1

A tear rolled coolly down her face; as it froze, she brushed it away to fall to the earth like a glistening jewel. She knew she should regulate her body temperature properly but like every other piece of information whose source she was unable to remember, she discarded it. Something had happened to fragment her mind. Every time she strained for the event in her chaotic memories, though, another vision claimed her. Visions she hoped and dreaded might be proven true.

She looked around her and immediately her mind was not her own. Instead it was that of another, a man who looked upon this same area not long ago.

A red haired woman stood next to him, her stomach distended with the burden of a child. They had flown as near to the inn as he dared with their enemies so prominent in the area and one at the inn itself. Still, his lifemate's labor pains were increasing and he wished to whisk her away to the cave of healing where he could protect her and his child, rather than attend a party with so many unattached males and an unknown relative.

"Shea, this woman can wait another day…."

"Shea and Jacques." she whispered the names to herself like talismans. She secretly drew courage from the pair who battled an insanity not unlike her own every day and won. As Jacques had "told" her, she was near the inn and would soon come into contact with the innkeepers Mirko and Slavica and their daughter Angelina. So how was she to explain to them how she knew the people in this area intimately yet could not recall her name, birth date, or any other pertinent information about herself? As always she decided to wing it. She might consider herself mad but she knew she had an excellent mind that worked best when she could get a feel for the situation. Indeed, she did not know it, but in addition to her visions she simply understood what those around her needed and she gave it without thought to keep them happy. In a few moments, before she had a chance to change her mind, she stood on the welcome mat before the door to the inn. She knocked the snow from her shoes and proceeded to enter the warm and glowing entranceway.

Tiny blue eyes. Jewels in a wolf pendant and a single dance.

This was indeed the site of the party she still half hoped had never occurred. She unwound the scarf from around her neck and reluctantly trudged over to the bar where Slavica talked good-naturedly with one of the lodgers. She waited apprehensively for the woman to notice her as she sat on one of the stools and ran her hand over what appeared to be hand carved and polished wood bar. Finally, Slavica came to tend the youth who struck her as fearful, not so much for herself but those around her.

"Can I get you something, Miss?" Slavica smiled at the young woman.

The girl smiled back, instantly lighting up her face with beauty hidden by inner shadows only moments before.

"No thank you, ma'am." she replied back in the language of the area which Slavica had spoken in.

"Are you from the states?" Slavica switched to English, "I confused you for a moment with a local you look so much like us."

"Yes, ma'am, I was raised in the U.S. but I was born here in the Carpathian mountains. Actually, I was wondering if you might recognize me. I seem to have some memories of this place and I thought I may have been here with my mother as a child." Please, let that be true.

"I do not know you as any babe I have seen before but perhaps your mother's name would help me to remember you."

"That's alright. I'm an exact copy of her really and I doubt her name would do you anymore good in remembering her than my appearance does."

A shadow of suspicion slid across the older woman's face. The younger lady immediately changed the subject.

"Um, it would be a great help to me if you could rent me a room, though. I mean, I know it's late, but…"

Slavica laughed. "Dear, this is not late for an innkeeper. Even if Branislav were not here to talk my ears off I would be here for hours more still."

"It's nearly dawn, though?"

"I have many friends who prefer the night time as they do much business with your U.S. and they come by often to visit with me. I stay awake in order to talk with them."

The young woman's breath suddenly refused to enter her lungs.

Vampires. Oh God, I really am a…a…

The child certainly seemed odd to Slavica and she would tell Mikhail of her presence. She also seemed genuinely sad and as a tear made its way down her cheek unknown, Slavica wrapped the child in her arms. The young woman wept inside. She had accepted her damnation long before but now her secret courage, the seemingly wonderful people of her visions, evaporated. Vampires could not truly be so wonderful as she had imagined these people even if they turned out not to be trickeries of the mind. Startling green eyes flickered in her mind. She shut down. She simply could not think of those eyes anymore, the most devastating loss unwittingly caused by Slavica's revelation.

