekbones.

"The spiel?"

His voice was rough and warm, and his hands were cool and callused against her skin. Her eyes fell to his lips again, but she snapped them back up to his just as quickly. She would not lose herself in her traitorous urges now, not when she was mad at him.

"Yeah, guy meets girl, guy upsets girl, guy tells girl she's not like other girls, girl forgets why she's angry and kisses him and they live in a fictional happily ever after where he continues to fuck up for eternity but she's okay with it because he tells her she's different from other girls and—"

This time Gallowglass did laugh at her. His deep baritone filling the room and shaking its foundations, he had to let go of her so he could clutch at his chest while he tried to recover himself.

"Trust me, you are most definitely not like any lass I know in all of the world," He laughed again and reached for her hand which at this point was hanging limply by her side. He pressed a kiss to her palm.

"You're correct in one thing, love," he said. "I will probably spend the rest of my days making mistakes, and I'll probably kiss you when you're angry too if you let me, but I don't anticipate you'll be quick to forget your anger when the kissing is done. And I hope you continue to tell me when I upset you. And I hope that I will do better by you every day, in every way that I can."

She blinked up at him. He stared earnestly down at her. And Addison felt a white-hot rage seep into her chest and settle there because fuck it all if that spiel had worked.

"God damn it," she said, startling him with her language, launching herself at him and capturing his lips with her own.

His body shook with silent laughter as she kissed him, arms wrapped haphazardly around his neck. He brought his own arms up to catch her around the waist and tug her closer. Holding her as tightly as he dared. Her chest was pressed flush against his, and he would kill a man before he ever let her go. She broke away though, chest heaving with the need for air, and he diverted his lips seamlessly to pepper her face with kisses. She made a tiny little sound that filled his chest with a bubble of contentment, and he glanced up at her, sure to make a comment that would set her off again, but she growled at him in warning and drew him back to her lips before he could.

---

Jacqueline waited at the foot of the stairs. She paced back and forth, and worried her lip and watched the darkness as though it was about to leap out and consume her. She was unable to make up her mind about whether she should go back up. Whether or not it would be prudent to interrupt her mistress and Lord Eric before things got out of hand, or... even worse... before they got caught.

Her ears were fixed on their conversation though she begged them not to be. It was her duty to look after Lady Fernanda's best interests, but it was also her duty to respect her lady's wishes. And she had wished for privacy. But Jacqueline knew that if anyone were to find out about her private counsel with Lord Eric behind her closed chamber doors, nothing good could come of it for her reputation.

And Jacqueline thought – not insignificantly – that Lord Fernando, too, would be quite cross if he found out.

She hugged herself anxiously as she shook her head and determined that it was best to go back up. She muttered to herself angrily at having ever gone along with this horrible plan, when a familiar voice called out to her.

She froze.

Facing the stairwell, Jacqueline considered playing deaf – considered refusing to turn around – if only to spite the way her body hummed with pleasure at the sound of his voice.

He repeated himself, quietly as he approached.

"Are you well, Jacqueline?"

Sir Guillaume.

Sucking in a breath she did not actually need, Jacqueline turned to face the man who had filled her mind with folly as of late. He was tall. And lean. He reminded her of the workmen she used to see passing her on the roads when she was young, before she'd met Alaric. Before that fateful day when her manjasang father had given her an eternal choice. Before he had asked her if she wanted to turn into something more, something stronger than she could have ever been in her human life. If she wanted to be someone who did not suffer the attentions of fools and violent men.

Guillaume's hair was long, cropped neatly around his shoulders. His beard, carefully trimmed. It lined his jaw in an altogether pleasing way and complemented nicely his sun-darkened complexion. The years had been kind to Guillaume. She could see it in the way he carried himself. And she could see it in his eyes, which stared back at her now – warm brown and as calm and collected as always.

"I am well, sir," she said as politely as she could muster. "Thank you."

He studied her for a moment, before offering a soft small like he had thought something particularly amusing and chosen not to say it out loud. He nodded more to himself than to her and looked up at her with a twinkle in his eye.

"Such formalities are hardly necessary, Jacqueline."

"I'm not sure what you mean, sir."

"Please," he said in earnest. "Call me Guillaume."

"Oh," she looked at him, nonplussed. "I couldn't possibly."

He leaned a little closer then, ducking into an almost bow, as though to share with her a closely guarded secret.

"And if I were to insist?"

"It is far too familiar," she supplied, her body pulling closer to him of its own volition even as she deliberately looked the other way.

"Is it?" He asked her, genuinely curious.

She glanced at him, a question on the tip of her tongue, one she dared not speak aloud.

"Is it too familiar?" He clarified.

Jacqueline frowned.

To be honest, she did not know.

She was intrigued by him. But she knew his type. She knew his type like the back of her hand. Knights always spelled trouble. And she was not meant to be a warrior's wife, and certainly not his paramour. Jacqueline preferred order. She preferred structure. She preferred, quite frankly, to be left to her own devices.

She'd known men before. Men who made promises. Guillaume was hardly the first knight to call her la belle Jacqueline. She knew enough not to fall for such advances.

But there was an odd twisting in her stomach. And she had to admit, she liked the way his voice sounded when it wrapped itself around her name. His eyes were earnest, and his manner, quite strange. She had known men like him all her life, but she couldn't help but feel as though, in some way, his way of being was not the same as theirs had been.

Jacqueline frowned, thoroughly disgruntled by the way this odd man made her feel, and opened her mouth to say something – though she did not quite know what that something was – when she was interrupted by a voice she knew all too well, a voice she had hoped would not sound, one that filled her with dread, It filled her with dread for she had left his daughter alone, in her private chambers, with a man who was not her husband.

"Jacqueline," Fernando called out as he strode down the corridor. He eyed Guillaume and passed him a polite nod before studying her curiously. "Is everything quite well?"

Her lips popped open around a word she didn't know how to form. Mind reeling at her truly terrible luck, when a sharp gasp came from the young Lady Fernanda upstairs. Her eyes widened as she looked back the way she came, chest flooding with horror at the soft growl that followed. Fernando's face darkened and she shrunk miserably back wishing she could disappear into the walls and never come out.

Her eyes flickered to Guillaume, who was watching her with an amused grin. An understanding and sympathetic look in his eye.

Don Fernando shot her a look of displeasure before he disappeared up the stairs.

Jacqueline's face burned in mortification, and she turned to follow the master of her household up, ready to wait out whatever punishment there was in store for neglectful lady's maids such as she, when a gentle hand wrapped itself around her wrist.

She turned, looking at the place Sir Guillaume held her, feeling rather odd at the overly familiar display. She didn't altogether dislike the way his skin felt against hers. She glanced up at him, curious and suspicious, and he offered her a soft smile she could not read. Releasing her and gesturing silently down the corridor, in the opposite direction of Lady Fernanda's chambers.

"I was wondering," he started, studying her serenely. "If you would care to take a walk with me."

Jacqueline frowned and tilted her head at him.

"Where?" she asked, voice laced with suspicion. She had known knights before. She had known men like him.

"In the gardens, perhaps?" he suggested.

Jacqueline stared down the corridor, as though it held the answers she sought. Should she walk with him in the gardens? To what end, truly? He was a knight, and she was a maid. And she knew men like him. He was not the first—

She hesitated but for a moment too long, he nodded his acquiescence, ducking into a bow that was far below his station. Far more than a woman like her deserved. She was no lady. She was not high born.

"I shall leave you then," he said, mildly. "If ever you change your mind..." He trailed off, fixing her with a knowing smile. Like he saw something in her she was not yet ready for him to see.

He was gone as soon as he had arrived, and Jacqueline had to admit that she did not feel content watching him go. She imagined the moonlight peeking through the trees, and the sleepy asphodels and their pleasant aroma. She imagined the hush that fell on the mountain in the nighttime, his serene face and his calm way of being, and thought for one brief traitorous moment that she would have liked to walk with him. She would have liked that very much.

But for the fact that she knew men like him. He was not the first to bow and scrape and call her la belle Jacqueline.

She frowned, turning to the window to watch in shocked disbelief, as Lord Eric sped past. Ear turning back to her mistress, Jacqueline tried to determine how best to proceed.

---

Eric groaned and deepened their kiss, bunching up the thin fabric of her shift in his fist. Addison pressed herself more snugly against him, curling her fingers into the wild mane of his hair. Eric had to pull away. Sucking in a sharp breath.

He muttered an oath that made her smirk.

She diverted her lips to the hollow of his throat, and the Adam's apple that bobbed at the sensation of her touch. Standing up on her tiptoes, Addison found herself quite determined to trace a path from his clavicle to the place just over his heart. The place where a tether resided. One he never spoke of, but she sensed just the same. She nipped lightly at the fabric of his shirt, just barely catching the skin there. Reveling in the shivers that erupted across the skin of his back as she traced her fingers down his indestructible spine.

His fist unfurled, and Eric flexed his hand before drawing it up inside the sheer fabric of her shift and resting it flat against the smooth skin that waited beneath, gently kneading the swell of her hips as he did.

Addison gasped at the contact and broke away, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. Eric took the opportunity to bury his face in the nape of her neck, pressing open mouthed kisses along the column of her throat and gently dragging his teeth against her skin.

Her body was wracked with shivers at the sensation. His was taut with desire.

The fire in the hearth flickered on the walls of her chambers. And the night had long since fallen silent.

And then he pulled away.

His retracted his hand. Addison turned her confused eyes back up to his. And Eric grimaced, shooting her an apologetic glance.

'Fernando," was all he said.

Her brow furrowed.

"Fernando?" she asked.

And he nodded before lifting her knuckles to his lips and gracing them with a parting kiss.

"I must go," he said.

And before she could blink, he was gone.

Addison stood in the middle of her bedroom, disgruntled and out of sorts. Skin and lips still tingling with the memory of his touch.

Not a minute later, a sharp knock landed on her door. And then came the call of her name in a commanding voice.

Oh.

She winced.

Fernando.

Addison cleared her throat. Shifted her clothes around and donned her dressing gown once more, before moving to answer the door.

Her hand had barely turned the latch when her adoptive father burst into the room. His face was stern. Eyes suspicious as they swept the room once, twice, and then three times.

Addison fidgeted nervously on her feet, trying her best to appear confused when his gaze finally settled on her.

"Where is he?"

"Who?"

"You know who."

"I really don't."

"I know he was in here, Fernanda," Fernando snapped. "I can smell it."

"Um... ew? Keep your nose to yourself."

He stopped and stared at her. Closing his eyes in frustration, trying not to laugh. He looked back down at her with begrudging amusement. And she like to imagine a little bit of respect there as well.

"Go to sleep, Fernanda."

"I'd like to point out that sleep was exactly what I was doing before you so rudely interrupted me."

He arched an eyebrow and stared down at her with knowing eyes that suggested she better not push it. It was then that Addison remembered how old her father was, and how much he had surely seen in the world. She winced. Yeah... he knew.

"Goodnight," she squeaked and shooed him out into the hall. She tried her best not to listen to his far too knowing chuckles when she slammed the door in his face and launched herself into bed, burying her head under the covers.

How absolutely mortifying.

She was never kissing Eric again. Not if that was always going to follow.

It wasn't until long after he'd gone – long after she'd recovered from her mortification at being caught with Eric in her bedroom – that she realized she'd forgotten to ask him what on earth was going on.

She ripped her covers off her face and stared up at the ceiling in quiet disbelief at her own shortsightedness.

"Fuck," she groaned and buried her face in her pillow instead.

---

As it turns out she did end up kissing Eric again. She kissed him in the corridor, and in the alcoves in the hall. She kissed him outside the library gates, in the gardens and the stables. And even once after dragging him into the weapons room across from the library.

And each time, he was no more willing to tell her what she wanted to know. Each exchange punctuated by a parting, 'I can't say,' or 'talk to your father," before he went on his way.

But he always said goodbye, always making sure to tell her that he didn't know when he would be back, but that he would think of her every moment he was away.

And though she had expected Fernando to be hot on their heels every step of the way, the curmudgeonly man who had adopted her had been even more evasive than Gallowglass himself had been. Near impossible to pin down. And almost never present for dinner.

To be honest, most nights she ate alone or in the company of a sympathetic and guilty-looking Jacqueline.

---

She turned her attention to Hugh, finally. After all, everyone had been telling her to. She was too mortified to keep trying her hand with Fernando after so many failed attempts and several instances of being caught red handed in Eric's company. Her adoptive father was too evasive, too hard to pin down.

Hugh was a daunting prospect, but he was always home. He had to be a safer bet than the other two.

At least, that's what she told herself as she made her way hesitantly down the long stretch of corridor that led to his study. Her hopes were quickly dashed when she was intercepted by Jean Luc. But she tried not to let herself be deterred. She tried again and again. Each time only to be intercepted by Hugh's faithful manservant every step of the way.

---

Hugh was alone in his study. Well, alone but for the ever-faithful Jean Luc. The raids had not yet slowed, and he hoped soon that the situation would be suitably contained. He dipped his quill into an inkwell and stared down at the parchment unsure where even to begin.

With a sigh, he started with an old familiar moniker and hoped it would have the desired effect.

Rook,

At the heart of it all, I fear, is family. What a simple idea and yet it has caused so much turmoil and agony. I hope you don't misunderstand that, of course, there too is love. I wish anything else in the world could be true, but what has happened here this winter is an almost trivial matter of fathers and sons, and fathers and daughters too.

It's a simple idea. One that I know you know well. I have wondered much as of late what it means to find someone and care for them. How do we choose those people we bring into our family's fold? I never planned for my son. I am grateful for him, nonetheless. I never planned for Fernanda – though her life is now tied irrevocably with our own. She is remarkable, and I think you will grow fond of her if ever the two of you should meet.

You know as well as I that father will eventually need to be informed, but I pray that you and Godfrey will grant me some time.

I have found my family, and by extension they are now yours. I know that's not what Philippe wanted at the time. I hope that soon he will find it in himself to forgive me for choosing that which chose me. He and I wandered many years before we found you. I know we have had our disagreements, but I have always been thankful for that day.

The matter of Benjamin is rather grave. I've spoken with Eric on more than one occasion – he claims he is ready to do what must be done, but I sense a reticence in him even now. I have no qualms about my own duty just as you would not, but I fear that despite Benjamin's ties to our brother, he will be a burden for my son to bear.

This idea of fathers and sons, it cloaks the two of them. They are both shrouded in it, I can sense it in the air. And all the while this idea of family turns and turns and turns around the people who are entangled in it.

My home is centered at the core of something more, though I dare not guess what that something may be.

La Ithuriana is a humble home. She may yet be too humble for your tastes, though I should hope you'll visit here someday regardless. She is nestled into the side of a great mountain, placed in the path of those who wander the world looking to find themselves and find their faith. I once heard a servant boy murmur to another that she is like a guardian that sits and waits for those in need of shelter, a watcher who keeps an eye out for the dangers you may encounter on your way.

I was rather touched by this reverence coming from one still so young.

At the very least she has sturdy walls, and solid floors. An abundance of windows that each offer a clear but differing view. At the heart of it all, I suppose, she is the place where one can come and warm oneself by a fire that never dies.

La Ithuriana is a home. She is a home, and I am quite proud of that.

Any person who comes calling can find a place to rest their head here. It matters little whether they are rich or poor. Whether they are large or very, very small. Here, I like to think that the common folk and the weary have a place to rest their heads at night. A place where they can close their eyes, and trust that no one can get through my front door.

In this one, very small way, La Ithuriana reminds me of our familial home. I should like to go back there someday soon. And I hope that when that time comes, you will greet me as you have greeted me before. I hope that – despite our long memories and capricious natures – we may find a way to forgive and live again as comrades and brothers.

