1997, Broadcast Booth, Anywhere

LaCroix took a quick sip of blood from his wine glass, then placed it silently back upon the table. "And what is love, my children?" he continued to lecture into the microphone. "Love: that only thing that can occupy and fill eternity. In the infinite, the inexhaustible is requisite. Oh," he deeply rumbled, "but to die for the lack of love is horrible. It is the suffocation of the soul." LaCroix paused, concentrating on the link to his favorite, trying again to push through the obscuring pain and heartache and loneliness, but to no avail. His son had wrapped himself in suffering and would let no one in.

LaCroix sighed. "So you gave your soul to one you loved. And when she was gone, what a melancholy thing to no longer know the location of yourself. Death deprived you of both her and your soul. So what can be done, Gentle Listener? What is one to do?" He twisted the silver ring around his finger. "Try to love another soul, and you will find yours again. You will reclaim all you believe lost."


"I once met a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old … his coat was worn … water trickled through his shoes while the stars passed through his soul. A soul he thought lost, but it was not, if only he would-"

Nick reached over and twisted the knob to turn off the radio, silencing the voice of his sire. He pulled the thick wool blanket over his head, returning to his cocoon.


2003, The Maitlands, 30 Maitland St, Apt 208, Toronto, ON, Canada

Seren turned over in her bed again, unable to find a comfortable position. Glancing at the digital clock, she calculated getting four hours of sleep before rising up for work. If she fell asleep now. Twisting again, she punched her pillow, deformed the stuffing more, then flopped down on it. Closing her eyes, she tried to calm herself and eventually felt a drifting sensation.

With a start, Seren woke up. Opening her eyes slightly, the clock showed three hours fifty minutes of sleep time remaining. Huffing in frustration into the pillow, Seren barely heard the knocking noise. Freezing, she listened intently, hearing the sound again. Hand trembling, she freed herself and rolled out of bed, then reached under it for her bat. Carefully opening the bedroom door, she heard a voice, then the doorknob to the front door twisted, the metal making a grinding sound. Maneuvering around the chairs in the room, she raised the bat and swung as the door opened.


Nick woke with a pounding headache and his body aching. Lying on his side upon a hard surface, he clenched and tried to curl up tighter but stopped when spikes of pain shot through his chest. Groaning, he forced himself to relax, which helped the chest pain slightly but the headache, not at all. Nick opened his eyes and saw his arms in front of him; he tugged, but they did not move. Already exhausted from that small effort, he closed his eyes and gave up, calling out for help. There was a rustle next to him, and a mortal heartbeat came closer. Nick tried to focus, but the shape was dark and indistinct. "Nat?" he moaned.


From the living room chair, Seren sat clenching the bat and looking at the man who had broken into her place. She had tied his wrists together with a cable tie and used another to secure him to the radiator. He often moaned and twitched in pain, and at first, she had thought it was due to her hit. But when moving him, she had found other injuries to his legs and chest, along with burns on his cool skin. Seren intended to call the police after making sure he couldn't escape, but he had opened his eyes and called out a name. She had frozen at the sight – glowing green-flecked yellow eyes locked on her, and the tips of long canine teeth could just be seen when his mouth opened. She had scrambled away and took up position on the chair to watch what would happen with this individual who was not human.

She had sat for a while before he woke again. This time he tried to move, but it was clear he was in too much pain and stopped. He attempted to free his arms, but that stopped soon as well. Then he called a name again, more distinctly this time. Seren rose out of the chair; despite everything she had seen, she was not frightened by whatever he was. He was in pain, and a natural inclination to help rose up again. Knowing he wasn't a threat at the moment, she knelt down beside him. Once again, she saw his yellow eyes and elongated teeth as he called out a name before passing out. This time, though, the name had been clearer to hear. Seren stood back up. Nat. She frowned, concentrating. She knew that name from somewhere.


Groggily, Nick opened his eyes and looked around. The place seemed familiar but different. Confused, he tried to get up from the floor, but his arms were stuck on something. Glancing over, he saw his wrists bound and attached, anchoring him in one spot. The vampire stirred, recognizing danger, and Nick shifted painfully over, closer to the metal piece he was attached to. Memories of all the other times, both mortal and immortal, when he had been chained flooded his mind. Anxiously, he attempted to locate his captor.

Seren heard the man moving and left the kitchen to check on him. He was now closer to the radiator, and his feral eyes were fearful. She knelt down near to him, and he flinched away, pushing himself even more against the metal unit. Seren reached out, and he growled until she withdrew her hand. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you," she promised.

Nick warily watched the woman and looked around again, trying to figure out where he was and why he was there. He took a deep breath and winced in pain.