"Come, child. As you have said it is late and you should be in bed." Slavica switched fluidly back to her language. "Branislav, I am certain I will see you tomorrow."

"I will…stop, ehh, tomorrow. Yes?" Branislav replied in English like a small child showing off a new talent.

The young lady commended him with a rather watery smile. "That was very good."

"I will…see you later." He replied beaming and left the inn.

Slavica turned to the child. "What is troubling you?"

She smiled and wiped away the tear. "I suppose I just thought I would find family or at least someone who knew me. I've been alone for all of the time that I remember."

"Is there time that you do not remember?" Slavica asked, extreme concern written on her face now.

"No. I mean, I just meant since I was a child."

"You are yet a child, though."

"I'm seventeen." A sudden wave of memory crashed upon her. "My mother was raped and I'm the product of that. So, I didn't have a chance at parents who would love and want me. I have lived alone for some time." She turned untamed and sorrow filled yellow eyes upon the older woman.

"Well, you are still a young thing and it is never too late to find love, especially in your homeland, in a nice warm bed, with a cup of hot chocolate." The innkeeper carefully steered her charge towards the stairs and into one of her many rooms. As soon as the wooden door snicked shut behind Slavica, the young woman felt another mind pushing against her mental defenses. Instinctively, she knew another of her kind must be in the area. She paced around her newly acquired room even as Slavica called out a greeting from the top of the stairs.

"Mikhail! It is good to see you again."

"It makes me glad, as well, to visit with good friends. Are you well?"

The voices seemed to go farther away until all she could hear was an occasional laugh. Inside, she roiled with uncertainty. The old woman claimed the vampire as a friend but she remembered him as being referred to as Prince in one of her chaotic and fleeting visions. She simply would not leave the old woman to be sucked dry by the Prince of Vampires. A dagger was the only weapon she had and she pulled it from the scabbard underneath her coat and walked to the door. She had often thought of ridding the world of herself with that very knife. Now, it might be put to use in saving a life. Gently, she opened the door and crawled to the stairs leading back to the entranceway. The voices were still barely discernable. She strained her hearing and it was like the volume suddenly turned up full blast. She thought the two downstairs might be shouting in her ears but she wasn't willing to risk being unable to hear at all to tone it down. It was obvious they were talking about her.

"I am unsure if she is part of the vampire hunting society." said Slavica once again conversing in her native tongue.

"Still, it is better to be safe especially when something appears harmless."

"Got that right! Stupid, harmless old granny routine; knows all about the vampires!" she muttered to herself.

Gregori Mikhail called to his second in command What do you think of this girl?

Gregori sent a mental image of her crawling back to her door with knife in hand. She talks of vampires to herself and suspects Slavica of consorting with the undead.

I am coming to talk to her myself. Make sure nothing rash happens.

Am I preventing myself or the girl from behaving rashly?

I think there is something to be said for the former, silent Gregori.

Blame your daughter. He severed the connection to his prince and followed the girl back inside her room.

Her head pounded and fragmented, dangerously close to tipping into another vision. She pressed her forehead hard into the door to try and keep the pieces of her mind together. Pictures of caves full of waterfalls and jewels floated through her mind but no one scene succeeded in dragging her into its clutches. She turned, once she was under control and came face to chest with a man who towered over her. Looking up she slashed out with the knife on instinct upon realizing the healer Gregori stood before her with his piercing silver eyes fully focused on her like prey. He knocked the unprepared knife from her hands, easily embedding it in the door and wrapping his hand around her throat. He slit her wrist on the part of the blade still protruding from the door. Her eyes instantly flashed a dangerous combination of blue and red as he tried to bring her wrist to his mouth. She wanted to forever separate his soul from his body but before she could react visions of Savannah with a tear sodden face danced before her eyes, obscuring her sight of reality. For the first time, she did not fight the visions beating at her perception. Instead, she allowed them to sweep her and Gregori along with the current.