There is danger here too. It is the reason I write to you now. This is a matter of the places where dangers exist, and the places where it should not exist but now does. While I believe myself and Fernando quite capable of containing the matter, I have never been in a position to take lightly the threats to my person or to that of my son. As I write this, Eric learns how to navigate more skillfully the space between danger and safety. He learns what it means to care for his people and not be weighed down by the burden he is meant to one day bear in my stead. He has always been predisposed to this life; he has been a warrior for many years. A skilled one at that. You have heard tell of the offspring of the Gaels and their Norse invaders. He has long since proven himself worthy of being a gall óglaigh. But I fear he has much yet to learn in the way of the de Clermont. He is still so impossibly young, and none of us could have anticipated Fernanda.

Should this letter reach you, and the worst have befallen myself and my kin, I trust you will be prepared to do what must be done. I would have you learn of such things from myself and no one else. It is of the upmost importance that you are prepared for all contingencies. I know this is a role you never wished to fill. This safe haven I have boasted to you in this letter – my home – has been compromised. La Ithuriana has been violated by a world that, despite my best efforts, has forced its way in.

One of the very smallest among us has been sneaking out of her own safe bed in the middle of the night, she has opened up my doors, and she has let the danger in.

It has compromised Fernanda. And, as she is his mate, it has compromised my son as well.

Godfrey shall pass through in the spring. It is my hope that next you see him; all will be well.

Fortiter et Fideliter,

Knight

Hugh folded up his letter, stamped his signet into the melted wax that quickly cooled and sealed his brother's fate should the worst befall them in the coming spring. He passed the sealed letter to a solemn Jean Luc who departed without another word to deliver the missive to his most discrete messenger.

He caught a glimpse of a disgruntled looking Fernanda on the other side of the door, stalled by Jean Luc who – on his order – refused her entry into his study.

Hugh turned away from the girl, his servant and the door which now stood firmly closed between himself and the rest of his household.

There would come a time for niceties and consideration. As long as she was safe and breathing on his land, he could not be bothered with Fernanda. She had her father and her maid, and Hugh had a small army of feral vampires to contain.

---

She was only ever able to glean small glimpses of a messy office, a map quickly covered, voices murmuring on the other side of the door.

That was a war room, Addison knew.

This was a war.

If the residents of her household were an army, Hugh was their general.

But aside from a murderer loose on the mountain, aside from a few missing scarves and eyes in the trees, Addison didn't know anything about the war they were fighting.

She carried on with her days, in the company of Jacqueline, safe and unaware, but the ignorance was no longer blissful as it had been in the beginning. She chafed with the need for inclusion and information. The voice in her mind that told her to survive – the voice that always urged her to keep her head down – had begun to change its tune.

Later, she'd reckon this vein of rebellion had started with Prudhomme and continued on to the present. But that voice that had guided her well enough so far urged her to push—push—push for knowledge.

Knowledge was power.

In her past life, food and shelter had been the need. Had been the keys to survival. She needed those basic things met.

Then came safety. She had needed that too.

But now, as Fernanda, she had food. She had shelter. She had safety in so many more ways than she ever had as Malvina. She had ground beneath her feet and a roof over her head.

Addison slept peacefully at night in a way she hadn't done since her grandmother lost her memory in another life, in another century.

Now the voice urged her to learn. Learn all that she could. Survival meant knowing what the outside world threatened to bring in.

And if they wouldn't let her learn – if they continued to stand in her way as she pursued this knowledge she was determined to gain – she'd have to find another way. She'd have to find a way around them.

They were keeping her safe, this she knew. But she needed them to teach her now how to survive on her own. Addison needed to keep herself safe. She needed to know what they knew. Because inevitably, that voice in her head whispered, there would come a time when they wouldn't be there to see her through.

---

Once again, she was intercepted by Jean Luc, his body blocking her view through an open door, but she caught a flash of Fernando as he looked up from a murmured conversation with Idir.

He had acquired more scars.

Jean Luc turned his ear to Hugh's voice who murmured for him to step out and close the door. Fernando held her gaze with a grim expression as Jean Luc did as they ordered.

She stuttered out a nervous response and once again she was sent on her way.

She hadn't thought vampires could get hurt and yet here they were all bruised and battered and beaten. Healing quickly, she knew from the few and far between moments she could snag with Eric but still... the sight of Fernando bloodied up more days than not, made her stomach flutter with nerves.

She took to checking her windows at night – drawing back her curtains when her room fell into darkness – trying to catch a glimpse of some terrible watcher in the trees.

She had taken to clinging to Jacqueline. And sitting in Eric's study when he wasn't home, running her hands over a dagger she now kept in the boots she donned every morning despite the growing warmth of spring. Slippers reminded her of mud, and grass, and the smoke from a fire. Slippers reminded her of running and falling. They reminded her of Rupert and Allistor and Colum McRae.

At night she closed her eyes and saw Ailios. She saw her as she did when they met. Saw her as she did when the widow had left her at Castle Sween. And when she returned for her. She closed her eyes and saw Ailios the night she dressed her for her wedding – the same night Addison abandoned her and her children to die.

She began vomiting again. Unable to keep food down with the way her body buzzed with the need to know what was coming. The need to prepare for every eventuality.

And every time she got sick Jacqueline would appear. She would hold her hair and murmur in her ear and press a damp cloth to her forehead and tuck her back into bed when she was through.

It was the continued silence that finally pushed her to other forms of protest.

---

She submitted a formal written request for audience with Hugh by way of Jean Luc. The fair-haired manservant accepted the request with a solemn bow. When he returned with a rejection, she appealed to overturn.

This had been met with a barely-there quirk of the lips from the squire, and another bow.

When that failed, she tried to break into Hugh's study. She didn't know really what she was attempting to accomplish at that point, except some sort of way to assuage the mounting frustration, but the attempt had been in vain. For one thing, the vampire inside had withstood far more ruthless a siege than that of a nineteen-year-old human at his locked office door. And for the other, he had Jean Luc.

Addison had grumbled and resisted his intervention, when the stern man appeared to escort her from his master's door.

She had protested loudly – announcing to all the world that she had rights. That she had freedoms.

And Jean Luc had assured her that he had no idea what on earth she was talking about, but that her rights began and ended with her father's orders. He had left her in her maid's capable hands with another barely suppressed quirk of the lips, and a deferential bow.

She had seethed.

---

"My lady, we cannot—"

"Jacqueline, we must—"

"It is improper—"

"It's civil disobedience—"

"Civil disobedience?"

"Yes."

"But I've never heard such a—"

"You will—"

"I will?"

"Mhmm."

Addison had her tongue between her teeth, a pin from her hair, and a look of absolute concentration on her face.

They'd had no luck with Hugh's office. But Fernando's was empty most days. And he had no squire to his name. Sure, Jean Luc and Hugh were just on the other side of the house. Sure, they could most likely hear every word. But Addison was banking on them being too busy to bother with her for a time yet. She was banking on their underestimation, and their faith in the nervous looking Jacqueline.

She didn't know what she would find in Fernando's study. But she still hoped for something. A map or a letter or a note or anything that would shed light on where on earth everyone had been, and why they all seemed to come back bloody every time.

"My lady—"

"Please, if we are going to be accomplices, you might as well call me Fernanda—"

"Accomplices?" Jacqueline's voice rose in alarm. "I am your maid, not your accomplice."

Addison spared the door a wry look as though it too had become her ally in this endeavor, before turning to stare pointedly at the older girl who had positioned herself perfectly to keep watch and warn her in case anyone came up the stairs, entirely of her own volition.

Jacqueline frowned and crossed her arms at the younger girl.

"I think you've made up the term," Jacqueline accused.

"The term?" Addison asked, turning back to the lock she'd almost picked.

She had already argued her case that Jacqueline should just break the handle off and be done with it so that they could get the information they needed and get out of there in a much more efficient time. But Jacqueline had primly reminded her that only one of them didn't know what was going on, and that there wasn't enough gold in the world to force her to break into any study belonging to a Gonçalves or a de Clermont. Jacqueline valued her life and her station far more than she valued her mistress's penchant for insolence, thank you very much.

Addison, frankly, couldn't argue with that. So, she had stripped herself once again of her fillet and wimple – much to Jacqueline's dismay – and tossed the items on the floor. Unpinning her hair and crouching down by the intricate lock on her adoptive father's fortress-like office door.

It was taking longer than Addison had hoped – hair pins did not a skeleton key make. And they were running out of time.

"Yes, my lady, civil disobedience—"

"What about it?" Addison asked, feeling herself start to sweat at the clock that was swiftly running out. Soon, Jean Luc would come to whisk her and her friend away from their pursuit of knowledge and liberty and equality and—okay maybe she was losing it a bit in the rhetoric these days, but she was losing her goddamn mind.

"You've made it up."

"No, I haven't."

"There's no such thing."

Addison almost made to argue, but for the click of the lock, the give of the door and the rush of air that met her face as Fernando's study gave in to the force of her willpower.

Addison let out a triumphant laugh. Jacqueline sucked in a startled breath. Brushing her hands on her skirts, the young human prided herself on her tenacity and all of her hard work, bringing herself once again to stand. Addison was just about to push in, but for the creak of a floorboard, and a disturbance in the air at her back. Addison felt the sudden heavy presence of someone new in the corridor.

Wincing, she crossed her fingers and uttered a quick prayer to whichever sick sadistic deity had trapped her here in the Middle Ages, before turning to face her inevitable fate.

There, standing next to a mortified, but unsurprised Jacqueline, was the stern-faced manservant that had become her greatest nemesis since the coming of spring.

Jean Luc arched an eyebrow, his face neutral though she liked to imagine he was also a bit impressed with her finesse. He looked from her to the door she had just broken into and pursed his lips in displeasure.

He didn't need to say it.

"Yeah, yeah," Addison sighed, turning back to the door. "I'd like to point out this took me all morning."

"I am aware," came his even reply.

Addison pulled the door closed, waiting for the click of it settling into the frame, but the click never came. She let go of the handle and watched in mild dismay as the door released from the frame and opened again just the barest crack.

Great, Addison huffed out a laugh, she broke the latch.

She turned back to Jean Luc, trying to manage a convincing look of remorse, but the dry expression he wore told Addison that the older man was not fooled. Behind him, Jacqueline had buried her face in her perfectly manicured hands.

---

Addison gave everyone the silent treatment in the drawing room before dinner. They were all present for once. She had been greeted warmly by Idir, who graced her with twinkling eyes and a kind squeeze of her hand. She fought hard not to return his kindness, which was contagious any other day. This did not faze him in the slightest, if anything his grin only widened as he shot a glance at the glum looking Fernando who stood across the room.

The men were loud and animated as they spoke to each other, and seemingly in good spirits as they were called to the great hall for their meal.

They filed in together, all talking animatedly amongst themselves, and Addison trailed them feeling rather put out.

Seated around the table, her silent treatment proved highly ineffective. The men were medieval, after all. A woman's silence was not something any of them seemed to mind.

She frowned and put down her fork in protest of food now too. Crossing her arms in her lap, her expression was as curmudgeonly now as Fernando's. He sat next to her, silent as well, probably aggravated by the door she had busted that morning with her hair pin.

Idir had noted the dark clouds hanging over the heads of the two Gonçalves, and had leaned conspiratorially over to Hugh, murmuring that she and her adoptive father were finally starting to resemble each other. Hugh had suppressed a grin and lifted his wine glass in silent accord.

The voice in her mind whispered harshly that this was her opportunity – that she had all the people she needed present in order to say what she needed to say and get the answers she wanted – but the resentment in her belly told her there was no point. They all knew what she wanted and had steadfastly blocked her from getting it every step of the way.

They knew what she wanted, and it didn't matter.

They had her best interests at heart, or so everyone continued to tell her. They did not want her to fear unnecessarily, or so she had heard over and over again despite her protests to the contrary.

But it was taking its toll and Addison was not of a mind to care about their logic or rationale.

The secrecy was beginning to feel rather cruel. Her lips twisted and she fought hard to keep her eyes from stinging with aggravated tears. This wasn't right. She looked up and met Eric's searching gaze. He studied her like a scholar studied a book, and she wondered what he read there. He gave her a sympathetic smile and nodded toward her untouched plate.

She rolled her eyes and looked away, subjecting the surface of the table to her glare instead.

"I hear the cook has prepared the brie with apricot jam and caramelized onions special for you, cariña," Fernando said, nodding to her untouched plate. He seemed to think that detailing every delectable ingredient would work in convincing her to eat. But he eyed her warily as she continued her stubborn silence, as though she had not heard him speak at all.

She didn't look up at the sound of his voice. She imagined closing a door on him in her mind, and she felt satisfied at the imagined effect.

"Fernanda," Fernando pressed.

Still, she met him with silence.

"And the wine is very sweet, my lady, as you like it," Guillaume supplied when her father had no luck.

"Yes," Hugh added, his voice light and obliging. "It comes from the Auvergne, not far from Sept-Tours, my family's home."

Yes, she knew where Sept-Tours was, and its significance to the family at the table. She had learned her lessons well, despite Prudhomme's cruel methods. Still, she didn't respond.

They stayed at dinner longer than they'd ever sat at that table before.

No one moved from their seats. Conversation carried on politely around her, and Addison continued to sit in resentful silence.

Every once in a while, someone would attempt to broach the topic of her dinner with her, but she willfully ignored the beseeching manjasangs. The imploring looks from an increasingly anguished Eric were the hardest to stomach, and so she had stared even more fixedly at the table. If anyone could make her cave, it was the earnest looking man she had married fifty years ago. The one who begged her patience, even as her patience ran out. Soon she'd have none left to give.

In the end, it was Hugh who had enough.

"We are very practiced at waiting, little one," Hugh said in a good nature. "I would suggest you eat your dinner before it grows cold."

Addison ignored him.

"I once waited for seven months at the Siege of Tyre," Hugh continued, sipping casually on his wine.

Addison pursed her lips, annoyed. Her eyes flickered up to Eric who was staring at his own plate, looking increasingly agitated. He looked like he wanted to speak up – to say what or to whom she didn't know.

She flickered her eyes over to Hugh who met her evenly with a stern look of his own. Her stomach rumbled. No one commented or laughed though, everyone had fallen silent at Hugh's words, the stubborn set of Fernanda's jaw, and the barely contained agitation on Eric's face.

She turned to Fernando. "May I go?"

He matched her look and shook his head.

"No," he said. "You may not."

---

Eric quickly tired of his father's methods. He quickly tired of the secrets and the increased isolation Fernanda suffered in the name of safety. She was his mate. That alone should warrant at least the barest input from him on how this situation should be handled. She was intelligent and strong and fierce, and— he sucked in a breath to say something, but Hugh shot him a look.

She was Fernando's daughter.

And it was Fernando's wish that she not be burdened by the horrors of the world outside their doors. It was Fernando's wish that she not agonize over the blood rage colony they were still bringing under control. It was everyone's wish that she did not regress into a state of shock and fear over how close Benjamin and his accomplice had come to her, at how quickly the situation on the mountain had escalated. At how truly dangerous things had become.

Eric knew this. He understood it well. He would shield her from every bad thing his world had to offer. He knew not the place from which she hailed, but Fernanda had always had a softness to her that suggested her home was more accommodating than his. She had a fragility to her that suggested her need for extra care, gentle guidance.

But she was strong in her own way too. She demonstrated that strength now. It shone in the mettle in her eyes. The light glinted off that strength as she flickered in and out of her own inner fortitude, caught in a battle of the wills with two of the most stubborn men who had ever roamed the earth. Hugh and Fernando were a formidable pair. He knew this from personal experience. And Fernanda was discovering it now.

