His response shocked me.

I shook my head at him bewildered by all he was saying. By his being here at all.

"Why are you here?" I asked finally.

"Haven't you guessed yet?" Damon smiled gently down at me almost mockingly. "There is no territory dispute. No real dispute that is. All this is merely to rid the Palls of my father. But he is proving damningly difficult to capture. The willy fox."

The shock was a blow to my system that left me gasping. I didn't know why I was this surprised. I already knew just how much the Pall's hated their dictatorial father but I guess I never thought they would go to this length to be free of him.

"You're in league with Vanessa?" I found myself asking him. I already knew she was involved in this but I wanted to know just what or who I would be up against in rescuing my Lucian.

"Not at first, no. But as if last night when she killed her own father and took over as head of her family line, well then it became unavoidable," said Damon not quite happy by that turn of events.

"So you sacrificed your own brother? " I knew he had but I wanted him to admit it.

"It was all she wanted. I had no choice," hsaid Damon shrugging indifferently. But I saw through his ruse. He was not indifferent. He cared for Lucian. He loved Lucian. But I guess he simply wanted his freedom from his father more.

"I can't leave without Lucian," I said simply knowing that was why he was here. To ask me to leave and not return.

"I know that but I can't let you die for him either. You have to go. Lucian will land on his feet. He always has and always will. You have to trust that things will sort out," said Damon soothingly before taking measured steps to cautiously close the distance between us.

I must really look a sight for him to thread forward that cautiously but I wouldn't be caught. Not by him nor by Vanessa. I didn't want to fight him either. I doubted that I even could.

Yet I was this close. I couldn't turn tail and abandon Lucian either but I realised then that turntail was exactly what I had to do. Abandon Lucian at the mercy of his loony ex was suffocatingly hard to do but a moment later and that was exactly what I did do.

I turned and fled. Taking not the front door out nor the side door at the far end that I instinctively knew led to Lucian's whereabouts. Instead I burst into a room that was for all appearances vacant. But I was not interested in the that room or the one after that either. Bursting through the thin partitioning plaster walls between each room I created a parallel pathway to the corridor that Damon occupied following my progress forward.

I knew he was unsettled by my choice of paths but I didn't care. I could smell what lay at the end of this path and I couldn't wait to get to her. Vanessa!

No doubt waiting for my arrival to deliver me back to my maker.