Vlad was pinned under an obese werewolf when he heard the sound. Lord, not again. He teleported from beneath his attacker to confirm what his ears were hearing and sure enough, another fierce batch of reinforcements were riding from the horizon. This was what had been happening every time they thought there were making headway; the wolves would get more reinforcements and it would be back to square one.

He was getting frustrated, it was already nine o'clock and he knew something was wrong. His link with Erinna was getting fainter and he could feel her pain. Whatever barriers she'd learnt to erect to keep him out of her head had all crumbled down. Something told him it hadn't been willful. Extreme pain can make one lose control of any shields.

He had tried to teleport into the castle but whatever wards were around the place couldn't let him teleport beyond the fortress wall. If he needed to get to her, he had to go through the thousands of werewolves blocking his way.

All battle cries had long since been forsaken in the bid to stay alive. His men were working as hard as he was but it just wasn't enough. Their own reinforcements in the form of more troops had arrived but they were still being swamped. Nicolai had miscalculated when he had said ten thousand.

"It's a losing battle Drac, there's no way we can win this. There are thousands of them and we're barely holding them back as it is," Alexander grunted in exertion as he did away with the head of a malformed creature that Vlad couldn't even identify.

Where had wolves gotten these creatures? If he didn't know better, Vlad would think he was fighting animated corpses.

"Cover for me," Vlad told Alexander and proceeded to whistle for Alex who had become separated from them.

He had hoped not to have to do this but it didn't look like he had a choice; Alexander was right, their odds didn't look good. He only stopped whistling when he heard a resounding roar. He moved aside to avoid a close sweep from a blunt ax in the hand of a dwarf as he waited for his familiar. With anger born if frustration, he swiped his hand at the creature, knocking both horse and rider away.

Within a minute, Alex could be seen charging in his direction, his mane moving up and down with the effort of running. With Alexander covering for them, he'd be able to relay his instructions to the lion. He tossed away another creature and went to meet Alex head on. The lion as usual knocked him down. They rolled on the ground until Vlad had gotten a firm grip of Alex's mane and that temporarily held him down.

Concentrating his powers, he looked deep into his familiar's eyes and used his mind to speak what he wanted; revisiting a secret only the two of them knew; a task he had set upon Alex from the beginning of time immemorial. He knew this could seriously backfire but what choice did he have?

Taking his charm necklace, the only gift his mother had ever given him and only because custom demanded she do it on his initiation; Vlad put it between Alex's teeth.The lion looked at him with sad eyes then turned to look at the raging battle around them. His inborn instincts and stubborn loyalty refused to let him just up and leave his master when it was apparent he needed him the most.

"Go Alex," Vlad commanded knowing Alex could not, whatever the case, ignore a command. After a heartbeat, Alex bowed his head and left, running through the battlefield and away from it.

Vlad turned back to the battle with a new sense of purpose, knowing Alex would accomplish the mission he'd given him. His people valiant and determined, were attacking mercilessly. He had bred strong men, a true Tepes army but they were outnumbered.

"We need to change strategy!" Ingrid shouted at him, blasting a nearby Calydonian Boar with a ball of flames.

"I'm going up," he said to Alexander.

Alexander clasped his shoulder and looked into his eyes, "Go well---my brother."

Vlad nodded and passed his sword to Alexander, wondering how he'd never seen they were friends. This was a man who had stood by his side for most of his life and had seen him though most of his battles. Not once had he ever swayed in his loyalties or devotion.

To mask the emotion welling up in him, Vlad cast a rueful glance at the battlefield. More wolves and creatures of beyond were pouring in from all sides. His people would be caged in a minute. For every wolf they killed, ten more came in to replace him. He had sacrificed more warriors than he'd ever had to in any of his previous battles. If he left now, they'd all be killed.

"I'll take care of them," Alexander promised, sensing the direction of his thoughts.

