Erinna’s body was becoming more feverish, her hormones were more frayed than usual and she wasn’t entirely sure she could go through everything alone but she had made her decision.

With this spirit, she woke up very early at dusk to return the clothes Vlad had provided her with to Miya, since the witch had been the one to sew them in the first place. She could not take them with her and leaving them at the castle would just be a cruel reminder to Vlad of what could have been and she was not a malicious person.

She was also going to tell Vlad she had forgiven him because even without her inability as a Pure Being to hold a grudge, she could not allow him to go on thinking she hated him. It had been a moment of weakness and she was not going to fault him for eternity for that. She wanted him to go on with his life, to remember their time together with happiness not pain or self-loathing, even though her decision about forfeiting their bond remained unchanged.

Little animals and birds followed her as she walked to Miya’s cottage with Jonathan and three other vampires carrying the heavy suitcases with clothes. Vlad would probably have refused this but he was out of the castle, trying to find who had tried to murder her. Erinna didn’t find it necessary since she was leaving anyway but it kept him out of her way so she didn’t argue.

She said goodbye to the birds and the animals and they left as she entered the cottage. Miya didn’t allow any vampires inside her house except for Alexander and Dracula so Jonathan and his friends left too. Without them, Erinna’s headaches which increased in the presence of vampires lessened.

Miya floated the suitcases inside and made coffee which they seeped in front of the fireplace.

“Are you positive this is what you want, dove?”

Positive? No, she was not but it was what needed to be done. She had tried following her heart but look where the treacherous organ had led her. It was time to think with her brain so she brushed the tear that fell down her cheek quickly.

“Yes I’m sure. I’m not angry with him, not anymore. It just...it hurts, that’s all. But I’ll be fine, him on the other hand...”

She shrugged because she had felt the pain inside Vlad, had heard it in his confession.

“I’ll take care of him. As always.”

There was no bitterness in Miya’s voice, just understanding.

Erinna nodded, she couldn’t ask for more.

“Thank you. He’s telling the truth, about that night. Whatever happened, he truly regrets it. He said he has been getting flashes and he was distraught when I talked to him. I don't want to make excuses for him, but I believe him. I believe this,” she said, touching the Recognition Mark but it was way more than that.

The previous night had made her learn a lot more about Vlad than three months had. Whatever everyone thought, he understood her. She might not have known it herself before the previous day but she now did.

It was because of how much he understood her that he had brought her back from the edge. He knew how much she hated her hurting people, how she hated losing control to her powers and doing things she would regret later.

Anyone who knew Vlad knew how much he wanted to die, how much he craved it even. Four thousand years was an entirely too long a time for someone to live but especially long for someone haunted daily by demons of their past. Last night it could all have ended, she could have freed him, from all the guilt and hatred that held him prisoner but he had stopped her.

And even when she had been weak, he had not taken advantage of her. It would have been too easy, especially with the way he had been mindless with blood lust but he had seen to her needs, giving and asking for nothing in return.

“But why do you want to leave then, if you have forgiven him?”

“I can’t stay here because of the bond. Last night...things happened and I don’t know how much longer we can both control ourselves. I can’t have him marking me.”

It was awkward to describe the heightened attraction between her and Vlad with the woman who was practically his mother.

“Resisting the mate bond is harder than you think, especially one as strong as yours. It will do anything, anything to be consummated.”

“That’s why I’m leaving. Everything will be alright once I do. A clean slate for both of us.”

The sad expression in Miya’s face showed she did not share this faith. They talked more, Erinna telling her she would be leave in the morning, soon after she had seen the people who had asked her to come to the human village.

"Do you know where you'll go?"

“No, not yet but I think I will start with the mixed village up north.”

Miya nodded. The mixed village had people, hobbits, rogue elves and dwarves living together. It was an alright place, chaos but manageable.

“That’s a good start.”

Erinna hesitated, not knowing how to raise her next question.

“Miya...what will happen if we do not mate on the blood moon?”

It wasn’t a lot of things that made Miya uncomfortable, but this clearly was one of them because she started wringing her hands in discomfit.

“Erinna...”

“Just tell me, please.”

She needed to know.

“The bond will be broken.”

If possible the ache in Erinna's heart intensified. Leaving had seemed fine when she had known she would be carrying away a piece of Vlad in her heart, but if that was taken too, could she survive?

“The tearing might be worse for you because your souls had already started mingling, but it's all hearsay, my dear. The only couple that rejected a bond like yours lived long before I was born and people do not speak about what happened to them.”

So if they consummated the bond, they would be damned and if they did not they would still be damned anyway.

“It cannot be worse than the curse of the union.”

“Perhaps not.”

There was silence in the cottage again in which Erinna pondered their fate.

“I’m sorry it did not work out, I honestly thought you would be the one. You were good for him.”

And he had been good for her, in his own unique way. Vlad made her question things, he made her bolder and in him she had found a strength she hadn't known she had before. Thinking about him filled her with nostalgic feelings and she pushed the feelings away before she subconsciously called for him.

“We were too different. It was exciting but in the end we could only have made each other miserable.”

