"Normally keeping a changing vampire next to the sire's magic is best to ensure success, but I do not think my presence is helping much." Talamayas said. "If he is close with Horus Cinder, taking him to his side could make the difference in his survival. It's just as important for Rodney to know that a desired life awaits him as it is for there to be sufficient power put into the change. Go now, or it may be too late to save him."

Ghost stood, shifting Rodney to keep his face leaned against him for comfort, one arm supporting his knees and the other around his back, but he turned back to where Talamayas still knelt on the ground. "Will you be at the complex later this evening, Talamayas?"

Talamayas flicked his near dead eyes up, surprised by Ghost even talking to him. They had been too long apart, Ghost too long wallowing. His master knew Ghost had come here for Rodney and not him, which hurt him, but it wasn't as if Ghost had not wanted to be there for him as well. If Rodney were not dying, he'd stay by Talamayas side, help him through his grief, and never leave until Wren returned. Talamayas did not do well alone.

"I have to relay to Forest that he need not chase Echo Silver, I suppose." Was all Talamayas managed in answer, standing with a tremor to his movement that showed his fatigue and sinking despair.

"Once I return Rodney to Horus, I would like to be by your side again," Ghost's words brought life into Talamayas' eyes enough for him to meet Ghost's. "My heart aches for Wren as well, and I care for you beyond measure. I will not leave you alone when you are in greatest need because of something so foolish as my own weakness. Will you be here?"

"Yes, Ghost. I will be here." Talamayas closed the space between them and bent a knee just enough that he could place his forehead on Ghost's. The heat against his school skin brought a rush of affection and completeness that he had not felt in years. It had been so long since he'd fought, pressed to his master's back, an additional pair of hands invisible to his adversaries.

"I will return to you tonight, Talamayas. That is a promise on my life," Ghost whispered, wishing that he had a free hand to ease against his master's face.

Talamayas managed a smile, and the tears overflowing his crimson eyes dulled the hue to near pink. They drove tears into Ghost's eyes, and he bit his lip with agony as he turned from his master and dropped into a transportation spell beyond the barrier. Leaving him was heart rending, but Rodney would die if he didn't make haste.

Ghost had never dared venture this deep into Cinder territory and while the border patrols were thinner without Blaze's men, closer in to the complex was a bit trickier. No door had been left unguarded, so Ghost could only pick which man was the least likely to kill him while he was busy holding Rodney. Everyone was on guard with the sun set, so no one was going to allow his approach without magic at the defense, but he managed to at least find a familiar face.

The man who'd passed money to Horus manned one of the side doors, and Ghost dropped right in front of him with Rodney. It scared the living hell out of the poor man, no older than Helia, but he straightened and grumbled his frustration as he recognized Ghost's face.

"You trying to put me in my grave, vampire?" The man growled, but he shuffled to the side and allowed Ghost entry without much other inquiry. If Ghost were not in a hurry, he'd have bothered to utter an apology.

Horus was an easy find down in the training halls, and thankfully Pyre was still in the upper levels so he was in accosted. Every piece of workout equipment was in shambles when Ghost stepped through the threshold, and Ghost paused on sight of Horus' form. Sweat covered his skin and slicked his normally spiked hair to his head where he stood with magic ready in either hand. Horus sensed foreign magic and turned on Ghost with every ounce of his rage, amber eyes charged with light magic to melt him to dust until he recognized Rodney in his arms.

The space between them disintegrated, and Ghost braced himself as Horus dropped an arm laden with powerful light magic to Rodney's face.

"He does not feel... right." Horus was the closest to Rodney and had been for years, so he could feel the shift in the magic inside of his friend.

"Rodney is quite close to death." Ghost forwent any explanation in the absence of time, the final word yanking Horus' heated eyes up. "If you could touch him and talk to him, it would help. Right now Rodney needs you close, or he could perish any moment."

"I will take care of him." Horus practically pried Ghost's fingers off Rodney as he took him, angling his friends head up to his shoulders to manage the weight. "Thank you for bringing him back to me, whoever the hell you are."

"I'm... Ghost." The words were wasted as Horus took off from the training rooms with Rodney firmly against his side.

All he could do from here was hope that Horus was enough to revive Rodney, and that the man wouldn't flip out when Rodney sank his fangs into him. Rodney wouldn't lack control like a normal fledgling, but he was perilously low on blood.

