A tear welled up in the corner of my eye, it rolled down and over my nose and splashed onto the floor. If this was how I was going to die I wasn't going to give the bastard the satisfaction of a fight. Minutes away from being drained completely of any life my eyelids grew heavy. I wasn't able to keep them open. I heard gasping. The vampire who had been feeding on me let me go. Not by choice. I heard a sickening cracking and my body was splattered with blood. As I laid motionless on the floor I heard the shuffles of foot steps as they moved about my cell. I was lifted up off of the ground and I was in the cold yet welcoming arms of Eric. I knew it was him from his scent. He smelled like grapes to me. He had bitten his wrist and was about to feed me. When Godric clamped down on his arm.

"Let me. I'm much older and she'll heal more quickly from my blood." Eric obeying Godric's wishes passed me to him. He bit his wrist and began feeding me. A few moments later he added,"Hurry. Dawn is vastly approaching."

Godric carried me to the corvette where he sat with my limp lifeless and weakened body in his lap. Eric hopped in and sped off toward the house racing the sun. Godric stared at my face, just as a father does when holding his newborn baby for the first time. He brushed hair out of my face. He traced the outline of my lips lightly with his thumb. He leaned down and gently kissed my forehead.

"I'm here now. I will protect you. Min lilla." His whisper seemed as though it had kissed my ear.

We arrived at the house mere minutes before sunrise. Godric, cradling me in his arms still, bolted to the porch, Eric on his heels. He ascended the stairs and entered my room. He laid me on the center of the bed and climbed in behind me. He placed his hand over my hip, hugging me close. With every ounce of energy I could muster I reached down and pulled his hand to my chest and held it as tight as I could. Eric still stood at the foot of the bed.

"Join us." Godric said eyeing the other side of the bed. "She needs us both now more than ever."

He climbed into the bed in front of me. He placed his arm just above my hip. There I laid for days between the only two people in the world I could trust. One I had known for years, the other only days. Yet it still felt as though I had known both of them for a lifetime. Every now and then I'd feel the bed shift as they each took turns feeding. About day three, or should I say night three, I was finally able to open my eyes. Still weakened I wasn't able to talk. My eyelids were still heavy. While Godric was off feeding Eric wrapped both of his arms around me, my face just inches away from his.

"I'm sorry that you had to get hurt. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry that this has happ-" I raised my shaking hand to his lips to quiet him.

I closed my eyes and drifted back into the coma like state I had been in for days. The following night after Godric fed me and to my relief I felt much better. I was able to move a bit and I was able to speak again. I was still sandwiched between my two gorgeous vampires.

Facing Godric I raised my hand to his face. "I'm sorry." I muttered in a low almost inaudible tone.

He grinned. "Little one, you have nothing to be sorry for." He said turning his lips to my fingers and kissing them.

Grunting as I rolled over to Eric. I just looked at him. He began to speak and I stopped him. I already knew what he was going to say and he didn't need to keep repeating that he was sorry to me. He had nothing to be sorry about. A tear fell from my eye and I gulped back the lump in my throat.

"You have nothing to be sorry for." I said nestling my head right under his chin.

He just took a deep breath, sighed and used his thumb to wipe the tear from my face. I was the most content that I had ever been in my life, laying there between the cold brick bodies of the men who had saved my life. I waited a few minutes then painstakingly hoisted myself into a sitting position on the bed. Eric and Godric moved back a bit to give me space to move.

"Oh god." I gasped looking down at my body. I had been changed out of my prom dress at some point in the past couple of days. I was wearing one of Eric's black tanks and black sweat pants. But I was still covered head to toe in dirt, blood and looked just disgusting. "I need a bath." I demanded as I slowly inched my way towards the edge of the bed. Eric stood holding his hands out to help me up off of the bed. "Thank you," I smiled slightly.

These were my first steps in almost a week. My legs wobbled as though I was a toddler taking my first steps ever. Eric stood next to me every step to make sure that if I had fallen he would be there to catch me. Godric laid propped up against the headboard of my bed watching. He had never, in the thousand or so years since he had made Eric, seen him be so caring or loving towards another individual other than himself. He smiled. I heard him confirm, in his mind, that "it had to be true." He shook his head and quickly cleared his thoughts forgetting that I was able to read them again. I was too preoccupied with not falling and cracking my face open to even bother to ask him what he meant. We slowly crept down the hall towards the bathroom, Eric still beside me making sure that I was okay. Upon reaching the bathroom Eric pulled a chair up near the tub for me to sit in while he ran the water.

