At around midnight, even Alexander had had enough. He rolled out of the bed they were in, in the guest wing and moved across the room.

The easy going expression that Vlad was used to seeing on his face was gone and in its place was something that reminded Vlad of himself. There was a tight anger in Alexander's movements as he crossed his arms and locked his jaw. Vlad knew what was coming, recognized that quiet but deadly temper and the thirst for revenge.

"I need an army," his right hand man said.

Vlad sighed.

"Sit down, Alexander." He said wearily.

"We will be quick. It'll be an in and out job."

"If I couldn't get in, neither can you."

"I'm not going to let him get away with what he did to you."

"Eric wants a war and if you do this, you'll be giving it to him."

"I don't care," Alexander said stubbornly, making Vlad raise an eyebrow.

"Yes you do because in the end, the only one who suffers is Erinna. I will not have a repeat of Silvercrest."

"How can you be so calm? How can you forget? I'm trying but I can't- I can't get it out of my head. It's all I see when I close my eyes. We almost lost you."

"I'm fine, soldier. If you doubt me, you can get my whip and I'll prove it to you," Vlad said, his lips tilting slightly in a smile that he knew people feared more than his frowns.

In truth, he was touched by Alexander's concern. He had always known Alexander cared for him but sometimes it was easy to forget how much. He vowed to himself that he would do better by his right hand man. After the mistakes he had made with Miya, he would not be so careless with the people in his life again. But he needed to curb these avenging thoughts in the younger vampire's head before they went out of control.

"Tempting," Alexander smirked and Vlad was glad to see the cloud of rage that had been over him shift slightly.

"Fighting battles with Eric only serves to fulfill his agenda."

"I wish I had killed him when I had the chance."

"You and me both," Vlad said ruefully.

No one could have known it was him if he had just snapped Eric's neck during the war. But how would he have gone to sleep next to Erinna knowing that he had been the one to make her an orphan?

"Has anyone gone hunting for the humans?" He asked.

As was his rule, the vampires in the Draculian provinces provided the humans in their respective surrounding villages with food. The grain came from the Eastern Province, which was the producing province and the meat, they took turns to hunt for them on a weekly basis.

It was only fair since the humans provided them with sustenance. Plus the scheme helped Vlad to control sport killing and over hunting. Win-win.

"Chase is taking Didymus and some human males who wanted to join in, later tonight."

"Tell them not to go," Vlad said.

"You want to do it yourself?"

"Yes and you are coming with me."

Alexander's eyes lit up and he grinned, "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to spend more time with me."

That was not so off the mark but Vlad would swallow down the virus from Silvercrest before ever admitting it.

"Get Alex and Shadow."

Alex and Shadow were both probably sick of being cooped up. They liked racing and being exercised and none of his men were brave to do it, which meant they were treated like indoor pets every time he was away. Alex hated it but at least he could come and go from the castle as he pleased, Shadow on the other hand, was locked in his stall until Vlad released him.

He had once tried the 'roam-free' approach with his horse but the mysterious deaths that had followed Shadow's runs had had him changing methods.

"Uh uh," his right hand man denied quickly, "Remove hairball and your sadistic stallion out of that equation or else Alexander is not coming.

"You do know that Shadow is younger than you, right? Be nice to him and he'll be nice to you. He never bothers Erinna when she takes him out."

"Uhm because she can talk to it?"

"Him," Vlad corrected.

"Still not coming."

The Count sighed, wondering if this was actually worth it. Perhaps he should just take Alex and Shadow and leave. But Alexander had taken care of him and he wanted to show his appreciation. Thank you was never going to come out of his lips but perhaps he could show his gratitude in other ways?

"Shadow will not bother you."

"Says you."

"You do realize that chasing actual prey is infinitely more interesting than playing with you, right?"

"Pl-playing with me?" Alexander spluttered indignantly. "That is what you call playing? He stomped my guts out and Hairball ripped out a chunk of my behind!"

"See? They know what is a killing bite and what is not. If they wanted to kill you, you would be dead."

"And that's supposed to comfort me?"

"Yes. They know you are brothers."

"Tell that to George's hand," Alexander said.

Vlad bit his lip as the young vampire who had met his demise too early was mentioned. George had been too loyal and brave and he had died whilst trying to protect Erinna from the dogs. He had done exactly what Vlad had asked and protected her with his life.

"What have we done for his family?" He asked Alexander.

He valued loyalty and always rewarded those who served him well. George had some family members who were still alive and Vlad wanted to make sure they were taken care of.

"I assigned them more land, gave them his weight in gold, ten horses and a royal salary for the next twenty years but his youngest brother's grandson wanted immortality."

Vlad was satisfied with the reward, as for the child...

"He doesn't know what he's asking."

"He is a good kid and would be a good addition to our ranks," Alexander insisted.

It was hard for Vlad to view his curse as anything but a curse. There were people where immortality and vampirism could be useful in improving their lives but there was no justifying taking an able bodied, fully functional child with a good life and a family who loved him and condemning him to the shadows where the only company was hunger, endless time and inevitable psychosis.

"No," Vlad refused.

"We need to do something about our numbers. We suffered substantial losses in the war."

