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Darkstar Part Fifteen

11:15pm 15th April 1999

Dragon Tiamat was woken by the mobile phone ringing. At first she tried to ignore it, pulling the covers up around her head, but after five minute she groaned and picked up the receiver. Her silver hair was tangled and knotted as she angrily dragged a hand through it, cursing whoever had the temerity to ring her at this hour. Anyone this insistent would never go away. She had dealt with calls like this before and they often ended in a torrent of abuse from both ends.

She muttered a terse hello, and waited for whoever it was to explain why the hell they were calling at this ungodly hour. She hoped it wasn't another of those new crusaders who assumed Nightworld meant quite literally, night world. But the next words made her sit up straight.

"I'm going to be dead in an hour and so is Zara Carmillen unless you listen."

Dragon's silver eyes widened. She flung back the covers and jumped out of bed, taking the mobile with her. "Hold on," she pleaded. "There's someone else who should be hearing this."

"Fine," said the voice - a guy's from the pitch. "Here's my number:" He rattled off a list of digits. "Call me back." He hung up.

She stopped in disbelief. Who was that? She wondered how he had got her number. She didn't just tell everyone she met how to find her. That was a quick way to certain death. What was she meant to be doing? Dragon tried to remember, tried to get her sleep-fogged brain to work. She rubbed at her eyes and tried to think. Find Matt. He was up the hall somewhere.

The problem with this place, Dragon thought distractedly while the other half of her mind was worrying about Zara, was that all the rooms were singles. No way you could fit two people in the three metres by five metres room. There was just enough room for the bed and wardrobe and that was it. And a minuscule bathroom to one side. But this place wasn't meant to be the Ritz. It was a boarding house for anyone against the Nightworld and Circle Daybreak. A slightly-safe house.

Fine, if you got on with 'shifters, witches, vampires and any half-breeds that flew in. Dragon did, thankfully. But some didn't and with so many people - this place could hold fifty people - fights soon became a free-for-all. The dining room had become a riot area more than once.

She shivered her way down the draughty halls in her oversized T- shirt, wishing she had brought the duvet with her. Her feet were slowly but surely numbing on the cold linoleum floors that were icy as stone on a winter's morning. Linoleum was cheap but nowhere near as comfortable as carpet. She stopped at one of the blank varnished doors and opened it softly.

She stepped inside and came to a halt as she realised the bed was empty, the thin curtains fluttering in the breeze. What the...? She walked forward soundlessly, wondering what Matt was playing at.

Next minute an arm had gone round her neck and a knife was pressed to her throat. A voice growled, "Why are you sneaking into my room, dragon freak? Trying to rob innocent folk, I'll bet." The scent of whisky and other more repugnant smells filled the air. Dragon sighed and swiftly elbowed her attacker.

There was a muffled grunt as he let go of her. She turned to face Fergus 'Paranoid' Wallis, the most irritable werewolf this side of the Atlantic. His red hair was frazzled as ever, the eyes glaring brightly at her, buttercup yellow but bloodshot. He waved the knife at her then stopped, fascinated by the shifting beams of moonlight glinting of the metal. She took the opportunity to snap kick it out of his hand, straight out the window.

She almost laughed at his indignant expression, but that would just have got her into more trouble. It was too late to mess around with imbeiles like him.

"Sorry, Fun-" Dammit, she thought. Matt had nicknamed him Fungus and the name had stuck. "Fergus," she hastily corrected herself. Dragon had to keep from insulting him every time she opened her mouth. He was completely crazy and suspicious of anyone and everyone who wasn't a werewolf. "Wrong room." She had miscounted. Matt's room was another door up.

"I'll bet," he said sceptically. "I know you've been waiting to get at my room for months now..." Dream on dreamer, she thought with a shudder of distaste. His room was insect paradise and somewhere she wouldn't touch with a ten foot bargepole. His voice faded as she shut the door behind her and hurled open the door to Matt's room.

Her soulmate was sitting up, waiting. Probably heard Fergus raving at her. He smiled at her as she came in. Matt Wolff, true to his name was a 'shifter, but a fox. Half fox, half human, he had only found out he could 'shift a few months ago. About the same time they found out they were soulmates.

Since then, Matt had left Circle Daybreak and joined her. Dragon worked for another organisation who were unknown for the most part, called the Angels. True to name, they sent messages back and forth, but mostly their jobs were to play guardian angel for anyone who needed it. Both Daybreak and the Nightworld got their help.

Dragon smiled back and waved the phone at him. "We've got a caller who sounds...interesting. Scarily so." She tried to remember what the voice had been like. Deep, she thought, with a slight undertone that had made her think of leaping tigers and prowling jaguars.

Matt groaned. "It's the middle of the night," he complained softly. "Too late for psychos." His voice was tired and slightly slurring, almost as if he were drunk.

His red-brown hair was tousled from sleep, and even the eyes that were usually sparkling topaz were dulled to amber. She probably looked just as bad. This was their first chance to rest after three days of gruelling, mentally draining attacks. But Dragon had the advantage of being practically immortal and healing almost instantly from anything that cared to cross her path. Matt was half-human and he suffered a lot more.

She sat down beside him and leaned into his warm embrace. "I know...I could have done with a little beauty sleep too." She was small and standing up, Matt was about half a foot taller but sitting down she could almost look straight into his eyes.

"Ordinary sleep'd do me," he sighed wistfully.

"But," she said, strengthening her voice, "this guy called...something's going on with Zara. He said she'll die." Dragon shivered, despite the comfort of Matt's arms. Jepar had told her what had happened to Zara's sister. And she had seen the body, the marble-like skin contrasted by those raw red holes in her face. She had lost several nights of sleep over that.

"What?" Now he sounded less foggy. More concerned. "Can't Zara keep herself out of trouble?"

She shrugged. "Guess not. But I figured you'd want to hear this." His 'shifter senses were honed enough that he should be able to hear whatever this mysterious caller had to say.

He nodded and Dragon dialled the number. The phone was picked up on the first ring. "It's Dragon Tiamat," she said briskly and tried to suppress a yawn. Why did trouble always come when you were tired? Never after a good night's sleep, when you were buoyed up by a strong coffee of three. It seemed to be one of those fundamental laws.

Mr Mysterious's voice came back at her. "Good. Listen carefully. I don't have long." His voice was quiet, he was half-whispering. "I am a dragon."

"Yippee," muttered Dragon. "That makes two of us."

He ignored her facetiousness. "In your time, I was called Fireblade."

Her muscles tensed. This just got interesting. Matt shot a confused look at her. She mouthed 'later' at him.

Fireblade, one of the most prestigious dragons ever to stalk the earth. She had encountered him once or twice when she was a child, the cruel haughty face and wild lava eyes that pierced her defences and reduced her to a mass of fear. Even now the sound of crunching bones and terrified shrieks stayed with her.

Fireblade carried on. "I was awoken recently by a witch. She calls herself Adularia," Dragon's eyes widened. What had Zara got mixed up in? "and as you may know, she lives in another realm. A magical one, of her making."

"Yeah, I know all this," she said, trying to keep her voice casual despite the desperate quaking inside her.

"She sent me to accomplish a task for her. This involves your friend Zara and a vampire lord you will have heard of, called Darkstar." Oh Goddess, this got worse and worse. Everyone knew about Darkstar. He was a force to be reckoned with in the Nightworld.

"I met a vampire who works for him, Trifolia Rasmussen. When Zara was captured by Darkstar, she helped me get the human away. If Darkstar ever gets near Zara again, she will probably end up dead." Fireblade's voice was flat and emotionless. "I am going to die tonight. I know that. Nothing will change it. I will be killed by a vampire known as Ross. My death will set off a chain of events leading indirectly to the partial outcome of the Millennium Battle. None of this is important to you."

"Then why are you telling me?" Dragon snapped. She was tired and this nutter, even if he was one of the greatest dragons ever, had dragged her from her warm bed and dreams.

"Because you will be asked for explanations. I'm giving you one. The human Zara and the vampire Tri," she thought his voice changed slightly at that name, but Dragon couldn't be sure. "will ask. But I want you to look after Zara. My fate may be determined; hers is not..." but he didn't sound so sure of that, she thought. "Here is my address." She wrote it down hastily. "Zara's in my flat at the moment. Goodbye." He hung up and there was silence before the faint buzzing of the line kicked in.

She put down the phone, face tight and eyes flashing. Dragon gnawed on her lip, trying to decide if he was for real. It had been so long...he had been spelled by the witches too. But if she had woken up, why not him? Dragons were appearing everywhere now.

"Come on," she said to Matt, dragging him up.

"What's going on?" he asked, confusion showing in his thoughts.

I'll tell you on the way.

~*~

Tri threw back the door of Iager's apartment to see a strange man with dark hair and feral eyes sit up on the couch. As her mind registered that, her body dropped into a fighting crouch. The man looked at her with shock for an instant before his features elongated and melted into the head of a large wolf. His body stretched in way that sounded painful and sickening, fur sprouting all over him.

He threw back his head and howled. The hunting call of the wolf chasing for the kill.

It charged at her, and she just leapt aside, a musky scent telling her it had gone right past. Instantly, Tri spun. She was still holding her double sided knife that she had been going to use on Ross, and now she jumped at the wolf and slashed at its rolling yellow eyes. A low yowl told her she had hit paydirt.

The wolf made a half-hearted swipe at her, snapped its jaws then sped out of the door, a furry black shape.

She looked after it for an instant, all her senses telling her that something was wrong here. She could smell the intoxicating copper of blood over the stink of that wolf guy. Not just a 'wolf either. Tri wrinkled her nose at the idea, but breathed in deeply. Not just a werewolf. A vampire too. But only one person. A half- breed then.

She shut her eyes and tried to sense any other minds. She didn't want to get jumped on. But there was nothing, except a strange faint flicker in the other room.

The door was open and through it Tri could just see a form, lying on the ground. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw who it was. The human girl was porcelain white. She looked dead, drained. Her face was still and Tri could barely hear her heart thumping weakly. Not that there was much blood left anyway. The half-breed had done his job well, damn him. Where was incompetence when you needed it?

Well, she reminded herself, he was incompetent. He let you get a good look at him. And Zara's still alive...barely. Lord, she had to get a hospital, but how did she explain this. It was too weird, with the gaping holes in the girl's neck and the obvious loss of blood.

She didn't even know if a hospital could help. Tri sighed and went to find a telephone. She could only try.

~*~

Dragon found the apartment easily enough after an hour or so of driving around. It was only a short walk from the main streets and she dragged an unprotesting Matt after her. She had explained everything to him, seen his horrified reaction.

The door was already open and Dragon hesitated for an instant. She didn't know who was inside. She felt the air behind change subtly and she looked down to see a small fox slink in swiftly.

Matt, she protested. She didn't want him getting hurt again. When he hurt, so did she. Dragon felt fear sharpening her senses. She wanted to change, but somehow she held her emotions in check.

