A week ago when Dalton walked out on me, I fretted for hours over how hard it was going to be to see him again after the fool I'd made of myself. I'd really let myself confuse lust for something totally different. I laid awake all night and most of the next day just trying to avoid him and what he knows now. I'd admitted it to him, and he just walked away.

I didn't know at the time though that my hiding away was pointless.

Dalton left that very night.

I not only scared him out of my arms, my bed, and my room but also Castrum de Petra all together. Pedro saw him in passing the night he left and he said he wouldn't say much just that he needed to go. He didn't know how to stop him, so he didn't.

Pedro says he thinks he may have been trying to avoid the danger surrounding us here now that he knew that he was a target, but I knew the truth. He left to avoid me.

Eyan's pointed glares all but tell me that it's true whenever I see her.

"Rose?" Pedro's worried voice pulls me back to the present.

I raise my brows. "Yeah?"

"You ok?" He asks, tilting his head.

I look around the living area, Lance and Fallon look worried too, while Malcom smiles.

"I just said something truly offensive and you didn't even as much as turn your head." He shrugs. "I'm guessing that your fiery outbreaks are expected of you from your friends here and you're being in lala land yet again is giving them cause for worry."

"Observant, aren't you?" I snarl.

Malcom grins widely. "There she is, now may we continue?" He asks and I nod.

Pedro and Lance spent days going over all of the information they could get their hands on and found that I'm right about the blood. Of all of the ones whose families they could track down, each one is a legacy vampire. Legacy. That's what they're calling us. The special little freaks. I gave Pedro the names of Dalton's parents and he's trying his best to track them down, though it isn't like their son is here anymore anyway.

I chased him away from the only home he's had.

The life he had planned.

All because I couldn't just let it go.

"Rose!" Pedro snaps and I jerk to look at him again. "What is wrong with you?"

I pull my knees up to my chest, trying to fold myself away. "I'm sorry, my mind is just elsewhere."

"Get it back here, please." Malcom rolls his eyes. "I detest being here. I'd like to be of use so I might go soon, before all hell breaks loose."

"Fine." I nod, shutting off my mind to only focus on him.

Malcom stands, taking to pacing the small area in front of the table.

"I was approached, many years ago, before my time as a keeper here in Ireland, by a group of vampires who were trying to grow their numbers." He tells us. "They had fewer than twenty at the time, but they were recruiting, and I won't lie, their points were pretty valid." He half grins, but then tilts his head. "Deadly though. Too much risk for my tastes."

"What kind of group?" Pedro muses, holding his chin thoughtfully.

Malcom squares his shoulder. "Vampire supremacists." He shakes his head. "Hell bent on taking over the whole damned world. They promise some tempting things, but I didn't see it coming to fusion, so I bowed out gracefully."

"Why is this important?" I roll my eyes, just wanting to go back to my room and lie down.

"Because you mentioned in one of your visions that a woman asked you if you were a part of the force, correct?" Malcom holds his hands palms up. I think back to the memory and nod. "Well, that so happens to be what they called themselves. The Force that would overthrow the monarchy, replace it with a dictatorship headed up by Dimfloy Defario." He looks over to Pedro and Lance. "I assume you're familiar with the name."

"We are." Pedro sighs.

"Who is he?" I ask and Fallon looks just as curious.

"Basically the biggest and baddest that there is anymore." Malcom tells me. "I find him to be a funny guy, but most without their heads would disagree." He laughs to himself. "He envisions a world where vampires rule entirely. Not a peaceful uprising either, but one that puts humans into our sole service. He's always suspected behind rebellions, but there is never any proof of it and no one would ever give up his name. He's practically untouchable, but he's also the only one infallibly stupid enough to align himself with the caster cults if he felt it would help his cause."

Pedro and Lance both laugh outright, but I stay quiet.

"Casters?" Lance shakes his head in disbelief.

Malcom crosses his arms over his chest. "I don't find this funny, and neither should you, pretty boy. Weak ones like you will be the first to go."

Lance lunges, but Pedro holds him back.

"If you all have truly never heard the whispers of the caster cults then you all are much more cut off from the world than I ever believed. A pity that the ones ruling the rest of us don't even know the world the command." He shrugs. "If Dalton were here, he'd back me. He knows as well as any that the puppeteers around here know nothing."

"Dalton would never side with someone like you." I snap, not expecting the mention of his name to make my stomach turn so sharply.