But he drew the line at ruining her dinner. He drew the line at her tears and her unhappiness. They had come so far, and now here she sat at their table, unwilling to eat, all in protest of their methods of protection.

If this was her will, then there had to be another way.

This was supposed to keep her safe not isolate her and make her miserable.

Hugh had ordered his compliance. Eric was not her husband, though they had been married once. And while Fernanda was his mate, they were yet unmated. Fernando was her father, and he needed to find his footing with her before Eric inserted himself and muddled up his own father's plans.

"The girl needs solid ground beneath her feet!"

Or so Hugh would remind him, time and again when he tried to insert himself in matters he had no legal right to.

"She needs to find her way before she is further entangled in an unprecedented marriage— caught between her own humanity, your love and the pressures of the de Clermont," his father had told him time and again.

"She needs to know what she means to me—"

"She needs to know that she has a choice—"

"She made her choice, fifty years ago!"

"Under extenuating circumstances—"

"Do you doubt my honor?" Eric had stared back at Hugh, stricken by the thought that his father did not trust his judgement, that his father thought he may have harmed the woman he loved all those years ago when they married at the base of their tree.

Hugh had stared back at him, coming down from his own ire long enough to shake his head and cast his son a sympathetic look. "Of course, I don't."

"Then why—"

"If she is to be your mate, to be your wife..." Hugh said slowly, waiting for his son to meet his eyes once again. "She would be agreeing to an eternity she may not want, my boy."

"But she has not been asked—"

"Because she is scared, Eric," Hugh said, his voice earnest. "Can you not see? She would agree if only because she does not know her options."

"Of course, I can see that," Eric said, his voice rough with emotion. "She watches the world like she is waiting for it to burn down around her. She watches me like I am going to disappear. She—she clings to Jacqueline—"

"Yes," Hugh intoned. "She does."

"I just want—"

"I know," Hugh smiled. "Trust me, I know."

He glanced over to the coat of arms that sat on his wall. There were only two in the world like that one. And its twin sat in his mate's study. Their combined insignias carved into a shield. Forever tied to each other in life and in death and all the many battles they fought in between.

"Allow them time," Hugh continued, eyeing his son carefully. "Allow Fernando time. He never wanted to be a father. He never thought he'd be any good at it—" Hugh cut himself off, toying with the hilt of the blade at his hip, thinking about Fernando and his many demons.

"He is making a mistake," Eric implored.

"He will make many," Hugh laughed. "Have I not made mistakes with you?"

"Of course," Eric said, looking at Hugh in exasperation. "But that is different."

"Is it?" Hugh asked him, eyeing the young man in front of him curiously.

"Yes," Eric insisted.

"Why?"

"Well—" Eric sputtered. "Because I...well I can—"

"You can handle it?"

Eric frowned. Yes, as a matter of fact, he could handle it.

"And you don't think that Fernanda can handle it?" Hugh arched an eyebrow.

Eric shot him an unimpressed look – a look that made his father grin.

"She is unhappy," Eric said, unwilling to be cowed by the corner his father had backed him into. Fernanda was either strong enough to handle Fernando's mistakes, or too weak to know the truth. Instead, he took the issue back to the root of his concern. "Her unhappiness... it makes her unwell."

At this Hugh did frown. "Yes, I know."

And he did know. But they were in the middle of a war with Benjamin's heathen children. They were still hunting for Matthew's elusive, and illegitimate son, even now. And Fernanda was safe within La Ithuriana's fortress like walls.

It would have to do for now. The situation was not ideal. Hugh shook his head.

"Allow the Gonçalves their growing pains, Eric," Hugh urged his son. "Give them time to sort themselves out. God knows you and I still haven't worked through all of our issues, and we've had over seven decades to try."

At the time, Eric had reluctantly agreed. Hoping to have a word with Hugh's mate about his approach with Fernanda. But he hadn't the time. For all that eternity seemed to drag on when Fernanda was not around, it seemed as though when she did appear in his life, he never had enough of it. It was deeply unsettling, the idea that she was slipping through his fingers and with her she was taking the time he had been promised the day he was reborn. She collapsed it all into nothingness, as though the months that he'd had her back in his life had disappeared altogether and he still was not on even footing when it came to her and his love for her.

Her stomach rumbled again, but Fernanda refused to budge. The table had grown awkward in its silence.

He met Fernando's eyes across the table while the young Fernanda ignored Hugh's mild attempts at discouragement. His father had never been a fan of the hunger strike. And discouragement had always been the de Clermont method of encouragement, in its own special way.

Fernando stared back at him, conflicted as well, Eric could tell.

For once, it appeared they were on the same page.

The dynamic would have to change.

---

She left her dinner untouched that night, fed up and forming a plan. She had won a single battle in her long, drawn-out war. And Fernando had finally been convinced to let her go when her eyes had begun to droop against her will. One night without dinner wouldn't kill her, he seemed to think as she slinked away under the careful attention of Jacqueline.

In the end, as Addison's stomach churned with hunger, she wondered if she had really won this battle after all, or if it had just been a losing situation for everyone around. She let Jacqueline undress her. The blonde quietly murmuring about her growling stomach as she did, but Addison brushed the other girl off. Issuing her a terse, but polite goodnight and apologizing for the unusually late hour.

The maid had reluctantly gone at her insistence. And Addison had waited until she was sure she was alone before commencing with her bedtime routine. Carving another tally mark into the wall under her bed, dusting herself off, and curling up under her blankets.

Then, just as she was drifting off to sleep, a knock sounded at her door. Addison's eyes snapped open, and her stomach gave a miserable sounding groan. Addison threw her covers back and pulled on her dressing gown to fight off the nighttime chill of the corridor, before turning the latch.

The light of the flames behind her caught his features in an otherworldly glow. Lion's mane hair and the bulk of his frame filled her doorway, and Addison felt her breath catch at the heated look in his eyes.

Eric stood there, in the dark of her corridor, looking concerned and guilty, and agitated and in love. He didn't speak, just looked her over with the eyes of someone who was quickly approaching his wit's end. And Addison stared back at him in shock, her stomach rumbling desperately.

She didn't know what to think, except that she loved him, when Gallowglass offered her a pear.

---

There was only one word for what happened next.

Escalation.

As the men of her household waged a war outside the safe walls of La Ithuriana, Addison waged her own war from her place within.

She staked out studies and chambers. Only to inevitably be dragged away.

She took Jacqueline one day and staked out the stables, only for Alaric to shoo them away too. He was too old to be cowed by the young lady of the house, no matter her title, and unwilling to suffer her games as his daughter did.

Jacqueline had taken to covering her ears and turning away as the younger girl schemed, unwilling to leave Addison to fight her battles alone, but equally unwilling to make herself complicit in some of the more insubordinate measures the young human had resorted to.

Addison did, in her own way, feel bad about the toll it was taking on the maid's sense of morality. She had told her once or twice that she didn't need to come. That Addison was more than capable of protesting all by herself, but for all the anxiety and concern that Jacqueline claimed to have... she did seem to enjoy this budding concept of civil disobedience Addison had planted in her mind. When she wasn't agonizing over the de Clermont, Jacqueline almost seemed to enjoy herself.

Astonished to the point of laughter and alarm at some of her mistress's more colorful displays, she had begun to claim that as long as she didn't witness anything untoward, she wouldn't have to lie to Don Fernando or Lord Hugh and thus everything would be fine.

And then much to Jacqueline's shock and horror, Addison began burning her fillets in protest too.

But that wasn't all.

Gascon and Lorencio were two cupboys who couldn't have been much older than the age of ten or eleven. She'd been introduced to the two troublemakers by Señora de Medina during a tour of the food stores one day, as she slowly accustomed herself to the role of ranking lady of La Ithuriana.

They were, all things considered, very well behaved for children who had largely been raised by the servants of the house Gonçalves de Clermont. Their parents having not had the proper resources to raise them much past infancy, had sent them up to the manor for shelter and food in exchange for work. Addison knew their plight all too well and had looked rather affectionately on the boys who politely conducted themselves upstairs, only to run amok downstairs among their fellow servants. They'd given Señora de Medina an abundance of grey hairs, or so the older woman said, despite the arrested state of her aging process.

"Boys," Addison hissed from her place ducked into an alcove under the stairs.

Gascon, a dark-haired child with thick eyebrows and a trickster's eyes looked up at the sound of her call. Scanning the corridor as they made their way back to the kitchens for fresh wine for the men in Hugh's study.

Not seeing her, he cast one last suspicious look behind him and made to follow Lorencio.

"Gascon!" Addison whisper yelled again, freezing the boy in his tracks one more time. This time stopping Lorencio as well who looked back at his partner in crime, intrigued.

Addison stepped briefly out of the shadows, letting the light catch her face and draw the cupboys' eyes to her. Gascon's face lit up in recognition, he opened his mouth to call out to her, but Addison threw her hands out toward him in a plea for silence, bringing a finger to her lips to confirm the need for secrecy.

He snapped his mouth closed, turned back to Lorencio and gestured for him to follow him over to Lady Fernanda.

"How can I be of service, milady?" Gascon whispered at her, eyes alight with curiosity, but still trying to maintain his good behavior in the upper floors of the manor.

Lorencio lingered in the background, by far the more reserved of the pair, though no less troublesome when he set his mind to a task.

"I need you to do me a favor," she whispered at them wincing at the volume of the quiet sound knowing without a doubt that the vampires in Hugh's study could most definitely hear her.

"Anything, milady," came Lorencio's solemn reply.

She studied the boys for a moment, considering her predicament and need for privacy.

She smiled at them gratefully before stepping out of the alcove and moving down the corridor.

"Follow me," she called back quietly.

When they got to the locked gates of the library she turned back to the boys, a glint in her eyes. She gestured to the lock on the gate and used her hands to mime unlocking it. Holding up her own household keys and pleading with her eyes for the boys to understand.

By the devlish glint in Gascon's eye and the measuring way Lorencio studied the forbidden room, they understood completely.

She crouched down to look them both in the eye and whispered. "Do you think you can help me?"

"It shall be the greatest honor, milady," Gascon said with a smirk.

She thanked them both profusely before escorting them back to the servants' stairwell so they would not get in trouble for the delay she had caused them.

Before they descended, Lorencio turned back to her with a bashful look on his face and a nervous flicker in his eyes.

"Milady," he asked.

She smiled down at him kindly, waiting for him to speak.

"Do you think—" he paused and snatched his cap off his head as though just remembering his manners. She bit back laugh. "That is... we will help you either way... but if we do help you... could you maybe teach us how to—"

She held up a hand, not wanting his use of the word 'read' to get back to the sensitive ears upstairs in Hugh's study. She crouched down, took his cap and situated it back on his head, giving it a tap once it was settled.

"It would be my honor to teach you, Lorencio."

His grin was as pleased as it was mischievous, and he nodded his thanks in a manner that was sure to give him whiplash if he wasn't careful.

Gascon whooped and bolted down the stairs to fetch Lord Hugh and Don Fernando's long delayed cups of wine, with Lorencio following more carefully behind him.

---

The alliance with the cupboys became her greatest advantage. They were fast, sneaky and altogether overlooked by the men who ruled her household with cool, unflappable omnipotence. Only the servants knew the extent of the troublesome boys' reputations, and it was not for them to interfere with the orders of the lady of the house.

They began stealing books from the library when the majority of the household was out fighting or busy with their chores. Most of the books made little sense to Addison and she had spent many an afternoon shaking her head solemnly at the boys who waited with barely contained enthusiasm, telling them that this was not written in a language she understood.

Her reluctant news was often met with continued optimism and support, the boys claiming that next time they would find a tome or text in Basque or Occitan instead of Greek or Latin or some other obscure language none of the group was able to identify.

She had kept her promise though, teaching the boys the alphabet and basic vocabulary words, as well as arithmetic.

It wasn't long before the power of revolution got to the heads of the members of their small group, and soon they were pushing their luck with the wine stores and other key parts of the household.

Resistance came in the form of knowledge and hiding wine from those who sought it. Addison with the help of Gascon and Lorencio had replaced Hugh and Fernando's favored wine stores with water and juice. Tucking away their stolen wares in top secret locations that none would ever be able to find – or so Lorencio had promised her after quietly making the household booze slowly disappear.

With each replacement came a handwritten note from the rebels, Addison's rhetoric on justice and equality scribbled out in the childish scrawl of the cupboys who shared the honor in a predetermined rotation so as to avoid political infighting – or so Addison had told them on the first day when Gascon nearly clobbered Lorencio for getting to the inkwell before him.

Now, whenever resentments rose, she solemnly asked them what their number one rule was, to which the boys replied, "No fighting amongst friends when the enemy is afoot."

---

She became more blatant about her dislike of the fillet and wimple, striding about the manor with her hair uncovered and her neck exposed. There had been murmurs among the scandalized servants, but none other than Jacqueline had the courage to inform the mistress of their household that she was wandering around like a common prostitute rather than a high-born lady.

And Jacqueline had told her. Loudly. Fiercely. All the while wrapping yet another wimple around her intricately rebraided hair. It was only in those moments – at the mercy of her disgruntled maid – that Addison had the wherewithal to appear appropriately chastised.

What none of them could have possible known was that Addison did know how her uncovered hair would be perceived. She knew very well what it implied. Prudhomme had drilled the social norms of this medieval mountain society into her head very early on in her tutelage. What no one seemed to comprehend was that Addison, in her role as Lady Fernanda Gonçalves, simply didn't care to adhere to the rules anymore. Not if those rules meant the men of her household could lie and keep secrets. Not if it meant she would be kept forever in ignorance when she was all but begging them to allow her the opportunity to learn.

---

Hugh stepped out of his study. It was a rare moment that he allowed himself reprieve from the many maps and missives that littered his desk and occupied valuable space in his mind. The hunt for his family's blood raged shame had become his sole focus as of late. It was the only thing that mattered. To contain the issue. To protect his people. To end Benjamin, and through him, end the chaos the younger man had spun.

He stood at the top of the grand staircase looking down on the comings and goings of his mountain home. The expansive windows and great oaken doors of his ornate entrance hall greeted him with light and natural beauty. These small things were the ones he cherished most in this world. The way the sun filtered through freshly cleaned glass, the scent of wood polish and the quiet hum of life filtering through the many halls and corridors of his home.

There were the footmen who stood strong, maintaining their neutral watch over the last line of defense. The gatekeepers who guarded the threshold between his home and the world beyond. There were the maids with their buckets for scrubbing, their clean linens for bed making, and their dirty garments for washing. There was the Page and his house boys polishing precious metals, and Señora de Medina running back and forth maintaining watch over all who belonged to her staff.

Then there was the matter of the young Fernanda.

His mate's daughter had far exceeded his expectations when it came to her resistance. She strode across the household, her gait heavy and masculine despite months of tutelage and instruction to break her of the habit. She did not glide like a high-born lady, but instead stomped about like a man on a mission, feet tangling and catching in her skirts despite everyone's best efforts to tame them. If he didn't know any better – if the thought were not so absurd – Hugh would say she had been raised in breeches rather than gowns. She had worn an odd sort of trouser when she appeared for the first time, in his courtyard at the beginning of fall, but he had brushed it off as an unfortunate circumstance. Who knew what sort of misfortune she had found herself in between her time as Malvina and her time as Fernanda. He had, at the time, determined not to hold her plight against her, and made it his mission to return her to proper feminine garments as she no doubt would have wished.

But now, Hugh closed his eyes and laughed quietly at the sight she presented below. The servants parted for her like the red sea had once parted for a prophet and his flock of fleeing Israelites.

