They traversed the steep gorges of the Fleur territories eastern territory until Asmodeus reached an area where he could form a transportation spell. With no hesitation, the man drew on his dark magic and threw them into a cascade of spells to flit them to and fro. The point was to make following them impossible, but by the time they stopped, Jesse fell onto his knees and wanted to heave the blood he'd drank.

"How could you do that?" Jesse growled at Asmodeus as he settled and flipped a blue curl of hair that had fallen in his eyes away.

"Do what?" Asmodeus asked as if Jesse's question was somehow unclear.

"He was your sire!" Jesse near yelled, picking himself up and backing away from the man. "Sure, you have suffered for the current conflicts, but he loved you and cared for you in a way Tanya never would have for me. You owed him at least that much respect, and instead you put him down like a sick dog!" Jesse's blood reached near boiling as Asmodeus crossed his arms, raised a single eyebrow, and cocked his head to the side.

"Are you daft, Jesse Zehir? I am not Asmodeus." The words trickled into Jesse's ears, but it still took him a moment to calm down from what he'd thought was a heartless betrayal. "Talamayas could burn out Asmodeus de Fleur's eyes on repeat and drag him for days tied to the back of a horse face down, and the man would never raise a hand to his sire. I thought I'd made it apparent that I was not truly Asmodeus, but I suppose not. This is where I part ways with the guise anyway, since I need to return to the Arcs."

Asmodeus, or whoever he was, ran a hand down his arm, lighting up an inscribed spell in his flesh, and Jesse took a step back as it flooded the area with a foreign dark magic. It was not the gentle flow of the Fleur magic, and the effects of its use were harrowing to say the least.

Skin peeled off Asmodeus' arms and slouched from his face in a goop that had Jesse holding his already queasy stomach. Hair fell from the man's head like in tufts as he ran his hands through it, and below the dye of the sky blue curls, straight pitch poked out. Darkness replaced everything light about the man, his grey soulless eyes stagnating on the ground under short pitch hair, and tanned skin emerged under the previous sheen of peach.

Lastly, the stranger dropped the white Fleur attire for a tightly fitting stretch suit that covered the man toe to neck, and even his face as the assassin pulled the cover up the back of his head and over his chin. Something about the tan-skinned assassin was familiar, though he didn't know his name.

"I've seen you somewhere before," Jesse said, unable to recall though he tried. His mind was a wad of fuzz from lack of blood, and with the danger of the escape waning, his legs were rapidly becoming unstable.

"Yes, it was around the time you kidnapped Silvia Copse to use as your personal blood slave and pet." The man's even tone sank to acid, and the threat in his eyes had Jesse tightening any functional muscles he had left. "I was the man who was going to kill you." There was little place for Jesse to go as the man took a few circling paces around him. "Thankfully for you, you're a decent enough man that Silvia requested I let you live. I haven't time to loiter here with you, Jesse Zehir. The Arcs are waiting for me, and I'm tired of moving. Now or Never."

The man directed his hand down and a transportation spell formed at his feet, this time of dark magic that didn't feel like any house Jesse had felt before. It was near impossible to tell who owned who in the vampire world just from looking, but once their magic flared up, it exuded the power of each house pretty distinctly. At least the largest houses.

All the Shades' magic drew things into the darkness, dimming the world around them, the Fleurs magic flowed evenly but was powerful beyond measure, the Arc's magic felt the most balanced not aggressive but calculated, and the Sol magic was always too powerful, dominating anything in its wake and highly destructive. This magic was strong, but muted, like the grumbling that foretold the coming of a devastating earthquake.

This man wasn't sired by any of the main houses, but they were utilizing him. That meant his loyalty was shifty at best. Many assassin-class vampires without a living sire or who'd left their families worked for money just as humans would. It made some sense that the Arcs would reach for someone outside of blame to infiltrate the Fleurs, but Jesse didn't know if the man was taking him to the Arcs or his death. Either way, it didn't matter. There was nothing left for him in either place.

Jesse stepped into the man's magic and it wrapped up around them. The magic wasn't so scathing as it transported them, but Jesse was losing sensation the longer he stood. It took him minutes to realize they'd arrived in the Arc complex, and that five guards were staring them down with weapons and magic charged.