Uh-oh, she heard him say quietly. The humour in his voice was gone now, just concern. Zara's here, but she doesn't look so good.

Image of the human slumped on the floor. In black and white vision, her skin was deathly white, blindingly so. The two fang marks in her neck were dark black.

But what Matt was staring at was the woman. The one with the light hair that glimmered in the lamp light like liquid ice, flowing and changing at the slightest movement. Her face was half- turned away from Matt as she picked up the telephone, displaying a model's profile; small nose, full lips that were frowning and a stubborn chin.

She's calling 911! Matt said in alarm.

The dragon ran inside, where she could hear some sort of a commotion. A slamming sound and then the thump of someone being hit. She stopped in the doorway. Matt was back in human form, dodging for all his life was worth while a rather angry, beautiful vampire snarled at him furiously, throwing anything that came to hand.

The vampire spotted Dragon and stopped dead, glaring at her. Her eyes were a cold blue, sparkling with indignation. "Who are you?" she demanded. The voice had the slightest trace of an accent behind it, an arrogance that spoke of experience and invulnerability.

Dragon stared back at her. "I'm Dragon Tiamat," she said calmly. "This is Matt Wolff." She said, gesturing to her soulmate who was leaning against the window, breathing heavily.

The woman arched and eyebrow in recognition. "Trifolia Rasmussen," she said evenly. Dragon had heard about her. One of the most respected vampires, known for her lack of emotion and distaste for killing. She had shocked the Nightworld when she had married into a lamia family by somehow convincing them she was a cousin in a minor family. She had left half a year later with a substantial part of the family fortune.

The vampire was obviously in no mood for pleasantries. "I don't know how you found this place," the woman said resentfully. "But you're here now." She looked down at Zara, a frown on her face. "She needs medical help."

"We know a witch who owes us a favour," Matt said quietly. His glance shifted to Dragon. "But you'd better stay here, especially after that last argument."

"Fine," Dragon said wearily.

~*~

Tri recognised the witch who opened the door instantly. Her long hair was jet black, black as her nature, black as her heart. If the witch had any compassion, she had never shown any. She toyed with Circle Daybreak, dangling them as to whether she would join or not, like a cat toying with a mouse. Her eyes were cool, knowing grey, her face coldly beautiful and she knew it. She looked at them frostily and with the hint of contempt that was as much a trademark as the fashionable clothes and the intricately designed necklace.

Her gaze passed over Tri with no interest, but her eyes warmed when she saw Matt and lightened so they seemed luminescent and silver. Blaise Harman smiled coyly at him and stepped forward. "So nice to see you again," she purred. "But did you have to bring that?" The witch flicked her eyes to Tri, who tossed her shimmering hair over her shoulder defiantly. Blaise didn't like competition, and she knew the best way to have no competition was to get rid of it. Rumours ran rife around the Nightworld as to which relationship Blaise would split up next.

"We aren't her on a social visit," Matt said, responding to her warm smile instinctively. "We've got a patient who needs treating. She got vampired," he added dryly.

Blaise shrugged delicately. She wasn't really interested, but Matt Wolff was enough of a temptation. Tri had to admit he was handsome in a strangely appealing way. His hair was brown but caught red in the light and highlighted warm amber eyes and a smiling face. He had a classic profile and an aura of power about him that Tri wouldn't have suspected in a half-breed. His good humour and quick wit made him approachable, even when he looked as tired as he did now.

"It's more Thea's line of work than mine," the witch admitted. "But bring her in and I'll give my deluded cousin a call."

Thea Harman looked taken aback when she saw Tri, obviously recognising her as the vampire who had slipped past Thierry's security. She looked different from the friendly witch who had met Tri at the mansion. More concerned and somehow older.

Thea was the image of Hellewise with a faint wisdom in her honey brown eyes that no teenager had. But she didn't have the enormous burden that Hellewise had carried throughout the Night Wars and Blaise was no Maya, to slaughter children for power.

The white witch was gentle, but there was a temper buried under that sweet exterior as Tri realised from watching the two witches. Blaise was perversely trying to annoy Thea and when she succeeded malicious amusement flashed in her eyes. But Thea gave as good as she got and their relationship was that of sisters, deliberately annoying the other because forgiveness was a given thing.

Whereas Blaise was all darkness, silence and cool emotionless colours, Thea was warmth and light, beautiful in a way that was very different to Blaise's seductive moves and teasing words. Both were respected in Daybreak Circles, but Thea was liked where Blaise was feared.

But Tri was surprised to see Lord Thierry with them. He smiled at her in greeting and came over to talk to her.

"We've brought blood with us," were his first words. "It's going to take a lot of work to save her and even then..." he shrugged, mild regret on his face. Deftly, he changed the subject. Ever the diplomat, Thierry Descoudres had learned a long time ago how to calm frazzled nerves and charm even the most difficult of Nightpeople. "I seem to be seeing a lot of you lately, Tri."

She sighed. "I may be joining your cause soon," she said dryly.

"Oh?" He sounded amused and his dark eyes were definitely interested. Thierry ha always been something of an enigma to her. She had understood the sorrow in his expression, the regret that had caused his sympathy with humans, his loathing of killing. An aversion similar to her own, but for vastly different reasons. But why he should have revived Circle Daybreak, that she didn't know.

But she concentrated her mind on his question. "It would seem soulmates aren't just for Daybreakers. There is no justice in this world."

"If there were," he said lightly, "then think how boring it would be."

She pulled a face. "I could live with boring. It's when things get interesting I worry."

They talked for a long night, and soon Matt Wolff joined them. Thierry seemed surprised to see him and more so to learn that Matt had a soulmate. Of course, Tri remembered later, in the final moments of clarity before sleep and sunrise, Matt had left Circle Daybreak some months ago. A loss that puzzled Thierry and amused the Nightworld.

As she slept, the witches worked long into the night, but the grim faces and terse speech told Tri that what hope there was, was fading.

~*~

Blaise Harman turned to her cousin and watched her thoughtfully from beneath her thick eyelashes. Thea's face was strained, blond hair falling over her face as she pushed it back irritably, her serene expression dissolved with the effort to save this...insignificant human. "Why are you bothering?" she said into the tense silence. They had been working for hours now, transferring blood, healing with whatever small ways they had.

Thea didn't glance up. "Because she's not dead yet."

"Might as well be." Thea always had to help every underdog that came along. She had no appreciation of what it meant to be a little selfish. Blaise's mood darkened. Except with that business about Eric. Still...she couldn't begrudge Thea her soulmate, especially when it meant Blaise could never have any chance with him.

Thea sounded exasperated and looked up for an instant, brown eyes clashing with steely grey. "Then why are you bothering to help, Blaise? If it's all so much effort, why don't you just leave?" Thea returned to her work, golden light flowing around her hands.

Blaise didn't say it out loud. But she never quit. She never gave up because that was weak. And besides, Matt had asked her to help. She couldn't resist that wicked little lopsided smile he had. But, and this was a big but, why did all the cute ones have soulmates? She shook her head, black hair whispering and floating around her like a dark halo.

She watched Thea for a moment, then concentrated. Healing fire glowed silver between her hands and she gently nudged Thea out the way. "Go and get some sleep," she said without looking at her cousin. Her voice was the usual arrogant drawl, but Blaise kept the compassion out of her voice. She could tell how drained Thea was. She was going to kill herself if she kept it up much longer. "I'll carry on." She kept her face turned away from Thea, so she wouldn't see that Blaise was doing this for her, for her cousin who was more like her sister.

"Thanks," the witch said.

"Don't bother," Blaise muttered flatly. "I'm only doing this because I'm bored."

She didn't see Thea's tiny smile which she hid almost instantly. Thea shook her blond head in amusement. She would never understand what motivated Blaise's unasked for help, help she never accepted thanks for graciously, but she knew one thing. When things got tough, Blaise would always be there to help her.

Darkstar Part Twelve

One month later:

Trifolia Rasmussen looked up as Dragon walked in. The petite witch looked close to tears as she glanced at the still form in the bed and said, "No change?" There was no hope in her voice or her face, because hope had gone long before when even Blaise's skill could do nothing to wake a human girl lost in endless slumber, only a subtle sadness that dulled her eyes.

Tri shook her head, her blue eyes weary as the dragon's. "Nothing," she said softly. Odd how they still spoke in hushed voices, seemingly scared of waking her when it was obvious the Millennium Wars could have begun and nothing would change.

Instinctively they both glanced over at Zara, the pale face, thick black lashes closed as they had been for over a moon now and the black hair fanning out on the pillow in a shining black crown that seemed as if ink had been spilled onto the fabric. It was easy to see her hands folded to her shoulders in the death pose, frighteningly easy. So little chance of living and Tri sensed that it scared Dragon. Herself, it was a painful reminder of her own mortality.

But there was no reaction, no miraculous awakening. Tri exhaled regretfully. The Goddess did not help those who could not help themselves. The pious healer who had left three days ago would have said the girl had angered the gods. Tri thought she had the misfortune simply to be in the right place at the wrong time.

It had been the same for weeks now and Tri was worried. She had been here for a month, too long for hers, or anyone else's comfort in the safe house that Dragon had found. She had written to Darkstar to say that she wouldn't be coming back now. Ever. No return address, nothing that could be traced. She couldn't bring herself to write to Ross. She could imagine the malice on his face when she told him what had happened to the human hostage he had been so eager to kill. She hated his innate cruelty and he engendered the same revulsion as he always had. Him being her soulmate didn't make any difference in attitude.

She smiled grimly when she thought of the devil's deal she had struck. She must have been grief-crazed, or depressed because in the light of day, she was regretting it.

Zara was comatose. No telepath could reach her, no witch could help. And much to her disgust, Tri found she liked some of the Daybreakers. Although, they had talked to her about having a soulmate until she was sick of it and screamed at them to go away, they were friendly, curious and matter-of-fact about the Millennium problems.

There were six of them in the safe house at the moment; Tri, Dragon and Matt, Blaise and a couple of live-in witches. She knew why Dragon and Matt were there - protection. They didn't trust anybody to look after their friend. And it was not difficult could appreciate why Circle Daybreak wasn't complaining.

They were a formidable pair; silver haired Dragon Tiamat, half- witch and half-dragon, who was legend in the Nightworld already for killing the dragon Anguis and Matt Wolff, the half-shifter whose light humour balanced Dragon's temper.

But in this place, no one seemed to have much emotion. There was the odd spat between Blaise and Dragon, the nasty barbs they threw at each other but it was as though there was a dampening atmosphere. Joy was subdued, sorrow more depressed.

Dragon sighed and collapsed into a chair. "She's dying," the girl said slowly.

"I know." Her voice was hollow, reflected the despair she felt. Because Zara wasn't your average human. She was mixed up in this Millennium business. Badly. "If she dies, we all die," Iager had said to her. Iager the mysterious dragon. But he had died already. That wasn't a good omen.