Pedro keeps a smooth mask in place, but I know his tone has to be grinding on his nerves.

"Just so that we are clear here, you're referring to witches then?" Pedro asks calmly.

Malcom dips his head into his hand. "Please tell me you aren't so dense as to believe that we are the only story book monsters out roaming this world?" He laughs. "Oh boy, we better all kiss this world goodbye then if Miss Voodoo over here is right about our impending doom. No way any of you are going to get us out of it."

Lance shakes out of Pedro's grasp and brushes his shirt down. "Alright then, if you're so smart, what do they want? What are they planning?"

Malcom ticks his tongue again. "I couldn't possibly know that, but my guess is that the two groups, the caster cults and The Force have come together on their quest."

"We're going off of your guesses now?" Lance rolls his eyes, turning away.

"I'm sorry, do you have something better to go on?" Malcom laughs to himself.

I roll my eyes at them all. "If The Force is so set on supremacy as you say, then somehow this thing that they are creating must be able to help them somehow." I shake my head. "But it doesn't make sense. The future Dalton's father saw, it was an end for us all."

"Casters can be tricky." Malcom muses, looking up. "I'm less concerned with what they're up to than I am about who is pulling their strings?"

"What do you mean?" I ask.

He thinks for a moment, ignoring me until he feels like answering.

"I mean they could have never come together on their own." He shakes his head. "The Force is a bunch of mindless brutes anyway. They'll kill you for looking at them wrong, and the caster cults...it's well known in the myths that they do not like us one bit. I've heard stories of them killing us for sport. I can't let myself believe that a caster and a Force member came together all on their own and made plans."

Lance scowls at Malcom. "You speak as if you know much more than you're sharing." He says. "How do you know this all if you aren't a part of it yourself?"

Malcom looks as if he's being bothered by a pesky fly that needs to be swat down. "Don't take offense by my bluntness," he mutters. "But you all are a bunch of palace brats. Nobility with no very little to no real experience of what it's like to live in the real world and not in these specially fortified bubbles you chose to exist in. I've been out there. I'm worldly if nothing else. Vampires have myths and legend just like humans, only ours is likely rooted even more in the truth than theirs. You need only listen and find the lie in the story. Once you pick out the lie, you lace together the truths."

Pedro nods surprisingly. "Some offense taken," He smiles, but then looks at Malcom. "I see what you mean about us not being the best to explain what we don't know. What or who do you think is behind this?"

"I have no idea." Malcom shrugs

"Fantastic." Lance grumbles, plopping down on the couch.

Malcom pretends to not even notice him anymore. "I know whoever it is, it has to be someone of great importance to not only one side, but both sides to get the two groups together."

I gasp. "These two sides don't mix." I'm met with everyone's confused glances. "That's what the woman said, the caster, she told the man that these two sides don't mix. That must have been what she meant. She said that she didn't know how much longer they could keep it up."

Malcom nods, eyes narrowed. "It's true then." He sighs. "Casters and The Force are working together, and whoever is behind the scenes is likely playing both sides. There is no single cause that could possibly benefit them both."

Pedro nods in agreement. "I'd think a monster than destroys the world would be in no one's best interest."

"You'd think." Malcom nods.

I don't know how long passes where I just sit on the couch, watching them go through all the notes and stories they can find. Trying as hard as they can to pinpoint any single person or small group who could have enough pull and persuasion to bring together two such volatile groups, but I just don't have the energy to participate. It all feels like way too much.

"Rosie, my dear." Pedro sighs, sitting down beside me on the couch, wrapping his arm over my shoulders. "Are you really ok?"

"Yes." I yawn, leaning into him.

His eyes look sad and I try my best to fake a smile, but I know he can see through it. Lance too, from where he watches me across the room.

"Does this have anything to do wi-."

"No." I stop him before he can say it out loud. He can think it all he wants, but I don't want to hear it. The door to the suite opens and my heart leaps again, just like it has been doing for a week now. I keep expecting him to just walk back in.

If he did I'd punch him in the stomach, but I just still wish he would.

"Maybe...I don't know, Rosie." Pedro sighs and I feel bad for making him worry. "Maybe your mom and dad should come to Ireland. I can put them up in a secluded motel up where no one would know they're here...If you think it would lift your spirits."

In the back of my head I know without doubt that no one expects me to agree to this, but the idea of sitting on a couch between my mom and dad just sounds too tempting. If I was going to talk to anyone about...him, it would be mom. She's the only one who could possibly understand.