Gregori was no longer in a well lit room but in a cave lit by flickering candle light; once again immersed in the body of a wounded warrior as his lifemate and another female were forced to battle the unclean nosferatu. All at once, the vision was gone and he was simply in a dark void; no colors, no emotion, no Savannah. The beast inside him thrashed at its bonds and he could not recall why it must at all times be contained.

He was not alone in a personal hell, however. Jagged edges of memory tore at her head. She had seen this before, had separated lifemates before with a sea of madness.

"NO!!!" she screamed in her head, in Gregori's mind, out loud, it didn't matter. She struggled to pull them both from her labyrinthine mind just as Mikhail flung open the door, sending her head first into the wall with a resounding crack.

Her mind disconnected from her body, trapped in Gregori's nightmare. He was even closer to madness than she, cut off from his lifemate as he was. She stumbled forward to him, needing to help him. She had never been able to bear another's suffering; even if the man had attacked her. When she was close enough to touch him she hesitated, remembering another situation very similar to the one she was stuck in now. Gregori and the dark void he resided in started to fade from her sight; she was being pulled into another vision. Her hand shot out to grasp the front of Gregori's shirt just above his heart. His swift and violent reaction was lost as they were wrenched into her vision of the past.

She stood clutching Gregori's shirt front, watching herself and another called Arturo converse.

"You are my lifemate, csitri." He calmly approached the cornered looking teen. They were in the mountains, in the woods, and he backed her into a tree. She stuck a hand out to hold him back from her.

"You don't know that, you don't know me!" she reasoned desperately.

"With your hand on my heart like this," he pulled her hand up over his heartbeat, "I see colors, I feel your fear of me and the hatred of those hunting you."

"You may feel you know this but, please, listen to me. I'm not sure how, but I am sure I am not the one for you."

Anger flashed in Arturo's eyes, quickly replaced by a smile. "Aingeal, if it were not so I would be unable to claim you. So know this:

You are my lifemate.
I claim you as my lifemate.
I belong to you.
I offer my life for you…"

She writhed, clawed, and bit in an attempt to get away from the ritual words the man perverted by speaking to one other than his true lifemate. In her head, another female voice screamed along with her, growing weaker as the man continued to speak the ritual words, holding her pinned against the tree.

"You are my lifemate, bound to me for eternity and always in my care."

The screaming in her head ceased. Arturo dropped his hands from her body, backing away as if she had staggered him with a blow to the heart.

"You're lifemate…I'm sorry" she tried to comfort the man. He was beyond comfort, beyond emotion, and his eyes glinted an evil red as his soul escaped to follow his lifemate. What stood before her was no man, no Carpathian, but a beast set loose after centuries in confinement.

Gregori had once again gained control of himself as emotions and colors, though not as powerful as he had before, poured into his starving mind. He did not trust his tenuous hold on sanity and so stood absolutely still with the girl's hand over his heart and watched the vision play out. The vampire slashed at the child and she reacted on instinct, crippling his open mind with a mental blow. The vision dissolved and they once more returned to a secret chamber hidden in the girl's mind. This time, instead of a dark and endless void, they stood at the base of a waterfall as it crashed down and flowed on either side of the giant stone they stood on top of. Gregori had walked in many minds, many of them dark and twisted, and though the young girl was fractured, she was not evil. That was made even more evident by the fact she was attempting to hold him together even as she was in tatters.

"I am going to fall down." The scenery around them wavered as her mental self began to succumb to exhaustion.

Gregori pulled the teenager to himself, making sure to keep her palm pressed firmly over his heartbeat. "Be strong, little one. You are keeping us both connected to the land of the living."

"I am not your lifemate," She jerked away from him impulsively. Her hand managed to break contact with him for just a moment before he snatched it back. She felt the monster inside of him clearly for those few seconds.

