As the coming sunrise approached, Claire curled her naked body more tightly against Finn’s as he slept soundly in the bed next to her. A moment after placing a gentle kiss over his warm chest, Claire’s eyes turned toward the door of her bedchamber with a slight tension. When Sean opened the door seconds later, she turned her green eyes up at him as she swallowed hard.

Sean was obviously a bit caught by the sight of Claire and her servant lying there with only a sheet covering their bodies, but he quickly hid any reaction he may have had to the sight. He simply turned his eyes downwards as he slowly approached the bed while unbuttoning his shirt. Claire nervously sat up as Sean neared the bed, being as careful as she could not to wake Finn as she moved away from him.

“Guess it is almost morning” she managed to whisper her greeting to Sean as she protectively pulled the sheet up over her breasts.

“That it is” Sean agreed in the same quiet tone as he dropped the shirt onto the nearby sofa and moved to take a seat at the edge of the bed and begin removing his boots.

As Sean was doing his best not to let onto any emotion he may have been feeling at all, Claire had to bravely force more words “are you going to be ok with this?”

“This?” Sean repeated with a slightly awkward smile as he finished removing those boots and slid back against the headboard next to her, being equally careful to not jostle her sleeping servant into waking.

“This” she stated as she gently tilted her head toward Finn, still clutching the cover around her.

“Is that a serious question?” Sean asked, though his faint smile remained.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Claire narrowed her eyes at that response.

Sean allowed a small chuckle before continuing “that was you with me in England those last twenty-five years, right?” he asked pointedly.

She only turned her eyes downwards as she tried not to allow a smile to surface just yet “yes, but we talked about that before we… did anything” she settled on.

Sean allowed a soft sigh but still moved to wrap an arm around her as he laid his head back against the ornately carved headboard “that is true, but I’ve been a bit too busy for you to be able to chat with me about much of anything lately, so…” he simply shrugged as he squeezed her shoulder gently.

“So, you are ok with this?” she had to ask for one last clarification.

“Isn’t my take on you having other lovers obvious by now?” Sean asked her with another gentle smile. Though Claire simply looked up at him with that continued need for reassurance. He chuckled slightly before giving her such “I’m fine with you having other lovers. I probably always will be. Just as long as there’s one condition that always remains true” he had to add.

“Condition?” she asked warily.

“As long as I’m always your first choice” he stated as he leaned over to kiss her forehead before continuing “you can have a thousand second choices. As long as you will always choose me over them whenever possible, then I’ll never be threatened by them” he assured her.

“A thousand?” she couldn’t help a small laugh before adding “I think I’d be famished after the first couple hundred, wouldn’t I?” she teased as she gently kissed his shoulder.

“I suppose that would be true” Sean smiled back at her. He then looked down into her eyes again “feeling a little hungry right now, are you?”

“I didn’t feed on him tonight, we just…” she shook her head “yeah a little” she answered instead.

“Then I guess I arrived just in time” Sean replied in an unmistakably sultry tone as he moved his long locks away from his neck.

Claire simply smiled up at him again, easily catching his meaning. She then let the sheet fall away from her naked body before moving into Sean’s lap as his arms immediately circled her. With another smile and a gentle kiss to his lips, she then moved her mouth to his neck and sunk those fangs deeply into his flesh, allowing them both that one intense moment of pleasure before the sun forced them to sleep for yet another day.

When the sun set again the next night, the two servants who had been keeping watch over Sean and Claire as they slept quietly shuffled out of the room as their regnants woke. Claire curled more tightly against Sean as the door closed and left them alone in the room once again. Sean couldn’t help the small smile as her still bare skin pressed against his chest above the pants that were his only remaining clothing.

“Is the tightness of that grip your way of telling me you don’t want me to leave our bed just yet?” Sean asked as he placed a kiss atop her head.

“When have I ever wanted you to leave our bed?” she murmured her answer as her lips grazed his chest.

Sean couldn’t help another smile as he squeezed her back and spoke gently “all my other duties aside, I will eventually have to replenish some of the blood I gave you last night.”