Her fillet was gone. No doubt cast into the fire the moment Jacqueline turned away. This was the third one Fernanda had claimed to lose. Now, her wimple had been unwrapped and draped loosely over her shoulder, prettily, albeit problematically. Her neck was bare. Hugh had to laugh; Fernando was going to have a conniption. And yet, the de Clermont couldn't help but think she had refashioned her wimple very cleverly, nonetheless.

He smiled down at his mate's adopted daughter, though she could not see him from where he lingered in the shadows and said nothing about her inappropriate behavior. It was not for him to judge. And, he supposed, her disobedience now was a sign... in a way... that she had learned the order of things in their household. Resistance was the ultimate sign of human progress. Even more importantly, Hugh thought before slinking back toward his study, he wasn't the one who had to raise her. Her rebellion was a matter for Fernando to attend to, and God but he did pity the man he loved for the task ahead of him.

The young Fernanda was turning out to be a far cry from the meek little thing they had discovered in the fall.

Behind closed doors waited Jean Luc and Idir. They looked up when he entered, though their heads remained bowed together. The pair murmured about the state of Roncesvalles and the progress they had made, too lowly for the vampire servants downstairs to overhear them.

Hugh listened quietly as their conversation carried on, closing the door behind him and reaching for a goblet of freshly poured wine. His nose ticked in suspicion at the scent, he tipped the liquid to his lips in disbelief. Tasting the corrupted refreshment, the de Clermont grimaced.

With a scowl, Hugh discarded his goblet and shot his companions a disgruntled look. Idir stared back at him in curiosity, but Jean Luc – who had by far taken the brunt of the young human's rebellion – had already begun to rub at his temples, exasperated.

"She's taken the wine cellar, I'm afraid," Hugh told them, much to their collective dismay.

---

They changed the locks to the wine cellar, and while the men of the household could not find Lorencio's hidden stash of wine, Addison felt the loss of her advantage quite bitterly. The boys came to her in dismay one morning after she'd finished her luncheon to inform her that the cook had taken to sleeping with the new set of keys. There was no way to reach them without getting their ears boxed and their dinners taken away.

And Addison drew the line at anyone ever missing dinner, and even more so she balked at the idea of anyone getting their ears boxed for her sake alone. She had told them to maintain their composure, that they would find another way. To which the boys had solemnly agreed that would be the best course of action for everyone involved.

She had sent them off to their meals with fresh parchment and inkwells so that they could practice their letters during their free time.

Instead of the wine cellar, Addison turned her attention to other matters.

Her skirts were getting on her nerves. She couldn't do much about the fillet and wimple other than strip the items off and burn them when the opportunity arose. Jacqueline would always click her tongue and whisk her away to get redressed when she did. And Addison would quietly assent to this attention, if only because she didn't want to make life any more difficult for the maid. It wasn't Jacqueline's fault that she got caught up in the middle of a cultural revolution she'd never asked to join.

So, Addison stalked the corridors of La Ithuriana searching – hoping her efforts would not be in vain.

Her wimple was freshly secured, her fillet once again constricting precious airways and she was looking for – Addison's heart leapt at her luck – there she was. Just down the corridor was the maid who oversaw Eric's chambers.

Addison regretted that she didn't know the girl's name, and much later after this moment she endeavored to learn it. But now, Addison was too caught up in the wave of elation that washed over her at her good fortune. She hitched her skirts and broke into an impatient jog, calling out for the maid to stop.

The girl, startled, did as the lady of her household commanded. Staring up at Addison with wide, nervous eyes that reminded Addison of the ones she saw in the mirror every morning when she woke up. Addison struggled to catch her breath as the maid ducked into a curtsy; she gestured to the breeches the other girl held loosely in her hands.

Eric's breeches.

The maid blinked.

Addison smiled as politely as she could imagine, though she feared it may have come off more manic than was appropriate.

"I'm so glad I caught you in time," she said, knowing that she was talking nonsense to the poor girl in front of her. "These are no good," she said.

"These, milady?" The maid asked looking down at Lord Eric's breeches in confusion.

"Yes," Addison said. "Do you see that there?"

She pointed to a perfectly fine piece of mended fabric.

The maid looked closely at the fabric and shook her head, opening her mouth to tell Lady Fernanda that she did not see her mistake, but Addison cut her off quickly.

"No, this won't do, leave them with me—"

"But milady," the maid stuttered.

Addison donned the most sympathetic smile she could muster, but her voice brooked no room for argument. She wanted these damn pants.

"We won't speak of it again," she said and patted the other girl's arm kindly. "I'll mend them myself. Lord Eric need be none the wiser."

Then Addison snagged Gallowglass's breeches from the maid's hands and waved her away.

"Apologies, milady," the maid said, dipping into a curtsy and scurrying off.

A part of Addison felt guilty. She watched the maid go and fought the urge to call after her and apologize. But she wanted pants – needed them. And these were the only ones she was going to find.

She'd just have to make sure the maid got an extra helping of dessert this evening.

---

"What in the name of all that is holy—"

Fernando set off at a brisk human pace to catch up with the girl who'd just passed him by.

"Fernanda," he said. His voice tight, teeth clenched.

In front of him, the girl quickened her step. Feet carrying her a little faster to get away.

"Fernanda!" He snapped louder this time.

She yelped and took off at a sprint, but she forgot she was a human, and he was something more. Fernando too broke out into a run, just quick enough to overtake her and land a heavy hand down on her shoulder before she could make it to her imagined safety.

"What in God's name are you wearing?"

The child did her best to throw him an easy smile, out of breath from her escape attempt and trying to appear unbothered as she looked up at Fernando with bright appeasing eyes.

"Pants."

"Pants?" He asked, acerbic and incredulous.

"Yes," she cleared her throat. Wincing, she reached up to her fillet and gave it a tug. He was sure this one would burn in the hearth sometime today as the others had before it. "Pants. You know... trousers, pantaloons, breeches—"

"Yes, thank you for the vocabulary lesson, Fernanda," he growled out, forcing himself to bite back another exasperated remark. "Now explain to me why on earth you are wearing them."

"What have you been keeping from me?" She asked him instead. He fixed her with an unimpressed look and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Answer my question, Fernanda," he replied sternly, unwilling to play her game.

She crossed her arms, drawing herself up to match him, though without the desired effect. With his height and stature, Fernando still towered over her quite easily.

"You're covered in scars," she said. "And you smell of fire. You smell like death."

Now, Fernando was, in fact, startled to hear such words coming from the mouth of the child in front of him. They were jarring and something inside of him plummeted straight through the floor at the truth coming now from her lips. But he did not show the way she had struck him so. He had walked the earth for many years. Shock was not something he was comfortable freely admitting to.

All he had done to shield her from the world outside, and once again he was the one to introduce her to the horrors of it. He had done it once with a neglected goblet of blood in his unlocked study. And he did it now with his injuries, and the shadow of death that clung to him – that lingered in the fabric of his clothing and stained the palms of his hands.

He shook his head, staring down at the defiant young lady in front of him.

She was so young, and yet he was quickly reminded that she was not a child. No matter how much he insisted on viewing her as one. She was young, and infuriating, stubborn. She had much to learn, but she was grown in her own way too.

But somehow still, he couldn't bring himself to let the horrors of the world touch her any more than they already had. She was not ready for all that went on outside the carefully maintained walls of their home. She was not ready—

Eric's voice echoed in his mind as she stared up at him defiantly now. Words he hadn't wanted to hear at the time, but now refused to leave his head.

"Is it truly that she is not ready for the world? Or is it you who is not ready to watch her go? Who are you protecting, Fernando?"

And to be quite honest, Fernando could no longer tell.

He stared down at this little girl who had bound herself to him by some twist of fate he could not even begin to comprehend. She was infuriating and defiant, refreshing and kind and so, so impossibly fragile. So human.

Fernando knew of the horrors life could bring – knew what could befall even those who played by every rule. Knew what could become of the people who did everything right. Fernanda was the exact opposite of all of those things. She was insolent. She was the most concerning combination of masculine and feminine. She was bound to get into trouble the moment she left his sight.

I mean, for Christ's sake, she was wearing breeches.

If only she would listen. If only she would trust him. He was looking out for her best interest and she—she thwarted his evert effort.

He sighed.

"Jacqueline," he called out quietly.

The young lady's maid appeared before him, eyes downcast, a nervous twist to her hands.

"Don Fernando," she murmured, dipping into a practiced curtsy.

"Please, see to it that Lady Fernanda is returned to a proper state of dress for polite company," he said, not unkindly. "And return her stolen breeches to me when you are through."

---

"My lady, I beg of you... we only have one more and then we will have to commission a new set from a seamstress in the village..."

But Jacqueline didn't get to finish expressing her concern before Lady Fernanda cut in with her most innocent sounding voice.

"This one?" She asked.

"Pardon?"

"This is the last fillet in the household?"

Jacqueline froze, hands stilling over the breeches she had just finished folding, intending to return them to Don Fernando as he had requested. She turned back to her mistress; eyes wide with horror at the mistake she had made.

She wouldn't— Jacqueline shook her head in vain, hands cast out toward the young Lady Fernanda as though she could prevent the inevitable by force of will alone. She wouldn't dare, Jacqueline thought to herself even as her eyes witnessed incontrovertible proof to the contrary.

The truth was... her ladyship did dare. She dared very much.

Crouched low next to the flame that flickered invitingly in her hearth, the young Fernanda's hair flowed freely down her back. Her wimple had been discarded haphazardly over the arm of a chair. She had her fillet in hand, a dangerous glint in her eye.

"My lady—" Jacqueline started but stopped in silent horror as the last fillet finally caught flame.

Her mistress smiled grimly as she watched her most hated piece of clothing turn to ash in her hands.

---

So, Addison had been liberated temporarily from her fillet while Jacqueline and Fernando commissioned a new set for her. She had been robbed of her pants by that same unlikely pair, and forced back into her finely crafted gowns. And yes, she had also been set back a few steps by the changing of the locks on the wine cellar doors.

She tried not to let it get her down though.

She was on a mission.

They still didn't know about the library. She and the boys still had the books on their side... even if they couldn't read most of them. She would grind them down in her own way, in her own time. She just needed to get creative.

Addison was looking for Eric. She knew he was around somewhere – and quietly hoped that he hadn't already retreated into Hugh's study to consult with his father about this great secret everyone had been keeping.

Her belly twisted with a small ounce of resentment that she tried desperately to squash. Gallowglass had made it abundantly clear that he would tell her if he could, but he had given his word and he was no more inclined to break it when given to his father or Fernando than he was when he gave it to her.

She had seen his horse in the courtyard, attended by the blacksmith and a groom, so she knew he was somewhere. She just didn't know where. She wandered the corridors, peeking into rooms and knocking on doors, but to no avail.

She wondered whether he would hear her and come if she just started calling his name out loudly as she roamed around the house, but then she eyed the working maids, and the neutral footmen and thought better of it. She had already made their lives substantially harder by way of her resistance efforts. Addison didn't want to subject them to her dramatics even more than she already had. It wasn't their fault the men of her household were lying liars who lied.

Why should they have to suffer for her cause?

She turned another corner and squeaked, bringing her hands up to muffle the sound though she knew it was far too late. The two figures at the end of the corridor pulled apart.

Jacqueline stared back at Addison, flustered and about two seconds away from dying of extreme embarrassment, while Guillaume remained as serene as always... if also a bit smug. He acknowledged her presence with a casual bow and just the barest hint of a self-satisfied grin.

Jacqueline sputtered and stared back at her like she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. If she weren't a vampire, Addison imagined the usually collected blonde would be bright red in the face and sweating. If Addison weren't so shocked, she'd be laughing, but as it was she stuttered out an apology and turned away, high tailing it quickly out of the corridor, determined to find Eric somewhere else, any other way.

Later that evening, as Jacqueline dressed her for dinner, Addison managed to slip in a question about Guillaume. She had been going for subtlety... but the maid's wide eyes met hers in the mirror and her fingers clenched around an innocent strand of Addison's hair, and the girl in the chair suddenly remembered that she had never been particularly sneaky or smooth.

Jacqueline's lips pulled down into a prudish frown.

"He's a rake, my lady."

"A rake?"

"A seductor."

"He seems more like a hippie to me," Addison mumbled.

"A hippie?"

"A—" Addison paused. "A monk. He seems... monk-like."

"I assure you he is not," Jacqueline snapped. "You know nothing of the world of men, my lady."

Then she fastened the ghastly wimple over a horrid, makeshift fillet, giving it a nice firm tug to secure it in place. Addison gagged and stuck her tongue out, turning her head back and forth to try and free herself from the horrible fabric cage.

"Don't provoke the hand that ties your wimple," she grumbled quietly to herself in modern English. Sticking her fingers between the fabric and her throat to try and free her airways.

---

Addison entered the drawing room to find it already full. Well, almost full. Hugh was absent again, as was Fernando.

She eyed the gathered men with an air of defiance and suspicion. Casually measuring them up and trying to determine who she could grind down into submission first. As though they sensed this threat to their collective honor, the men fell silent and eyed her with equal parts wariness and amusement.

She was without her fillet, having dashed the makeshift one Jacqueline had fashioned for her into a potted plant on her way to the drawing room. Instead, her hair had been neatly knotted into a ponytail, with her wimple wrapped around it to maintain some form of modesty, or so she had been told by the exasperated maid who had trailed her across the house while she stripped.

If anyone thought her manner of dress inappropriate, they wisely held their tongues.

Addison raised her chin and cast her eyes around the warmly lit drawing room, taking a turn about the small space, running her hands over books and trinkets, curling her fingers into a soft fur that had been draped over a chair, before finally making her way over to Eric. Her eyes flickered up to the hulking gall óglaigh. He watched her with an intrigued expression.

"Will my father not be joining us this evening?"

"No, mo chridhe," Eric supplied easily. "He sends his apologies."

She halted in front of his seat, eyeing him curiously. She didn't know how she had come to be in this situation. She had never before played chess. And now, suddenly, her life had become the game. She, with her small army of pawns and rooks and castles. And them with their army of kings and knights and bishops.

She didn't like this... but she was kind of enjoying it at the same time. From the glint in Eric's eyes, he felt much the same.

She looked about the room. First, to Balder and Guillaume who had paused in their discussion of whatever secrets they kept, to watch her warily as she turned about the room. And then to Idir and Jean Luc who leaned over a game of chess of their own. They were pretending they weren't watching her, but she knew they were. Idir found her far too amusing to not pay attention to her dramatics now. And she and Jean Luc had built their odd relationship on a series of moves and countermoves, all on behalf of the secrets of Hugh.

There were empty seats all around them, and Addison didn't know why she was acting this way, but when she turned back to Eric, she felt a surge of defiance in her chest and a holier than thou air that had finally gone to her head.

"I believe you are in my seat," she murmured.

His intrigued look turned into a grin, it stretched wide across his face and turned the corners of his eyes up in a pleasant way.

"Am I, indeed?" His voice was rough with some emotion she could not name, but pleasant chills erupted down her back, and that little spool in her belly tightened at the sound of it.

She met his gaze and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling back at him.

His eyes drifted down and lingered on her cheek where she knew she sported one traitorous dimple. Then they flickered back up to hers. He stood with the speed of a vampire. It was a rare display, but not one she was unaccustomed to, anymore.

She couldn't help the way her heart stuttered at the speed of him. The sudden way he'd gone from sitting to standing before her now. Even the air stuttered about them, stumbling to shift accordingly around the mass that had moved too quickly for it to accommodate.

He crowded her a bit, and she had to raise her chin to hold his mirthful gaze, but she was not cowed. Not by his speed or his size or the twist of his lips. She did not care that he could hear the way her heart stuttered in response to him. She measured him, silently, with her eyes, trying not to let her appreciation show, before letting out an overexaggerated sigh, casting him a deliberately unimpressed look and taking the seat he had vacated for her.

