.Chapter Three.

Three days. It had taken him three days to reach Briar Creek, Oregon. If his damn father hadn't come to the city to send Ash to Florida to check on James and Poppy, he could've been here a day earlier. And damn James and Poppy had delayed him another day, needing help recruiting a gang of young vampires for Circle Daybreak.

He stood on a hill. The same hill that he had stood on last year when he had first met Mare. The hot sun beat down upon his golden head, but he didn't really feel it. His focus was on a wooden Victorian-style house. Burdock Farm. His irrational anger had returned, and it was still directed at his family, including Jade's boy, Mark.

They better tell me what happened and why they couldn't save her, or so help me, they are dead, he thought. "And it better be a damned good reason," he growled as he made his way down the hill.

He knocked on the door of the house. It opened.

"Ash!" The normally cool and fearless Kestrel sounded surprised and a bit scared. Her golden eyes glanced behind her, as if she were checking her chances of escape, and back to his face, not quite meeting his eyes.

His eyes were dark as he replied, "Kestrel. Surprised?"

"Yes—no. No. I'm not surprised," she stammered as he pushed his way past her and walked into the living room. Jade and Mark sat on the couch. As Ash entered, they stood and stared at him.

"Hi, Ash," Jade greeted him; her light voice was weighed down by fear. Mark gave him a stiff nod. Ash walked toward the couch and took a seat across from it.

Kestrel entered and went over to Mark and Jade. All three stood there and stared apprehensively at Ash. He looked back, his eyes brownish-red with anger. "Sit."

They all sat, sitting on the edge of the couch, ready to jump and run if Ash decided to attack them.

"Where's Rowan?" Ash asked. He wanted them all together so he could yell at them.

"Upstairs," Kestrel answered tersely.

-Rowan!- he mind-shouted. She was upstairs in a room. He could feel her jump and she immediately put up a wall around her thoughts.

-Ash? What-

He cut her off. –Get yourself down here.- And just to make her jump again, he threw a mind-probe at her wall. He could feel her panic as she pushed the mind-probe away.

-Get down here,- he ordered again. He sensed her submission and withdrew his mind from hers.

When she arrived in the living room, Ash could see his serene sister was not doing well. Her long brown hair was wrestled into a very messy bun and she had slightly purple under-eye circles. She nodded to him and went to sit on the already crowded couch.

For a long moment he just sat there and looked at them. Kestrel was on one end her normally regal bearing, slumped into a defeated and tired posture. Jade sat next to Kestrel, her long silver-gold hair hanging listlessly around her face, her eyes dark with emotion. Fear? Or grief?

Mark's appearance was the worst. His tanned face was pale, and his hair was dirty and uncombed. And his eyes, Mary-Lynette's eyes, were glazed over with lack of sleep and crystal-clear sorrow.

Their haggard appearance caused Ash's anger to fade. He no longer wanted to yell at them because they, just as he did, had their grief to help them suffer.

Ash sat back in his chair and asked, "What happened?"

At first they just stared blankly at him. Then they glanced at one another, silently discussing with each other.

Looking back at him, Rowan spoke. "Four days ago, we all went to Bunny's farm."

"One of her mares—um, horses," Jade corrected quickly, sliding a wary glance at Ash. He tilted his head slightly, wordlessly allowing her to go on. "One of her horses had dropped a foal and she wanted us to see it."

"The horse was a new mother; the foal was her first," Mark added softly, staring at the floor as if the memory of that day was being played across its shiny surface. Jade reached over to take Mark's hand, comforting him silently.

"Mare wanted to get a closer look at the dark colt. It really was a beautiful animal," Rowan said, taking up the story. "We never thought that she would be in danger; the foal was just a baby." Rowan's voice caught and her eyes shut, seeing the whole thing in her mind. Ash could see the guilt etched on each of their faces.

Kestrel's husky voice filled the silence. "But we forgot about the mother. As Mare walked up to the new horse, its mother started charging toward her. We were all on the other side of the field, separated from her by a wooden fence. The horse saw a stranger approaching her offspring, so she charged Mare—" she paused.

"And kicked Mare with her hind legs, sending Mare high into the air. She landed hard on the field." The last sentence, Mark spoke so quietly that if the other four hadn't been vampires, they wouldn't have heard him.

"By this time, we were all on the field so we all ran to Mare as Bunny and her stable hands tried to subdue the mother horse." Rowan's eyes were still closed as she said this.

"Mary-Lynette was—she was," Jade spoke, trying to get the painful words out.

As the story had progressed, Ash had slumped into his chair, head tilted back. His face was strained from sorrow, tears escaping his closed eyes. But when Jade started talking, something was changing. His heart no longer felt so incomplete, the pain was lessening.

"She was dying, so Rowan—"

He stopped listening as he tried to figure out what was happening. He sat up, his movement interrupting Jade. The four on the couch looked at him in confusion.

Suddenly he knew. He stood, ran out of the living room and up the stairs to the room Rowan had been in when he first arrived. The rest of the family followed him, hoping he wouldn't kill them afterwards.

Ash barreled through the door and stopped abruptly in the doorway, staring in astonishment and growing joy at the bed. There lay his beautiful Mary-Lynette, her dark hair spread across the pillow, her blue eyes open and staring at the ceiling. And she wasn't dead. She wasn't dead. She was alive!

He went quickly to the bed and threw his arms around her. Jade, Mark, Kestrel, and Rowan stood in the doorway, the worry and grief gone from their faces, replaced by smiles of relief and love.

Ash was crying in earnest now, not caring that everyone could see him as he held Mare tightly in his arms, burying his face in her hair. She hugged him back just as tightly, her face hidden in the crook of his neck. Pulling away slightly, he ran his hands through her hair so he could look at her and asked, "How—" but stopped as she smiled at him.

He stared blankly at her, not quite processing what he was seeing. She looked the same, more beautiful even, except now, her canine teeth were long and delicate, gently indenting her lower lip.

Then it hit him, Mary-Lynette was a vampire.

Author's Note: So…whatdidyouthink? *blush* It was my first fanfic. Please be kind and review.

Just so y'all know (yes, that's my accent coming out!) I plan on following up on some little morsels I left open in the story (Aradia finding her soulmate and James and Poppy's adventures in Florida). If you're nice to me, I'll probably finish them sooner rather than later…

(Updated 2011)