Gregori waited a moment until he was in complete control to continue. "You do not have to worry about a repeat of such a scene as long as you are with me. I have already found and claimed my lifemate."

Aingeal pressed her forehead into his chest and allowed him to support her. "Savannah." The name shimmered in the air between them.

"Yes, Savannah... I am curious, child, how it is you come to know my people. Are your visions sometimes not of events in your own past?"

Her head moved side to side almost imperceptibly against his chest. "I have never seen myself before. In fact I do not even have memories at all, besides the half glimpses I get of the life of your people." She stopped a moment before continuing, lowering her voice as if confessing a sin. "Sometimes I see things I know haven't happened yet." She held her breath as if waiting for his condemnation.

"If you truly can do such a thing then it is a great gift indeed."

She released her held breath and stepped back to look him in the eye. "I'm sorry, for everything. The good news is we're not trapped in a vision. So, as soon as I regain consciousness I should be able to get us out."

Gregori nodded as if being trapped in the mind of a crazy lady did not bother him in the least.

"There are very few memories I have access to at any one time but there is one I could share with you if it would help."

Gregori sensed her elation at being able to offer him some solace. He gave a small bow in assent. The scenery rippled until they stood inside the inn next to Slavica, overlooking a crib. Inside, two dark haired infants slept.

"Sometimes they're called Carmen and Camellia, other times Daria and Ileana." she turned to him with a smile. "Either way, they are beautiful."

Slavica walked out of the room and left Aingeal and Gregori to stare down at his sleeping children who had yet to be born.

"I stay here for hours at a time when…" She faltered.

Gregori finished for her. "When you can no longer bear a life in which you remember nothing but pain. Our people can help you, for it is clear you are one at least partially of our race." Aingeal's eyes flashed their blue gaze to his face and back to the children sleeping soundly before them. "Our race cherishes its females and children. You can find a family to stay with, to love you, until you grow of age and your lifemate claims you. A lifemate would treasure you above life itself."

Green eyes flashed from every shadow in the room. "I would love to belong somewhere. However, I could never risk another incident like what happened to Arturo and his true lifemate."

"You are afraid no one can truly love you."

Streaks of yellow shot through her blue eyes, combining to create an eery green glow. "I am truthful enough to admit I do not expect acceptance from anyone and wise enough not to delude myself with dreams of love."

"They say love makes fools of us all. May I ask why you chose to come to the Carpathian mountains if not to seek out your kin? That must have been your plan."

Glowering yellow eyes assaulted him. "It's all too real!" she shouted, waking the extrasensory sensitive babes. "Yeah, it was wonderful to dream of fitting in with you people when I thought I would have to kill myself to protect those around me. But now you are all real, not figments of my imagination, and in reality I'm dangerous and it's only a matter of time before I am inexorably shunned. Dreams can only make scars on your heart when they're ripped from your grasp."

Slavica and Angelina came in to tend the twins, giving Aingeal an excuse to turn her eyes from Gregori's pity filled gaze. Two sets of eyes met hers, one silver pair one blue. Soon the eyes were once again half closed with sleep. After they were replaced in the cribs, Aingeal reached out to stroke the hair of the little blue eyed girl.

Gregori reached out to touch his precious daughter. "What could have happened in so short a life to steal your hope?"

Tears of frustration glittered in her eyes as she whispered her response. "I don't know. I couldn't even remember my name."

They waited there for hours, just touching and entertaining the children. Finally, Aingeal sensed others in her mind searching for Gregori.

"They're here." Gregori replaced his daughter in the crib at Aingeal's words. "Gregori, before you leave I want you to know something."

"What is it, little one?"

"All of this is only what may happen, not what will happen. The girls are not always there when I have a vision, so keep them safe."

Francesca and Shea stepped out of nothing and into the room. "Come with us," requested Gregori.

"I'll show you how to get out." Aingeal tried to lighten the mood, "After all, I can't let you go all snarley and attack these ladies."