She crossed her ankles primly beneath her skirts, deliberately allowing a bit of her ankle to show. She suppressed a smirk when his eyes drifted down to take her in, clearing her throat at the distracted man who now towered over her.

He snapped his eyes back up to hers, unashamed at having been caught. He cocked his head to the side, curious at her display and she arched an eyebrow in response.

"Aren't you going to offer me any wine, mo chridhe?" She purred, looking deliberately from him to the jug of wine across the room.

Someone sniggered in the background, but she didn't pay any mind as to who. Gallowglass studied her – struck by this intriguing new side of the woman he loved. Fascinated by this new quality that was now so openly on display.

Someone cleared their throat, and murmured something too low for Addison to hear, but it seemed to snap Eric out of his reverie. He turned with a glare to face Balder and Guillaume, growling in a low manner at whatever it was they had said. He shot her one last look before turning to pour her a goblet of wine, and she smiled sharply back at him.

Casting a glance around the room, Addison flexed her hands, stomach fluttering in barely contained elation, when she found that there were no longer any eyes directed her way.

She casually reached over the surface of the table beside her, fingers curling around the edges of the parchment Eric had abandoned there – carefully snatching it up before any of the men glanced back in her direction.

He had forgotten the missive in his haste to vacate the chair. Forgotten it in his haste to engage in whatever it was they had just engaged in together. Another quick glance around the gathered vampires and she tucked the already folded item into her boot with the dagger he had gifted her once so long ago, in a different lifetime, under a different name.

Metal and knowledge, Addison smirked. The two most valuable weapons a girl can have in any century. She almost thanked the beautiful behemoth for his continued contributions to her cause, but she bit down on her tongue. Fighting the urge. She'd just have to thank him later, after all this secrecy had passed, and she finally got her way.

Almost breathless at this new development. Addison couldn't help how her heart fluttered at the con she'd somehow managed to pull off.

Eric appeared before her once again, with a goblet of wine, and a look of good humor on his face. He took the seat across from her and watched her with mischievous eyes as she casually sipped the proffered beverage.

It was one of the batches she had watered down, but Addison didn't mind. Though it was all but ruined for the vampires in the room, to Addison the wine was even more valuable. It had taken on the rare flavor of success.

She grinned.

The Page entered to call the group to dinner, and Addison stood with the rest of her household as they all filtered out of the drawing room to make their way into the great hall. Floating on her own good fortune, Addison stumbled in shock when she was halted at the door. The rest of their company stopped as well, but Addison was too busy frowning at Jean Luc to pay them any mind.

What now?

Eric watched her from over the manservant's shoulder, unsurprised and sympathetic.

The fair-haired man arched an unimpressed eyebrow and held out an expectant hand.

"Can I help you?" She asked him, unable to bite back her annoyance.

Jean Luc had become the face of oppression. He knew it. And she did too. But it didn't stop her from being irked by his presence most days than not. It was by way of Jean Luc that Addison had realized she was more than willing to shoot the messenger when the situation required it. He was an extension of Hugh. And Addison was just done enough with the man in charge of this household, that she was more than willing to take out his loyal squire too.

Anything to further the cause.

"I believe you have something that does not belong to you," Jean Luc said in a dry voice.

Behind him, Balder had to turn his face to hide his smirk. Idir shot her a wink and didn't bother to hide his grin. And Eric smiled at her apologetically.

Fuck.

She had to tramp down the urge to stomp her foot and curse at her rotten luck. Of course, she hadn't pulled one over on any of them. Of course, they all knew.

She sighed, and hiked up her skirt, deliberately showing too much skin. The men erupted into shocked laughter and uncomfortable coughs, while Eric growled at them to look the other way. She pulled the folded parchment out of her boot and slapped it into Jean Luc's waiting hand before stalking past the gathered group of startled manjasangs and entering the great hall.

She sat with force. She ate with fervor. And no one said a damn word about it.

---

She had taken to running in order to keep up with the members of her household.

Fernando hated it but there was nothing to be done.

Addison had to sprint to catch their time before they flew out the door to do whatever it was that they did every day. Whatever it was they stubbornly kept from her.

She was out of the loop.

They were keeping her in the dark.

Every morning, and every evening, men on horses thundered in and out of the stables. And when they returned, those men were often covered in blood.

Addison could imagine a past version of herself that wouldn't have wanted to know. She really could understand some of the reasons why Fernando and Hugh insisted she keep her nose out of it.

She was safe in the manor house. She was safe under their roof.

Why press when the situation did not require it? She was useless here. Just as useless as she had been as Malvina. Even if she did know what was happening, it's not like she was a master strategist. It's not like she was a knight. She sure as hell didn't know how to ride a horse. And that knife in her boot might as well have been decoration for all she knew how to wield it.

The voice in her head – the one that kept a checklist of all the horrible ways she was likely to die here in the past, the one that desperately wanted to keep her alive – used to tell her to keep her head down. It used to tell her not to rock the boat. Her silence – her passivity – was the ultimate path to survival at one point in time.

But that was when she'd been Malvina. That was when she lived her life as someone else entirely. Now, though, Addison knew in her gut that it would benefit her to learn the truth. Better to learn of the horrors of the world while she was safe behind La Ithuriana's sturdy walls, than to have those horrors sprung on her last minute when Eric and Fernando and Hugh had all gone away. Better to learn now while they were here to teach her, than to die later when life inevitably took them from her too.

At night she dreamed of Lala in hysterics – caught in the throes of her dementia, stuck in an old nursing home. And when she woke in the mornings, it was to the memory of flames and smoke, and the scent of Ailios's burning flesh.

And when she vomited the empty contents of her stomach, Jacqueline was always there to wipe her feverish brow and help her collect herself before she began her day.

There was no one else who could better teach her how to survive violent men than the people who lived at La Ithuriana. Fernando always insisted it wasn't about what she wanted – the only thing that mattered was her wellbeing. He insisted that one day she would understand.

But Addison didn't know how to make him understand that he was wrong. She didn't know how to put it into words – the horrible memory of fire and smoke in the air. She didn't know how to articulate the stench of death that haunted her still. She didn't know how to explain to him that this pursuit of knowledge was not a childish want, but a desperate human need.

She didn't know how to explain to him that maybe, if they taught her what they knew, if they let her into the loop about the threats she faced on the outside, then perhaps she could prevent them the same fate that had befallen Ailios. Maybe next time the horrible world came knocking, Addison would be prepared. Maybe, next time, she would do something – anything – other than run like the coward Malvina had undeniably been.

She had told herself once that everything would be alright as long as she had Jacqueline on her side. Told herself that her maid would tell her what she needed to know when she needed to know it, but Jacqueline was keeping secrets, on the orders of Hugh. She had Eric – and once she had assured herself that as long as she was with him, everything would be okay. Addison knew he would never let anything harm her, but he too was keeping tight lipped on Fernando's command.

She believed in them, but everything about the situation still chafed.

She had been assured that it was common for ladies to be kept in ignorance about violent things. But Addison knew that she could not live this way for the rest of her life.

She needed more.

Fernando was in his study. When he wasn't riding out, or disappearing for days on end, or cloistered away with Hugh, he was always in his study.

Addison sprinted across the breadth of La Ithuriana to meet him. Her skirts tangled with her feet, unable to accommodate her hurried steps. So, she lifted her dress higher over her ankles. She wheezed – out of shape – and urged her legs to go faster.

"What about a hijab?" Addison called out as she skidded to a halt in the doorway of her father's study.

She'd run the entire length of the manor to reach him and was now breathlessly massaging a cramp in her side.

Fernando was seated in a finely crafted chair, leaning on one arm as he slowly flipped through the book in front of him. For all the chaos of the last few weeks, and all the injuries he had acquired, he never, ever seemed anything other than calm and collected.

He'd heard her coming of course, and he knew more or less what she was coming to ask him. They'd been playing this game for weeks, and much to the young Lady Fernanda's chagrin, her guardian had an infinite amount of patience. He was the master of resolve.

She'd taken issue with her fillet and wimple just about as soon as it had been fastened on her head and fitted around her throat. And every day since she had started this war on the household's customs – much to the chagrin of Jacqueline, and the scandal of just about everyone else who passed through the hallways – Fernanda had managed to refit, replace and on several uproarious occasions remove the offending item of clothing altogether.

As it was, she had burned the last of her fillets in a bout of fitful protest. And now Jacqueline had resorted to makeshift apparel until such time as the seamstress in the village could complete their commission for new ones.

It was as though Eric had gained – or regained – his mate, and Fernando, subsequently, had gained an unruly toddler who couldn't keep her clothes on. And it seemed only Hugh and Idir had enough distance from the situation to fully enjoy the antics for the entertainment that they were.

Be that as it may, the girl came to him now with a new refashioning of her wimple, and it seemed the bright idea of the moment was a hijab. A quick glance out of the corner of his eye confirmed the young Fernanda had, in fact, already secured it properly on her head. And though she looked lovely, he neither commented nor turned away from his reading.

"And will you pray five times a day toward Mecca as well?" He finished the paragraph he was reading and turned the page.

"Huh?"

"Have you accepted Allah as your one true God? Will you pray according to the Salah times?"

He raised an eyebrow in askance but still he did not look up. He did not need to see her face to know the flash of annoyance that crossed over it. She dragged an angry foot across the stone step she was perched on, and he heard the rush of blood that flooded through her body in response to her upset. It roared quite loudly under the building pressure of her emotions.

"No."

"So, you have not, in fact, converted to Islam?"

"No."

"I see," he said and closed his book calmly.

He stood and walked slowly over to the shelf on the other side of his desk, carefully returning the text to its rightful place before turning to give his daughter a stern look. "Then no, you may not wear a hijab."

"But—" She made to argue but he slashed a hand through the air in front of him in a gesture for her to stop.

She fell silent.

"I know that asking you to wear the wimple seems unfair to you-"

"It's more than unfair it's—" She started but then stopped when his frown deepened.

"I know that it makes you uncomfortable. And I believe that discomfort may run deeper than the physical, am I right?"

This time she looked away and pursed her lips, trying to beat back a wave of frustrated tears.

Impotent.

Addison had begun to feel impotent here. She had tried to resist it. Tried to fight the growing discontentment that swirled in her belly. But she couldn't ignore the truth.

She had been stripped of her power once when she was Malvina, and now... no matter how they painted her privileged position as Fernanda... she suffered much the same. Her circumstances had shifted, but that did not change the heavy weight that settled on her shoulders every time the ugly fillet was pressed under her chin. It did not change the way she felt restricted by the wimple that wound tightly around her hair and squished her cheeks like a fish. She was supposed to be some sort of lady, and she was supposed to be better off than she had been. And Addison could not deny that she was – she was better off. She knew she was.

But she had been born free. She had been born with a very basic sense of equality. She was a modern young woman who had been fitted with a bridle and a gown. They told her it was liberty, but she was not so easily fooled.

Freedom was not free when someone else was pulling the strings. And privilege was not the same thing as power.

She had food and shelter and safety. She had the man she had grown to love just a year ago, but he was fifty years older, and he was a vampire, and they never had any time to be who they were before things changed. And now, because she was better off, they had to wrap her up like a mummy in an oppressive piece of fabric and she couldn't breathe. She could never breathe. No matter what she did or where she went, she felt like she was suffocating.

Suffocating in ignorance. Suffocating beneath the weight of a fillet and wimple she had never consented to wearing.

Why did it matter if it was a hijab or not? They were making her wear the Christian fashion and she wasn't even Christian. She wore the gowns, and she did the curtsies, and she kept her questions to herself, mostly. She did everything as by the book as she could – until she had deliberately chosen not to that is – and she was sacrificing major parts of herself to conform to their idea of propriety.

Why couldn't she just wear her hair down? Or at the very least cover it the way she saw fit?

Fernando stood directly in front of her now, a piercing look in his eyes as he gently tapped her chin. Coaxing her to face him once again.

She kept her eyes averted and he tsked quietly, calling her name.

"Fernanda," his voice was exceedingly kind. Impossibly patient. "Child, look at me please."

She refused.

"You must come from a terribly different world than the one we are living in today."

She scoffed. Different indeed.

"This world is a dangerous place, even for the most powerful ladies in it," he said. "I don't know how much you understand that."

"I understand it perfectly." She bit out, eyes flashing up to meet his in defiance. He smiled back at her. He had never said it out loud – and perhaps he never would – but Fernando admired his daughter's spirit.

"I am making a right mess of things, aren't I?" He asked and she furrowed her brow.

Of all the things she had been expecting him to say, it hadn't been that. He fixed her with a knowing look and smiled to himself before letting out a tired sigh.

"I want you to have all the tools you need to thrive here. My word was true when I said that I would have you as my daughter, and that your happiness and wellbeing were my primary concerns."

He turned back to face his study and shot her a look, gesturing to the chairs by his desk. A silent question – a silent offer to slow down – to sit and talk. And now that the opportunity presented itself, Addison found herself quite uncertain.

What would she even say to him? What could she possibly say now? After everything.

Sometimes, after fighting so long to have your voice heard, the idea that someone would take the time to listen is the most terrifying thing of all.

When Addison didn't respond to his silent offer – when she refused to move from her place in his doorway – as though she was waiting for Jean Luc to come along and kick her out, Fernando frowned. He dropped his hands down to hang limply by his sides and stared at her in consideration.

When was the last time they had spoken like this? When was the last time he had stopped hounding her and asked after her wellbeing? When was the last time any one in the household had taken the time to speak with her about anything other than the things she was doing wrong?

Feeling suddenly awkward, and alarmingly short sighted, Fernando pressed on.

"You mean the world to Eric. And you have come to mean a good deal to myself," he said, and then as an afterthought he added. "And to Hugh as well."

She stared at him, still tense. Wrapped up in a makeshift hijab, she regarded him with an air of disbelief that startled him.

He shook himself.

"I do not wish for you to feel stifled in your own home, but I also do not wish for you to be persecuted outside of this home because you do not hide your beautiful hair from view. There are some things we simply cannot compromise on. And whether or not you believe in God... the rest of the household cares very little. Most of us predate the modern concept of belief anyway. Such views are safe for you to hold, but only within these walls."

Her head tilted a bit in consideration of his words. Behind her eyes were a thousand thoughts he'd never be able to decipher even if he tried. Silently, he wondered how much damage had truly been done. Chest heavy with the belief that he was never meant to be a father, Fernando halfheartedly wondered if he could revoke his offer and hand her instead over to Hugh.

Sure, the bloodlines would be questionable if ever she were to turn. Sure, Eric would be mated to his sister if that were the path she chose in the end... but surely more questionable things had taken place. He had witnessed many such occurrences, and the world kept turning alright in the end.

Hugh was the natural father of the pair, not Fernando. Fernando was much better at fighting. He was much better at land stewardship and finances than raising little impressionable humans.

But no... he had grown to care for the girl. She was his daughter now. She was his. And he would have a hard time giving her over to Hugh now, even if his mate were willing to accept her.

Fernando had given his word.

He had sworn to her that he would help her navigate this world. And so, help her he would continue to do—even if he was bound to make a mistake or two along the way.

"Fernanda—" he started, and he felt suddenly cowed by her baby brown eyes as they watched him – studied him for some sort of clue on how to proceed. Searching astutely for anything to help her navigate this world she'd stumbled into.

"Cariña..." he tried again. "This is a Christian nation, ruled by a Christian king, and this family—well, this family and the de Clermont family have been caught in a series of bloody battles for the Holy Land for a very long time. We have ties – very strong ties – to the pope and to Jerusalem. Eric's de Clermont uncles fight with the cross on their chests even now. Hugh, himself, is part of the Order and—"

"The Order?" Fernanda finally broke her silence, confused by the term.