"You're hurt. Is that why you're here? Were you looking for someone to help you?" The man gave no response and no longer looked at her. "My name is Seren; what's yours?" He said nothing, even as he twitched in pain. "Look, you broke in, searching for a woman." She paused before continuing. "You were looking for Nat … Natalie … Natalie Lambert?"

Nick clenched his eyes, pained by the mention of that name. However, this unknown place was not where Nat had been living. "Where am I? And how do you know her?"

"You're at the Maitlands, in my apartment," Seren answered. "You called out a name, Nat, and I thought it might be Natalie Lambert. She used to live here because I sometimes get admail with her name on it." He opened his eyes and stared at her, then immediately looked away at the rest of the apartment. "So, what's your name?" He still didn't respond and she glanced over to what he was focused on. "The curtains?" Seren got up and closed all the curtains around the apartment; through the windows, she could see that the sun was just about to come up.

Standing next to the kitchen, Seren studied him; she could tell he was still in pain but trying to hide it. "I know what you are and what you need." She quickly entered the kitchen and took a few small pediatric bags of blood out of the fridge. "You're lucky," Seren commented while going back to him and kneeling down, holding one small bag just out of reach. "Part of my job at Toronto General is inventorying and disposing of banked blood. That's what you need, right? Blood? Because you're a vampire – with those eyes and fangs, you're definitely not human." He had been looking at the bag, then her, but turned away at the mention of not being human. She held the bag acquired from her quick trip to work after realizing what he was. "Let's start simple: you get this one when you tell me your name."

Nick glared at her, but he needed the blood to heal. "Nicholas," he finally answered. The woman came closer, and Nick forced himself to not move. She placed the chilled bag in his hands then retreated. Knowing it was going to hurt, Nick braced himself and slid closer to his hands, and raised up to bring the bag to his mouth. Once close enough, he sank his fangs through the plastic and drank. Too soon, the bag was empty, and his aching body demanded more.

Seren watched, and when Nicholas dropped the empty bag, she held up another. His yellow eyes stared at her while she could just make out his fangs. "What happened to you?" He didn't answer, so she tried another question. "Why were you attacked?" Silence filled the apartment. "Who beat you up?"

"You did," Nick hoarsely accused.

Seren pursed her lips; it wasn't the answer she had hoped for, but it was a correct one. "Well," she replied while handing the blood to him, "you were breaking and entering."


Seren rechecked her email. Her laptop was set up in the living room, so she could watch Nicholas. He was still tied up and on the floor, sleeping under the blanket she had put over him because he had been shivering. She opened another tab on her computer and started a new search. Seren was halfway through the second article when Nicholas moaned and shifted. She got up to get another bag of blood from the fridge.

Kneeling down by him, she held the bag, waiting for Nicholas to move some more. When he didn't, she gently pulled the blanket back from his head. Seren withdrew her hand in shock; his skin was much paler than before, nearly ashen in color. "Nicholas?" she called out; he hardly moved. She pressed two fingers against his neck to feel for a pulse, his skin colder than the last time she had touched him.

Nick felt pressure against his neck. Memories of decapitation attempts flicked by as he jerked away from the danger.

Nicholas twitched, and Seren moved back. "Nicholas?" she repeated. He partially opened his eyelids; dazed yellow eyes slowly focused on her. "What's wrong? You should be better; I thought blood heals you." Seren held out the bag. "Do you need more?"

Nick tried to move, but sharp stabs of pains in his chest immediately stopped him. He tried to take a deep breath, but his chest hurt too much.

Seren could tell there was a problem and pulled back the blanket to get a better look at Nicholas' torso. Her fingers traveled over his dark vest, and she felt the cuts in the fabric. She had noticed them earlier but concentrated on them now. Probing the area, the damp cloth concerned her; considering the hours he had been there, it should have been dry unless he was still bleeding. Working around his restrained arms, she unbuttoned the vest enough to get to the dark shirt underneath. The area was wet. She tried probing more, but he jerked away with a cry of pain. "You're not healed."

"I," Nick wheezed before coughing. He closed his eyes, too exhausted and weak to care anymore.

Seren listened to his labored breathing and saw a small trickle of blood come out after the coughing. She got up and went to get her emergency first aid kit and some other tools. Knelling back down beside him, she hesitated for a moment, then reached over to cut the ties around his wrists and separated him from the radiator. She moved and reposited Nicholas on his back, then unbuttoned the shirt. Deciding to start with the most bloodied wound, Seren took hold of her long forceps. With his injuries, whatever he had been stabbed with must have left something still embedded deep within. Nicholas barely responded as she carefully dug into the wound, feeling for anything foreign in the tissue she could pull out. Grabbing hold of something, she carefully extracted it out. Taking a closer look, it appeared to be a thick wooden splinter, and she detected the faint but unmistakable scent of garlic. Seren dropped the shard into a small container and quickly resumed searching each wound. It was now clear someone had been trying to kill him.