He feared the wolves' were going through their last moves and that it might work, because instead of the troops he had seen coming from the horizon, he noticed there were more coming in every direction and that his own army was in danger of being surrounded.

"Gather around! No one breaks the wall!" Alexander shouted, slipping into his role of Commander-in-Chief.

The Tepes army moved fast, making a solid square so that they faced their enemy in all directions. If they all kept formation and didn't let anything penetrate the wall, they might survive this after all. But before he left, he needed to do something, give them a fighting chance at least before Alex returned.

Drawing from deep inside him, Vlad used all of his energy to manipulate the particles around him, gathering them around until he sent a strong gust of wind on the oncoming troops, knocking thousands of men off their horses and causing commotion amongst them. Sasha, taking her lead from him, did the same in the other directions.

"Ingrid!"

He did not need to tell her though for she was already sending fireballs around them. A hand grasped his shoulder and he turned around, ready to swing but it was only Alexander.

"You've done enough, we'll mange from here. Go get your girl."

Vlad looked long and hard in his friend's eyes and then nodded. He could trust Alexander, he knew.

"I'll see you again. Brother."

Referring to Alexander as his brother was easier than he thought. It was amazing how in just one day he'd not gained one, but two brothers. In the distance, he could see Samuel in his elephant form, squashing anything and everything in his path.

Vlad teleported to the least guarded past of the wall; it'd be the easiest to breach. He fought his way past his enemies until he'd managed to climb up it since his teleporting powers were useless inside the wall.

When he was on top of the wall, he leapt over it, giving himself up to the shift at the same time. He turned into a black jaguar, characteristic of his color, mid-leap. It was the fastest shift of his life. Vlad guessed it had to be because of the adrenaline pumping through his system and the willingness with which he'd taken the change. He'd never given himself to it so completely before.

Inside the citadel, it was chaos as he'd expected. People were running everywhere, women screaming and men shouting. Relying on the map drawn for him and the Echolocator's deductions, he navigated the mountain city. He didn't care about being inconspicuous. As a panther, few things burdened his mind. His only thought was that he should get to Erinna and that was the instruction he followed.

Every here and then werewolves would block his path and try to fight him. He slashed through the whole lot, scratching faces and ripping out jugulars. The shifter birds that had followed him assisted in every way they could, gouging out eyes of his attackers and picking out chunks of flesh.

When he had reached the royal castle at the top of the mountain, Vlad went into a corner and shifted. He risked a lot by fighting in panther form; the body had too many vulnerabilities.

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Alex knew what he had to do, this mission had been commissioned and entrusted to him since the beginning of time. Nothing dared to stand in his way as he ran as fast as he could, faster than he'd ever done his whole undead life. Seconds became minutes as he covered more ground than should be possible. The battle was already legions behind him but still he ran.

He passed many villages but no one saw him; all that they saw was a blur of mishmashed colors and a rushing breeze. It took him twenty-five extremely exhausting minutes to reach the place. It was a secluded cave in a forest long since forgotten. The cave itself had been sealed hundreds of centuries back. Now that he was here, only a enchanted stone doorway stood between him and his mission.

Holding up his paw, he placed it in a oval shaped indent on the enormous stone boulder. It was inscribed in ancient Gaelic to warn all those who might feel adventurous to stay away from it for nothing but certain death awaited them inside.

When his paw touched the boulder, a sharp rock protruded from it, cutting the dense skin of his underfoot. His blood leaked onto the ground, the pain excruciating but he paid no heed. His mission was more important. As his blood mixed with the earth, fog rose upon the land, giving a mystic eerie quality to the surroundings. Even more frightening was the hollow hooting sound that followed.

Fear struck Alex at the nature of the air around him. It reeked of death and doom. A mortal would have turned back in that moment but Alex was no stranger to death. He had given and received it. There was a groan from the stone hinges and then the huge boulder rolled away, but only to reveal another door. This time, there was a small hole in the door.