The assassin blew past them, ignoring the threat and heading down a corridor. A few of the vampires grumbled but they dropped their spells and Jesse passed them to catch up with his rescuer.

"This is of the outskirts of the territory," the man explained as they sped through various underground pathways. "No transportation spells can be formed inside of the Arc territory, at least not incoming magic."

By the time the hallway emptied out into one of the larger greeting rooms, parts of the room were blackening. It took everything Jesse had to close his eyes and keep himself conscious as light magic approached him, treading the air in a pleasant weave.

"Jesse," Silvia's sweet voice uttered his name, and he managed enough energy to open his eyes and look down to where she stood just a few feet in front of him. By her expression, she knew what he'd suffered, and though he knew she had never wished that for him, it did not change his situation.

"You didn't have to waste resources rescuing me." Jesse didn't mean to come off as bitter as he did, but he was worn down, falling into unconsciousness, and part of him hoped he never woke. "There is nothing for me here, as there wasn't in Lorenzo's Castle. I don't have anything I can give you, nor anyone worth living for, and I don't relish forcing myself to take steps each day when I know I hold no purpose. You should have left me to die."

They were not intended to be cruel words, but Silvia shrank back all the same. It was just hard truth that had been ground into him as he withered alone under Dev's hands. His family was gone, that before his change and after, and no one wanted him in theirs. Living each day as a target wasn't any life.

"Ungrateful piece of shit." A voice Jesse wanted to hear least scathed his ears, and he was before the man in an instant.

The human stumbled back a step but didn't get more than a gasp out before Jesse grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the floor. Silvia and Neil Arc immediately demanded that he release Matt, but Jesse just bared his fangs in a growl that turned the human's pallor to ash. Matt struggled with his hand, digging his fingers into unbending muscle, and Jesse's fangs lengthened as he thought of draining him dry. For a moment, he'd contemplated snapping his neck, but that that would be too quick an end for him.

Dark magic touched his arm, and Jesse used what remained of his power to fling Neil Arc across the room. If Jesse was dying shortly, he'd have no better end than to put this piece of shit in the same grave. The color was draining from Matt's lips, and he mouthed a word Jesse couldn't make out as he shoved the man up against the adjacent wall. A smile curled Jesse's lips when tears grew in Matt's eyes, half from losing his breath and half from the agony.

"Let him go."

Jesse's hand snapped open like a faulty clamp, and Matt fell to the floor. The man dragged in painful breaths as he crumpled on the tile below, and Jesse dropped his arms and gaze down to someone he'd never thought he'd see again. Tara's light blue eyes were darker with her eyebrows crunched down over them, and she was sitting directly on the floor tiles with her arms over her knees, so small and isolated in the corner that he hadn't caught her scent. Every fiber of his being screamed to touch her, to smell her, to absorb her into his skin, but with her stance, it was a one-sided desire.

"Tara," Jesse hadn't spoken much in the last few weeks so her name came out in a low growl, husky from the dryness in his voice.

"You know my name?" Tara replied, standing up and dusting off a checkered skirt. Jesse was unable to avoid glancing up the buttons of her pitch blouse as they stretched over her chest and flipped open at the top to reveal her perfectly smooth throat.

"Why would I not know you name?" Jesse was at a loss. For the last few hours he'd been running on adrenaline and the drops of blood he stolen from a Fleur attendant. The room was beginning to spin and he could feel consciousness tugging at him. Jesse wanted to hold her, to lose his face in her hair and cry on her shoulder.

"Well I'm no one worth living for, so just go die in a corner or whatever you want." Tara turned from him, and even her back was beautiful, the stiff set of her shoulders, swept by the interchanging streaks of crimson and gold.

She left him then.

Everyone left him.

And he deserved it.

Jesse watched her walk away, his focus laseredon a limp that favored her right leg. Someone had injured her, and a surge ofprotectiveness stirred within him, a need to end the cretin that had laid handson what was his. It tapered off as his muscles did, giving out one by one anddropping him to his knees. The cool floor against his face sank in that Tara wasn't his, and he ground his clawshopelessly into the stone below. Unconsciousness took him like the gallows,snapping his vision and dragging him into the darkness.

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