“You can summon a servant if you need to. Doesn’t mean I have to let you go just yet” Claire teased as she refused to loosen her grip on him.

“I see the afterglow from that Kiss has lasted all day” Sean replied with another smile.

“It does that” Claire confirmed with another gentle kiss to his nipple.

Despite knowing that he did have duties, and hunger, to attend to, Sean couldn’t help giving into her desire for closeness as he stayed there holding her for several more minutes. As a slight sigh left her lips, Sean adjusted to see her aura and determine if that was a sigh of contentment or worry. He then narrowed his eyes as he realized that there was quite a bit of that worry still present in her as always. He told himself that it was most likely continued worry over the prophecy, but he needed to be sure there was nothing else, considering she had obviously needed some sort of comfort the previous night. Perhaps his psychic abilities were becoming more passive as he grew older though, because then his mind moved back to a conversation that they had still not let themselves have.

Then Sean bravely broached the subject that would most likely lead to her breaking off their current closeness, but the more he thought of her upset over it, the more upset he became. He cleared his throat and gently squeezed her once more before speaking “it’s been five years, and you haven’t mentioned it.”

“It?” Claire asked as her body tensed.

“What had you so upset on the night Eliza arrived” he supplied, though it took a bit of willpower for him to bring up a subject that would be sure to darken her mood.

“That would be?” Claire asked as she did finally move to sit up as Sean feared she would, though it still caused him to flinch slightly at her breaking off their contact.

Sean sighed heavily as he also sat up with a tiny frown at the way she moved to pull the sheet up around her beautiful body again. He then forced himself onward “I know you never wanted me to train myself to do that” he began as he sighed once more at the sight of that darkness coming into her eyes again “but after everything that’s happened… and I am Prince now. I need to be able to know who my enemies are. It’s the only way I can ever hope to protect any of us. You have to know that Claire” he added, keeping his voice gentle as he pleaded his case.

“I do. I know that, Sean” she admitted in a hoarse whisper as she moved from the bed to find a nearby robe.

“I’m sorry, Claire. But I’m having trouble understanding why you are so upset about this. You just agreed that it’s a necessary evil I need to employ for our safety” Sean tried again to understand her upset, forcing himself not to use the very ability they spoke of in order to find out on his own.

“Yes. I know” she repeated again as she quickly pulled that now found robe around her.

“Please, explain it to me Claire” Sean asked her again.

“Do you really need me to explain anything to you ever again?” Claire retorted, though her words were merely a mumble as she took a seat at the nearby vanity.

“See. There’s that upset and bitterness about it. I’m assuming all this is because you don’t want me to use that ability on you” he hazarded a guess as he also moved to the edge of the bed.

“Assuming” Claire added in the same sarcastic mumble, her tension now obvious.

“I mean, that is the only reason I can think of why you would be upset by it. I just am having a lot of trouble figuring out why you would be so afraid of that. I’ve known you since you were an eighteen year old mortal girl. What secret are you so terrified of me learning?” Sean asked her, nearly begging for the answer so he would not have to betray her by going after it himself.

That was when Claire stood and reached for a dress, nearly ripping it with the force she employed to yank it off of its hanger. She then tearfully retorted “go attend to your precious duties, Sean. It’ll be easier for both of us” she added tearfully as she rushed off toward the privy, not allowing herself to look back as the door slammed behind her.

As that door slammed, Sean simultaneously closed his eyes against his own emotions that were easily inspired by Claire’s obvious upset. He sighed heavily as his eyes moved to the door that she had just disappeared behind. He then pushed himself to his feet and slowly padded across the room to that door. Once outside it, he stopped and laid his head against the door, his fingers tracing the woodwork for a long moment. He then could no longer fight his need to know what it was that had her so upset, and he finally gave in to letting himself make that mental connection with her after all.

Considering how strong their bond already was, it only took another moment before he came to realize that secret guilt she had felt for so long, and hated herself because of for so long; and had been so afraid of him finding out for so long. It was then that Sean knew the answer that Haven had been pressing him to find out ever since the night he embraced Claire. She had indeed known about their child on the night she asked Sean to take her life. And Claire had now spent over two hundred years believing that she had let him kill that child while it was still inside her. And because of that, she could never ever tell him about the child at all in over two centuries; convinced that he would hate her forever.