Alex stepped forward and inserted the charm on the necklace he'd been given into the lozenge. Stone shifted and ground moved until a black hollow was revealed. This time even he was hesitant to step in. It smelt of nothing in there except death, hopelessness and despair. There was nothing in there that lived.

With a deep breath and low roar, Alex stepped in, charm necklace still between his teeth. The interior was dark but his vampire senses allowed him to see the tunnel ahead of him. Careful not to disturb the unsteady earth and rocks, he moved down the narrow, constricted passage. He followed the tunnel as it winded and bent, until he got to a lake which was not really a lake.

It was an illusion and death trap that the Count had had Armando and his brothers set up. With dark murky stagnant waters that had not moved in years, the lake looked harmless enough but Alex knew better. With its hidden whirlpool beneath, the waters would send anyone who stepped in to his death. Careful not to get to close to the lake, Alex dropped the charm necklace he'd been given into the water, like they'd practiced before.

Nothing happened first and then there was a loud suction sound; the waters hissing as they were sucked into the earth, the illusion shattering to reveal what had been carefully concealed for four thousand years. As all the water was sucked away, leaving no trace of it ever being there, an enormous cage was revealed. Rust and time had worn away the cage but it the iron bars remained relatively intact; a fit only magic could have achieved.

Inside the age could be seen seven creatures that one could not have immediately identified at first blush. A closer inspection however and sparse hair on the bony skulls, would reveal seven creatures that might have been humans in another lifetime. Even their resemblances to each other and to the vampire Count currently fighting a life and death war legions away, had faded with time.

Thin would have been a kind word to describe them for skin and bone was all that was left to the seven brothers. All traces of flesh had been eaten away by years of repeated starvation. Every bone that made up their skeletons could easily be seen and counted.

They stood completely still, hands frozen whilst holding the metal bars of their self-induced prison. In a ghastly fashion, their eyes only eyeballs now, stared straight away. The listless and glazed manner in which they gazed ahead showed that they saw nothing.

Alex knew once he released them, it was either their life or his. They would only need about twenty seconds before they moved all their joints and collected whatever strength was left in them after thousands of years of a blood fast. Stepping forward, yet leaning as far back as he could, Alex put his blood signature into the crucible near the cage. He didn't wait to see what happened but fled out of there like his tail was on fire.

If his coming journey had been fast, his return journey was going to be worse. He caught the sound of creaking bones when he was at the entrance of the cave but didn't turn around to inspect. Needing to put as much distance as possible between him and the bloodthirsty creatures behind him, he ran like a possessed veld fire; his paws barely touching the ground.

He knew they were gaining on him but survival instincts older than time kept him pushing harder. He barely caught the sight of trees in his race against death itself; everything was whipping by him so fast. He just hoped they wouldn't get him first; he needed to lead them to where they were needed the most.

Vampires were usually loyal to their own and would not kill unprovoked on a normal basis but Alex knew the creatures behind him were far from normal. Whatever sane thought, whatever moral; it had all been extinguished by a bloodlust natured for four thousand years. Only one thing existed in their minds and that was to kill. Insatiable and deadly, nothing was going to stand in their way.

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After having gone through so many rooms and dungeons, Vlad was getting frustrated. Erinna was not where they had expected her to be. He could feel she was close but somehow couldn't get her location. That had never happened before so he had to assume it was magic. He felt another jolt again; she was definitely close, but where?

He was striding to one of the closed doors in the long hallway when someone bumped into him. He looked down, ready to beat whatever creature had touched him to hell and back but instead froze in his tracks. He blinked, hardly daring to believe what his eyes were telling him.

"Erinna?"

"Vlad," she gaped back at him.

"What---how?"

Working class werewolves who had not gone to take part in the battle taking place at the bottom of the mountain were running around them, trying to escape but he hardly paid any attention to them. He only had eyes for one.