Fernando tilted his head. "Does the Order not exist where you are from?"

"I don't know what that is..." she said, wrapping her arms around herself in discomfort.

Fernando filed that bit of information away for later, unsure what to make of it.

"The Order of the Knights of Solomon," he supplied and watched, intrigued, as she still stared at him blankly. He clarified. "Of the Temple of Solomon. They are a very famous and powerful order of knights – crusaders really—"

Her eyes finally lit up in recognition.

"Are you talking about the Knights Templar?" She asked.

Fernando felt as though an anvil had been lifted from his chest; his shoulders sagged, and he graced her with a relieved smile. So, she was familiar with the Order.

"So, you do know them," he sighed, relieved though he did not know why.

For all he had seen in this world – and he had seen a great many mysteries – he had never encountered an individual from the future. She was a wealth of information he did not know whether he wanted to explore.

"I have read about them," she hesitated and offered him an awkward smile. "But... I was never much a fan of history. I couldn't tell you much more than the fact that they fought in the crusades."

Fernando considered her for a moment, before nodding. He didn't know why, but the conversation had begun to feel dangerous to him. All his instincts warning him to turn away.

"Be that as it may, this family must appear to be of a certain belief, a certain status and a certain image, Fernanda. It would be unsafe for you to do anything but uphold those values while you are here. That being said... let us sit, and perhaps we can come up with a solution. Something that will keep you out of danger and me out of any grey hairs, hmm?"

---

She didn't know what she'd expected really, but they came to an accord.

No more wimple or fillet inside the walls of their home, but she still needed to cover her hair when she stepped out the front door.

For the first time in her own small eternity, Addison felt a sense of peace. It felt like years had passed since she last sat in this room, in the quiet company of her odd little family. And yet it felt like yesterday just the same. The sofa by the hearth was exactly the same, down to the knitted blanket and the always burning flame. The coat of arms on the wall was where she had last seen it, and Fernando's desk was still just as littered with junk and maps and scrolls as it had been months before.

Fernando had opted to sit in the chair beside her rather than in the one behind his desk. And they lapsed into a comfortable silence now. Him, lost in thought and her, eagerly taking in every detail of a place she had been barred from for so long.

It didn't take long for the silence to become awkward though and Addison felt the sudden, uncomfortable urge to fill the void.

She cleared her throat.

"Sorry," she said after a beat.

His focus returned to hers and his brow furrowed. "Whatever for?"

She grimaced.

"I broke your door."

A light of recognition registered in his eyes, and he closed them just as quickly, quietly suppressing a chuckle.

"In light of recent events, I suppose we can call it even, hmm?"

She huffed out a small laugh. "Okay," she said. "Thank you."

He shook his head at her and offered a tired grin.

"Is there anything else we should discuss while we are here?" He asked, subtly opening the floor to the root of their conflict. The main issue that ran far deeper than the matter of her fashion choices.

She eyed him, feeling that gnawing pit in her belly gape open once again with a sudden influx of nerves. He knew there was more. There was absolutely more to discuss, but suddenly Addison didn't want to bring it up.

This was nice.

She had missed this.

Fernando, however curmudgeonly and stubborn, was the closest thing she had to family in this world. She was pretty sure he was legally her family. Though she should probably get that confirmed. She worried her lip and studied him, unsure how best to proceed.

He arched an eyebrow, waiting patiently.

"What's happening?" she finally asked him again – repeating herself for the millionth time.

Her voice was very, very small as she did. But before he could brush her off, she pushed on. She didn't want to hear his dismissal. She didn't think she could handle it again. Not after he had given her this false sense of hope.

"Outside—what's happening...well—I don't know where...but out there... When you guys go. What's going on?"

Fernando studied her a long moment, eyes full of thoughts he'd probably never share. He possessed a wealth of information that she would never fully have access to. She had found rather quickly that vampires had secrets for their secrets, and secrets for those secrets too.

With a sigh, he leaned forward a bit to meet her eyes as he determined what to tell her.

"Well," he started. "You remember the farmer in the maze—"

He wasn't asking, but Addison found herself nodding impatiently anyway. Of course, she remembered him.

"I don't think I could forget," she replied, her answer causing him to frown a little more deeply in dismay.

"Of course," he supplied; his voice easy. "Well, the...man..."

"Vampire," she corrected.

He fixed her with a bemused look and Addison apologized, promising to hold her tongue until he was done.

"The vampire who killed him," Fernando said. "Is someone of significance to the de Clermont family."

Addison quirked an intrigued eyebrow.

"He is... not well..." Fernando trailed off, looking pained as he tried to find the words.

Addison got the impression that it had been a very long time since he'd had to explain anything to anyone younger than a century. She bit back a laugh and reached over, taking his steady hands in her own.

"Fernando," she said, and she couldn't keep the humor out of her voice. "I know it's probably been a while since you've had to simplify this kind of thing for someone... but I'd just like to point out... I'm nineteen years, not months. You don't have to sugarcoat it for me. I think I can gather that a murderous vampire wreaking havoc on the mountainside is 'not well.'"

She offered him a teasing grin, squeezing his hands between her own. But Fernando had instead stopped to stare at their hands in shock as though he had just registered that there was a fully grown person sitting across from him. She cleared her throat and jiggled their hands a bit before letting him go, jolting him out of his reverie.

Fernando's eyes snapped up to meet hers and there was a well of emotion in them that she couldn't even begin to understand. Something about the shadows in his eyes made her throat tighten. Addison felt herself overcome by the sudden urge to cry.

When, still, he said nothing. When, still, he continued to stare – haunted – with eyes that had grown very, very old. Addison sucked in a breath and sat up a little straighter.

"You must be very old," she observed, not bothering to soften the observation.

That did the trick.

His gaze returned to the present and she watched as the barest of smiles danced across his lips. Fernando appeared suddenly as mischievous as the cupboy, Gascon.

"You have no idea, minha filha," he chuckled, reverting to his native Portuguese.

She smirked and pushed her luck. "You could always enlighten me."

Fernando brought a hand up to scrub at his tired face before fixing her with an affectionate – if exasperated – look. Addison responded with a shrug.

Couldn't blame a girl for trying.

"You're right, he has wreaked havoc on the mountainside. I cannot tell you everything, Fernanda," he said. "But I will say that, while we have made progress, the situation is not yet under control."

Addison thought she would feel more nervous at that – to have it confirmed – but she didn't. She only felt relieved to know he was answering her questions. She only felt the ground beneath her feet as it slowly began to settle once again.

"Why not?" She asked.

"Well, he has many children—"

"Children?" she asked. "Like... babies?"

Fernando laughed and shot a dark look out the window.

"No, cariña. Children like Eric. Like you. But... see he did not care for them as Eric has been cared for by Hugh. He has not taught them how to conduct themselves – how to control themselves. It makes them very dangerous."

Addison blanched a bit at that. The mountain was crawling with young, out of control vampires. And Fernando watched as she wrung her hands together, trying in vain to conceal how they shook. He frowned. Addison frowned back.

"I'm allowed to be scared of that," she said, a touch defensively.

He leaned back in his seat, his face grave. "I'd think you a fool if you weren't."

Addison nodded and cleared her throat, Fernando continued.

"That is why I wished to spare you this knowledge."

This time it was Addison whose lips twisted down into a grim little frown.

"For future reference, I'd much rather be fully informed and a little scared while the news settles in, than be ignorant and caught off guard when my world caves in around me..."

Fernando had nodded along at first but caught himself and looked up at her odd choice of words. "When your world caves in?"

Addison hummed an affirmation.

"Who says that will happen?"

She scoffed and shot him an intrigued look. "That's just the way of things, isn't it?"

"How so?" Fernando asked.

"Well... bad things happen... people leave you; they forget you; they—they die..." she trailed off, caught in memories of her mother and Lala and Ailios. Nose burning with the memory of fire and flames. "The universe comes along and rips you out of all you know. It just drops you in the middle of history and subjects you to the mercy of the elements, hunger, violent men and—"

Addison cut herself off and bit down hard on her lip. She drew blood and Fernando's eyes drifted down to the wound in mild concern, but he remained silent, studying his adopted daughter as she studied the wall.

When she refused to continue, he gently urged her on, ignoring the comment about violent men –making a note to return to that later – he pressed.

"The universe?" he asked instead, unfamiliar with the term.

She snapped out of her memories with a jolt, turning back to him and watching as the shadows of the room caught him in their hold. The sun had set on the mountain while they spoke, and the room had cast itself in a grey blue haze.

"The universe is..." Well Addison didn't really know how to explain that one. "I guess it's like... God."

She shrugged and looked up at him, hoping he understood. He did. Fernando understood all too well what it was to be at the mercy of a God you did not believe in.

"I'm very sorry for what you have endured," he said solemnly.

Addison sniffed and shrugged. "It is what it is."

He had never heard such a simple phrase as that before, but Fernando had to laugh. It about summed things up well enough.

"Yes," he chuckled. "I suppose it is."

Addison cleared her throat. "Your scars..."

Fernando nodded for her to continue despite her obvious reticence.

"I didn't think... well..." she flushed. "You're a—"

"Vampire," he supplied for her, voice teasing.

She huffed and smiled back at him tiredly. "Yes, a vampire—Well, it's just that I didn't think you could..."

She trailed off, but when she didn't continue, Fernando filled in the blanks.

"Get hurt?"

She grimaced and nodded, not so subtly eyeing the fresh gash that lined his forearm. Fernando had unthinkingly rolled up his sleeves earlier in their conversation.

"Well," he said. "I think its safe to say that anyone who is capable of living, is capable of hurting too. We are not so different in that regard, you and me."

Addison considered his words thoughtfully for a long while and silence descended on the pair once again.

"The other vampires..." She said. "Could they hurt you worse than they already have?"

Fernando sighed and stared down at his hands, considering how best to reply. He could hear the household gathering downstairs in the drawing room before dinner. Jacqueline waited eagerly in her mistress's chambers to dress her for their meal. And everyone, everywhere in the manor could hear them speaking on this matter now. The young Fernanda had been afforded a great many privileges in this life they were hoping to build for her, but privacy was not one of them.

She was so young. No matter how much she assured him she was old enough to handle it, the world outside was very cruel. She knew this all too well. He was not concerned about what Benjamin's children could do to himself or the other knights in residence at La Ithuriana. He was concerned about what they could do to the people of the village, the humans that resided on the mountain. He was worried about one slipping through their defenses and getting ahold of the little girl who sat across from him in that chair.

He shook his head.

"Don't concern yourself with the likes of me," he said and added a smile to reassure her. "I have endured far worse than what has happened here this winter."

Fernanda frowned. She didn't appear convinced.

He had to give her that. She was stubborn when she made up her mind about something.

"We are made of tougher stuff, the manjasangs," he elaborated, and she weighed his words carefully with suspicious eyes, before reluctantly accepting his assurances.

"Okay," she said. What else was there to say, really?

Her voice was tired and quietlike and Fernando fought the urge to send her off to bed. She was right on one matter. She may be young, but she was not an infant. He would have to trust her to tell him what was best for her. At the very least, he could try to listen.

---

Fernando escorted her to her chambers, neither of them wanting to break the odd sense of solace that had settled over them in the wake of their conversation. He murmured that he would see her in the drawing room when she was finished with Jacqueline, opening the door for her to reveal her patiently waiting maid.

Addison threw her arms around him before he could go. Fernando grunted in surprise, catching her up in his cool embrace. He pressed a rare kiss to her temple and released her, turning to disappear down the stairs before she could catch the stricken look in his eyes.

For one such as Fernando Gonçalves, there was nothing more heartbreaking than to realize you had gained one more person in the world to love.

Jacqueline had offered her an almost maternal smile and sat her down in the vanity chair, running her fingers lightly through the younger girl's hair as they puzzled over how to do it, now that Fernando had given his permission to leave it uncovered.

Hair freshly combed back and woven into an intricate fishtail braid, decorated with gold chains and rosebuds – okay so maybe things had gotten a little out of hand in the excitement – Addison arrived at the drawing room to find, for once, an already open door. The voices inside were a warm murmur and no one fell silent this time when she pressed in.

Addison studied them all suspiciously, but they all acted as though nothing abnormal had occurred. She made her way over to Fernando, unsettled for once by the normalcy rather than the secrets. He fixed her with a soft look and ran a hand over the flowers in her hair, arching an eyebrow at the style she and Jacqueline had settled on after much debate. She grinned at him cheekily and he huffed out a laugh, gesturing for her to take her seat.

"Now that we are all speaking again," Balder gruffed out from the corner. "Perhaps she can tell us where she stashed the damn wine."

Addison let out a startled laugh that was soon followed by the rest of the company gathered there. Two familiar figures filled the doorway and she lit up a bit at the presence of Eric, who closely followed Hugh. Piercing blue eyes met hers from across the room, and he fixed her with an affectionate grin. So, he had heard Balder too.

Addison accepted her goblet of ruined wine with a grin but kept tight-lipped about one of the few secrets she held in this household. Fernando shot her a bemused look while Hugh muttered something about insolence that she didn't fully hear. He shot her a look that didn't entirely intimidate her, and she met him with a grin of her own. His lips quirked and he took a seat by the fire, gesturing to a book that Guillaume had open in his lap, asking him about it in a language Addison did not understand.

Eric appeared suddenly by her side, and Addison startled a bit at the abruptness of it. He took the seat next to her, gently taking her hand in his own and rubbing gentle circles on her skin, as he had a silent conversation with Fernando over her head.

Addison cleared her throat, but when he still did not look her way, she spoke up.

"Gallowglass," she said, a bit obstinately.

Conversation stuttered around them – nosy ass vampires – and he finally broke Fernando's gaze.

"Where the hell have you been?" She asked him.

Now that she had Fernando on her side, there was no reason for him to keep anything from her.

Someone let out a startled laugh, and the group fell silent waiting to hear their comrade's answer. His eyes flickered first to Hugh and then to Fernando. Addison cleared her throat and tapped his hand.

"Don't look at them, mo chridhe," she said, too sweetly. "Look at me."

He studied her for a minute – stared at her really – as though she had become someone entirely new to him. And she wondered a bit absently if she had perhaps let some of her power go to her head. It didn't matter, Addison thought. He was bound to humor her either way.

She knew that Fernando was warning him to take care with his words even without looking behind her. She knew they would still censor themselves. It was inevitable. And part of her understood. But Eric had refused to tell her anything because he had given his word to Fernando. That agreement was now void.

He was free to tell her.

Eric had a promise to own up to.

Now – her stomach twisted with her lack of faith – now, she would see for her own eyes if he would follow through.

His eyes flickered from Fernando's to hers, and he offered her a knowing grin. Eric leaned forward like they were coconspirators, pressed a kiss to her knuckles and stood, pulling her up with him.

"How about I show you, instead?" he asked, drawing her across the room.

The rest of their company slowly returned to their conversations though they were no doubt eavesdropping too.

Eric brought her over to a map on the table. This one was clear of the little pawns she had seen on other maps that they often hid when she entered the room. Here was just a basic layout of the region.

He drew her hand with his over the surface of the page, stopping her fingers first over a small, unmarked spot that he told her was their home. La Ithuriana. Then he drew her fingers up to the peak of a mountain – their mountain – and told her that this was Mount Ibañeta. He oriented her to the east, the west, north and south. He gently guided her fingers along the length of the river and stopped her at Roncesvalles, the village down the way.

Slowly, deliberately, he gave her the world. Much like he had done in a past life, when he had shown Malvina to his window. When he gave her back sunlight. When he gave her back the sea.

Then he took her to more obscure places. Caves and forests, places no human would want to be. Places he had been searching for a man he called Benjamin.