“No, you were happy. I saw both of you coming out of your shells, something I had never thought possible for him. He is a better person with you.”

Erinna shook her head. It did not matter anymore.

"Perhaps if I tell you a part of his history you will understand more. Vlad blocked his more human emotions when he turned. That is why it is harder for him than other vampires to connect to mortals...to you.”

Erinna furrowed her forehead.

“What do you mean he blocked his emotions?”

“Keeping in touch with his humanity meant all the things he was trying to run away from. It meant pain, it meant unpleasant memories but above all, it meant weakness. He did not want that. It’s not that he couldn’t feel, he just chose not to and in the end he forgot how it was like to care about others.”

“Losing himself helped him deal with the memories,” Erinna said something she had come to the conclusion of, herself.

“Yes, so he has all but forgotten how it is like to be human, how fragile others are. But you were helping him remember,” Miya said.

Erinna had no time to stop the dry self-pitying laugh before it left her mouth.

“I wish.”

“It’s true. I never thought I’d see the day Vlad would ever actually respect a woman, not after Aurora, Lisa and Elizabeth. His father never taught him how women should be treated and unlike others, he never had the connection most have with their mothers. It’s hard for someone to love another when the feeling was never shared even with the woman who brought them into the world. That was the person who should have loved him first but she didn’t.”

“Is it because she could not accept it when he became a vampire?” She asked.

Vlad had never talked negatively of his mother except of how it had hurt him when she killed herself because she could not stand the fact that he had become a vampire and killed the husband who had abused her for years.

“It goes deeper than that. Elizabeth never forgave Vlad for how he supposedly ruined her life. Personally, I say she should not have gone around opening her legs for men before she got married if she didn’t want to face the consequences, but alas, she did and placed the blame for everything that went wrong in her life on Vlad’s head.

Her father disowned her. Draco, Vlad's biological father and the man she loved, refused the pregnancy. The whole community shunned her and placed her in the same bracket as other loose skirts. If Benjamin, the king’s widowed son had not been besotted with her and asked for her hand in marriage to his whole family’s outrage, then Elizabeth would have been an outcast forever.”

“But this wasn’t Vlad’s fault.”

Instead of pity for the woman who had gone through so much, Erinna found defensive anger building up in her. How could any woman be that much of a coward? How could she have blamed her son for her own mistakes and recklessness?

"No, it wasn’t. But Elizabeth didn’t see it that way and she needed someone to blame. She would not hold him when he was born. I was Vlad’s nursemaid and he sucked from my breast from the moment he was born.”

Erinna gasped, she had always known there was some sort of bond between Vlad and Miya that went beyond the norm but she could have never guessed. No wonder Miya always called him her son. But did this mean Miya was older than Vlad? The thought left her eerie.

“That is why I’ve always felt he’s my son. I’ve been with him through the worst and the best. I know him, what he’s capable of and what he’s not. And hurting you is not one of those things. He doesn’t lie when he tells you he would rather die than have one hair on your head hurt. Your pain is his and your tears are his.”

“Miya,” Erinna began, seeing where this was going but Miya interrupted her like she hadn’t said anything.

“I told him not to take you from your tower. I knew of your destiny and could not see anything good coming out of it for him. But he begged me, ‘Miya let me know her, just let me see her, if only for a day.’ I’d never seen him speak of something so passionately before so in the end, I gave in.

I exploited the power and connection of your birth constellation and did the spell which teleported you here. I told him sooner or later it would come to this, that you would have to break the bond or kill him but he didn’t care. He said dying meant nothing if he got to hold you just once.”

Feelings of guilt swelled inside her. She was still on the fence about the genuineness of Vlad's feelings for her. She knew he thought he loved her but did he?

"You have something on your mind," Miya said as she watched her wring her hands.

"It's nothing."

"You will never know if you don't ask."

"It's just that... Vlad sometimes, he comes off a little..."

She stopped, not knowing how to come right out and say she belived the man she loved was down right psychotic.

"Intense?"

"Yes but..."

"Mad?"

"I don't want to make any accusations," the diplomat in her said.

She did not know how she could explain it without coming out politically incorrect. She did not know if Vlad was mad persay but there was something deeply disturbed within him. He had mental problems and wounds far much deeper than any of them had ever realised and lately she was wondering if perhaps that longing for a sense of normalcy in his life had driven him to think he loved her.

“I love Vlad, Erinna, that doesn’t mean I’m blind to his faults. He is unstable yes and a little deranged but not in the way you think. At least not anymore."

"So there was a time he was."

"Isn't there a time we all are? Eternity is a long time, especially for someone with a lot of guilt and pain."

Knowing the ghosts of Vlad's past, Erinna could empathize with that. She could not imagine living forever whilst everyone she loved died. It was bound to drive anyone mad at some point.

"How did he get better?"

Assuming he had.

"You."

She frowned, conveying her need for clarification.

"Your people received the prophecy about you and it had the similar aspects to the one Aurora had given him. At first he had thought his sister's words had been nothing but the ramblings of a dying woman but the prophecy that came from your people confirmed your birth and that gave him something to live for."

Erinna shook her head.