"I'd like that." I nod.

"Really?" Pedro almost drops his jaw. "Ok, yeah, I'll go call them right now."

"Don't worry them," I add as he stands. "I just miss them."

Two days later and I'm in the transport with Pedro on our way out of the city and towards a town about an hour out. The whole drive I read through the journals I finally got around to getting out. Dying of boredom got me moving into dad's old study. I read his journal first, to feel closer to him, but now I've started over from the first journal. It still amazes me that the first king was so successful. He singlehandedly did so much of the real work, leaving his successors a world to keep up. Pedro taps my shoulder, bringing me out of the journals and the story about the first Lamia Mortem outbreak to point out the little stone motel on the top of the hill.

Mom and Dad barely let me breathe they hug me so much, mom kisses both of my cheeks so many times I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow and dad can't wait to get to talking schematics and quiz me on what all I've been learning. He beams with pride when I show him the journals I brought with me, and then he almost cries when Pedro and I give him and mom the painting from Dalton's room.

Being near them again makes the freezing knife in my chest seem to melt away a little at a time. The happy times can only last so long though when Pedro and I have to fill them in on all the newest developments in our date with a deadly destiny. Dad and Pedro excuse themselves into another room to talk when the heavy topics obviously start to wear and me and mom. There is only so much doom and gloom a girl can take.

I tell mom all about Malcom, but she seems less concerned with him than me.

"Tell me." She smiles, brushing my hair back from my face and touching her fingers to the dark circles under my eyes.

I take a deep breath and let it all go. Everything I've been keeping in. Lance and his never wavering devotion, the vision of us married, the kiss. And then Dalton. I tell her how we fight at every second we are together, but that as soon as he's gone I want him back to fight with some more. I shyly tell her about our last night together, and how I'd stupidly thought all the pieces were coming together, until suddenly the whole damn puzzle was shattered. Admittedly along with a little bit of my heart.

Throughout it all she didn't stop me, or scold me. She didn't try to tell me how to feel or offer ways to move on or look at it differently. She just did exactly what I needed her to do.

She listened.

Letting me get the whole ordeal off of my chest and then she brushed my hair while I laid my head in her lap and I slowly began to finally drift into sleep that had been evading me lately.

I groan when a tingling starts.

Can't I ever just rest?

Dalton.

I open my eyes and I'm watching Dalton walk out of my room, the door closing on me on the other side. I looked broken, but so does he.

He lingers outside of my door, reaching his hand out for the nob and leaning his forehead on the door for a second before he finally sighs and turns away.

I follow him through the corridors where he wanders aimlessly.

Pedro passes and Dalton tells him he's leaving, walking away leaving behind a dumbfounded Pedro in the middle of the passage.

Dalton punches a wall, leaving a bloody spot on the stone but the hands heals right up as he picks up his pace, taking a turn and going through the big golden doors to the garden. He types in my birthday slowly then winds up to the top, stepping out into the dwindling darkness.

The sun will be rising soon.

I follow close behind him, his image torturing me, yet I don't want to lose him twice.

He goes out of the maze and leaves the safe confines of the city.

Suddenly he stops and I halt to keep from slamming into him, although he wouldn't feel it.

He turns around sharply, looking right through me as he runs his hands through his hair.

"What are you doing?" He shakes his head at himself. "Idiot." He curses under his breath and begins to run back.

He's coming back to me.

The thrill of excitement in me is short lived, because he didn't come back.

"Going somewhere?" A voice says out of nowhere before a woman materializes out of thin air. Dalton covers his ears and tries to run the other way, but she whispers a chant and his body drops like a ton of bricks to the wet grass.

"No!" I scream. "Dalton, no!"

"Let's go." She laughs to herself as she reaches out to touch him. "Maybe you'll be the one."

With her hand on his shoulder the two of them ripple away into nothing.

"Dalton!" I scream at the top of my lungs and my body jerks.

Dad's smoky blue eyes are in my face as he yells my name, shaking my shoulders.

"They took him!" I shout, pushing away from him. "They have him! He didn't leave!"

"Rose," Pedro pushes over. "What are you talking about?"

I look between them each, tears pouring from my eyes.

"Dalton didn't leave," I cry and mom brings her hand to her mouth while Pedro's eyes seem to lose their light. "They took him. They have him."

One thought just keeps playing through my mind, over and over.

He was coming back to me.

And now he might be dead.