"What are you suggesting?"

"I have received names from our provinces of all those who are eligible for immortality."

Since he was not personally involved in most of his provinces, Vlad usually left the task of choosing recruits to his provincial leaders. The process involved his vassals giving out invitation letters to those they deemed worthy or scanning though applications from those too eager to wait for an invitation. It was a grueling process but Vlad preferred it to having new vampires he had not approved turning up at every corner.

"How many?"

"Three hundred. You can meet with them and just choose which ones you want to join us if you don't want to go through the whole process," Alexander suggested.

If they were going to do this, they were going to do it right, no short cuts. Vampire turning was no casual business and if he treated it as such, those under him would stop valuing immortality as well.

"No, we will do everything according to procedure. Set up the banquet. I'll decide which ones don't annoy me too much then we can proceed to the games."

"Okay, I'll go and send the letters."

The Count was grateful for the time alone. It gave him some time to think and get some perspective on the situation. He intended to think of Erinna and how he would apologize to her and bring them back to the place they had been before, but all that popped in his head was a memory of himself on his knees, in front of someone he did not respect and begging for forgiveness for a sin he had not committed.

Bile rose up his throat and his vision became blurry. His thoughts became a jumble. One moment he was in the guest wing of the castle, the next he was in Alexander's tavern with two dead girls at his feet with shocked patrons looking at him with gaping mouths.

Horror marked his features and he looked down at his hands. They were clean and looked relatively the same but the blood in his mouth told him the whole story. Instead of the heady sensation and sweet taste that blood usually imparted to him, the thick liquid tasted vile on his palate and he wanted to retch. Guilt rolled in his stomach and did not get easier when Alexander stepped in the establishment.

His lips parted then he quickly closed them and calmly asked everyone to excuse them. When everyone had left, he turned his glaring eyes at Vlad, his body vibrating with anger. At any other time, Vlad would have whipped him for the insolence but he was still off balance and trying to regain his grip on reality. One thing he knew though, if Alexander pushed him anymore, it would be his body next to the ones on the floor.

"Don't," he said coldly.

Alexander seemed to heed the warning because he closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were calmer.

"Why?" He asked.

Vlad could not answer that, he did not even remember coming to the tavern. But one thing was for sure.

"I need more blood."

"To hell with blood! You said you wouldn't kill anyone, you promised. Now what do you think I'm going to say to Erinna? Do you want her to kill me?"

Vlad winced.

"Don't talk about her."

Doing so made it feel like confessing. It made him feel as if she already knew what a failure and a complete and utter monster he was. He had promised her to do better, hell he had wanted to do better. He looked down at his pants and was slightly relieved to find them in place. It did not change the fact that he had murdered two completely innocent women, but a part of him was relieved he had not gone as far as he would have done a couple of years ago. Perhaps there was hope for him.

"I'll talk about her if I want to. You know how she feels about this, why would you on and throw away everything like this? Things were going so well."

Vlad closed his eyes, trying to shut off the images in his mind. The noise of his own screams wailed inside his skull, making peace or silence an impossibility. He clutched his head with both hands.

"My head," he groaned out, tugging his hair.

"The nightmares?" Alexander's voice had softened.

"Yes," he hissed, wishing everything would just go silent. Even for a second.

"Tell her."

"Can't. It's like before. I'll hurt her."

It had been long since he had had these black outs and hallucinations but Vlad knew the warning signs. It would not be long before he lost his damn mind and God, he never wanted Erinna to see him like that.

"Even though, Drac. She has to know, man. I can get you all the blood you want but it's not the solution. It wasn't back then and it isn't now. You need to get yourself together. For you, for Erinna, for me damn it. I can't see you like this again. Not without going to Ellingsdale and razing every elf to the ground."

"I'll tell her tomorrow. During daylight, it'll be safer then."

The sun drained his strength and he would be less inclined to violent outbursts during the day.

"You can't be alone tonight, it makes it worse," Alexander frowned.

"I'd rather live with that than losing control and doing to her what I did to Linda."

His dead wife's sister's face flashed before his eyes. He had gone to see her with good intentions but the only thing he remembered from the visit was knocking on her door then waking up the next morning with her blood in his mouth and her dead, ravaged body next to his. Out of all his victims, she was the one he regretted the most and he could not imagine that lifeless body being Erinna's. No, he would stay away from her until he was better.

"Please let me kill him," Alexander pleaded.

The words were strange coming from his lips; Alexander had never been fond of violence in all the years Vlad had known him. Apart from the time with Ingrid, his right hand man always sought to take the bloodless route and maintain peace rather than start chaos. It was a testimony of how much Eric had gone too far.

"The answer was no last night and it's still no, Alexander."

"But-"

"I said no and that's a direct order."

Alexander pushed his fingers into his hair in frustration and the tortured look in his face made Vlad soften his expression.

"Maybe you don't remember and that's fine because God, I don't want you to but I'm the one who had to scrap your body off the ground. I can't live with that, knowing that he's still walking after everything he did to you. I'll go with Chase only, if you don't want me to take anyone else."