With a start, Nick woke. Once again, he had not been able to save her, and his familiar nightmare faded back as he became more aware of the surroundings. He felt cushions underneath and saw a blanket over him. Reaching up, he pulled the blanket down, then sat up on the sofa. Confused, he looked around. He saw against the far wall the radiator he had been tied to, and he rubbed his wrists. Nick took a deep breath and felt no pain. He probed the places where he had been stabbed.

"Those wounds were pretty bad."

Nick stiffened in the direction of the voice.

"It's okay," Seren calmly said. She indicated the bag of blood in her hand. "I'm just going to bring this over to you." Seren carefully placed the bag on the coffee table in front of the sofa and retreated back to the dining room area.

Nick looked at the bag, then back at the woman. "I should leave. It's not safe for me to be here with you."

"I'm not going to hurt you."

Nick barely shook his head. "It's not safe for you."

"Well, it's still light out, so you'll have to stay. For a little while." She indicated the blood bag. "You should drink that. Unless . . . ."

Nick narrowed his eyes. "I'm not going to bite you," he uttered in disgust, turning away from her.

Seren slowly went to sit on the chair near the sofa. Sinking down, she was glad he hadn't moved away. "My name is Seren. I dug out over a dozen wooden splinters from you."

"Thank you. But you seem to want something?"

"I want to know about you. For starters, who tried to kill you?"

Nick squirmed. "Some people who were not pleased to know I was in town."

"Why?"

"Because of something that happened years ago, when I was last in Toronto," Nick reluctantly volunteered.

"When you left?" Seren leaned forward. "When the ME … when Natalie Lambert was found?"

"What?" Nick whispered.

"You came here, looking and asking for Nat. Natalie Lambert used to live here. And you told me your name was Nicholas. I looked it all up online. I found the news articles – Natalie Lambert was found dead in the home of Detective Nicholas Knight. You. And you were missing."

Nick dropped his eyes and stared at the rug on the floor. But instead of the color, he once again saw that last night with Natalie, laid upon the carpet in the loft, her life coursing through him as her body was dying. And he couldn't save her. Nick blinked and refocused on the room. He reached out to grab the blood bag. "I need to leave, now."

Seren jumped out of the chair and ran to the door.

"Let me go." When Seren didn't move away, Nick let his fangs drop, and his eyes tingled as the color changed. A rumbling snarl was enough to frighten her to move away from the door. Opening it, he took one last look at Nat's old place, remembering the times he had visited here, and then he left.

Once she heard the growl, Seren had backed away. Heart still racing, she quickly made a plan. She had seen his forlorn look when she had brought up Natalie and knew he was still mourning her. Running over to her computer, she opened the tabs about Natalie Lambert's death and looked for an address where she had been found. Grabbing a map, she headed out to get more bags of blood before going to Nicholas' place. Seren had a hunch he would be where Natalie last was.


After walking for what seemed like hours, Seren finally found the brick building. She had been surprised. The run-down warehouse didn't look like anyone had ever lived there; she had been expecting a house or apartment complex. Finding the door unlocked, she quickly entered and started up the stairs. She tried every door along the way, all leading to some sort of open storage spaces, until the last one. Next to a glass block wall, this door opened to a living space, though a neglected one with some broken furniture scattered about. A flickering light attracted her attention, and she made her way past a scratched piano to a seating area. There, she found Nicholas on the floor, curled in front of the fireplace, in a fresh shirt and the heat from the flames drying his damp hair. She put her bag down, took a blanket off the nearby chair, and draped it over him.

"It's not safe for you to be here."

"You may snarl, but you're not really going to hurt me."

Nick sat up and looked up at Seren. "You know what I am, what I can do."

Seren sat down next to him. "I just get a feeling you're not going to do that to me."

Nick gazed back at the dancing flames. "It's still not safe for you to be near me. You should go."

"Well, I'm not," Seren insisted as she reached into the bag. "And you still need more blood to heal. Here," she said while handing a blood bag out to him, "I picked up a few more from work for you."

Nick eyed her and the bag. "No answers in exchange for this?"

Seren smiled with a shrug. "The first one's free."

With an amused huff, Nick took the bag. She was so much like Nat had been.


