~I have rewritten the chapter after critiques, and a few raised concerns among readers. My point was to focus on the cruelty and manipulation that is Heisenberg, as well as the fighting spirit that embodies Erika, as well as grazing past trauma.

Many were concerned about Erika's attraction to Heisenberg, through which I apologize for; it was merely an attempt to, include, those who do love and adore Heisenberg, as some love and adore Lady Dimitrescu. I have my tags, and I have my ideas and goals, and I promise and hope not to let anyone down, or disappointed.

As for those who are eager for Bela and Erika's development of their relationship (*wink, wink*) I thank you for your patience and support. It is coming. My goal is to give it plenty of time to grow, without it moving too quickly or having it feel too rushed. That is a personal peeve of mine in regards to relationships and writing, and I take pride in making sure that my characters' development is real and authentic.

For anyone that is dealing with certain anxieties and traumas, I apologize if this chapter caused any discomfort or triggered anything personally. I do have my warnings set for the story, but I will reiterate here: This chapter will skim into Erika's own trauma, and I advise everyone to read with caution.

Thank you all for your wonderful support for this story - seeing its growth has been nothing short of encouraging and amazing.
KeshaRocks~

The Lord cleans up nicely. I'll give him that.

He seems to have strayed from his usual raggedy attire – evidence he's here for the dinner. In place of his usual workman's clothes is a snow-white buttoned shirt tucked into a razor-straight pair of mercury-grey pants. Polished black shoes peek from beneath the folds, and the collar of the shirt is opened wide enough to show the top of his chest. Half of his grey-lined hair is pulled back, coiled sloppily at the crown of his head. His faded shadow trimmed and lined to sharpen his jawline.

This is probably the fanciest he's ever dressed.

I take a step back as he steps forward, entering my room. My space. I bow my head low, avoiding a curtsey with my silk nightgown, wrapping the blanket closer to myself. "Lord Heisenberg. This is quite the surprise, and an honor."

"Isn't it though? I'm just full of surprises." He chuckles.

I curse the innate, worthless female part of me that cowers at his presence.

Lord Heisenberg's blue-grey eyes – cracking with fissures of gold – devour me.

A door opens in my mind - a dark memory peeking out.

Dagger. I have to get to one of my daggers. Worst case scenario, there's plenty of things I can smash him over the head with and run.

"To what do I owe the honor?" The words are bitter in my mouth.

"As I've said, the village has been buzzing about you. Words trickling here and there about your sacrifice for your little sister, bets on how long you'd last before your family got a letter of your demise." He moves with lethal grace and surety, scanning the room as if he was walking onto a killing field.

"That's more than they've ever bothered to speak about before." A bitter truth. But a wrecking realization. He knows of Lacy, of Luiza. He's bound to use it against me now that I'm in his sights. He could probably kill me without a second thought—and then move on to his next task, utterly untroubled by ending my existence.

The thought is nauseating, and only the fact that he's here unannounced on Dimitrescu property keeps me from begging at his knees not to hurt my sister. Lady Dimitrescu would never allow him to show up unannounced, let alone enter her castle. Bela had mentioned plenty in conversation during our hunts of how her mother simply despises Heisenberg for reasons even the eldest daughter doesn't fully understand. She had merely assumed it was a social structure, how she sees him so beneath her. But lately Bela had been wondering if something deeper had rooted in place; if this had anything to do with the so-called "family" Mother Miranda had created.

I never had the nerve to ask her anything further.

I try to play on his ego, his rein for power, as I meander back towards the couch where I know there's a spare knife tucked in between the cushions, ever the cowering servant. "What brings you here, My Lord? Shouldn't you be enjoying the dinner?"

"Aw that super-sized bitch always serves the same thing. And the conversation is all but entertaining. If Miranda hadn't, insisted, that I come, I never would have." He prowls closer, a beast ready to pounce. His eyes flick between me and the couch. A ravenous sort of hunger reflects in his eyes as they dip to the low neckline of my nightgown. Despite it making my stomach curdle, I need him to lower his defenses. "No. So I need find my owns means of entertainment."

"I assure you there are more entertaining people than me, My Lord." My heart races and races.

