Claire was already quite a ways down the beach when she was halted in her tracks by the sound of a single gunshot piercing the nighttime air. It was true that the sound of gunshots was a common enough occurrence in the still rather lawless west; but she couldn’t help her mind immediately flying back to what Sean had programmed Kristofer to do almost a year earlier. That fear only grew stronger as she knew that she had sent Kristofer back home to a creature such as his wife, with the clear smell of her own blood on him, considering they had made love only moments before she had made her swift departure.

She desperately wanted to go back and try to offer him any sort of comfort at all if he had truly done what Sean had compelled him to do; though she knew that there was no comfort she could offer him aside from ripping the memory from his head, which would be problematic as well, to say the least. Then Claire had an even more worrisome thought; what if that gunshot hadn’t actually been from the gun Sean had given him or worse yet, what if he had missed? If that had been the case, not only would Kristofer most likely be dead, but his wife would be upon Claire in seconds. With that she moved with that supernatural speed in a flash of motion the rest of the way down the beach toward her home and through the wrought iron gate, locking it behind her before even allowing herself a moment to think.

Claire took another moment to try and compose herself in light of the possibility that she was being stalked by a werewolf at that very moment. But she had only the briefest second before she heard Thomas’ voice from where he had been standing several feet off, tightening the saddle on his favorite stallion of Sean’s stable.

“Bravo Claire. I must say you have actually managed to shock me. I was honestly betting on the werewolf” he smirked as he turned another malevolent grin on her, “then again, I guess a doctor would have to have pretty fast hands, wouldn’t he?”

“So you did send me there to get me killed?” she growled angrily.

“Don’t be mad at me. Our Prince is the one who let that were-beast move into his territory” another smirk, “but never mind that; you survived! Good on you” he stated with another grin, “it’s true I was betting on the bitch, but even if I don’t get to watch Sean crumble to pieces at the news of your death; I still get to bask in the knowledge that there is no longer some hellhound waiting up the coast to try and end all of us at any moment. It was really a win no matter what happened. But now I do get to enjoy your knowledge that a man killed his own wife just to cover the fact that he fucked you. That’s a pretty good payoff as well I suppose.”

Claire was seething at that point as she held him in that furious glare for another long moment before growling, “fuck you.”

“That’s not very ladylike” Thomas smirked, “then again I guess you were already spending most of your night rolling in the sand with some wolf boy. So I think I’ll pass, but thank you so much for the offer” he added with another polite smile.

Casting another glare back at him, she simply turned on her heel and entered the house with a slam of the door behind her before she lost her temper and made some rash decision to try and murder a Kindred who was nearly 200 years older and more powerful than herself. After all, she had already come way to close to Final Death already that night. And as miserable as her current existence already was, it was sure to become even more so now.

Though despite that fact, she still could not willingly let go of that existence, therefore leaving Sean as alone as he already had felt he was. Then again, now that Claire knew what Kristofer had most likely done that very night, she knew how much harder it would be to forgive Sean. Then she had another thought that it was most likely true that Sean’s bending of Kristofer’s will was probably the only thing that had saved her life that night at all.

Once Claire arrived back in her room, she had several decisions to make. The first and foremost was to decide what she should tell Sean about the whole of the evening. If she told him every bit of the truth to what had actually occurred, and what else she at least suspected had occurred; it would most likely be Sean who made the rash decision to try and end Thomas’ life once and for all. And for all the anger she had at Sean, just the thought of him being killed was one she knew she would never survive the reality of; even if it did prove that foul prophecy wrong at last.

At the same time, if she just kept the facts of the night to herself, that led to two other very real problems. The first being that Thomas could easily go and tell Sean what had happened, as foolish as it would be; though Thomas didn’t strike her as overly intimidated by rousing either she or Sean’s anger. The second and much more damaging problem was the fact that now Kristofer was more than aware that she was alive. And he also likely knew what she was. And he likely had a million questions for her that he would urgently want answered and as soon as possible.

She sighed heavily as she moved to the bed and buried her face against the pillows. It came down to the fact that Sean would have to know what happened. And Sean knowing what happened would lead to him possibly endangering himself to try to make Thomas pay, as well as him then dealing with the guilt of what he had probably forced Kristofer to do, and them both dealing with Kristofer being aware of what she was and having all those questions, as well as all that grief and guilt of his own.

Claire literally felt like she was drowning in a sea of chaos and danger and imminent death all at once; and only after one week of enduring the new addition to their home. And when she allowed herself to think of how much more damage he could do after doing this much in that short of time… that was beyond terrifying.

Sean returned to their room that night and got into bed next to Claire with the same somber expression he had been wearing in all their recent nights. As he slid under the sheet next to her, she did manage to shock him a bit as she moved to wrap him in her arms and lay her head upon his chest.

“Dare I ask what brought on your sudden desire to be in my arms again?” Sean whispered quietly.

“Are you complaining?” Claire mumbled in a sad tone.

“I think you know better than that” he told her as he couldn’t resist the urge to gently kiss her hair.

After another long moment, Claire spoke again, “I’m sure he replaced Amanda with his own servants by now.”

Sean sighed heavily, not needing to ask who she was referring to, “the way he keeps trying to make us snap, I’m sure he has an army of servants guarding him during the day.”

“So if we sent any of ours over there to kill him after the sun rises; we’d be making it highly likely that they would get killed instead” Claire stated as more of a statement than a question.

“I’m guessing he said something else to you since we last spoke?”

“He compelled me; just as easily as any mortal” she sniffled.