"So," Seren began after Nicholas had gotten up and walked into a dark back alcove, "this is where it happened?" She heard a thick glass tumble down and roll along the floor.

"Yes."

"This is your place. You would've been here? When it happened?"

Nick hopped over the armrest of the sofa and sat down. He had already finished the first bag and held his hand out for another. "I'll answer your questions, but I'm not going to talk about what happened."

Seren leaned back against the armrest on the opposite side of the sofa from Nicholas. She reached down into the bag on the floor and took out another small blood bag. Handing it over, she watched as he sliced the bag open and poured the contents into the glass. "The news articles don't say, but you know: you know who killed her."

Nick's eyebrows furrowed, memories of Nat's last moments forever replaying. "Yeah," he mumbled, "I know."

"So these guys who came after you, they know as well."

Nick nodded before taking a large gulp of blood.

"So … what? They're trying to silence you? Eliminate you as a witness to their crime?"

Nick put the glass down on the end table. "They'll be back; it's not safe for you."

"Why would they hurt me?"

"Because," Nick replied as he got up and tried to get her to rise as well. "They'll know you helped me, and they won't like that."

Seren rose but resisted being pulled along by him. "I'm not going to leave you alone, especially if they could come back for you."

"I'll be fine."

Seren arched an eyebrow in disbelief. "No, you won't be. You're still not completely healed, I can tell."

"Why do you care?"

"I …." Seren hesitated; she wasn't quite sure herself, but she knew he needed someone. "I just do. Why are you concerned about what could happen to me?"

Nick let go of Seren. "I'm not going to let another person who cared and helped me sacrifice themselves for nothing."

"Helping you isn't nothing, Nicholas."

Nick shook his head as he backed away. "I'm nothing." He clenched his eyes shut. "I'm not worth it." He heard the rustle of cloth, and then arms enveloped him.

"You're not worthless …."

It had been too many years since anyone had held him, too many years since he had let anyone near enough to touch him. Nick listened to her steady heartbeat. Seren wasn't afraid of him, just like Nat had not been afraid of him. It had been too long since he had experienced acceptance like this. Nick slowly dropped his head onto her shoulder.

"Not to me," Seren finished. She released one arm and gently stroked up his back, then along his neck and up into his soft hair. She felt him relax against her, his tension reducing. Seren let go, then pushed him slightly away from her. He raised his head, and she took hold of him. Impulsively, she pressed her lips against his. He responded, and Seren let out a low pleasurable moan. Nicholas trailed kisses down her neck, and she felt her heart rate increase.

"No." Nick pulled away, looking down on the carpet to avoid her eyes.

Seren let out a protesting whimper, then he was gone. She looked around in confusion, not seeing him. "Nicholas? Nicholas, I'm sorry-"

"It is not you, my dear, who frightened him off."

Seren whirled around to the sound of another person in the apartment. Her gaze landed on an older man dressed in black.

"It is merely where you were located. You are standing where Natalie Lambert died."


Seren tracked the stranger as he walked from the door into the kitchen area. "If you've come for him, he's gone. Far, far from here. So you, and the rest of your gang, won't be able to finish what you started."

"Nicholas is upstairs in the bedroom."

Seren heard the amused reply, then quickly backed up near the fireplace when the stranger immediately appeared next to her, faster than a human could move. "You're like him."

"Yes. I am Nicholas' … father … in a manner of speaking. I am LaCroix."

"Father, eh? Where were you before now?"

"I was busy helping my son."

"Funny," Seren said while moving away from the older vampire. "I seemed to be the one doing that."

A wry smile played across his face as LaCroix turned. He went over to the bag on the floor near the leather sofa. Reaching down, he opened and inspected its contents before taking out a small blood bag. "I told Nicholas to not come back here, to be rid of this place. He ignored both recommendations." He gave the bag a slight squeeze. "When Nicholas returned here, the Hunters who had been monitoring this place came for him. By the time I arrived here, they had already injured him."

"So you just left him? You ignored your son?" Seren accused.

LaCroix recalled the angry snarls each time he had approached. "Nicholas does not want help. Lately, he wants only to be left to his own devices. What I did was track down each Hunter."

"Then what?"

"Killed them," LaCroix simply stated before sinking his fangs into the bag and draining the blood.

Seren surprisingly found herself partially relieved at the news, knowing they couldn't come again to attack Nicholas. She watched LaCroix take another blood bag. "Hey, those are for him, not you."

LaCroix let the bag drop back in with the others with an amused smile. "My apologies. If you can get Nicholas to drink these, then I will not purloin them."