Dragon left silently. There was nothing else to say. They kept a wary truce - Tri knew none of the Nightpeople in the safe house really trusted her, and she couldn't blame them. She had nothing to say to these people. She didn't know why she was still vegetating in this safe house. She didn't particularly like these people, she wasn't one of them. She belonged to the Nightworld. "Then why am I here?" she said aloud, wishing someone would give her an answer.

And for once, her wish was granted.

"Because you're afraid," said a gentle voice.

For an instant, she thought the Goddess had answered that forlorn plea, the voice was so beautiful. Tri looked over to the door and did a double-take. A tall lovely girl had her eyes trained on her. Unseeing eyes, but filled with wisdom and enlightenment, the vampire realised after a minute, feeling trepidation wash over her. What was the Maiden of all witches doing here? Then her mind focused on what she had said

"What do you mean, I'm afraid?" she said, not bothering to hide he anger in her voice. What would she know about how Tri felt. Her muscles were bunched with tension and she tried to relax but it was no good. She felt tense as a coiled spring and at that moment, more than anything, Tri just wanted to go back to the times when she could hate Circle Daybreak.

Aradia smiled at her and the feeling dissipated in a guilty flicker. Serenity surrounded her, like a sort of light that gave the features an otherworldly sense. She was beautiful as so many of the Nightpeople were, but without the fatal predatory air. If Hunter Redfern was the hunt call and the kill in his golden eyes and blood red hair, Aradia was the morning peace before dawn, the serenity of seasons.

"You're afraid of your soulmate," the girl said quietly. She moved to sit down, walked with unfailing precision. She smiled at Tri's face, seeing in a way that was beyond the ordinary senses. Aradia stretched elegantly long legs clad in Levis and began to speak in her melodious voice.

"I can see a lot of things. And one of these is that you fear your soulmate. Not him as a person, but what he represents and what he brings." Slight shrug, gentle sympathy in her voice. "You fear your nature, the animal side of the vampire. The kill." Aradia's face was lit with humour. "Not that I'm complaining. The less deaths, the better." Her voice was rich with laughter, a vivid personality lying beneath her elegant exterior. The Maiden of the witches had always been more than anyone could have anticipated.

"And..." Aradia hesitated, her expression odd. "You are in love, Trifolia. With someone who is not your soulmate."

"Is he tall, dark and handsome?" Tri quipped. But inside, she was quaking. Because she had a horrible feeling Aradia was right.

"To you, perhaps," the witch replied. "But your soulmate will never be right for you if you love someone else. It's the way of the world. You're true love may be your soulmate, but your soulmate may not be your true love." Tri was startled at that, it seemed to betray Daybreak's philosophy but the witch gave her a whimsical smile.

Tri stared in astonishment at the woman who had just voiced her inner fears so accurately. Aradia endured her gaze without complaint, looking more like a sylph that something of this world. She was set a little apart from it all in a subtle way that was impossible to define, yet visible.

"But what do I do?" she asked desperately, hearing the accent in her voice that always became more pronounced when she was emotional, wishing none of this had ever happened.

"Do?" Aradia's face seemed to become more distant. "I cannot tell you that. But my best advice is do what you want - not what you think you should do, but what you want and ignore your fear."

Then they sat in silence, the Maiden's presence lightening the gloomy air somewhat, her outward expression giving no sign that she knew the turmoil Tri was feeling.

She was so confused. What did she want? Not to stay here, that was fro sure in a place where she was disliked and distrusted. Aradia made everything sound so simple and maybe for her, it was. Not for Tri, life had never been simple. It had rarely been happy, but she had learned to deal with that. And now, she was doing what she had sworn she never would. Hiding, running away from the unknown.

Tri stood up in a silent rush. The Maiden's face turned towards her and for an instant, Tri found it hard to believe there was no sight in her eyes.

"I'm leaving," she said. She gnawed her lip for a moment. Maybe she should stay - what if something happened. No, Dragon and Matt could look after anything that came along. And besides, she had a job. A soulmate to go and let down. An old friend to go and explain to.

Aradia's mouth curved in a faint smirk as she said, "There's a car outside. That will take you back to city."

Tri thanked her and was halfway down the corridor before she figured it out. Aradia had known, she had known all along that Tri would go back. Shaking her head ruefully, she slid into the car, a nondescript Ford, amazed that a witch had outfoxed her so neatly.

~*~

Darkstar smiled calmly at the witch, letting her think her unsubtle flirting was working. He leaned forward a little, watching as she whispered out an address with a coy smirk. Her platinum blond hair was cropped short and her roots were showing dark. Her clothes were all synthetic, in wild colours that clashed in a nauseating display. Only the eyes were not artificial, although they were ringed in electric blue that heightened the colour, dark blue-grey, but they were shallow and superficial as the rest of her.

She was dazzled, charmed by the dark haired vampire who took so much interest in her and also by a check for half a million dollars sitting in front of her. He gritted his teeth at her annoying simper. The former Circle Daybreak witch who, with a little persuasion and a substantial bribe, had agreed to tell him where the girl was. The girl, the one he couldn't get out of his head, she was in his bloodstream, raging like a fever.

He didn't know how to stop this, he didn't even know if he wanted to. And that was strangest of all because until now he would have said he didn't want a human clinging on to him, or anyone for that matter. No family, no attachments. It kept him alive, it kept him safe. And now, that was ruptured because of one stupid mistake.

That mistake being not killing Zara the first time he saw her.

Maybe that wasn't right, people weren't supposed to kill their soulmate but he couldn't see any other solution. Despite the thousands of doubts he had about this whole idea, it was driving him crazy and people were starting to notice.

She might be spunky and prepared to fight back - after all, she had staked Ross, which was a bonus however you looked at it - but she was human and they were easy pickings for Nightworld moguls. How long would it be before she got charged by some slavering 'wolf or a hungry vampire?

Unless you protected her, some terminally insane part of mind hissed.

And why was even considering that, it wasn't as though she was going to live. Because he was going to kill her and then maybe this soulmate problem would go away.

"Of course," the witch giggled. She was called Silaria, or Sinla, something like that. "You won't have much trouble actually killing her..." she giggled again and her laugh was like squeezed plastic. It sent waves of loathing reverberating through his head and Darkstar vowed to send an assassin to kill Sinla or whatever soon.

"Why not?" he asked lazily, taking her hand and wincing visibly as the plastic laugh got another airing.

"Because she's comatose of course!" Sinla the Annoying answered with unnecessary glee.

His whole body stilled for one horrifying instant. "What?" he managed to get out, feeling icy fear settle in his bones. It was a reaction he didn't like at all and it made him realise something startling.

He was in love with Zara.

And he didn't, Darkstar thought with the grim certainty that lying to himself wasn't going to work, want to kill her. Quite the opposite. And maybe he had just been looking for excuses to go and see her, killing being one of those.

Wonderful. It wasn't enough that his most trusted friend, Tri had gone away and that his least trusted assassin, Ross had gone wild. It wasn't enough that Circle Daybreak had three of the Wild Powers. Not only had some joker given him a soulmate, she was comatose. Another low card dealt by Fate.

"Oh, Darkstar," she giggled and he nearly hit her across the room, but somehow restrained his temper. "Sometimes I think you're just toying with me!" And sometimes, he thought, glaring evilly at her profile, I think you have a brain cell in that mindless head. And then I remember this is the real world.

Breathe, he told himself and silently counted to ten. "No," he ground out, "I'm interested."

The flirt cast a sly glance at him. "Of course you are, honey."

Then he let a little of his anger show and her expression changed. The witch leaned back in her chair as he leaned forward over the table, palms flat on the surface. He enjoyed her scared face and instinctive retreat. "Listen to me, idiot," he said in silken tones that rang with menace, "I am not here to play about. Tell me what you know or I will drop you out of that window. And believe me, thirteen floors is a drop you won't survive." He smiled then, a cool smile that obviously rang chill with her.

She licked her full lips nervously. "I...she... " she stuttered lamely.

Darkstar walked to the window and threw it open. "Nice view," he drawled. "And it's a great day for a walk."

He could hear her panicky gasps, the way her heartbeat picked up in alarm. "All I know is that some half-breed got her. A vampire- 'wolf. She lost a lot of blood." Her voice hushed reverently. "And the Maiden, Aradia herself has gone to help. And that there's some pair looking after her called..." she didn't dare pause for long. "Dragon something-or-other and Matthew Wolff."

Someone had hurt his soulmate...he was gripped with irrational anger, thirst for revenge. But that wouldn't do anyone any good. He had the address and he could handle a pair of shifters. Even if they were Dragon Tiamat and the Wolff boy. Maybe, just maybe he could use this soulmate link for some good.

"You can go," he said.

Sinla giggled in relief, and then said the most stupid thing she could possibly have not thought of. "I hope you rip her throat out. Vermin don't deserve to live." Fury flared fast as a storm.

"Out the window," he added in the same even tone.

"What?" she screamed. He walked towards her and the witch shrank back in a ghostly reminder of another girl. But this one was no innocent nor did she possess the same fighting spirit that had drawn him to Zara before he had even realised.

Darkstar picked her up, ignoring her pathetic struggles. The exaggerated horror on her face would have been comical under other circumstances. Soon she began to sob, tears with the same plastic quality as her laugh. "Please," she moaned, "I don't want to die."

He just smiled to himself, eyes darkly amused at her antics. "Tough luck. Death is a little difficult to avoid." Except for those like himself. She was shrieking hysterically now but he just leaned out the window and dropped her twisting yelling body. He was walking to the door before she hit the ground.

~*~

His secretary grinned at him. Obviously he had been working off that foul mood he had been in for the past week or four. She had known him for a fair few years now, met him after Deimos had changed her into a swanshifter. And this had been one of the bad times of late.

"Glad to see you got rid of that little bitch," she said cheerfully. "But I'm not cleaning up that mess." He didn't smile back and gradually Seren's smile faded. "Darkstar?" she asked, a question within a question. He had been strange lately. Well, she amended, stranger than usual. Dropping that arrogant teenage traitor out the window was more Ross's style. Although that particular employee had been acting worse than usual.

"I'm going out, Seren," he answered in a thoughtful tone. His face was calm, but his mind was a tangled mess and maybe she was no expert on telepathy but she could catch some disturbing threads of thought. Mostly satisfaction at the kill, but something else.

Then he gave that infectious smile and Seren beamed back before she realised it. She couldn't help but notice the trouble in his eyes but she wasn't the one to give him solace. No matter how she wished, Seren was a friend and nothing else. He strode off and Seren stared after his tall figure until he disappeared around the corner, the yearning always there but hidden.

She didn't really know why she had fallen for him. Maybe it was the classic profile or the fact she knew next to nothing about him. Or that beautiful smile that could light up a room. Or the bonds formed from a century of working together.

But he was dangerous, ruthless and Seren shuddered as she recalled the girl's screams. Even the door couldn't block out those ear-splitting cries. She sighed and hastily called up one of their unknowns to dig out a copy of Sinla's handwriting. The suicide note had to be reliable.