As Aingeal turned to lead them back to their lives, Shea cast an amused glance at the small hand pressed over Gregori's heart.

Gregori grinned at the redhead. "She is simply helping me to overcome my slight addiction to Savannah. I believe it resembles the human nicotine patch."

Shea followed behind the others. "Gone into withdrawals already, eh?"

Gregori snorted derisively. "I would not, had you been faster in executing my rescue."

"You know, there are other damsels in distress as well, such as Dominic, who drains us with his need of healing."

"Dominic?" asked Aingeal interestedly as she lead the group to the forest surrounding the inn.

"He's another male of our race. One of Dragonseeker blood." Francesca answered the youth.

Gregori responded to the deeper meaning behind Aingeal's statement. "You know intimate details about our people yet you have not seen Dominic?"

"I don't think I could have had a vision of every one of you."

"A vision?" inquired Francesca.

Shea recognized the girl's reluctance to discuss the topic, so she changed the conversation. "Do you have a faster way out of here or are we going to be stumbling through another maze for a couple hours?"

"There's a portal straight to the outside world just inside the forest." Once to the edge of the woods, Aingeal pushed at the air as if opening a door. Through it the group could see Aingeal's room at the inn.

Shea, Francesca, Gregori communicated in the way of his people. The girl thinks to stay trapped here.

No! gasped Francesca, whose own adopted daughter Skyler had retreated into her mind after abhorrent abuse by a former father. The group immediately converged on Aingeal. She tore her hand from Gregori and spun away farther into the forest. Gregori went rigid as the women ran after the teen. Francesca and Shea tried to guide the girl back to the doorway but somehow, she always managed to twist away from the direction they forced her in. Finally, Francesca put on an extra burst of speed and wrapped her arms around the child who reminded her so much of the Skyler she had saved years before.

"Leave me alone, Francesca!" she shouted at the woman pinning her to the ground. Shea leaned down to the girl, brushing fingers through her hair in an attempt to end the struggling.

"How do you know her name?" She inquired softly.

A well of anger broke inside of Aingeal, causing her to scream and thrash even more. "I'M A FREAK, OKAY! I see the pasts and futures of complete strangers when I can't recall anything about myself but my first name! And even that was stolen from a VISION!"

Shea removed her hand from Aingeal's brow. "Are you trying to scare me with this revelation?" The girl quieted some at Shea's response. "Everyone, human and Carpathian alike, is granted with unique gifts. It is each individual's sole responsibility to embrace them in order to help those around him or her. You cannot do so if you cower in a fantasyland."

"I can't keep on going alone without even knowing who I am."

"You must. You are of Carpathian blood and your other half is out there, suffering alone as you are. Suffering as all males do without a lifemate, as Jacques, Gabriel, and Gregori…"

Aingeal interrupted Shea with renewed struggling. "Gregori! He's cut off from Savannah in here and without my hand he cannot feel emotion or see color. You have to save him!" Francesca's grip loosened and Aingeal shot away from the two women. "Go! Just leave me here!"

A gap opened in the trees and Aingeal disappeared into another corner of her mind.

Gregori? Francesca called out apprehensively. Her only response was a rumbling growl. Her eyes widened and both she and Shea set off at a dash to aid Gregori. At the edge of the forest Gregori slid to the brink of his control. He believed Savannah dead and, without the aid of the dawn, he could not join her without leaving a twisted being behind. Shea watched as her friend paced like a dangerous jungle predator. They needed to get him back now before he lost his will to continue.

Shea mentally shouted to Francesca. Distract him!

"Gregori," his eyes darted up to lock onto her gaze, "Savannah is yet in the land of the living. She has not passed on and so you must hold out until you can make it back to her." As she talked, Gregori crept forward inch by inch, clearly fighting himself.

Now! Shea lunged forward with Francesca to force Gregori through the portal. He raked at their arms as all three tumbled forward, back into reality.