Author's Note: We are incredibly sorry for the delay in posting (meh, not really. Things come up. Other projects, mountains of school work, a general apathy towards what's going to happen in the next chapter, you know, all the good stuff. We finally got our act together and gave you a chapter. We also started a new book, Wings and Claws, the good version of My twin alpha mates just rejected me. We think you should read it. Fight us, haters. Our egos are steel.

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Strobe lights pulsated through a barricaded door, and smells of liquor and vomit almost knocked Knotrium off her feet. Various limbs stuck into her ribs, and she dodged just in time to avoid being impaled by a shoe heal. "I hate humans."

Caesarion poked her on the shoulder. "But I'm a human!"

She smiled, the illusions that removed her fangs from view, doing nothing to soften the expresion into something nice and demure. "Exactly, Caesarion Darling!"

"Ouch." The boy muttered, flinging his hand up to his heart in a mocking fit of agony. "My girl knows how to level thorns into my heart!"

"Not. Your. Girl." Knotrium leaned up against the counter and snapped her fingers for the bartender to bring her a drink. Normally, she'd just be looked at as rude, but being able to change what she looked like had some perks, even if she could feel the eyes of close to every straight male sizing her up like a peace of meat. Her eyes cast themselves around the room, calculating faces in hopes to find their vampire no so friend.

"What, see a girl you like?" Caesarion elbowed her. "Alexei'll be upset."

She rolled her eyes. "My boyfriend is confident enough in himself with the fact that I'm into both girls and guys, unlike some people I know."

"Like who?"

"Try looking in a mirror."

"Hardee har har. So funny. I almost fell of my dinosaur."

"You're not that old. If you were, maybe you'd grow up a bit."

"I'm wounded."

"Exactly the point." She continued to scan the crowd, fiddling with her head peace to move Kukipici's camera so that he could help.

"Do you two always do this much pointless bantering during murder missions?" Edward puffed. He looked supremely uncomfortable. Bead of sweat dripped down from his hair line, and even his clothing looked rumpled. "I found our guy."

Knotrium fiddled with the shot glass in her hand. "Are you sure you want to go through with this? It'll mean you and Izem relocating and hiding, possibly for more than a century. The Coven doesn't take insults lightly."

"I owe them this much."

She nodded. A face flashed behind her eyes, golden eyes and high, pale cheekbones surrounded by a waterfall of coffin colored hair, so dark it mixed between velvet, black, and walnut. "May she Rest In Peace." Knotrium whispered, fingers hovering over a scar she knew covered the back of her right hand, even if her illusions didn't let it show.

"Sarabelle wouldn't rest in anything. She'd be sitting up in her tomb to watch us take them on."

"True."

Edward guided her eyes towards a man pressed up against the but of a girl across the dance floor from them. "Right there. He prefers girls with bad hair dye, so you might want to change this before you go up and try and seperate him and Ms. PinkBodyCon over there." He gestured at the color scheme she'd chosen.

"Well then." Knotrium shook out her hair, shifting as it cascaded down her back. With one hand, she tossed back the shot glass, and felt very expensive but still almost poisonous drink burn down her throat. "Let's get this party started, shall we?"

"Cheers." Caesarion muttered. He reached for a glass of his own, but Edward knocked his hand away, flinging the liquid of Knotrium like rainfall.

"Thanks for that." Knotrium grumbled as she shook off her skirts. "Now I smell like I took a bath in vodka." She grabbed Caesarions wrist. "But seriously. You know the rules. The only people that can drink on missions are the ones that alcohol doens't effect." She paused, and looked over at Edward with a silent plea.  "Make sure this one follows them."

She pushed herself away from the bar, one hand stroking the corset binding. Blinking through the lights, Knotrium stepped into the throng, sidestepping grinding bodies and skipping around spilled drinks. The ever changing lights gave the place an eternal feel, one more potent than actual immortality. It was a dream space, filled with walking manifestations of wishes and nightmares. She could see why someone like Maximus Alder would choose to spend his time here. This place blurred the lines between fiction and reality, making it easier for a vampire to slip by unnoticed.

As Knotrium wove her way through the kaleidoscope of bodies, plastered a giggle onto her face and snatched up another drink.  It spilled slightly as she walked, coating her fingers in a sticky crust. She'd have to wash them later, before the combination of blood and cocktail hardened into something that would take weeks of scrubbing to wash the feel from her fingers, even if the actual subastances were gone long befor that point. 

'All set in the alley way,' Kukipici whispered into her mind. 

She nodded to herself, swaying back and forth slightly. A heel caught on an uneven piece of flooring. Her fall timed with a look from across the room, as Max slid his eyes over her bouncing chest and gazelle legs and smiled, leaving an oily feeling across ever inch of exposed skin his eyes slid over. Her stomach churned, and she resisted the urge to clench her teeth into a smile.

It would be a privilege to kill Maximus Alder, a privilege that had been kept from her for fourteen hundred years, ever since he dropped the body of her cousin, Sarabella, to the floor, lips dripping with black, tarlike blood. Tonight, she was going to keep her promise. Tonight, she was going to drive her own knife through Maximus' throat, and watch him bleed onto pristine pavement.