Author's Note: this chapter contains the mention of some historical information and some historical fiction about the Holocaust, focusing on the persecution of Jewish males at the hands of Nazi forces as Germany and other Axis powers attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. This chapter only mentions these events in Knotrium and Alexei's conversation, but there will be more in depth discussion on this topic in further chapters. We've done reaserch on these events and hope to portray the historical events as accurately as we can, but we know that whatever we right, we cannot hope to accurately compair to the suffering and torment of the Jewish people during the holocuast. We hope that we can do our part in honoring and remembering the victims of Nazi hatred and help ensure through education that these terrible events will never happen again.

Knotrium's eyes fluttered open to sunlight streaming through the van window. She propped herself up on one elbow, looking around scattered cushions and empty coke cans scattered along plaid seats. "What time is it?"

Alexei's face solidified against the light streaked window. "Four in the afternoon, French time."

"France?" She rubbed her eyes and tried to battle the pounding headache invading her skull.

"Edmund knows a guy who knows another guy who smuggles people across the channel. We got to France about  three hours ago." Alexei stretched out next to her.

"Great." Knotrium scraped away the strands of white hair that were plastered to her forehead. Her teeth felt mossy, and she could taste vodka and blood lingering in the back of her throat. As she stretched, the dress form the previous night ballooned around her, seams cracking as her movements pushed their limits. "I probably missed about seven arguments and five temper tanturms. Where's everyone else?"

Alexei tapped the glass window. They'd stopped the car at some sort of campsite where trees that Knotrium couldn't identify towered over their car. "Stopping outside to use the bathroom."

"So who's tried to kill who so far?"

Her boyfriend snorted and burried his eyes in the palms of his hands, trying to conceal a smile. "Caesarion challenged Edward to a duel. Kukipici patched everyone up ok but Sergio got a bit battered pulling the two of them apart. The rest seem to be holding up alright. K's about ready to kill us all for being idiots, but not much has changed."

Knotrium had pulled open the car door before he finished. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

He wrapped his hand around her wrist, gently guidingit away from the handle. "You were asleep after murdering the man who helped make Gavriil's and my lives hell for close to half a century. Then you kept muttering about Octavian and Cleopatra and Marc Antony and Caesarion's knuckles were white against the seat. We figured you needed your rest, Love."

The vampire ran her fingernails along the clumsily machine stitched seat covers in the van. "I'm sorry I killed him. It should have been you, or Gavriil, or Caesarion...I should have waited. Picked another target. Something else that wasn't so muddled in revenge I could do it with a clear mind." She had switched to Russian halfway through. It made guilt bleed into the words, even the sounds of the langauge forging them with a heavier, more sorrowful hand.

"I'm glad you killed him." Alexei couldn't look at her. He stared through the sunlit window at Gavriil sitting at a picnic table. Caesarion slid onto the bench next the golden haired boy, saying something that made the other smile. "For me, for my sisters, for Gavriil more. You can't see it, but it's one less person that doesn't haunt his dreams and remind him of the walls of Nazi camps."

Knotrium looked down at the blue veins that swam beneat her pale skin. Whatever blood flow in there wasn't human, never would be. Could a vampire really feel this much guilt? When she thought about her brother, all the destruction he had caused burning out on the French landscapes in the depths of her imaginations, Knotrium thought not. In immortality, time wasn't a worry. They could have it all, as long and they didn't get themselves killed by the coven. Her fingers wound themselves around Alexei's wrist until his pulse took a drumbeat to her fingers. "The Romanovs...your family...they were good people."

"I know." He answered.

They waited like that, hands interlaced for a while, watching the boys sprawl out on the picnic tables. Everyone looked happier in the sunlight. Under dappled shade from trees towering far above their heads, Knotrium wasn't able to make out the myriad of scars in their hands, wrists, and faces from years of running. Even the youngest, at least in terms of years, Sergio, had spent 60 years by her side. Caesarion? Upwards of thousands. She wasn't quite sure how he could still stand her.

"I should go check on them. It's my job for making you immortal." Knotrium rose and slid away from Alexei, leaving him with a soft kiss.

She relished the sunlight on her skin as she stepped from the car. It was like stepping into a warm bath back in their Mew Mexico house, surrounded by layers of desert. As a rule, vampires like cold, wet places where they could feel heat signatures and pull food out from under rainy porches. Living in the desert had given Knotrium a change at hiding herself where not many others liked to go. Now, the beauty of the place still called to her, wide planes and red painted sunsets against spires of rock hurtling towards the sky.

"Good if you to join us, Madam Vampire."

Knotrium managed small forced out laugh as Meallán swept her into a spin.

"Ferocious coven slayer and last of the Van Helsing legacy..."

"A, the Van Helsings are nothing more than an over sexualized tv show, and b, the coven's still alive and c, if you don't let go of her hand, I'm going to have to kill you," Caesarion grumbled through a mouthful of hamburger. Next to his boots there lay a crumpled paper bag proudly proclaiming McDonalds.

Kukipici kicked it away with a disgusted face. "Really, you can't keep your fast food addiction in the United States?"

With his tongue waggling, Caesarion showed the other thrall his mouthful of chewed food. "Nope. You want some?"

"After I die then resurrect in hell."

"Stop." Huddled under the foot of a tree in between two roots, Gavriil would have been easy to miss if not for his shock of metallic golden hair. He played with something in his hands, turning it over and over and over in his fingers. "Just stop."

But Caesarion has other plans and launched a fry into the other boy's lap. "Oh come on, have some fun."

"Leave him alone." Across the grove Edward broke through the line of trees, one arm around Izem, the other holding Edmund's wrist. "He can't help what he is."

"And what's that?" Knotrium felt her anger test its ugly head inside her stomach. Whatever this near stranger insinuated, whatever he wanted, he wouldn't have, not if it hurt any one of the boys she had placed under her protection. A few steps was all it took to catapult herself faster than lightning towards Edwards throat.

Though only inches away from the top of her nose, the old English kind regarded her like she was nothing more than a puff of falling snow. "A relic of a dying world. Like all of us." He spread his hands towards there crowd, and pointed at each boy in turn. "The coven's coming. Killing Maximus only inflamed their wrath."

"Everything I do inflames their wrath. Don't warn me about my own family."

Edward just laughed, a bitter, hollow sound that lowered the temperature in the clearing. "You've already payed the price, and yet it seems like you just can't let your brother take his claim to the world to legitimacy." Shaking his head, he let go of Izem and flung Edward to the ground. "You should never have come."

But Knotrium knew how to drag answers from his lips. Inside, her wrath filled every pore; when she pinned Edward to the nearest tree trunk, it was only the beginning of the fire rolling around in her belly. " Then why follow me?"

Around her hands he extended his own. "Walk with me?"

"Without pleasure." Through the minds of her thralls, a gift given to her by Meallán, Knotrium sent her warning message. I need to know where he stands. Don't come after me; don't watch. If there's any doubt, run. Run and banish the thought of me from your minds.