~*~

The car dropped her at the main offices, but Tri went in to find Darkstar was not there. Staff shrugged in answer to questions, none of them knew where he was. He had left and there was a body on the sidewalk to prove he was not...rational. Tri frowned and winced when she saw the mess that had been a girl. Things were not taking a turn for the better.

A slight woman turned towards her, an old acquaintence who Tri recognised instantly from the lissom movements that matched the creature the woman became. The star, her name meant and her white hair shimmering, like the mystic the 'shifter was together with her buttercup eyes, emphasised her character. "You're back," she said slowly. Then hugged Tri in a motion that surprised her. She hadn't thought she'd have any friends left. Quitting was not an option taken well by those who worked for Darkstar - secrecy was a priority.

Seren Filane, his spirited secretary, no beauty but with personality and character in the strong bones of her face, caught her by the arm as she started towards the comotion. "Don't look so worried, Tri," she whispered in the gravelly voice that sounded dull against the flashing lights and sirens. "If the Witch Child had an opposite, believe me, Sinla was the Bitch Child. She deserved that."

Somewhat comforted, for Seren was mild tempered and impossible to irritate, and Tri had never known her dislike anyone, she went inside to try to find out where Darkstar had gone.

"You might try Ross," a new girl suggested. Her face clouded for an instant. "He's living in the suburbs somewhere. Some gothic monstrosity or other." She shuddered slightly, her face twisted in mild disgust. "I will never ever go there again, not if you paid me!" So Ross had been at work with the new arrivals, as always.

It sounded like he was still in the same house, where he had kept Zara. Stupid of him.

Or maybe not, she reflected, pulling up to the house an hour later. No one would think of looking for him here, and there were enough Nightworlders out for his blood.

She knocked on the door and waited. And waited. Finally a dishevelled Ross opened the door and glared out with sharp blue eyes. "What?" His face was hardened in lines that made him look even more merciless than he ever had when he killed. There was a tautness to his frame was that was worrying, the impression of a spring coiled tight and about to snap.

"Who is it, babe?" A syrupy sweet voice called from inside. Tri's eyes widened in indignation as she realised that Ross was not alone.

And his face changed to mortification as he saw her. A flash of anger streaked across his face for an instant that puzzled her. He leaned back in and yelled at whoever was inside to get out. A brunette tottered out in heels that could have been use to stab someone and a blue dress she was almost falling out of. Tri glared at Ross and let her scorn show in her curled lip and disdainful expression. She was not impressed.

"Come in," he said shortly and led her into the lounge.

It was a tip. Junk everywhere, trash can overflowing with stuff that had to be a few weeks old, furniture up-ended. And was that blood smattered on the wall? It was, and probably belonged to that drained and shrivelled corpse in the corner. She repressed a shudder and turned to Ross for an explanation.

Wild eyes bored into hers. "What?" he snarled. "Don't you like it?" He waved a hand at the mess. "Not good enough for you, Ms. Rasmussen?" He slumped into a chair, dislodging more rubbish. There was anger in his gaze and maybe hurt there too, an emotion she didn't understand.

"It's...." she searched for something to say about it then lost her temper at his lack of attention. "....a missile testing site, is that it?" No response, just a sullen expression. "Okay," she said eventually, "what's wrong with you? I wasn't expecting a welcoming party, but this is just..." There was no way to express it.

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me?" he hissed suddenly, getting up in one lithe feline movement. "You turn my world upside down, make me think that everything I know is wrong, that maybe it isn't okay to kill people, that maybe I'm wrong and then you walk off one night. You leave me thinking maybe I'm going to have some sort of a normal existence and you don't come back." He took a step towards her, eyes blazing like fire. "You screw with my life and then disappear. Yes, there is something wrong and the problem is you!"

"I..." She didn't know what to say in the face of such rage.

"I don't even know who I am anymore," he said bitterly. "I can't go out and kill someone because I feel guilty. I can't even talk to anyone, because I'm a 'known psychopath'. So just go away and maybe I can forget about this."

She was silenced by his outburst, guilt washing over her. Aradia had been right, her fear had stopped her and it hadn't just affected her. She had hurt someone else. Tri reached to him in a burst of sympathy, but Ross stared pointedly at her callused hands with such loathing she let them fall back to her sides, longing just to tell him she was sorry, but even that stuck in her throat. Because she wasn't. It was time Ross learned what the world was like.

For the first time in her life, Trifolia Rasmussen was beginning to understand what love was like. But only because she had never felt such overwhelming hate combined with a emotion that was something like euphoria and something like grief, but better than the two. An inkling of why kingdoms had fallen for a woman, or why countries wept for a single man. And something else she couldn't comprehend was how you could love someone and still hate them for what they were.

"Look," she said firmly, crossing her arms across her chest. "It isn't going to work because...I love someone else. And you're too..." neurotic, too crazy, too violent for her.

"I know that," he snarled, "but what am I supposed to do?" About the killing, he meant, Ross was an assassin.

"Live with it," she said. "That's what people with more personality that an animal do. We all live with guilt, we all have something we regret. It's as much a part of life as the killing itself is."

He didn't like that answer. "Get out!" he yelled suddenly, face showing fury. "Just get out of my sight."

Sorry I bothered you," she said quietly. There was no point in sticking around. She had better things to do. Like what? she jeered at herself. She wasn't exactly high on friends at the moment.

"I doubt it," he returned with the vicious cruelty that was his trademark. He didn't even bother to look at her. "You know the way out."

She knew all right. Tri left in a storm of righteous anger, wondering if everything had just been a nightmare. If maybe she would wake up and find that she was the young Frenchwoman again, with prospects lined up. If only.

So they were wrong, she thought of Circle Daybreak, having a soulmate isn't wonderful. It's a pain. In the heart. She sighed softly and wondered why he feelings for Ross kept catapulting back and forth between hate and...something else. When she thought love, she didn't think of Ross. She thought of a dragon with tiger stripes in his hair and fire in his eyes.

Maybe, she reasoned, that was why it would never work with Ross. Because of Iager. Oh yeah, and because Ross was a crazed killer with a mind more twisted than a plate of spaghetti. The streets were busy as ever, but she didn't notice them, drifting through the people like a ghost lost in her thoughts and the crowds parted almost magically to let her through. She had a commanding presence she didn't even recognise, a haughty air that made people step back and look closely at her. That made them notice the slightly inhuman looks that were a little too perfect.

She walked for a while until she found herself in an area she didn't know. And that was when the vampire gang jumped her.

Darkstar Part Thirteen

Dragon was annoyed. Deprived of her caffeine, gloated at by some witch with an attitude, she was just about at boiling point. Only thing that kept her from exploding was the fact she needed the witch to stay and help heal Zara. But Blaise was driving her nuts with her allusions about 'seeing Matt at Daybreak' and 'how close they were'.

"And his sister's a beauty too," Blaise said, casting a disdainful glance at Dragon's small figure and strange silver hair. It was obvious just what she was implying. Flicking back tendrils of hair that seemed like more like black mist, she carried on her speech. "Got that same warm look and sweet nature. And you know, Matt used to be so much more...what is the word?"

"Available?" she put in sweetly, seeing a flicker of venom flare in Blaise's face.

"...happy." Blaise snapped, spinning a necklace around her fingers in boredom.

It was like cabin-fever, cooped up in here. Endlessly waiting, wishing for the miracle that would never come. Thea had no hope of Zara waking up. "She's in there somewhere," the girl had said with a shrug that sent a wave through soft sun hair. "But none of our telepaths can reach her." Her pacific eyes had glanced at Dragon with sensitivity, nothing but compassion there. "I'm sorry." Her voice was low. Thea's kind nature stood her in good stead at times like this. She had gone back to Eric with a quirky aside. "Don't let Blaise bug you. There's nothing she enjoys more than a fight. Except toying with boys."

Dragon and Blaise had been friends once, but that was before Matt came into the picture. They had gone to visit, but the car had broken down and Dragon had stayed to talk with the mechanic...well, to shout abuse at him actually, but Matt had gone to Blaise's place. Blaise remembered he was from Daybreak and wrongly assumed that was the reason for his visit, spun her web and put Matt under a spell that turned nasty when Dragon came in and found her soulmate staring hypnotised at Blaise.

Of course, as Blaise had so kindly pointed out, they could leave anytime they wanted. And as Dragon pointed out, she didn't abandon friends in need. So they were sitting, without Matt's droll presence to keep the peace as he had gone to visit old friends at Daybreak, sniping at each other. Using words as bullets.

"Happy? To get away from y-" Dragon snapped off her sentence as the door was thrown open. The guy who walked in definitely wasn't Matt, not with that black hair and dangerous eyes. At first she thought he was just another of Circle Daybreak's minions, but there was something indefinably wrong about him. The confidence he exuded might have had something to do with it, and that unmistakably stalking walk.

Very nice, Dragon said silently, giving him a once over and liking the result. Tall, lean like a greyhound with long legs and a nicely muscled body. Intense good looks and designer clothes, all black that matched his universe eyes, eyes that stared piercingly at her with distant interest. Made her feel about three feet tall.

"Hello, lunch," she heard Blaise murmur, tones rich in satisfaction. The witch had begun to smile, that sexy curve of her lips that meant she was on the prowl, changing mental gears.

Obviously he had heard her too, from the quelling look lasered at the witch. To Dragon's delight, she blushed and ducked her dark head. Something that would probably never happen again.

"Where's Zara?" he said curtly in a voice that rippled with subtle sensuality. For a moment, she forgot about Matt in the commanding presence of this vampire. Felt slightly giddy, just like a kid.

Then she focused on what he was saying. Zara? Like he knew her...that wasn't right. Zara would have mentioned him. No one forgot a face like that.

"Who are you?" She stood up reflexively and barred his way through to the back of the house. No way he was getting through here. This was her job, here to protect and even if he was heart- stoppingly handsome, if he tried anything, she would kick his teeth in.

Black eyebrows arched, seeming surprised she was even asking. "Does it matter?" he said with a one shoulder shrug. Perhaps he really didn't think it important.

"Call me impulsive," Blaise purred, locking a gaze that could only be called wanton on him, "but I don't think you're Mother Teresa." Her gaze slanted up and down the vampire in an examination that, from the wicked look in Blaise's eyes, was coming out with high grades. The boy stared back with a composure that was astonishing. Even Matt had been disturbed by Blaise's stormy stare.

"You don't look like little Orphan Annie yourself," he threw back with a venom to the tone that was unusual for someone talking to Blaise. Very few were immune to her charms, or undeceived by her flawless performance. "Or do I get a rendition of 'Tomorrow'?"

Blaise scowled, before she remembered how it dissipated her looks, not liking the way the conversation was going. She wasn't used to talking with people who talked back.

Dragon was beginning to like him despite herself. But business was business. "You may not be any paragon of virtue, but you definitely aren't from Daybreak and means you don't go anywhere until I fond out who you are."