Heisenberg chuckles. "Oh, that's where you're wrong, sweetheart."

A primal fear - fear I hadn't felt in a while clenches my chest as he rounds the couch. Gripping the arm with one hand, he moves it with a simple flick of his wrist, angling it so the opposite end knocks into my calves.

I yelp as I fall onto its cushions, and Heisenberg is already there, his hand still gripping the back, stepping closer.

I cower into the corner of the couch, bringing my knees to my chest. I keep my breathing controlled, even if my heart has sprinted to a million beats an hour. "I've heard about you before. I recall watching you train with your father. An impressive feat, I must admit."

"My father wanted to make sure I'd always be able to protect myself."

"Is that how he sanitized it for you?" Heisenberg chuckles again. "Don't play games with me, darling. You're smarter than that."

"I'm flattered you think so, My Lord." I say innocently.

"Your father was raising you to be the ultimate weapon. Teaching you everything he knew so that you could reach a potential beyond even his grasp."

My skin bristles at the accusation of my father. My mother had said the same thing, and I dismissed it as disappointment in my failure of being a high-class lady. "I don't know what you're talking about."

His smile doesn't waver. "Try again."

My lips pull back from my teeth. "I don't know what you're talking about, My Lord?"

My heart thunders as Heisenberg growls, "Your father was one of the best in the military. A decorated Green Beret sniper, with more kills than men live in lifetimes."

"I'm aware of my father's service." I spit.

I was, and it never mattered to me. Just as it never mattered to my mother. Her only redeemable quality; that and her cheekbones.

I was aware of my father's military past, and why he moved to this remote village. Knew why he insisted on teaching me and Lacy some of the things that kept him alive when facing monsters of a different kind. But I never thought it was because he was fueling his own agenda.

He loved me like a daughter, not as some weapon in an undisclosed arsenal. He didn't see me as a game piece. Not like my mother. Not like Bela.

"And I'm proud to be his daughter and to carry the things he taught me."

"I don't underestimate that, and believe me I'm not insulting your father. I respect the man for his service. Shame he passed to something as meager as an illness."

I grit my teeth, "Thank you for your condolences."

Heisenberg leans back, turning to pace before the fire. "But it's things like this that make me wonder why you chose, this place, of all things? A woman of your talent is wasted on these vampiric bitches and their shallow means."

I leash my anger, remembering who I represent, and who he is. He needs to make the first move if I'm to claim self-defense. "You're no innocent, either. People have gone missing at your factory too."

"I never said I wasn't part of the problem. But at least I have ambitions other than feeding myself."

I blink, attempting to climb over the arm of the couch. Anything to escape. "What are you doing here, My Lord? What do you want?"

He pauses his pacing and looks to me, now having successfully grabbed the dagger from behind the pillow. I grab the blanket again, holding it in front of myself to appear embarrassed and terrified.

The Lord shoves the couch aside, its legs squeaking against the wooden floors. I keep stepping backwards until my back bumps into the wall. His shadow approaches and I gasp as he braces his hands on either side of my head.

Heisenberg growls in my ear, more animal than human, "I want a woman like you. I want you to come and work with me. You're wasted here on these women who offer nothing but death and suffering."

That door in my opening wider and wider. That crippling memory of hands at my throat, my dress ripping

I attempt to control my breathing, cursing my body as that memory begins to reach a spindly hand from behind the door, ready to shove it open. "And you don't?"

His hand is suddenly at my neck. Not restricting, just holding me there. "You would be more of an equal than you are here. You'd at least work by my side. Your opinion would matter. It would be important."

I tremble as the Lord runs a possessive hand down the curve of my spine. I clench my eyes shut, but I still see red at that touch, the entitlement in it, the sheer dread that sinks in my stomach like a stone.

I'm not stupid enough to try to run as Heisenberg runs his fingers back up my spine, intent in every stroke.

He purrs, "I would also be able to put your other assets to use."

My nostrils flare. "Then go find my mother, bitch." I snap my head back, fast enough that even Heisenberg can't stop the collision of my skull with his nose. He stumbles, buying me time to whip the dagger out and drive it into his neck –

My hand stops midair – the tip of the blade barely an inch from puncturing his skin.