Before Ghost left, he took the moment he had inside the mage complex to check in on Helia. They'd only met once, for moments it felt like, and with the Cinders likely going into hiding and Talamayas needing him at his side, Ghost did not know when he'd have another chance to see her. At least through his own eyes. The tease of feeling her only in his sleep made the distance all the worse, resulting in an unhealthy craving to find her in his waking hours and reinforce what he only dreamed.

Helia occupied one of the border rooms of the mage complex, allowing for the luxury of a small slit of a window at the top of the room. Though he wouldn't know since his connection to Stone did not persist while he slept, he'd guess Helia was not a deep, peaceful sleeper. White sheets and blankets wrapped her lower half, tightly wound around her mid-section so that he could trace the dip of her thighs to the sweet spot between cast in shadow. The rest of the blankets appeared to have been thrown off in her slumber, haphazardly falling off the side of the bed and some near smothering his poor other half.

Good thing Stone didn't breath.

Sometime between lying with Ghost and sleeping, she'd lost the remainder of her attire, and Ghost held his breath as he ran his gaze over the swells of her bare breasts. Moonlight draped down them like a sheer top, accentuating the pink tips with the pearl hue that lightened the surrounding apricot. All Ghost could think about while he was keeping his throat tight to avoid breathing her in or purring was how they'd held felt under his thumbs. How they'd hardened to his cool touch and jutted upward for more as he pressured them between his fingers. The pleasure of such was just a memory though, and Ghost did not imagine he would get the same pleasure from repeating the act himself.

While Ghost might tease Helia for the rush of euphoria, he was not an overtly sexually-motivated person. Neither was Stone, but his other half gave much easier to the temptation of Helia's sex and lust. That wasn't to say Ghost would not pleasure Helia if she desired it, only that seeing her naked, defenseless, and so beautiful did not trigger lust so much as adoration and protectiveness. Any and all willing orgasms he'd experienced had been in the last week and all remnants of Stone's pleasure.

None had been of his own making.

"Hey, Ghost," Helia's voice carried through the dark room to where he stood in the darkest corner. Even with her fiery eyes pointed in his direction, her head resting on her arms as she eyed him, she could not make out more than the gleam of his grey eyes in the moonlight.

"Helia." Ghost greeted her with a slight head nod that likely dimmed him to nothing but shadows as he briefly closed his eyes. "I did not mean to wake you. I merely wanted to check in after dropping Rodney with your brother."

"You saved him..." Helia's relief had her all but sinking into the mattress, the stress sliding off her like the blanket had her shoulders in sleep. "Thank you. Why are you hiding in the corner though?" A smile grew on her face that showed her very white teeth in the darkness. "Or rather what are you hiding?"

The insinuation had Ghost's erection shifting uncomfortably against the taut fabric. It had jumped to attention the moment his mind had backed into Stone's memories of touching her and was slow to leave.

"So, when Stone and I had sex, did you feel it?" The sleepy aspects of Helia's voice as she spoke of such things and lay with her eyes only half open had him clenching his fist to keep it off his shaft.

Helia was baiting him.

But why?

"With our damaged connection, it is like a hyper realistic dream," Ghost spoke honestly, wishing there was a chair that he could sit on over here, where it was safe from whatever Helia was scheming.

"Do you finish?" The chuckle in Helia's voice as she lifted herself onto her hands in the moonlight almost had him doing so right there. Each and every suggestive word was stroking the length of him and inviting him closer, and Ghost wanted it.

"Yes," Ghost answered, his breath hitching after the word as her eyes widened.

"That doesn't seem all too fun," Helia's slender legs slid off the side of the bed, and the blanket fell away from her body. She didn't bother picking it up with any modesty as she weaved closer, stark naked under the moonlight.

Ghost's eyes drank her like blood, soaking in the glimmer of red above the juncture of her thighs, following the bob of her breasts as she stepped, watching the bare nipples harden and point higher from the cold or Ghost dared to imagine arousal. Dark red curls tickled the edges of her breasts, and Ghost wanted to touch them just as much as the rest, to bring the thick scent of ashes and their lovemaking to his nose as he breathed her in.

Helia was somehow awake enough to maneuver over to him, but not enough so to retain any of her reservations or normal caution. Her hand touching his chin had his jaw hanging open to breathe her in slowly. It was best he pace himself with her so close and his desire for blood existent. Stone suffered no such lure, yet there was so much smooth skin for his mouth that he licked his lips like a real predator hungering for flesh.

Helia touched his chest, using it to steadyherself as she raised to the tips of her toes and brought her warm lips to hisear. "Do you want me to make your dreams come true?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Word Count: 1941