And for all of those two centuries, Sean had withheld his own knowledge of that child whom his very blood had inadvertently ended the life of before he had ever even tasted Claire’s own blood. And not knowing if Claire was even yet aware of the child whose life had already been ended by his blood; Sean also could not bring himself to ever tell Claire about that child either. For he was also convinced that she would hate him forever for causing its death. And therein lay the heart of all of her guilt as well as all of his. Those were the two versions of the same secret the two had always kept inside themselves, convinced that they were saving the other some horrible pain; which of course only resulted in the inner pain they had both suffered alone for so very long.

Sean brushed away his own tears at the realization of how deeply Claire had hated herself for so long and wrongly so, at that. He desperately wanted to go through that door and assure her that no, she did not willfully let him end that child’s life. Only doing so would let her know that he had used those abilities to rip that one secret out of her head. And that, he was also sure she’d hate him for. So he was left with the choice of ending her guilt at the cost of all the love they had always had. And willfully ending her trust in him, and her love for him, that would be like killing both of them as well, even before those snakes came to devour what was left of her. And that he could not, would not do. He couldn’t bear the fact that she hated herself so much for something that wasn’t even true, but alleviating that guilt at the cost of her trust and therefore her love? That would be something neither of them could ever survive at all.

After another moment to try and rein in his own despair, Sean knew that even without the secret he had just discovered, there was still another problem now before them. He swallowed hard as he tried to form any words in his head that could come close to resolving this fear she had of him peeking into her mind.

He finally spoke through the door “so does this mean you’re never going to let yourself be around me again? Just because you think there’s some secret inside your head that will drive me away?” he kept his voice as gentle as he could as his head still lay against the door.

“It’s not like we’re ever around each other much anyway. Not that big of a difference” she returned through the door.

Sean just shook his head at her response, and the door between them. He then pushed it open to find her now dressed, but sitting quietly upon the privy with red streaks marring her pale cheeks. He then attempted lightness “never thought I’d see the day a fellow Kindred was in that seat.”

Claire just shook her head “very funny” she scoffed “don’t you have things to do, Prince Sean?”

“Please say your previous comment wasn’t your way of telling me that you are trying to devise some plan to avoid me for the rest of eternity” he told her with a scolding tone that just barely had enough volume to carry much weight at all.

She sniffled again as she stubbornly refused to look up at him, somehow afraid that allowing any eye contact would cause her mind to spring open before him without him even trying to make it do so. She then angrily brushed the red streaks from her face “I don’t have eternity anyway, remember?” she whispered bitterly.

Sean sighed again before offering a response “didn’t you tell me long ago that we need to just take whatever time we have left and stop hurting each other?”

She sniffled again at that reminder before offering any response “but if you can see inside my head, then…” she couldn’t even finish the sentence as she looked down.

Sean swallowed hard again as he now truly understood what she was so afraid of him seeing in there “if I promise to never use that power on you unless of course that it’s the only way to save your life, will you please stop being so afraid of being near me, for whatever time we even can be near each other now?” he pleaded, forcing himself not to use the word ‘again’ in that sentence.

“You really think you could keep that promise?” she asked, trying not to hope that it was true.

“I think I’m willing to do anything to keep from losing you. And if that means not violating your mind for anything short of a matter of life or death” he pushed the word ‘again’ away once more “then that’s the promise I’ll make to you.”

“I just don’t see how you can force yourself not to use that on me, especially knowing that there is something in there that I just can’t bear to share with anyone… even my other half” she choked on the words, knowing she was most likely even further tempting him to use that ability, but needing to hear that he wouldn’t.

Sean was quiet another long moment before finding any more words “I’m going to just trust that someday you’ll finally be willing and able to share whatever it is that you think you can’t share yet. And I’ll be here when that day comes. I just want and need for you to be here next to me then too.”