"And Benjamin is the—"

"Killer," several voices chorused from around the room. Eric shot an exasperated glare over her head, and Addison chuckled. She knew they were eavesdropping.

"So, this is where you've been hiding..." she murmured, retracing the steps he had taken. He hummed his confirmation.

She dragged her eyes occasionally back to La Ithuriana and the intriguing landmarks around her new home.

"I haven't seen a map like this before," she said quietly, and he studied her while she absorbed the information that he had lain at her fingertips. "The ones back home are... different."

She smiled up at him unable to find a way to better explain, uncertain if she should. His eyes were soft and his smile accommodating. He understood as much as he was able. And Addison loved him a little more in that moment. She bumped his hip playfully with her own. Then she turned back to the map and let him guide her hand around the surface, eager to discover more parts yet unknown.

---

Mo Chridhe,

Again, I write you a letter that you may never read. I keep them in a box in my chambers. One day, perhaps our circumstances will change, and I give them to you instead of hiding them away.

It always seems to come back around to the choices we make. There are choices that stand before us, choices we must make very early in our lives. They present themselves as we embark on our journeys, and they follow us for as long as eternity allows.

I have only just begun to reconcile my thoughts on eternity, but I already know that none of it means much of anything to me if I do not have you.

I dare not say this out loud. I dare not coerce you into a future you are not yet ready to commit to.

My father has insisted I give you space so that you may grow in your own time and your own way. So that you may create a foundation with Fernando, as is your right. But I hope that someday soon we will be able to speak freely. How I long to admit the depth of my love for you.

My father asked me once what it was I wanted most in the world. And many things passed through my mind.

The truth is, Fernanda, my father is a good man. A respectable man. I want, more than anything to live up to him. To lead by his example, as one day I may be honor bound to do. If ever that day comes, I hope that I will make him proud. And then I thought perhaps it was my grandfather, Philippe, that I wanted more than anything to understand. The Lord only knows he's taken up enough space in my mind. By the decade, my opinion of him changes. For a time, I thought, more than anything that I hated that man. But my hate changed quickly to confusion.

My grandfather is an enigma. Much like my father is, I suppose. A year ago, I thought that the most important thing to me in the world was to try and understand how I felt about him. To try and make up my mind about the role he fills in this world. About the role I am bound to one day fill in his stead.

For a long time, I didn't answer my father. I couldn't answer him on the matter of what I desired most in the world. Such a simple question, and yet I could not choose. It took me decades to answer, and in the end, all of these desires are the ones I resolved to tell him.

Here was my answer. To make him proud. To understand my grandfather. To fulfill my duty.

This is what I told him... but the moment the words left my lips they felt hollow. They lacked in heart. I was much younger when I experienced that first flagging moment of self-doubt or – perhaps more accurately – disillusion. You have to understand... I was young then. At the very least, I was younger than I am now.

A good twenty years had passed since I'd last seen you... I had put a great deal of effort into trying to forget your face. You were the love I could not save, Fernanda. You haunted me for nearly a decade before I resigned myself to driving your memory away. I had begun to think my efforts a success, until I finally answered my father's question.

What did I want most in the world?

I told him what I thought I wanted, but as those desires fell flat, I was shocked and aggrieved when my mind conjured your face.

I wanted you.

More than anything in the world, I wanted you.

And you were the one thing I could not have. Ever. You had died. And I had left you to your fate. When I found you again – or perhaps I should say when you returned to me – I knew in my heart that my deepest desire was still you.

To have you. To love you. To protect you.

This remains to be true.

And yet, I find myself even more caught up in the complexity of these questions my father asks me.

Choice and desire. How does one balance the two?

Benjamin is a presence I hadn't anticipated in my life. I feel bound to him in the worst possible way, as though somehow our fates are intertwined. I slept for the first time in a long while the other evening, I was long overdue for such rest, and when I dreamed... I dreamt of Cain and Abel. When I woke, I first thought of Benjamin even though I wanted very badly to think of you—

A knock on the door of his study pulled Eric from his thoughts. He set his quill down and called for the person on the other side to enter.

Balder stood in the doorway. His face was grim.

"There's been another killing."

Eric left his letter where it lay. He rose from his chair, and followed Balder back the way he came. They descended into the courtyard. And Eric's eyes quickly scoured the faces of the gathered manjasangs.

The night was quiet but for the cries of the young Jacqueline. The darkness was broken by the glow of lanterns and the feral sounds that escaped her while she grieved. While she fought the urge to stalk new blood-raged prey. She was not a warrior, and Eric glanced at Guillaume, ensuring that she did not foolishly seek out Benjamin in her rage.

There were murmurs of disbelief, cries of horror, and outrage. And there in the entrance to the stables, the severed head of the stablemaster lay.

Eric met his father's eyes across the courtyard. He glanced at Fernando and wondered how they could remain so contained. Alaric had been a loyal and dear friend to their family for many centuries. And now he was the most recent victim of Benjamin's vile campaign.

The blonde maid was beside herself now in grief and anger, and Guillaume held her tightly in his arms. She thrashed and snarled against him, but he refused to let her go.

Eric's heart broke for the girl, who was not much older than he was. He couldn't imagine what it would feel like to lose one's father so young.

When it came to what he wanted, Eric now knew without question. He had known for a while now, actually. Had resigned himself to it from the moment Benjamin had arrived.

---

"If you stare any harder, you'll melt the snow," Hugh said.

If his son heard him, he did not move to acknowledge.

"Come away from the window, Eric," Hugh murmured from where he sat behind his desk.

He pressed his signet into the wax of a signed letter, and Jean Luc quietly supplied him another document that needed his attention.

The young man in question clenched his jaw and considered for a moment ignoring his father, only to think better of it. Hugh appeared to not notice his son's returned attention, but Eric knew well enough that looks could be deceiving.

He waited for his father to turn his gaze back up to him. A few documents later, a bow from Jean Luc, and Hugh folded his hands in front of him, meeting his son's eyes. He nodded to the chair on the other side of his desk.

"Sit," he said.

Eric did as his father bade him.

"I have a question for you," his father continued and waited.

"It is unlike you to wait for my permission before you question me."

Hugh grinned at his son and leaned back in his chair.

"It is on the matter of justice—"

"Justice?" Eric asked, confused.

"Yes."

"What of justice?"

"If it came to saving the young Fernanda, or ending Benjamin's life, which would you choose?"

"How is this a matter for justice?"

"How is it not?"

"Father—"

"Answer the question, Eric."

"The answer is one and the same—"

"How?"

"Well," Eric studied his father, exasperated. "To save her life - to ensure her future safety - I must end Benjamin's."

He shook his head as though it were simple, and Hugh regarded him warily.

"I see," he said, but his tone suggested he disagreed.

Eric sighed and leaned back in his seat, regarding his father with the same hint of wariness. It was in moments like these when he remembered the old man outpaced him by centuries.

"Enlighten me then, father," he said, his voice rough as he resigned himself to learning something new. "Tell me what I need to know."

But Hugh was already shaking his head. "In time, my boy, you will see."

Whatever lesson his father wanted him to learn that day, Eric knew without a doubt he had not learned it yet.

They buried Alaric. They paid their respects to his surviving daughter – Fernanda's maid – Jacqueline. Fernanda herself stood uncertainly by his side, a veil over her face out of respect for the dead – out of respect for the blonde maid who was her only friend.

Jacqueline stood over her father's grave, silent and still. Preternaturally so. And Guillaume stood waiting behind her. A pillar of strength at the stoic lass's back.

The pair had grown closer in the wake of this tragedy. In her grief, Jacqueline slowly began to accept the care of her mate.

Eric watched the exchange with a heavy heart and reached out to squeeze Fernanda's trembling hands. He could taste the salt on the air, from her tears and the tears of others.

He had not learned whatever lesson his father had wanted him to learn that day. And the beheading of the stablemaster, Alaric, only drove that point further home. There would be no safety for Fernanda – no safety for his people – while Benjamin was allowed to live.

But he did finally reconcile his desires with the life he was bound to lead.

He wanted peace for his family. He wanted to protect the people he loved – but not only Fernanda, not only Hugh and Fernando. More than anything, Eric wanted to keep his people safe. He wanted to protect those who required his protection. He wanted to do right by as many people as his power allowed.

And he wanted to make Benjamin pay.

---

Jacqueline's father was dead. Benjamin – the serial killer – the vampire no one could find – had killed Jacqueline's father.

He had severed Alaric's head.

Addison heaved over her chamber pot, but this time there was no maid to wipe her brow. And the memory – the knowledge – of why her maid was gone only made her heave more violently again.

It had been a gruesome sight.

Addison had run into the courtyard to the sound of screaming. Idir, who was closest to the house when she arrived, had caught her around the waist to prevent her seeing the gore, but it was too late.

Blood had spurted out of Alaric and stained the ground. His eyes were open. And there was something long and stringy dangling from the place where his head had once been attached to his body.

She had keeled over and vomited on the steps, while Idir held back her hair and Jacqueline screamed her anguish.

It had been days since she'd last seen Jacqueline, and Addison was worried for her friend. She wondered where she had gone, and whether she would be okay there. But Eric had quietly assured her that she was safe in Guillaume's capable hands.

Addison had tried to tell him that Jacqueline hadn't made her mind up about Guillaume. That Jacqueline didn't trust him fully. But Eric had simply smiled and assured her that she was where she needed to be. That it was complicated, and he valued her loyalty, but Guillaume would be best suited to handle her friend's needs.

She'd had no choice but to accept it. At the very least, Jacqueline was old enough to know how to fend for herself for a time. Or so Addison reluctantly hoped.

Señora de Medina would dress her in the mornings, but Addison often sent her off quickly, knowing she was a diversion from a busy household full of chores. More knights had arrived up the mountain, Hugh finally having had enough, had called in reinforcements.

She didn't know these men. These vampires. And she gave them a wide berth, though all who passed her were courteous and polite... if a bit curious about the little human who had weaseled her way into the hearts of such high-ranking men.

Addison had taken to spending her days in the gardens. With Jacqueline gone and the knights busy, she had been left entirely to her own devices while they hunted Benjamin harder and more fervently than they had ever hunted him before.

She was in the gardens. She had checked and triple checked with Fernando and Hugh, Eric and Idir and even Balder as well, over and over again, feeling childish but unwilling to take unnecessary risks, and each one had told her she would be more than safe in the gardens. Their territory was crawling with more security than she could even begin to comprehend.

La Ithuriana was a fortress once more.

It was in the garden that she sat now, sewing a pattern into a royal blue shawl, a gift for Jacqueline. She knew the maid would try to refuse it, but Addison couldn't help feeling guilty. For some reason, she blamed herself rather than Benjamin for the stable master's death, and she hated that she could not be there to support her friend in her time of need.

Addison had been warned off of comforting vampires while they grieved. Hugh and Fernando had made it abundantly clear that she should never approach one of their kind when emotions were high. She was told that she should never, ever trust a vampire who was caught in the throes of their grief.

She had just added one final embellishment to Jacqueline's new shawl when she was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of hurried feet running up the path toward her where she sat at the base of her tree. Addison looked up with a frown, standing and dusting herself off. Alarmed by the the look on the approaching girl's familiar face.

---

He sensed him long before he saw him.

Benjamin had mastered the art of evasion. Eric had to give him that.

One minute Eric was alone. The next, Benjamin was there. They had never met. Never spoken. To be honest, Eric didn't have all that much to say. Not to someone like him.

One minute they were two separate men, two faces on the same coin. Spinning high up in the air. The next, they were the same mass. The same purpose. The same destructive force, hell bent on destroying the other. He couldn't tell you how it had come to this, but this is what it had come to, nevertheless.

One brought with him the element of surprise. The other gained the upper hand regardless.

"They call you a son," Benjamin hissed, and spit a glob of blood out onto the ground. "They call me a monster."

Gallowglass growled and bore down on him. Pressing his blade harder still toward Benjamin's throat. His cousin resisted death by force of will alone.

"But there is no difference—" Benjamin continued. "You and I – no matter what they call us – we are one and the same. You and me."

Eric's blade nicked the cord on his throat, liberating him of the pilgrim's badge that hung there. Benjamin's eyes turned black.

"I'm nothing like you."

Eric delivered a swift kick to his cousin and jerked his blade to loose the man of his death defiant grip.

But where Eric was built like an ox and strong as one too, Benjamin was slippery and quick as an eel.

He broke from the young de Clermont's grip and rolled away, drawing a hidden blade, and scrambling back to his feet. He turned to put distance between himself and his cousin, but Eric was already there, blocking his path. Closing him in.

Eric charged. Benjamin evaded. Eric pursued. They circled each other, at an impasse. Willing the other to slip up. Willing the other to let down his guard.

There was some greater force between them now. Eric felt a pressure building in his chest as he tried to resist it. Felt it bearing down on him, trying with all its might to break his back. To bend his spine. It was more powerful than any sun or moon. The two men in the clearing – cousins by fate – had caught each other in some terrible orbit. Forced forever to bear each other at arm's length. The force pushed them together and it pulled them apart. Cursed them indefinitely to circle, and circle, and circle each other for as long as eternity allowed.

"They made us monsters—" Benjamin snarled, but Eric refused to be swayed.

Refused to be seduced by the other man's destructive words.

"They took good men and they tempted us with the blood of the innocent. They turned us into demons. Shadows condemned to walk the earth forever, until such time that even the earth succumbs to death, and even then, we will walk longer still you and me. In darkness and in shadow. They did this to us, brother—"

"Don't call me brother—"

"Cousin," Benjamin cried, his eyes alight with the passion of his own faith. "We could burn in the fires of hell and still we would not die—"

Eric moved to silence Benjamin once and for all, when his ears registered the snap of a branch. Harsh breath – human breath – and the rustle of fabric catching in the underbrush and leaves. Approaching quickly from behind him. Clumsy feet, and the hum of a pulse he'd memorized in the nights since she'd arrived.

If his heart had not already stalled half a century before, it surely would have stalled then, as the wind turned and the scent of pears and warm bread, the spice of honeyed mead wafted over him.

Eric turned in disbelief.

Benjamin's face gave way to a sinister grin, his dark eyes glinted like coals in the dappled sunlight beneath the trees.

She broke into the clearing with a cry of alarm.

"Gallowglass," she called out, and Eric fought to keep his feet.

Benjamin moved to intercept her, but Gallowglass caught him by the throat and threw him into a tree.

He caught Fernanda around the middle and pulled her further back, away from Benjamin and the clearing. Trying desperately to find somewhere safe to leave her, somewhere far from here, hidden in the trees. But you cannot hide a human from a vampire.

Not with her intoxicating scent, and her beating heart and her clumsy feet.

Eric heard Benjamin pick himself up from the ground. Heard him collect his fallen blade. Felt more than heard as the other vampire stepped in their direction with all the stealth of and deceit of an eel.

His eyes searched desperately for somewhere to hide her, even as his mind and body resigned themselves to their fate. He'd turn. He'd fight. He'd meet Benjamin where he stood. And she would be there for it all. There would be nowhere in the world safe for her now, but close by his side.

"Gallowglass," she said again.

And he held his hand to her mouth, silencing her with his eyes. "What are you doing here, mo chridhe?"

The air shifted; Benjamin took another step in their direction. Eric tensed and snarled at the man across the clearing.

Fernanda startled at the sound, and she looked up at him with her wide, owl-like eyes.

"She said you were in trouble—" Fernanda started and shook her head. Her hands were shaking as she gripped tightly to his forearms.

Behind him, Benjamin picked his way forward and Eric tensed, preparing to turn at the last second to intercept the vampire if he lunged for his mate. He tried to make sense of her frantic rambling even as he tracked Benjamin's movements through the woods.

