Chapter 18- Bloodlines

"Most impressive," Viktor's voice echoed through the catacomb. He stepped closer to Maya and looked her in the eyes. "Defiant, like your creator."

"He's not playing God like you are," Maya hissed.

"You will hold your tongue, Lycan."

He began to circle Maya slowly, never taking his eyes off of her. A fear and anger like bile rose up in my throat.

"Well Lucian, I wouldn't expect you to follow the covenant after breaking it centuries ago. I also never expected this kind of treachery. She is an abomination."

"She is a female of my kind! Would you have me call a female vampire an abomination?" I shouted, ready to rip him apart.

"Vampires, male or female, are not uncivilized."

"Maya is not uncivilized!"

"Maybe once she wasn't uncivilized, but now she has become like you," he spat. "She is another beast that destroys…"

"What? That destroys your kind? Your kind destroys my kind!" My voice rose higher in anger.

"To protect the species from your rabid men!"

I caught a slight movement out of the corner of my eye. It was Selene. She inched slightly closer to me, shuffling a sword from behind her back to my hand. I tried to slowly extend my arm to Maya to hand her the sword while Viktor paced, but he caught the movement and grabbed it from me in the blink of an eye, locking Maya's neck in his arm once again with his hand over her mouth and holding the sword up to her throat. She didn't scream this time, though her eyes widened, and she shifted slightly and fluidly to grab the dagger she had from under her pant leg, and thrust the dagger into Viktor's heart with a swift and accurate backwards motion. She knocked him with force onto the floor, and stomped her foot onto his chest.

"Karma's a bitch, and now you're going to die the way you nearly damned Lucian to. The destruction ends with me," she hissed.

She looked over at Selene, and she nodded. "Sorry, Viktor," Selene said flatly. She shot him in the heart with a UV gun, and with that, he was no more.

We hurried outside to drag the council member's bodies outside, as well as Viktor's. At daybreak the bodies would burn and it would be as though those vampires had never existed. There would be no chance at all for Viktor to come back from this. Dawn hadn't broken yet, but most likely with the hours that had gone by, it would soon. We had to hurry. When the last bodies had been dragged out, Selene and Maya nodded at each other, and holding hands, they walked out into the middle of the mayhem, and raised their clasped hands into the air. I was filled with pride and love for Maya as a hushed silence fell upon the mob of vampires and Lycans. She spoke loudly and clearly, and with a great authority. I was compelled to listen to her, and couldn't see how any other ear could fall deaf to what she had to say.

"Gentleman, ladies- a word. The council of vampires is dead, and Viktor is now slain for good." An outcry of anger arose amidst the vampires. "Children of Corvinus, listen to me!" The din calmed down as the pale faces in the crowd tried to conceal their tears. "This time of war is to end now. If we're all fighting each other then no side is less civilized than the other, and Viktor and his hand-picked council will not allow the violence to stop. It is time for a new era where we can coexist together peacefully, Lycan, vampire, and Hybrid alike."

Selene spoke next. "Lucian was the first to understand that we need to be as one. Even amidst a life of slavery and cruelty toward his kind, he fell in love with a vampire, and he valued her life above his and all others. He wanted his brethren free, so there was a war that began, and he was especially angered when Sonja was unjustly murdered. He did have visions for a united life though. He turned Michael Corvin into a Hybrid as an attempt to unite both sides. Look at him!" The crowd turned towards Michael, but they did not attack. "He looks like a regular human being like all of us do right now. He is not attacking. When he does attack, it's out of self-defense, not just for mindless killing. Before he was a Hybrid he was a Lycan, and before that he was a human. And even as a Lycan, he saved my life. He's another Lycan who loved a vampire.

"I don't know how many of you have ever interacted with one another over the centuries, but I estimate that after Lucian and Sonja and before Michael and myself, there must have been more of you who fell in love with a member of the opposite great coven. And yet you had to either hide your love or break off contact forever. The world Lucian sees, and that Michael and Maya and I see, is a world where that is not a necessity. Where we are not fighting one another and hiding true love that will never happen with another soul instead of enjoying it and experiencing the utmost joy and peace. It ends today."

It was Maya's turn again. "We know there has been a lot of bloodshed. There was a lot of death tonight on both sides, and throughout the ages. That pain will not be forgotten, but it can be healed. If you let that pain rule over you there will just be more death until there are only a few vampires or Lycans left. Where will the great covens be then? It might be now that you can all finally meet your lover, best friend, extended family, and more. It might be now that you discover one great and strong community. We will have new leadership, and new life. We all have descended in one way or another by blood or creation from Alexander Corvinus, and he has foreseen and desired for centuries that we would be one. His sons Markus and William were a vampire and a werewolf, and they were corrupt, but they loved one another. Wrong as it was, they sought domination together; werewolf and vampire, side by side. Now we will seek peace together. Now, you will all reconvene inside the mansion, and you will choose your new council- together. The council will be made up of six vampires and six Lycans. Or, if there are more Hybrids in existence than just Michael right now, then it will be made up of four vampires, four Lycans and four Hybrids."