I try to move my hand, but it's as if it is held by an invisible hand.

And then the blade – my own hand – turns on me, and suddenly I'm poised to slice my own throat.

My hand shakes with effort to move, but it remains at my neck.

Heisenberg recovers, adjusting his nose, my stomach curdling at the sound of popping bone. I half expect to see a stream of blood, but when he removes his hand . . . nothing.

"Little fight in you." He smiles. "I like that."

His fist drives into my stomach, and the air is knocked from my lungs. I only have enough sense not to double over in pain, enough control not to slice my own neck upon reflex with the blade still pressed to my throat.

Heisenberg grabs me by the wrist, dagger still in hand, and hurls me to the floor.

Through the coffee table.

A scream rips from my throat at wood shatter beneath my spine, sending pain ripping its way up my back and into my head, fracturing my thoughts and vision into pieces. The impact forces my hand to tighten on the dagger.

Fight, fight, fight, my father's voice beckons.

I try to piece my mind back together, reacting with a swipe of my leg at his ankles. It works, and though he catches himself on the end of the couch, I scramble to my feet and attempt to drive the dagger through his shoulder blades. I don't need to kill him, just stun him so I can run for Bela.

But once again, the dagger stops just above his skin, and no matter how much of my weight I put in, it won't budge.

What is this? What is this . . . magic?

As he rises to stand, that smug grin on his scarred lips, I snarl and using my frozen hand as an anchor point, I hoist my leg up and kick.

No man is resistant to any attack on his groin, and Heisenberg is no exception.

He grunts in pain, dropping like a stone, and his power releasing my hand.

I drop the dagger, my shaking fingers instead wrapping around a wooden leg of the shattered table.

I do not think, do not feel.

I move, fast like my father had taught me, brutal like he'd made me learn to be.

I slam the table leg into the Lord's head so hard that bone and wood crack.

He's thrown off a bit and whirls, scattering the couch and scraps of the table. Blood leaks from his temple and I launch forward, table leg swinging again. The reverberations against bone bite into my palm.

Where most men would roar, or be unconscious, Heisenberg merely grunts, as if stepping on a pebble. He still moves, still comprehends. How is he not even unconscious?

Heisenberg surges at me.

I dodge, but what I didn't see is his hand grabbing for my dagger. The blade that I meticulously sharpened rips my ankle clean open as I twist away.

I'm cleared of the splintered wood that might've impaled me, but I still I scream, losing my balance, and swing upward as Heisenberg lifts his foot, making to step on my throat.

Knocking his ankle aside forces him to rebalance, and the table leg clatters into a puddle of my blood as I scramble to my feet. The tips of my hair dipping in it like a paintbrush. I dash for the door, biting down my scream at the burning gash in my ankle.

But Heisenberg is fast as the wind. He wraps a hand around my injured ankle and tosses me across the room.

I scream as I skip across the wood floor like a stone on water, banging against the glass of my windows.

My breath begins to saw in and out of me as I attempt to push myself to my feet, trying to keep weight off my injured and still bleeding ankle.

My eyes widen as I see Lord Heisenberg standing proud before me, his blood having already dried.

But it's not just him that widens my eyes.

It's the many forks and knives and my own dagger that stare me down, pointed towards me. Ready to impale at a flick of his wrist.

His power presses against my skin, rips the air from the room, my lungs. Fills the space with midnight storms, metal and death entwined.

"What are you?" I breathe.

I risk all of one blink, and my own dagger shoots towards me, embedding itself into my left shoulder.

I scream as I can feel the tip poking through my back, pinning me to the glass behind me.

My breathing quickens as I hear it begin to slowly crack.

Heisenberg smiles. "You're everything Miranda said you were."

The wound leaks blood onto my nightgown, my foot slipping as my ankle continues to pour blood. I can feel it beneath my foot, in between my toes. The stained ends of my hair cling to my chest, my arms, my back.

I pant, half sobbing, "What does she want with me?"

"I don't know, and frankly I don't care. But news travels quick among us 'family members.' If she's interested in you, you must be something special. And I can see why."

