I am the white dove for a soldier
Ever marching as to war
I would give my life to save you
I stand guarded at your door
I give you all that I am

- Rob Thomas, "All That I Am"

-Chapter One-

September in England was not a time Vlad Dracula enjoyed, even if it let him go outside at two in the afternoon. It was dark and rainy constantly, and while Mina was used to the constant downpour, he was not.

The one consolation he had was that the wedding of Lucy Westenra and Arthur Holmwood was over, and as such, he and his wife could return to his native Romania for a well-deserved rest. Mina especially could use it, as Lucy had run her ragged these last few weeks of wedding preparation. Mina, at six months into her pregnancy, needed a break.

Vlad wanted to say she needed safety, too, but with what stalked them loose on the world, viciously intelligent and ominously prescient, there was no safe place.

And it was his own fault.

"What's bothering you, Vlad?" Mina asked, where she lounged on their bed, in the master bedroom of the house they'd purchased over the summer. "You're frowning."

"I'm worried," he told her. "About him."

Three months before, the vampire who had been stalking Lucy Westenra, and then Mina herself, had revealed himself to be the vampire that had once lurked on Broken Tooth Mountain. He had been trapped there for centuries, inhabiting the only cave on the mountain, preying on unlucky travellers and explorers.

Until Vlad came along, asking for a share in his power to defeat the Turks and save his family. He'd had three days of this power: the strength of a hundred men, the speed of a falling star, dominion over creatures of the night and the ability to see through their senses. It had been a heady thing, but had come at a cost: the thirst for human blood. If he drank before the three days were up, he'd be stuck forever, and the vampire master would be freed. If he resisted, he'd return to normal.

Vlad resisted three days, until his wife, Mirena, had been mortally injured and their son taken. Mirena's last request had been that he drink her blood and save their son. He'd done so, and been a vampire ever since.

And he'd set free the thing that had created him, that now toyed with them for his own amusement.

The only upside to this was that Vlad had found Mina, his beloved Mina, who was also the reincarnation of Mirena, with her memories recently restored. It wasn't easy for either of them, least of all Mina, but they were getting by.

Vlad sat on the edge of the bed and ran his hands through his shoulder-length black hair. "I'm worried about what he's planning, what he wants. What he's doing right now. He has to be feeding, and I doubt he's being as careful with his habits as I've been."

The master's cave on the mountain had been full of centuries of the dead, littered with bone. At least two of the dead on that mountain were Vlad's own men, now reduced to the barest of remains. He'd never been able to go back and find them, give them a proper burial. The master hadn't cared if he'd been surrounded by rotting corpses.

Vlad, however, was meticulous in his feeding: criminals only, if he could help it. Pickpockets, street thugs, and the like were his prey. And he never killed. Vlad was certain that his creator was behind many disappearances over the years. How many, and where, were things he didn't want to contemplate.

Mina reached over and grasped his hand, pulling him to lie down with her. He stretched out, placing his hand on the swell of her stomach.

"Your son is restless today," she told him. "He's very squirmy."

Vlad rubbed his hand over her stomach, pressing in slightly to make the baby kick back. Their son did exactly as expected, delivering a strong thump against his father's hand.

"He'll be a strong, healthy boy," Vlad observed.

Mina, and their unborn child, was Vlad's saving grace. The day he'd met her at the street market in Bucharest, he'd been amazed at her resemblance to Mirena. That she later turned out to *be* his Mirena had been both a delight and a struggle that Mina still dealt with on a daily basis. The memories of her past life had surfaced slowly, until the meddling of one Abraham Van Helsing, self-proclaimed vampire hunter and doctor of parapsychology. He'd hypnotized Mina, then left them to pick up the pieces.

That she hadn't left him after everything that happened still amazed Vlad continually.

"Ingeras was strong," Mina said softly. "And just as restless."

Vlad threaded his fingers through Mina's short blonde hair. She'd worn it sheared into a pixie cut when they'd met, but she'd been growing it out and it reached her shoulders, about as long as his own.

"He was," he agreed. "Always running, playing, wanting to do."

Ingeras, the child that Vlad had been forced to abandon to the care of the priest Lucien and distant relatives, after Mirena's death and his own . . . downfall. Only a handful of people knew that Vlad had not died on that battlefield at the hands of the Turks.

His son had been one of them, though he'd never told anyone. And Vlad had never spoken to him. That had been so hard, watching his son grow and to not be there, to only watch from the shadows.

Harder still had been not being there when Ingeras passed. He hadn't told Mina about that, and he hoped that she understood when he did. After all, one usually hopes their only child lives beyond the age of twenty-nine.

This child, he swore, he would be there for every minute, and they would live a long and happy life.

"We'll head back to Romania tomorrow, if you're willing," he told his wife. "Like we did before. Perhaps we'll drive through the south of France and into Italy."

"That would put the Alps in our way, darling."

". . . Right. Through Germany it is."

Spending hours in a car, driving cross-continent, was vastly different to do at twelve weeks than it was at twenty-five weeks. They had to stop frequently for Mina's needs, whether they be food or so she could relieve herself. What had been a three-day trip the first time turned into five the second.