He answered in an even tone, eyes fixed on her with more interest now. The glance of a predator facing another of his kind. "Darkstar."

~*~

She was surrounded by demons, back in the Burning Times. Everything hurt, sensation had melted away into pain and thought was just more agony. It was hard to feel, aside from the throbbing, pulsing torture that was her heart thudding against broken ribs and bruised lungs.

She wasn't sure if her eyes were closed or not, from the cacophony of dark colours that swirled in a living mist. Awareness had faded until she wasn't even sure what her name was or even if she had a name.

Thrown between waves of pain that streaked like purple ink, tossed from black to crimson fire that burned her skin into char and drowned her screams in crackling roars. She twisted and turned, reaching out but there was nothing, nothing, nothing...

And then there was the light. Soothing orange-yellow light that flooded her in warmth, like the sunbeams on a spring day. It healed her, wrapped around her like water would and the pain faded into a nightmarish memory. The world lightened, into ordinary shades as her senses returned to an aching world.

Tri opened her eyes and groaned. She hurt. Just a mass of burning bruises and stinging cuts. Gingerly, she pushed herself up onto one elbow and brushed her hair out of her face as it fell over her forehead in disarray. She was on a bed that didn't belong to her cosy little flat. In a room that was in ice colours, with stripes of dark blue and silver bordering the top of the walls.

Unsteadily and wishing she hadn't, Tri swung her feet off the bed and onto the floor in a nerve jarring feat. She didn't remember much of anything, only that she had walked away from Ross's house, into the streets. She had been thinking, about Iager, like always...and then...yeah, that bunch of techno-vampires had jumped her.

And then everything has melted into a blur of pain, hit and kicked and then...she had woken up. But where? This sure didn't look like anywhere she knew.

She walked to the door unsteadily, trying to work out what was what through her double vision. That was a bookcase, she grabbed onto it with a weak grip, and that was a desk and that...

She missed and hit the floor in a painful heap. Yeah, that was definitely cold stone slabs and that sting had to be her newly broken ankle.

"Ow," she muttered. "How come people never carpet their floors?"

"Because," said a dry voice, "I only just moved in here and I wasn't expecting to have to rescue an unconscious vampire out of the back streets."

She craned her neck to see who the speaker was, a sense of foreboding and dread filling her. She knew that sound. Knew it with a certainty that bordered on panic. Her heart was so loud she could barely hear anything else and she was sure her rescuer had to be almost deafened.

Orange eyes looked down at her in a mixture of exasperation and concern, the friendly face contrasted by the tiger streaked hair. This time, there was no blood on the face, no wide staring eyes, just grim amusement etched on familiar features. He smiled at her horrified expression. "Hello, Trifolia," Iager said.

For the first time in her life, she fainted.

~*~

Dragon sucked in breath and felt the first tinge of fear. So this was the famous Night lord. As handsome as the rumours said, and looking twice as lethal. It would be difficult and most likely painful if she had to fight him. That was a thought she would rather not have to contend with now, and he sacred her, strangely so. Threads of fear held kept her from moving to let him past, but she couldn't have moved even if she had wanted to. And she didn't understand. Why? She had fought off a dragon, killed Anguis and she was letting some vampire scare her.

Because of his reputation. Merciless, unpredictable and not exactly a novice himself. She had heard that he had killed another dragon...without help. Dragon wasn't sure of the details, but there was a furnace involved somewhere and rumours of spine- chilling shrieks from the doomed lizard were told to children at night.

Yes, she deliberated, she was afraid and rightly so. Dragon breathed in slowly, trying to ease the knot of fear that had settled in her spine, preparing herself for a fight.

"Then you are muchly mistaken if you think you're getting in here," she answered putting conviction in her tone that persuaded even her a little. If she could fool him, maybe, just maybe, there wouldn't be any trouble. Though how he had even found this place was a concern. Daybreak had assured her, over and over that it was unknown to the Nightworld.

He reminded her of Anguis in a way that was not physical resemblance, although the black eyes held that same look of hauteur, but more mental - the arrogance and the fear he inspired without even making a threatening move.

"I'm not here to kill her," he drawled in bored tones. "I could have done that anytime I wanted." The vampire's foot was tapping restlessly, he seemed totally unconcerned, but that was belied by the clenched fist and guarded eyes.

"Why are you here then?" The silky voice was Blaise's and she drew herself up languorously from the couch, every inch the dark witch. The widow spider spinning her web. "Don't tell me you have a box of chocolates hidden under those deliciously tight clothes."

He smiled reluctantly and it was surprising to see how it changed the perception of him, from looking lofty to approachable. He should smile more often, she decided. Maybe that way he wouldn't have to kill so many people. Charm 'em all. He seemed a lot younger, and more dazzling. It was the smile, it scattered the tension and she saw Blaise relax fractionally. But Dragon kept her guard up.

Neither of them had expected an answer, but Darkstar gave them one, and it was so simple, she wondered later why she hadn't thought of it sooner.

"She's my soulmate." His voice was serious and a hint of emotion flickered in dark eyes before fading into watchful jet.

"Oh goddess," Blaise groaned heavily. "Not you as well." She sank back down again and shook her head sorrowfully, muttering inanely.

"Long story," Dragon said at his baffled look. But she was beginning to understand just how Zara had managed to stay alive in that nest of vipers. If that was the truth. And she had a feeling that maybe it was, from the tension that quivered in the air.

She eyed him cautiously and saw no malice, but ten, his face was perfectly blank. Time to test this confession. "I'll believe you," she said. "It won't make any difference if you do kill her. She's dying anyway." He flinched slightly at that. It was what convinced her.

And oddly enough, evoked sympathy. She could empathise; Matt had been in serious trouble enough times and once nearly been cut in half by an over-ambitious witch. The agony of not knowing what was happening was still all too close to her heart. The long days of waiting, the nights of worrying and panicking. No, it just wasn't fair to inflict that on someone else.

"Come on," she said gently, turning so fast it was almost a pirouette. The tall vampire followed her, figure throwing shadows on to the walls. Dragon pulled open the door, and stood aside to let him in, watching his face closely. When he saw Zara, mixed emotion flitted across the elegant features. Horror, sorrow, hurt, yearning and something she couldn't determine. Or maybe she just didn't want to.

Aradia looked up, not a hint of surprise anywhere. Her powers, the magick that allowed her to see beyond sight had shown her this and she smiled in their direction. The witch stood gracefully, and walked unerringly to them, hands outstretched in a motion of greeting, her face neither wary nor shielded and that was worrying.

Darkstar watched her without the caution he had shown to her and Blaise, then walked to meet her in the middle of the room. Aradia greeted him in her serene way, slender hands taking Darkstar's for an instant as she whispered to him.

"It would seem love touches all of us." The comment was wry, echoing with subtle undertones. They knew one another from elsewhere. From where though, that was the mystery. The Maiden of the witches and the most powerful vampire in the Nightworld.

His reply confused her for a moment. "You found him then?"

Aradia nodded, joy flaring on her beautiful features for a split second. Found him...the mysterious reference told the dragon that Aradia had more influence in the Night World than people perhaps realised.

"A word of advice, from the wise to the older." Aradia winked at the boy from one blind eye. This was a side that didn't show very often, the witch unafraid of keeping up Daybreak's reputation. "I am powerless to do anything, but you are a different matter...ask around about a witch called Adularia. She is the reason behind this. And say your goodbyes."

His muscles tensed and his tone was sharp suddenly. Changed in an instant, it was almost possible to feel defences going up. "What do you mean?"

"She's dying." Aradia never toyed with the truth. She knew, of all people, how important reality was. She had no time for deceit, because all there ever was, was now. Anything was possible in the future. The prophecies had shown that.

His response was immediate and savage. "Not if I can help it. I've had enough people die on me. I won't let her die." There was a sudden fierce confidence in the words that revived Dragon's lost hopes.

Aware that she was eavesdropping and not particularly caring she caught the Maiden's eye and was reassured by a brief grin. She was up to something, using all her guile to what end?

The Maiden smiled once and left in firm strides that clicked on the tiles.

Zara had not moved throughout the exchange, motionless as in death. Still asleep, still lost in her endless coma. Dragon had hoped that maybe just him being there would bring her round, but her beliefs had been destroyed again. Well, she thought silently at the vampire, you're the prince and she's the beauty. Fulfil the myth and wake her. You're the last chance.

As if he had heard, silently he walked over to the bed and lightly sat, holding her hand. His eyes unfocused, his whole face darkened and then Dragon shut the door. Shut out the world and then as an afterthought, stood on guard.

Dragon was dying of curiosity, wanting to bombard the Maiden with questions but answers were unlikely to come back. And now they had an enemy who had become...what? Not a friend but perhaps an ally.

Darkstar Part Fourteen

Tri was dragged back to the real world kicking and screaming by an irate dragon. To things she didn't want to remember and a face she hadn't thought she would see again. Her first thought was, where was his halo? There was an expression on his face that should have been painted on an angel...and he was here. With her. Solid, very much real and accompanied by that overpowering sense of living a myth, that affected her in the same way.

Iager was leaning over her and she had ended up on the floor again somehow...it was getting to be a habit. A painful one. Her leg was scrunched under her painfully and she couldn't do an awful lot except stare into his regal face and make inarticulate vowel sounds. The room was spinning ever so slightly, the motion of being at sea.

A feeling that matched the chaos spinning in her head. If she believed in a deity, she would have been praying now. Though whether for this to end, or continue, she wasn't sure. Emotion crashed inside her, shattering grief and joy, shock and even anger at him. Why was he here, messing her up all over.

Elusive and beautiful dragons should be shot at birth, then maybe they wouldn't cause any trouble. Or break hearts.

She had to have gone crazy. Flipped. Six hundred years of vampiric trauma had started her hallucinating. Or maybe it was being pounded by those vampire kids. Either way, the end result was the same. The men in white coats dragging her off to an institute.

For a moment her hysterical chain of thought stopped.

What am I on? Tri wondered. There had to be a perfectly rational explanation...that last punch must have been harder than she thought. And she realised she was still staring up at him like a spellbound idiot.

He was looking back with an expressionless face that would have made him an ideal card player. Still the same knowing eyes and dignified exterior with the wild hair, and underneath, a fount of black power that could crush countries. Destroy worlds.

Without any effort, the dragon hauled her onto her feet and sent a wave of Power that forced away the cramp in her leg and gave her the energy to say something. And the energy to start denying what was literally, right in front of her.

"Did you rise on the third day or something?" she said in what was meant to be a flip comment but came out as a half-shriek, expecting him to disappear in a puff of smoke any instant.

"Not quite," he replied. It sounded like him, that almost purring voice with the curious lilt. A jungle voice, that matched his character. Untamed, wild and exotic. A voice that made her knees weak. Please, let this moment freeze forever and I'll be happy. Just to stare at his face forever. Not a flawless face, not with the faint scar she had never noticed, running pale along his jawbone, nor with the slight tilt to the eyes that gave him a rakish look, but perfect to her.