The dagger sinks deeper, impaling me further, spiderwebbing the fissures spreading behind me. I bite down on another scream.

Where the fuck was Dimitrescu? Surely they could smell my blood from wherever the hell they were in the castle.

Heisenberg stops less than a foot before me, his hair now disheveled, those blue-grey eyes cracked with gold scanning my body up and down. Up and down.

The cutlery, my hair pins, and even the fire poker slowly approach me. A steak knife slips under my chin.

Heisenberg braces his powerful forearm along my chest, my collarbone. "Someone of your talent is wasted in this dusty, old castle; serving blood-wine to some pompous bitch and her degenerate daughters." My teal eyes flash with white-hot rage. But Heisenberg continues. "Come with me, Erika. Together, we could create something more for this village. Something of our creation, not Miranda's."

I let out a long breath. A bold statement to make to me. But I can see through his hollowed words. His empty promises.

If this is some kind of test, I don't give a fuck what he's trying to pull. I cannot set foot in that factory. No matter the circumstances.

I growl, "I. Am not. A weapon. Fuck you."

I spit a mouthful of blood and saliva in his face.

The Lord blinks, his only sign of surprise. Perhaps even disappointment turns down the corners of his mouth. He wipes his face and looks at his stained fingers.

He snarls as he lifts his foot.

I expect him to kick me through the window, but instead, he kicks the glass, sending it shattering into diamond-shaped pieces.

The dagger yanks itself from my shoulder, and I have the brief sense of falling.

A scream barely crests from my throat when I feel a hand grip my wrist, a shoe on my bloodied toes, pinning me to the floor.

The autumn wind sears into my back as I briefly swing outwards, my eyes forced to gaze at the long, long drop beneath me.

The shards of glass twinkle and glint like stars as they disappear into a red and orange palette of leaves and fissuring boughs.

My face crumples as I seize his hand linked to mine. The chill immediately has me shaking, leeching all of the warmth from my body. I pray it'll freeze my blood enough to coagulate and clog my wound.

"I like you, Erika, I really do. What you have displayed is phenomenal –"

"No," I breath. "No—"

"I really don't want to have to kill you. But now that I've shown my hand to you, I need to know you won't go whispering about this to Miranda, or Lady Bitch and her freaks of nature." His smile remains as he gazes between me and the frigid plummet below. "Trust has to go both ways. You understand, right?"

Earn my trust – my silence – by not dropping me.

A false life debt.

If I say anything, he'll come for Luiza, for Lacy –

"And I'm not asking you to come with me right this minute, just see where I'm coming from. See my perspective."

It doesn't escape me that if he truly didn't trust me, he would've dropped me already. He wants something else from me, but I don't know what it is. I don't care.

I can barely breathe, trembling as the wind teasingly billows up my skirt, my fingers growing numb as I grip his hand with white knuckles.

Heisenberg's eyes dip low, then back up. He grimly chuckles. "You'll think about what I said, right?"

His grip loosens and I slip an inch further back. I yelp, near whimpering as his shoe slowly begins to remove from my toes. The only thing keeping my bloodied, slippery feet from slipping.

I try to think. To breathe. He's not asking me to sign my soul away. He's only asking me to keep a secret.

"Yes," I breathe, but it's caught and snatched away in the wind.

Heisenberg lifts a brow, his grip loosening more.

"YES," I scream. "I WILL!"

His smile softens, a grotesque parody of compassion. "Thank you." he says with a stomach-burning gentleness.

With one smooth yank, I'm pulled into his chest. My legs collapse beneath me, and Heisenberg slowly lowers us both to the floor.

His arms wrap around me in a hollow embrace, and when I try to push away, his is once again at my throat.

This time, the grip promises a snap of my neck if I don't comply.

I don't even feel the warmth that envelopes me. All I can see is that deadly plummet less than a foot from me.

I completely unravel – wretched sobs breaking past my lips, my body shuddering from the cold still unlatching from my body like a pilgrimage of phantom hands.

His hand again runs down my back. "That's a good girl." He purrs, his hand lovingly stroking the back of my head. I want to just claw his eyes out. But all I can do is grit my teeth in disgust. "Now, why don't we enjoy a nice dinner together?"