"She said you sent for me— that I had to hurry. She said that I—" Fernanda froze, her voice broke on her thought, and she stared at him in dawning realization and horror.

"My scarves," she whispered.

"Your scarves?" Eric asked and shook his head, resisting the urge to reach out and shake her. To make her make sense. "Who sent you Fernanda? Who told you—"

But that's when he heard it. The second heartbeat, the second pair of feet. Calmer than Fernanda's had been. Slower in their approach and steadier than they should be – not for someone who had sent for Fernanda with such urgency, not for someone who seemed to walk willingly toward a pair of vampires they knew to be fighting.

Benjamin chuckled lowly and Fernanda's pupils blew wide at the sound of it. He turned his head to catch sight of his twisted cousin. The other man had stopped to watch the tragic little scene.

And he waited. He waited as patiently as a friend would do. Like he had all the time in the world to proceed. Eric turned toward the other man, kept one hand gripped tightly to Fernanda and pressed her further back into the trees. Trying in vain to put a little more distance between her and the man who had haunted her through her window at night while she slept.

The other human grew closer now, somewhere behind them. And Eric suddenly felt like a lion in a cage. He resisted the urge to stalk back and forth. He resisted the urge to lash out recklessly in his haste. Benjamin regarded him with a bleak expression, a glimmer in his eyes that spoke of wrongdoing, and a black cloak that made a mockery of the one worn by Eric's de Clermont kin.

And Eric was reminded of another time, younger in his life, when he'd stood face to face with a thunder voiced man. A man who had a grin like lightning and a gaze that pressed down on him like a mountain that moved for no one but him. Eric remembered, suddenly, who he was. And he remembered who Benjamin was not.

It mattered little that Fernanda was here. She would be safe. This was not where she would meet her end. She was his. And this ground they stood on belonged to him too. Benjamin had no power here. No matter what the deranged man thought.

Had he been made of lesser stuff, Eric supposed he would have felt cowed in the presence of this man and his warped mind. He would have succumbed to his urge to shrink, to bow, to step away from Benjamin. To leave him be. But Eric de Clermont had lived his long life holding himself to height.

He went to battle and became larger than his body. He went to the village and filled shoes larger than his tread. He trained with his fellow men and played tricks on their minds with the sweep of his arm, the length of his gait. Somehow taller than them even when he ducked low to take them out at the knees.

Size was an indomitable tool in the minds of men. And he had only grown since he'd learned the tricks of the trade. Now he was more than Sorley, son of Ragnall. He was more than he had been once in a different life, under a different name. He was Eric Sorley Ragnall de Clermont. He was the only son and heir to Hugh de Clermont. He was third in line to an invisible throne. The heir to an invisible crown the world would never see. A crown that had been denied to the man before him. Benjamin was nothing more than a young pretender. And Eric, well, he would one day be the invisible hand that moved the world.

The scales were his to balance. They were his to tip whichever way he saw fit. And if Sorley Maclean would not have cowered before one such as he, then neither would Eric do such a thing. He had not bent before Philippe. He would not dishonor himself by doing so for Benjamin now.

The de Clermont did not suffer men such as these.

Benjamin's gaze passed over him, imperious and so cold it would bring a lesser man to chills. But Eric planted himself more firmly where he stood. His feet were steady, legs strong and balanced. And Eric knew, as he knew himself, that nothing could knock them out from beneath him. This ground was his to command, and not even the strongest of winds nor the fiercest of enemies could move him without his permission.

Fernanda was his mate.

His ground was hers to command just as well.

No one would take that from her today. He pitied the man in front of him. He'd level him if he tried.

He raised his chin. Eyes locked on Benjamin while he suffered his appraisal. He was in for a rude awakening if he thought his circumstances were the same as they had been in the fall. He'd lost his only advantage the moment he stepped into the clearing.

Something flashed behind Benjamin's eyes. Fear.

Eric cocked his head. Unblinking. He studied his cousin like he hunted his prey. The beast inside of him stalked back and forth at the edges of his control, waiting at the end of a fraying rope to be released from his cage.

Benjamin, seeing this, shifted back and spoke. Trying to regain his footing. Searching desperately for a pocket of control in the void Eric had created around him in the clearing. The young de Clermont had absorbed every advantage that stood between them, seeming to grow taller and more feral with every passing sweep of Benjamin's anxious gaze.

Left with little advantage, and a sudden desperate urge to survive, Benjamin fought his instinct to flee. Stalling the only way he knew how.

---

"She is an odd little thing, your mate," Benjamin said, and his voice was smooth and cold. Addison felt as though a bucket of ice water had been dumped over her head at the sound of it.

Eric did not speak but she felt his muscles bunch where she gripped his tunic in an anxious fist. Addison could have sworn that the ground shook beneath their feet under the weight of the tension between the two men now. She couldn't see Eric's face, but with the way the air seemed to retreat from the space around them she didn't think she wanted to anymore.

She tried to peek around him. To catch a glimpse of the man who had killed so many people since she'd arrived. She tried to look, but Gallowglass held her fast. As though he could sense her every thought, Gallowglass shifted his body to keep her hidden still from view.

"I spent many a night wondering at her... eccentricities. Right there," Benjamin said and there was a brief pause. "In that tree."

She saw Gallowglass's gaze tilt almost imperceptibly to their left, some place where she could only assume Benjamin had pointed to the tree about which he spoke. And her heart stalled at the implication.

The trees. He was the watcher in the trees. The man who had murdered the farmer and his daughter and the miller and his apprentice – he had been the eyes she felt on her even in her sleep.

Addison's heart stalled – and she once again remembered her scarves. She backed away from Benjamin now, backed away from the truth she hadn't wanted to think about. The truth she couldn't ignore. Gallowglass held her fast by the fabric of her dress until she had retreated so far back that he could either let her go and accidentally strip her of her dress with the force of his grip. Her back hit the bark of a tree, and he released her, hand flexing in displeasure at the loss. He crowded her back somehow without budging an inch for the man who baited him across the way.

They were all frozen there in the middle of the woods. Her and Gallowglass, the killer and the –

Addison turned her face. Behind them now, the other steps had gotten louder. Loud and close enough that even Addison could hear. She didn't need to turn when the girl drew close enough to see. Didn't need to turn to catch a glimpse of the girl who emerged now from the trees, the girl who had followed her slowly down the pathway to the clearing.

The bark was rough against her back as she pressed harder into it now, trying to keep her shock from consuming her as it would have done in her past life as Malvina.

The scullery maid.

The little girl with no name that had been in Addison's chambers that day. The one she had saved from Prudhomme.

The one who just moments ago had found Addison in the gardens, who had come running and told her urgently that she too needed to run. That Eric needed her. That he was in danger, and only she could help.

Addison closed her eyes at her own stupidity. At the other girl's words and the sharp sting of betrayal.

The girl had sent her running to save a vampire, and Addison had not stopped once to think about herself. Not stopped once to think about the oddity of the request, not stopped once to ask anyone else for help. She had let the scullery maid send her straight to her death. And in doing so had threatened to undo Eric as well.

She reached for him now, to hold onto him as she had done before, suddenly needing the comfort of his closeness as the veil of naivety she'd been wearing fell away. But he was too far to reach where he stood between her and certain death. And Addison found she could not move from the place where she pressed her back to the tree.

"Are you pleased, milord?" The scullery maid's voice was soft. Besotted.

Addison turned at the sound, frowning, and found the younger girl with her hair wrapped up in Addison's discarded wimple, decorated prettily with one of her many rejected veils.

"Words cannot say," Benjamin said in a sickly-sweet voice. "How proud you have made me, Cordelia."

"Cordelia?" Addison asked, incredulous, as her eyes swiveled back over to the girl. Jacqueline had said the younger maid was an orphan. She'd told her the girl had no name.

"It's his name for me," The scullery maid said with a soft smile.

Addison shook her head in disbelief.

She turned from the other girl to look at Eric but found that through the exchange his focus had stayed singularly on the man across the clearing. She longed to reach for him still, to pull him close, to run away together. To hide. But she understood now the trap she'd fallen into. Understood the distraction her presence posed.

She whipped her head back to the smiling girl who now swayed back and forth, pleased by the weight of Benjamin's gaze.

"You're insane," Addison whispered as she watched the other girl avert her eyes at Benjamin's praise. "You're—You can't be serious. He's a psychopath. How could you fall for this?"

She hesitated around the name Benjamin had given the girl but used it still.

"Cordelia, please, how could you do this? He's dangerous—"

"You'll not speak to me in such a way," the girl sniffed and turned up her nose. "I am to be a lady like you."

"A lady like me?" Addison snapped, her voice high with confusion and disbelief. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You're not so special you know," the scullery maid said. "They've told me all about you."

"About me?"

"That you were a maid once," she said. "You were just like me and then you met him—" She said and fixed Eric with a horrible little sneer. "He told me all about him too."

"You can't be serious," Addison whispered. "Cordelia," she said, cringing around the name. "You don't understand the situation. It's—its way more complicated than it has been painted to be, but that man has done very bad things."

"He has not. Lord Eric has filled your mind with lies—" Cordelia snapped. "My love has told me the truth about their kind. About what the de Clermont family did to him. And about Lord Eric – he thinks he's so much better. So much—"

"My love," Benjamin said and cut Cordelia off from her tirade.

The girl sniffed and looked up at him, her eyes bright with wonder and loyalty and Addison felt ill.

"Come away from there."

Benjamin held out his arms, eyes still locked on Eric's. Neither vampire had yet to move.

"Come to me," Benjamin said, his voice low.

Cordelia jutted her chin, stepping forward to do exactly as Benjamin bade her, but Addison couldn't let her go. Her mind was filled with thoughts of Rupert and Allistor, and the vicious little maids of Castle Sween who'd had no choice but to serve the men in more ways than should have been allowed. Her mind was with the body of the famer, left out frozen in the cold, and the blood that had pooled around his severed limb. Her mind was with the deaths of the little girl and the miller and his apprentice. Her mind was stuck with Alaric's severed head.

The scullery maid had no idea who she was dealing with. And Addison... Addison didn't know how to let this go. She had to save her. She had no idea the danger she was in.

Cordelia made to go to Benjamin, but Addison surged forward to grab her arm.

"You can't—" she started, and Cordelia let out a cry of alarm.

"Fernanda—" Eric snapped as Benjamin surged forward to separate the girls.

It all happened in an instant. Addison grabbed Cordelia, Benjamin lunged for Addison and Eric caught Benjamin by the throat.

He forced the other man back and to the ground, and Addison could not make out what was happening. The men were little more than blurs. Blood sprayed across Cordelia's face and Addison's dress, and neither girl could tell which man had suffered the blow. It was like witnessing a fight between a lion and a wolf and Addison was too disturbed to move or to flee.

Cordelia let out an aggrieved sound and snapped back to Addison. Fist colliding with Addison's cheek. She sent the older girl sprawling.

Addison sputtered in shock from the blow, face blooming in pain. Then Cordelia was on top of her, holding a small blade.

"You've ruined everything," the scullery maid scowled.

She bore down harder over Addison with a blade aimed straight for the older girl's throat.

"It'll never stop," Cordelia said. "He knows that. I know it. He's told me. They'll always hunt him. They'll always want him dead. And they'll come for me too. They don't want us to do what must be done. He'll never be free."

Addison grunted and tried to resist the younger girl's surprising strength. But the girl shook her head and pressed even harder.

"I'm sorry, milady," she cried out and huffed when Addison brought a hand up to wrap around her throat. "It's not your fault he's filled your head with his evil lies. It's not your fault—"

"It's Benjamin who lied—" Addison bit out and grunted when the other girl pushed into her stomach with a bony knee.

Addison scratched at Cordelia's face with her nails and felt her stomach roil at the give of the flesh beneath her hand, and the blood that fell on her face and neck, speckling her skin with red.

Cordelia screamed and Addison struggled harder as the girl began to drive the knife more erratically down at her, aiming anywhere she thought she could land a blow. Addison hissed and felt the dagger take a chunk out of her palm and then again, her forearm. Cried out and turned just in time to stop the knife from taking a piece of her ear.

Addison struggled and flailed, hitting at anything she could reach. Trying to throw the other girl with her hips. Scrambling her feet for purchase on the ground. Anything to gain a bit of leverage. Finally, she knocked the blade from Cordelia's hands. She rolled them and pinned Cordelia's arms above her head, desperate to subdue her as the fight between the men carried on behind them.

The ground shook and Addison shrieked, flinching away when the vampires felled a tree. Cordelia, thinking herself possessed of divine purpose, had not been afraid of the falling tree. She had God and Benjamin on her side after all, and so while the older girl flinched, the younger girl shoved. Addison hit the ground. The scullery maid gained the upper hand.

Addison's lungs seized, and her mouth gaped open, unable to suck in any air. She gasped, panicking around her frozen lungs, when her eyes caught sight of a sharp rock protruding out of the ground, just inches shy of where her head had landed. Addison's eyes rolled in panic at the sight. Disoriented by the close call, her vision had blurred.

But she could see Cordelia above her even now, a shadowy figure hanging over her like death.

And suddenly, Addison was done. She had survived too much to end this way. Not at the hand of another vicious little maid. Not at the hand of someone she had tried to save.

She coughed and when the maid bore down to finish her, Addison grabbed her by the throat. She twisted, slamming her down. Addison didn't stop to think. There was no plan. She just willed her body to move, and her body answered.

The maid hit the ground, and the clearing filled with the most awful sound that Addison had ever heard.

And then there was silence.

It descended on the mountain like a shroud.

The only sound left in the clearing was hers to own.

The squirrels had long since stopped their chirping. The birds had ceased their songs.

And the only breath in the clearing was hers.

She couldn't hear Eric or Benjamin.

Trembling, Addison collapsed as the adrenaline left her body. She lay on her back, shaking, and stared up at the trees. She couldn't see anything but the sun speckled leaves. The clear blue sky and branches swaying in the breeze.

And then an animal cry.

A pair of hands pulled her up.

Piercing blue eyes and lion's mane hair. He was dragging her away—he was—

Was it over?

Addison's eyes caught sight of a heap on the rocks. And she stared at it in wonder. What was that? It hadn't been there before. She'd only just been there – her head had nearly hit the—

A black cloaked blur swept down onto the heap and the clearing shook with the sound of his broken yell.

"Cordelia!" He cried out.

And he shook the heap on the rock near the place where Addison almost died.

"Cordelia!"

Gallowglass tugged her harder now, faster, as she stumbled away.

"Cordelia!"

And the only sound in the clearing was Addison's breathing. The sound of her breathing and the cry of the other girl's name.

Gallowglass picked her up then. Carried her in his arms back up the way she came. Back into the heart of La Ithuriana. Back to the place he could best keep her safe. And the world passed her by in a blur. No time passed at all and yet she was a whole lifetime away from the clearing when he set her down in the entrance hall of their home.

And her ears rung still with the sound of silence - the sound of silence and her own shaky breathing. Gallowglass shook her, and Addison suddenly felt very cold. He ran his hands over her face, and his lips were moving, but she couldn't hear whatever he was saying to her now. He was checking her for injuries, holding a cloth to her wounds as he tried to staunch the flow of her blood. She brought trembling hands up to brush him away. She was fine. She was fine – but he gently moved them and continued wiping the blood away. Servants scrambled all around them. And blurred figures appeared behind him, throwing questions back and forth over her head. A contingent of shadows strode past them out the doors. Sunlight glinted off their blades as she watched them go.

And Addison could no longer hear the sound of her own breathing. Her ears rung with the sound of Benjamin's screaming. There was nothing left, but the broken cry of Cordelia's name.