Vlad pinched the bridge of his nose, not knowing how he was going to deal with this. Normally he would just threaten Alexander and the man would fall in line but he was not so sure it was going to work this time.

The pressure was getting to him and he was coming apart at the seams. Alexander was one constant in his life and he needed him to stay the same because who knew what would happen if the one person who had always been there to keep him from going to off the edge was going over the edge himself?

"Revenge is not the answer this time. Eric deserves to have his throat cut but he is still Erinna's father."

It would destroy her and her friendship with Alexander and ultimately their marriage.

"And you are my sire! You can't even sleep because of that bastard, look at you now. Everything had been going so well but he had to push."

"The world always pushes Alexander, it is up to us how we react and you should learn from my mistakes, not repeat them. Pushing back will not help us."

Look at where it had gotten him with Diana and Enai.

"I still hate this."

"Me too. Now go and be with Erinna, she can't be alone."

"How about you?"

"I need to clean up here."

Alexander looked like he wanted to protest but eventually, he agreed.

Vlad had never faced his victims or come in contact with them after killing them but this time he forced himself to face his sins. He crouched on the ground and closed their eyes, letting himself recall their thoughts in their final moments. The one with the brown hair was called Ruth and she had lived alone with her cat. Her final memories had been of her late parents and the cat.

The other was named Margaret and she had been a thirty year old woman. Whilst Ruth had left no loved ones who would mourn her, Margaret had left a six year old daughter and two loving parents and the knowledge gutted him. Suddenly the 'law of the jungle' excuse he had always given himself was no longer enough. This was not just a survival of the fittest or order of the ecosystem. These were people, with names and loved ones.

He took dishtowels from Alexander's kitchen and cleaned the women then he teleported their bodies to the castle. After laying them in two unoccupied beds, he forced himself to go meet Margaret's parents. The young girl was playing in the dust when he got to the house. Guilt slammed into him and he felt more disgusted in himself than he had been feeling already. What kind of a monster was he?

"Who are you?" She wrinkled her nose up at him.

Few people ever asked him that question. Usually people knew who he was before he told them, and those who didn't, were usually too scared to ask. His reputation always preceded him but this time he wanted a clean slate. He didn't want to watch disgust or fear come over those blue eyes the moment she realized who he was.

"I'm uh- Vlad."

Only the few in his circle knew his first name and even fewer of them were allowed to use it.

"Are you mummy's friend like Lord Alexander?"

Vlad winced. How did you explain to one so young that you had taken her mother's life and she would never return to her again because you could not control yourself?

"Well, I had never met your mother before today but I'm Lord Alexander's friend."

Who would have ever thought the day would come when he would hide behind Alexander's friendship? But this day, it seemed to be his only redeeming feature.

"Really?" The girl's eyes lit up, "I love Lord Alexander! He brings me stobeyees."

Vlad was pretty sure the word was strawberries but did not want to burst her bubble.

"Emma!" A woman called, coming from inside the house.

"Grandma, look, I met Lord Alexander's friend. He's my friend now too. Can we have dinner with him?"

"Go inside Emma."

A wary look came over Margaret's mother, as if she already knew what was coming before Vlad told her. It still did not stop her from screaming out loud and dropping to her knees with her arms clutched around her middle as if to hold herself together, when he confirmed her worst fears. He had wanted to comfort her but it had seemed sadistic so he had left her to her grief. He would see that they were compensated. It would not bring back Margaret, but it would see that her daughter had a good future.

Vlad's next stop was Ruth's house. The woman's house was at the edge of the village almost isolated from everyone else. He did not know if her isolation had been because of a need for privacy or because she was one of those people destined to forever be separated from the world. He had once thought he was one of those people.

He found the cat on top of the roof. Vlad thought it would sense his sins and scratch his out, but the animal recognized his shifter side, their shared kinship and he came down the room. Vlad searched his mind for Ruth's memory until he had found the animal's name.

"Kyra."

He leaned down and lifted the cat. It came willingly into his arms, which he attributed to his shifter side and purred when he scratched its ears. Although advanced in age, the animal was a beauty. It had golden brown fur and piercing eyes that looked at Vlad as if they knew what he had done.

"I'm sorry old girl, mummy is never coming home again."

He took the animal to Leila's, hoping her boy would appreciate having a pet but the moment he turned his back, Kyra was on his heels, following him. He tried returning her three times but the same thing happened. In the end, Leila had to hold the cat whilst Vlad left.

He went back to the castle and showered. Like it always did, his solitude brought back everything he had tried to forget. By mid-morning he could not stand it anymore. He hated to be so weak, to have to depend on anyone, but he could not do it alone anymore. He needed her so much.

He knew everything would be fine once he had Erinna in his arms. She would ground him like she always did and assure him that everything would be fine. Just her touch would chase away his demons and give him the relief that kept eluding him. Her light would permeate the dark corners of his soul and perhaps save him before he completely lost himself.

******

"Erinna." A hoarse voice called out in the dark room.

Erinna opened her eyes, wondering what had woken her up. Her heart pounded hard as a dozen scenarios played out in her head. She quickly sat up, pulling the sheet to cover the low neckline of her nightgown. Most of the candles had been put out but she did not need light to know who it was.