In stunned silence, they all stood there, until two vampires walked toward the mansion with a Lycan. They looked out at the group standing before Maya and Selene and nodded, and then three more Lycans and another vampire walked forward. One by one, they all began to follow. Pierce and Taylor were the last two standing other than me, Michael, Selene and Maya.

"Are you coming?" Taylor asked.

"We were hoping you'd be on the council, but you'd better get in there now."

"No," I said gently, smiling. "My will here is done. My place is by Maya's side now. We will return to the United States."

"Lucian, you've done so much for us. I'd like to see you rewarded for that," Taylor insisted.

"This is my reward, knowing that you are all safe and well, and that your lives will be forever changed for the best. I can now be with my beloved and not feel guilty for my own happiness, because you have a chance for your own. I am more than rewarded, my friend. Perhaps you and Pierce should get in there and see if you'll become council members. There's much to discuss for your futures."

Taylor nodded, and so did Pierce.

"Thanks for everything," Pierce said.

"You're welcome. And thank you, both of you."

They both nodded, and ran inside.

"I think you'd better go in too, both of you," I urged Michael and Selene.

"I'm a warrior, not a bureaucrat," Selene asserted.

"It's a new era now. Make that known. I don't think there will likely be another Kraven anytime soon, Selene, especially you," I assured her.

She smiled vaguely, and nodded. "Alright, I'll do it, if they elect me. Thank you, Lucian. Thank you for biting Michael and showing him the truth of the past. Thank you for throwing yourself into changing our world. And thank you, Maya. Will I ever see you again?"

"Well it's not my intention to come back here, I can't really afford to often."

"It's just that I would hate to lose contact with you. You feel almost like a sister to me, as odd as that sounds for an emotionally distant vampire to say. I know I don't know you. That's how it feels though. True, I once actually had a sister, and in a way Sonja felt like a sister to me too when I learned of her, but she's dead now, and she was dead long before my family was. You're all I have now."

I looked at Maya meaningfully and nodded, and she smiled. I encouraged her to continue her relationship with her newfound ally and sister.

"Okay, I'll come back when I can," Maya agreed. "I promise. Now go in there and embrace these changes we've made!"

She nodded. "Thank you. Good bye, Maya, good bye Lucian."

"Good bye," I echoed with Maya.

"Bye guys," Michael said. Then he and Selene headed for the mansion hand-in-hand.

"Oh, and Lucian?" Selene called.

"Yes?"

"You stabbed my shoulder." She grinned a little.

"I know," I said solemnly. "And I'm sorry."

"Ancient history now, I suppose." She smiled, and turned around.

We stared after our allies for a few moments in awed silence, and then I was overcome with emotions.

"Maya," I sobbed, unable to contain the tears that flowed from my eyes now. "My darling, you're here…"

"Yes," she whispered. "We're both okay, and we're both going to be together for a very, very long time."

I kissed her with such intense passion that was brimming over from what felt like a century since our last kiss. My hands brushed down her sides to her hips, and my lips grazed her neck ever so slightly as the tears of overwhelming joy and relief continued to flow. We pressed together as tightly as we could manage. Her warm, immaculate and immortal breath was exquisite. I pulled away to gaze into her brown eyes for a long, long time, her loving and tender gaze returning mine as she wiped away my tears. She kissed me again, and let it linger, her arms wrapping around me and intertwining in my hair. Just then, the sun broke over the horizon, and as it rose, the bodies of the dead vampires burnt before our eyes. We both kept especial watch over Viktor's body as it was charred beyond recognition. Soon the new council would bury the bodies of the dead Lycans, and gravestones would nonetheless be set for the dead vampires.

"He won't hurt you or any other Lycan ever again," Maya said to me gently as I watched Viktor's corpse burn, her hand upon my shoulder.

I turned around to look at her. "And he'll never be able to hurt you. He'll never take you away from me." I pulled her to me and held her close to my heart, weeping once last time out of relief, and I let her kiss all of the pain and the fear away. She would be my Maya forever now, and nothing could stand in the way of that. Not only that, but she was now my beautiful Lycan, and my fierce warrior.

"Come with me," I urged suddenly, a smile crawling across my face.

"Where?" she asked giddily, with a smile that made my heart soar.

"You'll see," I winked.

"Where are we going?" she asked again, giggling.

I pulled on her hand, urging her to follow. "I have an engagement gift for you!" I blurted, not wanting to give away any more of my sudden surprise idea. I wouldn't be able to say that I had nothing to give my future wife anymore. I knew how to get the perfect ring for Maya.

A/N: Since this is a few chapters away from wrapping up, be on the lookout for either a sequel or a prequel. I'm going to write both eventually, but I haven't decided which I'm going to write first. As promised, I will post my playlist in my author's notes at the end of the story. Please review, please please please, and thank you for your faithful reading!