Sean tensed a bit, but had to ask, “compelled you to do what?”

“To have sex with Kristofer” she whispered.

That was when Sean tensed and paled even more as his fingers dug into the mattress next to them. It took him a long moment to find any response at all to that, “I can only assume that his wife wasn’t around.”

“She was upstairs in his house. We were a mile up the beach” she admitted in the same monotone as though she didn’t even have the strength to have any kind of emotional response to her own words.

There was another long moment of deafening silence before Sean could find any more words at all, “why on earth would he compel you to do that at all?”

“Well, the obvious answer is that he probably wanted to see if she’d catch us and…” she simply let her voice trail off then, not needing to supply the rest of the details of what that would have led to.

“She apparently didn’t” Sean replied, trying to sound relieved, though not quite able to manage to.

“Afterwards he would have had to gone home to her… with my scent on him, Sean” she whispered hoarsely.

“So, I guess we’ll be expecting a visit from her soon” he then added, “but that wouldn’t make any sense. Even Thomas would never want to bring a werewolf straight to his own door” Sean argued as he looked down at her.

"He made it pretty obvious that he didn't expect that I'd possibly survive to even lead her back here” she sniffled slightly.

That was when Sean’s hand moved to his temple again, “he really could have gotten you killed, Claire. Something has to be done” he stressed.

“Isn’t that the same thing we’ve been saying ever since he got here?” Claire returned with another sigh, “that’s why I started out talking about the servants; has he finally pushed hard enough to make us actually risk them getting killed by his servants?”

“So we let him play these games with us; games that almost got you and the rest of us nearly killed… or we send them off with the hope that maybe they’ll be able to outmatch his own servants. Of course, if they can’t…” Sean shook his head.

“Right back where we are now; except with him being even more angry and vengeful then” Claire stated in the same sad sigh.

Another long silence then before Sean replied, “I almost miss the days when it was just Baron playing his games from the shadows. Thomas is bold. So bold he doesn’t even give a shit if we catch him in his games. He’s already inside the gates, and there’s not one fucking thing we can do about it” Sean finished with a frightening lack of any and all hope to his tone at that moment.

After another day’s slumber, Sean awoke with a new motivation. Having found out that Claire had been nearly compelled into a very bloody death, Sean had to find a solution of some sort. Both of their lives depended on it. That was when he contacted the one ally they had in the new world; an ally who actually was the exact same generation as Thomas, and embraced ten years earlier. Sean explained the situation in painstaking detail to Marcus and then specifically told Marcus to not let him in on any part of his own plan on how to deal with Thomas; as Marcus’ vampiric cousin could easily rip every detail from Sean’s head.

As Marcus had no love for any Kindred trying to strong-arm a fellow Prince from their throne, he agreed to take care of the problem; but diplomatically of course. And that is the only detail Marcus shared, other than the promise that Sean would owe him a favor in return, which Sean easily agreed to. And with that he finally let himself relax ever so slightly as he mentally washed his hands of the matter, hoping Marcus would not dally. After all, he still had the whole Kristofer issue to deal with even after Thomas was to be removed from his list of annoyances.

When Claire returned from the privy after a somber soak in the tub, she was a bit surprised that Sean had not left their chambers yet, “we’ve moved on to just trying to avoid him for the rest of eternity?” she asked sadly as Sean’s eyes moved to where the wet water dripped from her hair and down her thin robe, making the outline of her breasts that much more distracting, considering their own lack of intimacy for nearly a year.

Sean swallowed as he forced his eyes back to her face, “I’ve decided that the only way to deal with a selfish child is the way actual children deal with it; get your big brother to take them out… or in this case, your older… cousin? Is that what Marcus is?”

Claire just shook her head as she attempted to answer that, but then decided to just move on, “so Marcus is going to take care of him?”

“I’ve watched the man have an orgy with my sister’s mother and my sire, and one of my lovers… all at the same time; it promotes closeness” he returned wryly, to which Claire just scoffed.

“So, what exactly is Marcus going to do when he’s all the way back in Columbus?” she asked warily as she took a seat at the vanity near where Sean was already seated in one of the plush red velvet chairs.

“I have no idea” Sean stated plainly.

“You’ll pardon me if that doesn’t fill me with confidence” Claire returned warily.

“I deliberately told Marcus not to tell me his plan” Sean explained further.

“Ok…” Claire replied with further worry.

“What’s our single biggest problem with Thomas? What makes him so deadly?”

“That he’s over 150 years older than us” she stated the obvious.

“This means that he can use his powers on us. And the most devastating one is him being able to read our every thought and fear. If I don’t know the plan, he can’t rip it from my head. All I know is that I told Marcus that Thomas has eyes for my throne and Marcus said he would find some way to refocus Thomas’ attentions elsewhere. Not much there that he can use against us; is there?” Sean told her frankly.

Claire thought on his words for a long moment, but soon had to voice another worry, “and what if Thomas doesn’t take whatever bait Marcus uses?”

“Marcus is older than Thomas, and having been a Prince since 1560, he has quite a bit of weight to throw around. I’m depending on him to find some way to get Thomas out of our lives. He does like his favors after all. And he did seem a bit peeved by the idea of another Kindred trying to supplant a fellow Prince. I have faith in him” Sean stated with what he hoped came across as confidence despite the worry of the vague possibility of the plan not working after all.

“Must have been one hell of an orgy” Claire smirked.

“Jealous you missed it?” Sean couldn’t help his own small smirk as Claire rolled her eyes but just almost allowed a smile… just almost.