"So what's the afterlife like? Do they have plastic surgery there or something? Because you are looking a whole lot better than you did with all that blood and the knife." Insane questions tumbled out of her mouth like a torrent she was powerless to stop. And some part of her, a rational part, was hitting her head on a wall and trying not to notice from sheer embarrassment. "While it's very flattering to have you faint at my feet," Iager said lightly, nothing but wry humour in his gaze, "Please don't make it a habit."

She stared at him with terror as well as disbelief. "You're dead!" she said faintly. "I saw you. You were about as expired as they come. You were like, a giant kebab." The image of his body with the knife through his ribs flitted into her mind and stuck, déjà vu leaping at her. She swayed again. She must have gotten hit harder than she thought. But then again, she had passed out after hitting the wall over the speed limit. He caught her hastily, eyes suddenly gone huge in an expression she had never seen on his face before.

He looked more scared than angry, pale under his tan. "Don't ever collapse like that again." Iager's hands were closed around her arm, half-hiding a bruise that she must have got from one of the Fang Gang, and crushing with a force that made her wince. She could see him getting control, wrestling demons. But she didn't understand why he was so emotional.

"What do you expect me to do? You're dead!"

"Could you stop repeating that? It is frighteningly convincing. Please," Iager said fiercely. "Can you figure out than I am not dead, I have not been exhumed or even buried. I am very much alive."

"Ross shoved a bloody big silver stake through you. I don't know about you, but I have never met anyone who could walk around looking like a pin cushion without some questions being asked."

"Yes, but..."

"Oh, god," she said having the feeling this was what hysterical meant, "I get used to it, and then you come back and haunt me...could my life get any worse?" She dragged her gaze away from him, staring at the floor fixedly. This wasn't real, it couldn't be. He was dead. D.E.A.D. As in not living. She had to be hallucinating.

"No," he said firmly and pulled her round to stare at him. "Look at me."

She did reluctantly, into eyes that were hellfire orange but glinted with warmth and emotion. Nothing could be more real, she could smell woodsmoke and autumn weather, feel the heat from his body. Iager smiled at her and cupped her face in his hands. She didn't move but looked at him, feeling pain that was not physical, yet almost as overwhelming in its intensity.

"Why didn't you just leave?" she asked miserably. "Why did you lie like that, let me believe that? Was it fun or something? It was probably just your dragon sense of humour."

"Tri, you and I..." he began but she leapt in, lashing out to protect herself from more hurt.

"There is no you and I! You're probably just some elaborate delusion I'm having." Or was he just playing some strange game.

"It wouldn't-"

"Don't!" she snapped, trying to twist out of his grasp. She knew what he was going to say. It wouldn't have worked. It won't work. Let's forget this.

"Let me leave," she pleaded. "Please." Before she was hurt even more. She didn't want to hear him saying goodbye, let's be friends. Just friends was something she couldn't settle for.

"I didn't die. It just had to look that way and you had to believe it too." He paused. "I thought you should know and I guess I was right if you're walking around alone in Nightworld territory."

She felt the first sting of heat in her eyes and her vision shimmered ominously. "I don't understand..." she whispered, barely able to see his face for the tears clouding her vision. This wasn't supposed to happen, not to her. Ghosts didn't just come back, not even ghosts of dragons.

"I had to get free," he murmured slowly as if weighing each word. "And the only way that was going to happen was if my...employer thought I had died. Silver can't harm us dragons. It hurts but it can't kill us. Nothing short of a Wild Power can."

"You let me believe-"

"I had to!" he said despairingly, pulling her closer, as if trying to force his emotions to her.

For an instant, Tri relaxed against him, shutting her eyes into his embrace but then she remembered he wasn't hers, nor going to be and it sent a lance of pain through her. She pushed against his chest and reluctantly the dragon let her go, but caught her hand in his so she couldn't escape. His grip was unbreakable, strong beyond vampire strength, yet strangely painless. Heat like a wave filled her...he was doing something, sending Power at her.

She could read his mind with astonishing ease. No, that was wrong. He was letting her read his mind. That he didn't think she was strong enough yet, that all this yelling and ranting was crazy...

That same unnerving energy flowed through her and Tri could actually feel her bones healing, cracking into place. It was dragon power, he let her know. The dark power could be used to heal. A gift bestowed a long time ago on dragons. 'Heal all hurts you cause,' said a voice that was thundering and alien. 'And the earth is yours. Only destroy and you in turn will be destroyed.'

It was from a conclave of the first dragons...he was one. Fireblade. She felt a shock as Iager cut off that thought. His past was something he was ashamed of. He stopped the healing, and unlinked their minds with a last thought that those vampire kids had done more damage than he could have in dragon form. And to be careful, a warning heightened by the rich oranges and deep crimson of his mind touch.

He was wrong there, of course. Iager had done more damage than he would ever know.

"Let me go," she said with no anger but resignation. It was eating at her soul just being here. That unexpected...sharing was salt in an open wound that bled on.

"Listen first. You owe me that," Iager insisted. "Then you can go back to your soulmate," he added with what sounded like...jealousy?

His fingertips were circling her palm lightly, those odd orange eyes holding a mute appeal. She didn't want to know, but something, a longing just to be near him, held her.

"How do you know about Ross?" she asked, but the answer should have been obvious to her. Maybe it would have been if she had been feeling a little more rational.

"I wasn't dead. I could hear everything you were saying...do I need to spell it out?"

"Okay," she said softly. "But I don't why you came and rescued me from the Fang Gang. Maybe you got a kick out of playing the knight errant or maybe you just felt sorry." She said her thoughts aloud, not that it really made any difference to a dragon that powerful. He probably had felt sorry for her. That was all.

Iager shrugged, his eyes hiding something but she didn't know - or care, she lied - what. "They would have killed you. But even those morons won't mess with dragons. I used a little...persuasion." He said it with some measure of pride and it wasn't hard to guess what form the 'persuasion' had taken. "Listen, Tri, about-"

Just kill me slowly, she thought. "Just say whatever it is."

"Let's get something straight," Iager said. "I didn't come back on some guilt-tripping mercy cause. I came back for you. You, Trifolia, because whether you believe it or not, I do love you. And I want you to come with me."

It took a moment to sink and she searched his face for some sign this was a joke. But his eyes were deadly serious. He meant every word. And she felt the blackness she had carried around for the last month lift, taking her with it.

Disbelieving, she started shaking like she never had in her life. With joy. But he mistook that, he pulled her into his arms, immediately contrite. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I guess I'm really screwing things up. I know you've got a soulmate. I just thought maybe..." he sighed heavily, and stroked her hair with a tenderness that she would never have expected.

"You thought right, then you idiot," she whispered and felt muscles tense.

"What?"

"Didn't you figure it out? I thought you knew...what a mess," Tri said wonderingly, shaking her head at her own stupidity.

She looked up into his face, without any fear, without anything but love. And saw that same understanding reflected there a thousandfold with perfect love and perfect trust.. Iager smiled slowly then kissed her. "So," he murmured against her lips. "Will you marry me?"

Tri didn't hesitate. Why would she? "Yes."

Neither of them took any notice of the real world for quite some time.

~*~

The three of them made an uneasy triangle around the room. Blaise slumped in an elegant heap on the couch, occasionally moaning about the soulmate problem. Dragon, for once agreeing and listing all the downsides. And the Maiden, who the other two glanced over at once in a while, sitting relaxed, but her face a picture of intense concentration.

"You know," Blaise said in an ultra-casual way that made Dragon glance over to see what she was up to, "I'm not sure it was such a great idea to leave tall, dark and handsome alone with that human. Not that I'm concerned or anything," she added hastily, her grey eyes glaring at Dragon with the menace of an assassin, "but I spent a lot of time patching that girl up. I'd prefer that my charity work wasn't undone in a bloodfest."

"He won't harm her." Aradia sounded confident, and her blank eyes were fixed on Blaise's somehow.

Blaise shrugged. "Well this soulmate trash is getting annoying. Every single cute Nightworld guy has a soulmate and it isn't me." She examined her already perfect nails and glanced over at the clock for about the tenth time in as many minutes. Blaise had never been patient or any good at waiting - if she wanted something to happen, she usually made it happen.

"Oh, is that why you spell other people's?" Dragon put in acidly. "Just a poor deprived witch, huh?"

"It was an accident, okay?" Blaise glared right back, there stares looking in mutual hate. Hard to believe they had been friends. "How was I supposed to know he was your goddamn soulmate?"

They both subsided into sullen silence, an uneasy peace filling the room. Dragon picked at her nails, hating this waiting. She was more nervous about this whole thing than she was letting on. That guy...Darkstar...he knew where they were. It wouldn't be any trouble for him to wipe out the Maiden and take a dragon and witch down as well. Tactically, they were screwed.

She narrowed her eyes on a sudden thought and turned to Aradia. Her voice was suspicious and rightly. "How do you know him?" She didn't need to say who he was. They all knew.

Aradia turned to her and smiled slightly. "It's a very long story," she said calmly, eyes amused. How could anyone so young be so wise? She was like some sort of guru. "And not one Daybreak would be pleased about."

"We've got time," Blaise drawled with a wicked smile. "And Daybreak won't find out from me."

The witch hesitated. But she was giving in, and both Blaise and Dragon leaned forward to hear her quiet voice. "This goes back beyond my life, to an old debt..."

~*~

Zara was afraid and she didn't like the feeling much. It was so cold here, wherever here happened to be. An enclave, maybe? All there was, was choking grey mist that frosted to her skin, that froze her lungs in burning chills and dead earth that was impossible flat and smooth, like marble. And apart from that, there was the fear. And the loneliness that was almost too much.

She hadn't slept in...however long it had been. Time didn't exist here. She could have been there a minute or forever. It was hard to tell. Sound was soaked into the thick mist so she couldn't even sing to keep her spirits up. Not that there was much spirit to keep up anyhow.

She figured the vampire who had jumped her must have brought her here. Kidnapped again. It was getting tedious. And her surroundings seemed to go from bad to worse each time. It was weird though, she just woke up here and the mist had been there. It must have been more than a couple of hours here and no change. There was no sunlight that she could see, yet sickly grey light poured in from somewhere.

And it was scary. Lonely. Frightening to think you might die alone, no one even knowing, that all you might be was a memory in someone else's living mind. Enough to drive anyone insane. But with everything that had happened, it was just another day in the life.

She missed company, she had always been a people person and friends were important. They were everything. Or used to be anyway. Now everything had shifted to become someone else. Someone who didn't give a damn about her, or if he did, wasn't going to let on.

That was when the footsteps came. The stealthy step of someone used to hunting, the Nightworld walk. And she waited, wondering if it was someone bringing death or hope. Her hands were shaking, she was tense as a coiled wire and about as nervous.