"Giselle," He started, kneeling next to the tub. "I don't understand why I feel the way I feel about you. But from now on I will do anything and everything in my power to keep you out of harms way." He declared placing his head in my lap.

I placed my hand on top of his head and began stroking his hair. "That would be amazing Eric. But as we both know all too well, that is impossible. There are a few people in this world who know what I am and some even know more about me than I do. They know just what I am capable of. Once I've reached my full potential, I'll be a marked person for vampire and human alike." He looked up at me stunned.

There's more to your talent than what I've seen?

I smiled. "There's more to my talent than I even know. I'm not like Sookie. I'm not just a telepath."

He just stared blankly for a moment. "What are you?"

"I don't even know if there is a name for what I am." I stated as I slowly lifted my arms to take the tank top off. I groaned, it hurt to hold my arms above my head. Eric raised his hands and placed them under my arms and gently glided them back down to my side. "This sucks, I can't even take my clothes off."

He smirked. "Let me." In a split second he ripped the tank right off my dirty body. I had bruises and scrapes all over me. He reached up and touched the bite marks on my neck that the vampire in the warehouse had left. He closed his eyes.

I placed my hand under his chin and he opened his eyes. "Don't." I leaned in and kissed him. I soon felt him grasping both of my arms with his strong hands. My face winced in pain. Eric pulled back quickly.

He shot me a look of complete and utter sorrow. "It's okay. I promise. I'm still a little sore is all." I assured him.

Leaning over the tub he reached in to check the temperature of the water. With one swift motion he lifted me up and off of the chair and pulled the sweat pants and my panties to the floor. I stepped out of them holding on to his arm.

"This is pathetic." I exclaimed. "Eric, could you please lift me into the tub? I don't think I can step in on my own." I asked slightly lowering my head in defeat.

Without a response he hoisted me into the air and laid me softly into the tub. I sighed. "I hate to ask you but could you please help me wash myself?"

"Of course. I'm at your disposal." He smiled reaching across me for the soap.

I smiled. "I think it might be easier if you climbed in here with me, don't you?" Biting me lip a little.

"You that's a great idea." He stood and began to disrobe. Days of seeing Eric naked still hadn't blinded me to his beauty. The white marble like skin of his glistened as the moonlight broke through the window over the tub. One could get lost for hours just studying his body. And by some miracle of a chance he wanted me. I was the one he chose. He slid into the tub next to me. Soap in one hand and a wash rag in the other he lightly started to help remove the dirt and dried blood from my body. He even helped to wash my hair. Who would have thought that a thousand year old viking could be so caring and gentle? Once he had rinsed my body. He stepped out of the tub first grabbing a towel out of the closet and laid it over the chair. He reached in and pulled me out of the tub.

"Would you like me to just carry you back to the room?" I gave him the saddest set of puppy dog eyes anyone had ever seen. "Damn. You don't have to guilt me into it. I offered." He laughingly responded.

With just the towel draped over my moist body he carried me back into my bedroom. Godric was sitting on the side of the bed starring at the picture of the young woman dressed in black. Eric sat me on the bed and pulled clothes out of a box for me to put on. With his help of course. I looked over at Godric who was deep in thought. I stopped for a minute and was about to read his thoughts when he held his hand up to me to tell me not to.

"I will explain to you in a minute my dear." He added as he walked over to my suitcase and pulled out a ring. He walked back over to the bed and handed it to Eric. "Look familiar child?"

I heard a gulp come from Eric's throat. "Josephine?" He turned to me. "How did you come to posses this ring?" He asked clinching the blood red ruby and gold ring in his fist.

"It's a family heirloom. It was my great great great great grandmother's. It's been passed down though the generations."

A bloody tear slid down his face and on to his jeans. "No. It can't be." A steady stream of tears began falling more freely.

I twisted to Godric. "What's going on?" He simply turned to the portrait on the wall and pointed to her hand. There it was, the ring that Eric had been clutching. And it dawned on me that the woman in the portrait was my great great great great grandmother Josey or Josephine as Eric had known her. "I don't understand." I looked at Eric who was starring at the floor. My sights ended back on Godric. "What are you telling me?"

"It's been written in the fates that you two were destined to meet and be joined together. You have known each other for years. You are Josephine." Pointing at me. "Because you and he had been so well bonded in you first life and first time together you've been brought back generation after generation until you two were to meet again."

"WHAT?! That can't I can't be my great great great great grandmother Josephine."

"Tell me little one. When did your grandmother die?"

"The day I was born." I dropped to my knees.

Godric knelt down next to me. "It's been written in the heavens that you two were meant to be. You are for all intensive purposes soul mates."

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Translation : Min lilla. - My little one.