"I'm not good for him either. I'm supposed to kill him."

"Yet you haven't."

"Everyone deserves a second chance, who am I to take Vlad's?"

"So you believe he can change?"

"Of course he can. He just needs someone to help him."

She had tried to be that person but if the results were anything to go by, that mission had been a failure. Deep down, she knew Vlad was not a bad person. He just kept a lot of walls around him, disguised his fears with intimidation and it was those layers of protection that she had wanted to strip away to reveal the man underneath.

“And you’re the only one who can help him, can’t you see that? You’re the only one who can reach him, that part of him he’s closed forever. I know you think things are bad now but you should have seen him before they strapped him to that coffin, he was a nightmare, Erinna.”

It was the same thing Alexander had said to her when she had arrived in Transylvania and the burden didn't weigh any less than it had that day. How could she let them all know that she had absolutely no power over Vlad? No one did. Any true change could only come from him.

They could all wail at him and preach till the sun went down but unless he himself saw the need to change and decided in his heart that he wanted to become a better person, there was nothing they could do. The only thing they could do was to help him remember how it had been like to be human, to make him wish to regain all that he had lost in his quest for revenge.

“But why did he become like that, Miya? He is not the only man who has lost everything."

Erinna desperately tried to keep her heart detached. Everything in her was desperate to go back to Vlad and didn’t need all the cajoling Miya was firing at her, her will already felt weak.

But she could not be weak again, she had tried to help Vlad as his lover but that had failed. Perhaps it was time to try a different course and to do that, she needed to thoroughly understand his past and his motives. It was the only hope there was to salvage the mess that had become his life.

“Maybe not, but people deal with things differently. When you came here today, I wanted to tell you a story, allow me to finish. After her father disowned her, Elizabeth married Benjamin, the crown prince and ironically, Draco’s nephew.”

“But didn’t you say Draco was Vlad’s biological father?”

“Yes, I did. Draco and Benjamin were blood relatives but Benjamin didn’t do it out of spite. He truly adored Elizabeth even though she remained besotted with Draco. But as I was saying, Elizabeth still wouldn’t have anything to do with Vlad; she continued to refuse to touch him; that’s when the nickname Dracula came in.”

“Son of the Dragon?”

“That’s a latter day translation. The original was literally translated into ancient Romanian as Drac Ullah, meaning bad blood. And that’s what everyone knew him as, the times they were not calling him a bastard. It would have never gone that far if Elizabeth had accepted him but she didn’t and people took the lead on how to treat him from her. I tried to be there for him. Having nursed him from birth, I loved him as my own but that was not enough.

As he grew up, Vlad began seeing how his mother treated him differently from other children. At one time, he even asked me if he was her real child after she had thoroughly thrashed him for calling her mother in public. When I told him he was her real child, he came to the conclusion that something must be wrong with him if his own mother couldn’t love him or hold him like she did with his sisters.”

Despite herself, Erinna couldn’t stop the tears or the pain and anguish this story was dragging out of her. What sort of a mother? Children were sacred gifts and even though she’d never had both parents; her father had done everything in his power to make sure she had never wanted for anything affection wise.

What kind of a monster had Elizabeth been if she could be so cruel to a child? A mere innocent who had never known evil his whole life until she had introduced it to him.

“Benjamin like all men, was not overly fond of his step-son. But no one blamed him, things could have been worse. It was enough that he was sheltering a bastard under his roof. Vlad grew up vying for attention, he’d do anything to get his mother to notice him, if not accept him. He worked really hard to make himself ‘perfect’ for her.

He thought the reason that made her stay away from him was within him so he did everything he could to be a model child and he succeeded. There was almost an obsessive determination and competitiveness in him that pushed him to try and always be the best. He was everything you could want in child; strong, reliable, honest and intelligent.

But whatever his efforts, they didn’t work, sure Benjamin now looked at him with a new respect but Elizabeth didn’t even spare him a glance. Realising his methods were not working, Vlad began acting out. Naturally Benjamin didn’t hold back on the whip. Sometimes he would force him to go days without food without cutting his time in the fields.”

“But Vlad told me things were good with Benjamin, that he doesn’t have any bad memories from his time with him, ” Erinna said, remembering the conversation she'd had with Vlad about his childhood.

“It all pales in comparison to what was to come later, that’s why he says that. When he was around ten or twelve, that’s when the wolves raided us and kidnapped his young sister together with many other pre-adolescent girls; killing all men folk in our village. Benjamin followed them to rescue Vlad's sister and he was killed as Vlad told you.

There was no obvious heir left and even if Vlad had been of age, no one would have accepted a bastard on the throne. Dracula’s birth father, seeing an opportunity offered to take over his late nephew’s family. It was customary in those days, so at long last, Elizabeth found herself married with the man of her dreams and Draco found himself on the position he had always coveted as king. Everyone agreed he be crowned since he was taking over the deceased’s family in a rare show of responsibility.”

“But they must have known the crass way he had treated Vlad’s mother?” Erinna hated Elizabeth for what she had done but everything had started with Draco, the man who had refused to take responsibility of his actions.