The figure stepped out of the mists and stopped short. Black eyes met unearthly blue in a clash of wills. The universe and the heaven's sky. Then he smiled suddenly, in a way that seemed to warm the air a little. "Hello Zara," he said softly. Darkstar's voice was almost amused. "I've been looking for you."

Darkstar Part Fifteen

The bar was deserted, the humans had packed up and left. Except for this one. Ross snarled incomprehensibly at the human. He was drunk. Dead drunk. And having a horrible time trying to make a living as an assassin. What were you supposed to do when there was this nagging feeling that killing someone was...well, wrong and people were paying you to stay in this downwardly mobile spiral.

"I'm sorry," the girl purred, spinning a knife in her hand with the casual motion of one used to combat, "Were you looking for little old me?" There was something really weird about her. Spaced out, almost.

He blinked and the girl swam into two people. Both spinning knives, both glaring back at him with dangerous grey eyes that were cool as a comet's tail. Oh boy, he shouldn't have had that twenty fifth drink. Mistake.

Ross tried pulling himself together and winced at the stream of mental abuse from his conscience. Oh, god, he hadn't felt this bad since...since...no, he hadn't felt this bad. Getting turned into a vampire was nothing compared to having the drunken binge from hell, or at least a few bottles of moonshine, and being yelled at by the girl who was supposed to mean something to him. Girl! Ha, that was a joke. Demon, more like.

"If you're called..." Who was he meant to be chasing? Some human called...thingy...oh, what did it matter? "No," he said with a groan, "I'm not looking for anyone. Just wandering...trying to make my way through this crazy goddamn world. But I guess you're gonna put that nasty little trinket through my heart right now," he added with a cross-eyed glance at the knife, "so there goes that theory."

The hunter looked confused for a moment. Probably wondering why she was faced with a depressed and paralytic vampire. You didn't tend to see many of them or any of them even. Most vampires didn't go in for alcohol, not when you could get drunk on blood much more effectively.

"Get a move on, would you?" he muttered impatiently. He didn't know why he was telling her to kill him...maybe he was planning to surprise her. Yeah, that was it. Make her think he was vulnerable then kill her. With a moan of drunken headache, he slumped down.

She stepped nearer then stopped and sat down beside him. "I'm not a hunter," she said calmly. "I don't do stakes and my name isn't Buffy." He looked up in slight startlement and she winked. "My name's Jiliat, but my friends call me deranged." Then she paused. He wondered why there was the sheen of tears in her eyes, something so forlorn in her face. "I wasn't here to kill you. The only person I was planning on killing was myself. I wasn't expecting company."

Ross looked at her, really looked. She was staring at her hands, twisting them in nervous motion. Pretty thing, blond hair and sweet eyes. Ruined by the scar across her cheek and the lines on her face. Looked just how he felt.

He made a decision. Maybe a good one, maybe bad, but a decision all the same. "Come on," Ross said. He pulled her up.

Jiliat didn't object, but asked in a meek voice that had a hint of hysterics in it, "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'll change you, maybe I'll kill you. Maybe not. Who cares?" And he meant it. It was happiness of a sort. Or at least, it was better than depression and murder. It came to the same thing.

~*~

Zara stared at him for a moment. "You've been...looking for me?" That meant he hadn't brought her here. Which meant that vampire guy who...ugh...but her had nothing to do with him and that meant something was going on. By all rights, she should be running like crazy now. But she wasn't.

Darkstar nodded, watching her with a thoughtfulness that made her wonder if something was supposed to be wrong with her. He seemed...surprised. Like she shouldn't be in one piece.

"What is this place?" Zara said curiously, stamping on the hard ground to demonstrate her point. She hated it here, feared it because nowhere like this could exist and yet...it did. The mist kissed her skin like a thousand tiny knives, each biting with a chill. It brought despair with it that settled heavy on her mind, a myriad of sorrows and a burden of gloom. Her clothes were scant protection, soaked through with water and clinging like ice threads.

The atmosphere seemed to affect him too, for his face was solemn, grimness touching the clean cut features as she spoke. "It's not a place. At least not one that exist outside of your mind."

"What are you saying? I've gone nuts?"

"Gone?" he threw back swiftly. A trace of humour that lightened her heart a little. Before he sighed and locked melancholy obsidian eyes on her. "You're in a coma."

Disbelief etched itself onto her features and the cold seemed to seep in colder than ever. "You're kidding." She would have known. And besides, weren't comatose people brain-dead or something? She looked around. This was real. Too scary to be a dream or an image. She could feel the ground, feel the winds blasted through the mist that was so thick it was not even disturbed.

He shook his head, his mouth set in lines that told her he wasn't joking.

"Prove it," she insisted, refusing to believe it was true. Darkstar smiled sadly and before she understood his intention, pulled her into the circle of his arms and kissed her. His lips sent sweet shivers down her spine - and that meant it had to be real. She clung onto him, kissed him back and they stay linked in a passionate embrace for time beyond words.

He finally lifted his head and gazed down at her. "So much for demonstration," he said, the start of a rueful grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. He lightly ran his fingertips over her face, but his eyes were pensive.

"And just what was the point of that?" she demanded tartly. The cold that had been washed away began to creep in, despite the warmth of his body.

She heard the soft hiss of breath that disappeared into the fogged air.

"Remember what happened last time I kissed you?"

"I'm not going to forget-oh." No sparks, no mind-link, nada. Zara looked up at him round-eyed. "Okay, I believe you. But how do I get out of this?" Suspicion dawned on her. "And why are you here? Last time we met, as I recall, you hated me, you left me and disappeared."

It was good to see him squirm. But that didn't last long, of course. "I wasn't exactly enchanted with the idea of a soulmate...especially not a human one," he answered shortly. "And you were the one who ran off, though god only knows how you got out. That place was Fort Knox."

Darkstar sounded more surprised than angry, and if he was here to solve the problem of a soulmate, he was taking his time. She trusted him for some reason, no, not for some reason. Being in love with him had a slight influence on her emotions. She looked up at the serious face with the black eyes, ringed by eyelashes the same colour, eyes that caught hers and had a strange effect that made her stomach twist in delight. And he was dazzling, he was her soulmate, but mostly importantly, he was here.

"I had help," she admitted. Help in the form of the blond vampire woman and Iager. She frowned suddenly. She hadn't even thought about what had happened to Iager and she must have been here a couple of days or so. Had he been caught and put in this place. Zara shook her head. But if this was her mind then that was just plain impossible. Maybe she was going crazy.

"How long have I been here?"

Darkstar paused for a moment. "I don't know..." he said slowly. His arms tightened round her waist. "You ran off," and a slight bitterness told her that he hadn't exactly been happy at that, "about a month ago."

"A month!" No, that couldn't be right, it couldn't. She had missed out on thirty days of her life, but it only felt like two or three. She searched his face for any signs he was kidding, but no.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "So why are you here?"

He smiled faintly. "Don't you know?" he said, sounding surprised. "I'm in love with you. And when I found out you were here, I figured it out. That I wouldn't be happy with anyone else, and I wouldn't be happy at all without you in my life."

She just stared.

I don't believe it, she thought. A few weeks ago, I didn't have anything of much, and now...I have the most gorgeous guy I have seen, who wanted to kill me and now...he loves me. He loves me.

"So," her soulmate drawled, "can we get back to reality so I can prove what I just said?" The look in his eyes was just for her.

"I...."

He dropped a swift hard kiss on her lips. "Because I don't know about you, but I'm kinda cold."

"How though? How do I get out of this mind of mine?"

He shrugged. "I don't know...just hold on." Hold on? To what?

She stared into his eyes and thought that maybe she saw the glint of stars silver there, and as the ground - or whatever - lurched under her feet Zara gasped, felt herself falling.... For a moment, there was a sensation of being everything and yet nothing, having no body and then no mind, but it vanished into a harsh light. She turned her head, blinking...and found herself in a room she had never seen. Felt arms round her waist, the touch of another mind and a terrible tiredness.

But there was something...

"Darkstar?" she said into the peaceful silence.

"What is it?" he sounded anxious, for her, she thought happily. The sense of his mind, wrapped around her thoughts enhanced that. But there were some things he wouldn't change, not for her, not for anyone.

He would never be any Daybreaker or even peaceful. Nor give up the hard-won power in the Nightworld. Zara smiled. But that wouldn't matter much, not anymore.

"Do me a favour."

"Anything." Now he sounded confused and maybe a little wary.

"Make me a vampire."

She felt his shock, but there was happiness there too. Strangely...regret. "Go to sleep," he said quietly. "We'll talk tomorrow."

With a sigh, Zara put her head on his shoulder and before sleep claimed her, felt a sweet pressure on her lips, a last kiss.

~*~

Two weeks later:

Chatoya glared that he blond boy fidgeting beside her through the rain sleeting down on them. He glared back unblinkingly and at last she was forced to look away. "Fine," she muttered. "Go get your throat ripped out. Just don't expect me along for the ride."

Jepar grinned evilly. "Oh come on. Zara won't like it if her dear, old friends get killed," he drawled in his immovable purring voice with the slight trace of an English accent that came from a childhood spent there. "Dragon said he didn't kill her...pity in some ways, but..."

"Oh shut up," the witch said tiredly, pulling her water-lashed dark hair back in a knot. "Just knock on the damn door." This was a crazy idea. But Jepar wanted to talk to Zara, regardless of the fact this was Nightworld territory and that neither of them were too popular with the Nightworld Elders.

But he bounded up the steps with the endless energy that was so characteristic of Jepar and rapped on the door a few times. He didn't seem to care about the rain that soaked him from head to...well, tail had the moon been a little brighter, but Chatoya couldn't stop her shivering as she pulled her coat tighter.

They might even have the wrong house. It wasn't a mansion or anything. She examined it with worried moss-colour eyes. Just an ordinary house, totally deceptive if it was the right place. Where Zara was with...a very dangerous Night Lord by all accounts.

The door opened and Chatoya's ramblings thoughts stopped dead. No, this was definitely the place. And the guy standing there looked like a Calvin Klein model, but scarier. Thundercloud eyes that glittered like jet and pale skin, taller than both of them - and Jepar was easily six feet - and a faintly contemptuous glance at their drenched appearance.

Only he stared at the two of them in complete confusion before Jepar jumped in. Maybe they should have called.

"So can we come in, or do we have to stand here in the rain...?" the 'shifter said meaningfully. He tried tapping one foot but managed only to squelch his shoe pointedly on the sidewalk.

The vampire stepped back warily and let them in, eyes watching them all the time, not as though they were a threat, but perhaps a warning not to make themselves one. Paranoid as a 'wolf, she would have said, but then people with power like this had to be paranoid, even if they weren't afraid of anything.

The guy led them into a small lounge and flung himself onto a chair, watching them thoughtfully. Jepar just glanced at her with faint amusement and lazed on a carpet - close to the radiator - in typical cat fashion.