Seren listened to the flapping of the flames in the fireplace, the home silent otherwise. She had been thinking, and since Nicholas wasn't always so easy to get answers from …. "Who are the Hunters, and why were they watching this building?"

"Hunters hunt and kill us, and they will station themselves in areas where a mortal was killed by a vampire."

Seren took in a quick deep breath. "Natalie?" she whispered. "No wonder Nicholas doesn't want to talk about it: to have to watch another vampire kill her, and in his own home …." She shot an accusatory glare at LaCroix. He knew what had happened and seemed okay with killing people. "Did you do it?"

LaCroix paused before answering, aware his son was listening. "No," he slowly drawled. "Nicholas did."

Seren shook her head in disbelief. "He couldn't have. He wouldn't hurt her."

"She asked him to." When the woman said nothing in reply, he continued, knowing Nicholas would hear. "The good doctor was trying to help Nicholas. She had no other treatment left, save one. A method that had worked for another, but they did not know exactly how. What they did together was … a mistake. It was not solely Nicholas' fault, though he takes the full blame and guilt. In the end, he made a decision, the most caring one he could, and he let her die. Nicholas has been haunted by that moment ever since. A part of him died along with her that morning," LaCroix finished.

Seren weakly sat down in the leather chair. "Maybe she didn't know that could happen."

"She asked a vampire to bite and take from her. She also knew Nicholas' control is …."

"So Nicholas was right; it is dangerous for me to be around him." Seren shakily got up. "I should leave."

"No, you should go upstairs," LaCroix recommended.

"Are you hoping he will get rid of me? You don't want to kill me yourself?" Seren harshly accused.

"Nicholas has spent years thinking only of what happened here. Nothing has distracted him from that; it occupies all his waking thoughts and haunts his dreams. I was surprised he even sought out help for his injuries. And then he met you." LaCroix eyed the mortal woman again; such women always altered Nicholas for good or bad. "For that moment, here, you brought him out of that darkness." He reached down, grabbed the bag, and handed it to her. "You should go to him. He will find, with you, something he thought lost."

Seren accepted her bag. "What if he …?"

"I will be here, and I will not let that happen," LaCroix vowed. He would not lose his son again.


Seren slowly opened the bedroom door and went in. With the light entering the room, she barely saw the lamp by the bed. Clicking it on, soft muted lamplight filled the room and revealed Nicholas, back to the door, curled up on the bed, and a dusty blanket piled on the floor. She dropped her bag onto the floor and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"So now you know what happened. I killed her."

"Nicholas," Seren said, reaching over to put a hand on his shoulder. He twitched away from her. "You're punishing yourself."

"I'm a murderer. I'm supposed to be punished," Nick rumbled in reply. "I ripped the life out of her."

"She loved you."

"How could Nat have anything but hatred for me after what I did?"

Seren reached out again. "You don't believe she hates you for what happened."

Nick felt Seren's hand on his back. He wiggled away from her reach. "What makes you think that?"

"Because, Nicholas, when you were hurt, you didn't stay here, accepting the punishment from those Hunters for her death. You sought help from someone you knew would give it: you went to Natalie's place looking for her." Seren scooted further along the slick bedsheet and placed a hand on his head. When Nicholas didn't pull away, she began stroking his dark blond hair. "Deep down, past all this hurt, you know she loved you, and nothing is going to change that, no matter how it ended."

Nick bit down on his trembling lip, drawing blood. "How do you know?"

Seren thought for a moment, knowing what it would take for her to make such a sacrifice. "Because no one would attempt that without love being the only reason. Whatever she was helping you with, it was because she loved you and knew you were worth it."

"We were supposed to be together. I promised her. Instead, I chose to let her go," Nick confessed.

"Did you want to?"

"No."

"Then why did you?"

Nick thought about that decision, knowing how the vampire changed a person, how the vampire would have killed the Natalie he knew. "Because …."

"Because," Seren gently supplied, "you loved her, too." Nicholas shifted, and she removed her hand. He rolled onto his back, and she saw his slate-blue eyes wet with tears. "And if it was me, I would know, without any doubt, you made the right decision."

"You don't really know me that well."

Seren looked down, seeing he wasn't as withdrawn as before, and his statement had a slight hint of invitation. She leaned over him with a bit of hesitation, hearing her heartbeat increase. "I'd like to know you better." She waited, unsure if he wanted to continue what they had started downstairs.

Nick looked up, hearing her heart responding and knowing he was reacting as well. He raised up to be closer. "As would I," he answered, then kissed her.

Seren sank down onto Nicholas, pressing him back into the sheets. His hand caressed down her neck, then his lips followed while his hands went downward, then moved under her shirt.