She was grubby, her hair all over the place like a weaver nest completed in a hurry, her clothes filthy and her face bloody. All his bottled up rage against those who had done this strove to explode, to go back to the battle and continue in the bloodshed of those who had caused her so much pain. He would put them all in their place.

"I escaped, but they're behind me. They'll find me soon, we have to go now."

Her eyes were anxious and her voice panicked. He wanted nothing but to take her in his arms and comfort her; tell her everything would be fine. But first-

"Who did this to you?"

He wanted her to point the exact wolf. That dog would pay for the rest of his race.

"It doesn't matter, Vlad please we have to go. You can come back later for them."

She was almost hyperventilating now, her fear bubbling over. He decided his revenge could wait and took her hand. Something was terribly wrong and he knew it; everything in him was telling him. No wonder Erinna was so spooked. He gritted his teeth and held her hand tighter even as his Recognition Mark burned, crying for vengeance and retribution for those who had wronged his mate.

He really needed to control himself; the first priority was to get Erinna out of this mess alive. Everything else would come later. So against his natural inclinations for revenge, he led her away in the direction he had come from but Erinna tugged his hand.

"There are tunnels that side it'll be faster."

She took his hand and dragged him in the direction of the tunnels.

"That's him!" A werewolf cried. He was part of the group that had followed Vlad from the battle.

Not wasting time, he held Erinna's hand tighter and ran down the long hallways with her, taking directions from her. It quickly became apparent though that there would be no avoiding a confrontation.

"Stay behind me," he told Erinna and faced the six werewolves.

"If you bring ten more of you, I'd still kill you with my hands tied so why don't we avoid wasting each other's time?" he drawled.

"I'd like to see you try," the leader of the group of six snarled.

Vlad shrugged, "It's your funeral."

He didn't want to have to kill anyone in front of Erinna so he made it quick, not seriously wounding the werewolves but incapacitating them enough to get them of his trail. When he was done he turned to Erinna.

"Are you ok?" He asked.

She nodded. He took her hand again and made to run but one of the wolves grabbed her ankle, pulling her to the ground. Vlad ripped him off her and drove his fist into the man's jaw; a resounding crack telling he'd indeed broken something. Erinna passed him a sword on the ground, not that he needed it but he used it and put the dog out of his misery.

They were running once again but this time managed to reach the door which led into the tunnels without incident.

"It's locked," Erinna cried in distress.

He ignored her and gripped the bars of the screen door, using all his strength to wrench it off its hinges. It was when they were walking down the tunnel that his sense of something being wrong became more insistent. He could tell the tunnel had seen a lot of violence and death, it hung thick in the air in an almost suffocating way. The scent of death was almost as strong as that of dried blood. No elf would ever come within twenty feet of this tunnel yet...

His hand quickly wrapped around the woman's fragile neck, slamming her into one of the walls of the tunnel; the force making the tunnel tremble.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Vlad__" The woman whose face was identical to Erinna's choked, her fingers clawing at his hands but he gave no notice, his grip remained strong and sure.

"One person is classified to say that name and you're not her. So I'll ask one more time, who the are you?"

His anger was mounting, making it hard for her to not just increase the pressure of his hands and throttle the life out of her. He should have seen it all along: Erinna telling him he could come back and get revenge later, then passing him a sword when she knew he'd use it to kill someone and finally the insensitivity to the air of death hanging around them.

His bride who held life so sacred would have never encouraged him to do something that would result in the death of another; it was just not her. He should have known. His Recognition Mark had not been burning because he wanted revenge; it'd been burning because he'd touched the wrong woman.

"It's m__" She tried to lie again but he interrupted her.

"You have exactly three seconds before I rip your throat out."

Suddenly the woman laughed, a cold manic laugh that made the hairs at the back of his neck shiver. In exactly the same moment, the features that had so closely resembled his bride's to the point of being identical, shifted. They melted back as the face reconstructed itself, young vibrant skin that was characteristic to his mate, wrinkled to an old leathery texture.