Chatoya looked at the guy who meant so much to Zara. He was bewitchingly handsome, with dark hair and eyes that gave him an almost dragon-like aura. Lips curved up in a disturbing smile.

He looked back her, eyebrows raised slightly. "So, why are you here?" Sexy voice, velvet and dark. If he ever got into movies, people would faint just watching the trailers.

"Door-to-door double glazing," Jepar flung back flippantly. Chatoya guessed he didn't like the way that question had been snapped out at them.

"Jepar," she said softly. The 'shifter glanced at her for an instant then shrugged and fixed an accusing glare on the vampire. "You know why we're here. To see Zara. I'm Chatoya Irkil," she thought she saw a flicker of reaction on his face then, "and mannerless here is Jepar."

"Ah...the one that got pulverised by the mad witch not so long ago." How did he know about that? To her left, she saw Jepar stir out of the corner of her eye, obviously wondering the same thing.

She cleared her throat and carried on cautiously, "We've been worried because..." she wasn't quite sure how to put it. 'Because you're a dangerous killer' seemed a little too blunt, whereas, 'we thought she was dying' was possibly not the best way to start off, reminding Zara's soulmate she had nearly died.

His half smile told her he knew what she meant. "Well, you needn't worry. She's fine."

Jepar, with his usual elephantine tact, jumped in. "So can we talk to her or not?" He looked more feline than usual, only this was the predator side coming out. Emerald eyes narrowed threateningly, body tense and Chatoya would swear there was an invisible tail lashing from side to side. The cheetah within showing without.

"You could, but she's in the shower at the moment."

She saw Jepar shut up, at a loss for once. She had the feeling he had expected an evil slightly insane vampire. Not the disdainful collected young man who seemed to find them so entertaining.

Darkstar looked at them, face straight. "What's wrong? Not quite what you expected?" He had to be reading her mind...no one was that empathic. Chatoya gave him a disgusted look and saw his lips twitch with suppressed laughter. She was starting to fume inwardly. "Expecting some horrendous villain, were you?"

Chatoya was about to deny it, then thought she saw humour sparking in his eyes and opted for the truth. "Yes. From what Blaise told us-" a very indignant Blaise, she now realised, infuriated that someone had managed to resist her and break her record of almost infallibility "-you were some kind of monster, equalled only by Hunter Redfern."

Slight shrug and that perturbing smile again. "Don't be so sure I'm not."

"Which side?" Jepar asked suddenly. His approach was less hostile now, Chatoya noted with relief. Sometimes he got so protective; still, he was concerned for Zara, especially after her sister had died...Jepar's own sister, a stunning tribal-warrior woman had been killed not so long before and she knew he had taken it pretty hard. There was a sadness in his eyes that had never been there before. "Day or dark?"

Darkstar looked thoughtful. "My most trusted employees don't know that. I'm hardly going to tell a pair of rebels who don't even have the sense to attempt a disguise." He smiled briefly, a smile that made Chatoya catch her breath and wish enviously that Zara hadn't met him first. Despite the fluttering panic in her stomach. How did he know about them and more importantly, who was he going to tell. "You aren't exactly hard to recognise when you, witch girl, used to live here and you, 'shifter, are the son of an extremely powerful family."

"And should we be running right now?" she asked cautiously, not sure if she wanted an answer or not.

The vampire raised his eyebrows and gave her a look that said what she was hearing wasn't entirely the truth. "No. In return for a favour."

"What?" Jepar snarled tersely. He was tense as she was because being turned over to the Elders would mean only slow and painful death.

"I don't know." Darkstar seemed not to care, ignoring both their concerned faces. "I haven't decided...yet." There was a warning note there. "But you can tell your half-dragon friend...Dragon Tiamat, is it...that if she does anything stupid, like come near me, I won't hesitate to kill her or that half-breed boy she travels with." Pleasant smile. They could have been discussing television. "Okay?"

Chatoya decided she liked him, even though he was a little strange and threatening. But who wasn't lately? After all, she didn't trust him. But he had an ineffable charm that was all his own and if Zara liked him, well, there had to be something about him that stopped her from leaving.

From the other room, a rumbling noise seemed to cut off - the shower Chatoya figured after a minute. The continuous sound in her ears had been the water.

The swung open and Zara walked out. There was just a towel pulled tight over her body. Darkstar grinned appreciatively and Zara stared wide eyed at Chatoya and Jepar whose jaw had almost hit the floor.

"You didn't say we had visitors!" she hissed. Tendrils of hair coiled around her flushed face.

The vampire shrugged. "You didn't ask."

She couldn't seem to find an answer and threw an apologetic look at Chatoya and Jepar. "I'm sorry-"

"Don't be," Jepar said, recovering his composure.

She gave him a filthy look, same as ever, Chatoya noted. Then stomped into the other room, where it was easy to hear draws being flung open frantically and thumping as Zara hurled things about. She ran out a couple of minutes later, casually dressed with her wet hair pulled back in a silver comb.

She didn't hesitate but ran straight up and hugged them. "You have no idea how good it is to see you!" she smiled, then her face changed slightly. "But I guess I owe you an apology...."

Jepar laughed suddenly. "Not us. Cougar. He's going to tear you apart next time he sees you." That was it, Chatoya realised with a start. Not 'when you get back' but 'next time he sees you'. Zara wasn't going back, she was going to stay here. She was going to be losing one of her closest friends...same as Dragon had gone.

But she mustered a smile and chipped in. "And I notice you don't have his Porsche with you...I've never seen Cougar go ballistic before. It'll be an interesting experience."

"He'll find it difficult to tear me apart," the girl said with a slight, mysterious smile. Chatoya frowned for a moment, then stepped back and looked hard at the human.

There was something different. Not in the personality, Zara wast he same there. Still bouncy and overconfident...though maybe not as much. Same, but different. As if she was more almost. Or less maybe...her skin seemed slightly paler, her eyes had a little more sparkle that couldn't all be put down to having that gorgeous vampire over there as a soulmate.

"You're a vampire!" Jepar said. Chatoya had never heard him so shocked...but he was right she realised slowly.

"Damn right."

Chatoya finally managed to choke out a question. "Why?"

Zara smiled sweetly. "Oh come on, Toya. Did you miss that big screaming match Cougar and Ria had a couple of weeks back?"

"Do I look deaf, blind and stupid?" she said indignantly. Cougar Redfern had been trying to persuade his witch soulmate to become a vampire and the arguments had lasted a week and a little more until one of the 'wolves had shoved a Molotov cocktail through their door in protest.

The girl shrugged. "Then I don't need to give you all the reasons."

Jepar grinned suddenly. He had accepted it in his easy way. "You're going to get Cougar another Porsche right, with that trust fund you've got?"

"Definitely." Zara had enough money in that trust fund to buy several Porsches.

"Thought about a personalised license plate for him?" the 'shifter said with an evil smile that meant he had an idea.

"What are you plotting, fiend of darkness?" the tiny human - no, vampire, Chatoya reminded herself - said with the start of a smile.

"Oh...nothing much," he threw back with the ease of old friendship. Jepar leaned forward and whispered something softly. Zara laughed. Neither of them would tell Chatoya even after she threatened to blow them both into charcoal.

"Fine," the witch said eventually. She had a million and one questions she wanted to ask. "So are we actually going to find out anything about this mysterious soulmate of yours, i.e. shut up and let me talk to him."

Darkstar grinned at Zara's annoyed face. "What do you want to know?"

"Oh...age, what you've seen of history, what the hell happened to Zara, your credit cards and PIN numbers...the usual."

The vampire shrugged and began to talk quietly. Chatoya listened to his voice, sensual, almost hypnotic and prepared to spend the rest of the afternoon listening. And she did. Riveted to every word.

~*~

Chatoya arrived back a day earlier than Jepar who had gone to pick up Cougar's new car. She spent a long time repeating what Zara and Darkstar had told her to curious friends and it was late evening before Jepar finally got back.

He looked disgustingly cheerful with a sparkle in his green eyes that she hadn't seen in a while. Grinning like...well, a cat and with enough exuberant energy to be renamed Tigger.

"What happened to you?" Cougar Redfern drawled in that lazy voice that meant he was in a bad mood. Still sulking over his car. "Been on the catnip again?"

"No...just a couple of thousand dollars better off," The 'shifter threw back with unflappable amusement. He was in his 'it's a wonderful life' mood again. The kind that meant by tomorrow people would be telling him to go shoot himself before they did.

Ria, in just as bad a mood as Cougar because she had to live with his post-Porsche depression, smiled thinly. "Who did you kill?" she snapped out viciously. Eyebrows raised around the room. Ria was liked for her sweet nature, but now there was a flicker in turquoise eyes that said there was trouble in paradise.

Jepar looked right back, a look that could only be described as wicked on his face. "What bit you?" he asked pleasantly. Dangerously so, this was the cat side coming out now. "Apart from Cougar, of course."

Chatoya couldn't hide her smile and hastily turned her face away from Ria. She could see things weren't good between her and Cougar. From the tearstains under Ria's eyes and the expression on Cougar's face - that there wasn't one, they had been fighting again. Over what, no one knew, but probably to do with changing Ria. Or Cougar's mood swings. He was worse than a 'wolf on HRT. When his eyes went gold, people avoid him like they would a rabid tiger, not that there was much difference.

"As you ask, I won the lottery, oh and Zara sent you a replacement car," he said with a grin to Cougar.

The vampire looked surprised, eyes dangerously golden in the light. "Took her long enough," he drawled with all the warmth of a ten-ton glacier.

The car was outside, a perfect replica of the sleek black Porsche Cougar still owed money to half his friends for. Money they would never see again. It was the license plate that caught her eye though. In ordinary letters, it said: BITE ME.

~*~

Zara relaxed back against her soulmate, listening to his heartbeat. "You like them?" she asked softly, waiting for the answer with an expectation that surprised her.

"Your friends? They're...different. I've never met a witch who used her powers to cook." He laughed and she smiled back at him.

"They liked you. Chatoya was impressed and she's so pedantic it's amazing."

"You know," he said and there was a tentative tone to his voice and mind that warned her, "I get the feeling they are going to be very much on Daybreak's side when it comes down to it."

She shrugged and thought about it for a moment. "That's their choice, but what about you?"

"Us," he corrected calmly. "I don't know." And that bothered him. Darkstar didn't like the sense of being out of control. That was why she had...concerned him so much. Emotions were non- controllable and extremist powerful.

She didn't have any solutions, except one. "Then keep out of it."

It startled him at first, but gradually she felt acceptance. Don't take sides...and it's not a problem.

They both knew that wouldn't be an option...but for now, it was. And that was fine by her. When the time came, things would be different. Someone would have the Wild Powers fighting for them. Or maybe not. Either way...it was going to be a hell of a firework display.

He stood up suddenly, black eyes glittering with mischief. Darkstar held out a hand.

"What?" she said, watching him with a half-smile.

His voice was enticing. "Come on," he murmured lightly. "Let's go walk this world."

Who could refuse?

- Fin -