"I'm just grateful I'm not doing this by carriage," she muttered to Vlad. "Going from Târgoviște to Bistrița for that summit when Mirena was four months pregnant with Ingeras was a nightmare."

Vlad shook his head. "I felt so bad for hauling her along. She was miserable the entire time."

"She insisted on going. It was after that when she decided you could go yourself and didn't need her along."

He braked for a traffic signal and shot her a look. "There were many times I would have taken her with me, if I could, but so many places were not . . . good places for gently bred ladies."

"And then she had Ingeras," Mina pointed out. "There was no way she was going to leave him, especially when he was little. Travel is so different now. It was a huge undertaking then. These days, if I want to go visit Lucy, it's three hours by plane. It would have been weeks, possibly *months*, to get from Bucharest to London then."

"Yes. One reason I'm very grateful for this car."

"It's a very nice car. Speaking of which, I need a car myself. Now that I can't borrow Mrs Westenra's or Lucy's."

"We'll find you one when we get home."

"I'm thinking something small, maybe a Mini? Something that would be good to transport a baby around in."

"That sounds good. This . . . is not a child-friendly car."

Mina laughed. "Now I'm getting the mental image of Vlad the Impaler driving a Mini with a screaming toddler in the backseat, throwing french fries at your head."

He gave her a horrified look.

His wife just laughed.

Mina had originally come to Romania to teach at a university in Bucharest and to get over the death of her fiance, Jonathan Harker. She'd never expected to meet Vlad, or anything that had followed. But Romania, once a temporary escape, had become home.

Their house in Târgoviște was just about Mina's favourite place in the world. It was primarily decorated in Vlad's style, reds and golds and rich tapestries, which she didn't mind at all. She had a space of her own which she'd started decorating.

And then there was the nursery. Mina was thrilled that they were home from England, at long last, so that she could focus on preparing the space her baby would occupy.

She ran a hand lovingly over her belly. Luka was asleep, as far as she could tell. Mina wasn't sure if it was simply coincidence or not, but he seemed to sleep during the day and was awake at night, just like his nocturnal father. If it was any indication of things to come, not only was Mina going to have to adjust her own schedule to be largely nocturnal, but they'd probably need to homeschool Luka.

Mina didn't mind the idea. She was qualified, having completed her studies in not only Gothic literature, but in child education. She'd always wanted to teach and nurture. When Jon had died, her hopes of children had seemed to die with him. They hadn't even blossomed with Vlad when she'd found he was a vampire.

Somehow, though, she was pregnant anyway, with a half-vampire, half-human child that all tests indicated was developing normally. She'd been afraid for a while of a mutant baby, something with fangs and claws and all sorts of nasty things. But her latest ultrasound showed just a normal, healthy baby boy.

Vlad, of course, was over the moon about having a son. He'd love a daughter just as much, she knew, but a boy was an heir. And something of a replacement for Ingeras.

It was funny, she reflected as she attached vinyl decals to the pale yellow walls of the nursery, that she missed a child she had never met, a son of her previous self that had passed away five centuries before.

He would have loved the technology of the modern age. He'd been a rambunctious, brave, kind-hearted boy who'd loved playing with his father and riding horseback. Skateboards, bicycles, even a Playstation would have been right up his alley.

Luka would be as loved as Ingeras had been. She just wished the brothers could have known each other.

"Having fun?"

She turned at Vlad's voice, and gave him a smile. "I can't reach where I want to put this one. Can you help?"

He took the decal she held, and Mina showed him how to apply it. It was fairly simple, and they had the rest of the wall decorations up in a few minutes.

"It's looking very nice," he told her. "But it's not a very masculine theme."

"It's gender neutral," she said. "Partially so we won't need to redecorate if we have a girl."

"Mm."

"One of these days, you're going to have to give up those antiquated views on gender roles," she teased.

He caught her around her waist and tugged her against him. "I'm very modern. I let you leave the house on your own and everything."

Mina snorted a laugh. "I know you're joking, but I also know you're serious."

"To be honest, I have applauded each gain women won over these past centuries."

"If you were really backwards on that, I wouldn't have married you."

He ran his hands over her belly. "You are beautiful, soția mea."

"I'm enormous, and I'm only going to get bigger," she complained.

Vlad nipped the side of her neck. "I find you just as tempting now as when you're not carrying my child."

"Yeah?" she breathed. "Prove it."

The next week was idyllic in a way that they'd never really had. Mina refused to let Vlad worry about the master vampire, doing everything she could to keep him in good spirits. That largely involved keeping him out of clothing, but that was certainly nothing Mina minded.

Two weeks after their return from England, Mina finished decorating the nursery. She was in the kitchen, discussing dinner options with their housekeeper, Sveta, when her mobile rang.

Mina almost let the call go to voicemail, but picked it up at the last second. "Hullo?"

"Mina?"

It took her a minute to place the voice. "Arthur?"

"Yes, it's me. Mina, you have to come to London, now."

"Why? Did something happen to Lucy?"

He laughed, and it wasn't a pretty sound. "I came to pick up Lu from her mum's. It's . . . I've called the police. Eleanor's dead."

"Oh, no. Is Lucy alright?"

"I don't know! I can't find her, Mina! She's missing!"