Kristofer found himself in the midst of quite the inner debate late that night as he sat at the table in his modest home, staring disdainfully down at the bags he had forced himself to pack after his brother’s angry departure. His first choice was to try to run and hide from a family that could easily track him to the ends of the earth, had they wanted to. His second choice was to give up all those dreams that Claire had so generously tried to help him achieve and return to a life sentence of what may as well have been one of forced procreation. Neither option appealed to him in the slightest, which made deciding between one hell and another that much more difficult.

But before he could start his next hour of arguing with himself, the door of his home slammed open, startling him more than a bit. “Kaleb?” Kristofer asked as he stood to greet his older brother’s arrival. Only, he couldn’t form many more words as he saw the obvious bloodstains on his brother’s hands and neck over where he had haphazardly dressed himself once again.

“Fucking vampires?!” Kaleb roared the greeting, splintering the door from the force with which he had slammed it shut again behind him again.

“Wh---what?” Kristofer choked at that particular greeting, as well as his brother’s obvious anger, not to mention how much blood those clothes might still be hiding.

“Do not tell me that you’re fucking friend was a fucking vampire!” Kaleb shouted as he moved toward his brother even more menacingly then.

“What do you mean?” Kristofer choked, “and was?” he added as a whispered afterthought.

“That little tavern you liked so much? Filled with vampires and their slaves!” Kaleb spit out the statement disdainfully.

“What?” Kristofer asked, too shocked by the words, let alone the blood, to form any more words right then.

“You actually were so painfully stupid that you let a vampire serve you a drink? And most likely more than one! Do you know how fucking lucky you are that they didn’t manage to use all that fucking stupidity of yours to make you their slave too?” Kaleb continued to reprimand him loudly.

“I honestly have no idea what…” Kristofer attempted to defend, then switched gears, “what did you do, Kaleb?” he asked then, terrified of what that answer may be, though already suspecting it.

“You do know that if that little bloodsucking bitch behind the bar had slipped you even a drop of her Wyrm tainted blood…” Kaleb just glared angrily again, “you know that if you had been stupid enough to let that happen… you know what I would have to do.”

“The woman behind the bar… you killed her?” Kristofer whispered, the words barely passing his lips as he felt equal parts terror and sorrow at not only that thought, but at the rest of his brother’s words as well.

“She wasn’t a woman!” Kaleb roared more loudly, “she was an undead whore!” he shouted as he grabbed Kristofer by the collar, “have you been so blinded and corrupted by living away from the Caern that you forgot that those creatures are pure evil and embody every fucking thing we stand against?” Kaleb growled angrily as he held his trembling younger brother tight.

“I didn’t know!” Kristofer insisted as he felt his eyes burning, “and…”

“And what?” Kaleb growled, every bit of his anger remaining.

“I just… I didn’t know” Kristofer decided to leave it at that.

Though Kristofer’s mind couldn’t help wandering back to that first night he had met Claire, and how she insisted she didn’t need to be protected; then of course there was the way she convinced the drunkard to leave her be, just by ‘suggesting’ that he go. He swallowed hard at that thought, as well as how she seemed to refer to her life as though it had been much longer than her appearance would suggest. He swallowed another lump in his throat as he slowly started coming to the conclusion his brother had already made after just one meeting with the beauty who Kristofer had allowed himself to get so enamored by. And whom he could have easily become enslaved to, just as his brother had warned. And that thought gave him no further comfort either.

“Which just proves how much of an idiot you really are” Kaleb added as he released Kristofer and gave him a forceful shove back against the counter behind him, almost as though to wash his hands of the other man.

“She’s really dead?” Kristofer managed to breathe the question after another long moment, though tried his best to keep any despair out of his voice as he asked it.

“She was dead years ago, I’m sure” Kaleb angrily told him, “but yes the pretty little bartender and her two pretty little slaves are no more” he admitted with an almost arrogant pride in his confession, “what you should be worried about is whether the tribe honestly believes you haven’t been corrupted by those foul creatures. Just because you never tasted her blood, amazingly so, doesn’t mean they’re likely to just give you a slap on the wrist for this. This kind of ignorance is not likely to go unpunished” Kaleb warned his little brother angrily. “Now get your bags; there’s no way I’m leaving you here alone for one more second” he added with a growl of finality.

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Claire was just over halfway through her two mile trek to her tavern late that night when the ocean breeze carried the scent of blood to her nostrils. She instantly froze and readjusted her vision to see the auras of anyone in her immediate vicinity. Seeing nothing of note, she continued her wary steps toward the ever stronger smell, watching all the while. When the tavern finally came into sight, the smell was almost overpowering, and more worrisome was the fact that she could not make out any auras of anyone inside, mortal or Kindred. She swallowed hard as she took one more cautious look around before moving toward the door.

When she did force herself to shakily push open the door, the scene before her nearly shattered her to pieces. Inside were half a dozen bodies; all of which were not just murdered, but literally ripped and shredded into various pieces and strewn across the tavern whose floors, walls, and furnishings were all stained red with more blood than she had ever seen in her long life.

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Sure that she would be vomiting her guts out if she were even capable of such a thing, she forced herself to look long enough to at least try to identify the victims. Three were just mere mortals who had come to the wrong bar at the wrong time; and as horrific as that fact was, it was nothing compared to the pain she felt when she recognized the remains of the other three. Among them were Sean’s servant Emilia, Claire’s own loyal servant and lover, Finn, and the beautiful fellow Toreador, Eliza who was supposed to have been an all-powerful immortal who was nearly as old as Claire and Sean themselves. And even she had been torn to shreds as though she was nothing but a mouse caught in the claws of a cat… or perhaps a wolf.

Forcing back tears, Claire had to turn away. She had to just get away. She had no way of knowing if and when the animal that did this would be back. Though other than any kind of self-preservation guiding her hurried retreat from the scene; it was more a case of Claire knowing that she had to let Sean know what had happened. It was her duty, after all, as horrific a duty as it was.

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After Claire had recounted the horrific scene to Sean, he immediately went about calling the Primogen back to his haven for the second time that night. He then gave them each a cache of weapons to pass out to their clan members and servants from those Haven had collected over his 117 years as Prince.

“Weapons?” Claire asked as the last of the Primogen had received a portion of them.

“Obviously it’ll take more than fangs and powers, considering Eliza had both at her disposal” Sean stated with a heavy sigh as he went about passing out his own portion of the weapons to the assembled members of their own clan and sending them on their way as he moved to lock up the armory that he deliberately had built into the basement of their new home.

“And it looked like a lot of those were bullets or blades…made of silver?” Claire returned warily as she wiped away a remaining tear from the earlier trauma of the evening.

“It’s about the only weapon we can use against these things with any guarantee of it actually working” Sean stated as he finished locking the thick steel door.

“So, you are assuming it was actually these werewolves then?” Claire asked as her voice broke slightly.

“From what you described, it seems highly likely” Sean sighed again.

“But what if it wasn’t?” Claire worried aloud.

“Then I’m not sure I want to know what else could have done that” Sean returned bitterly. Though upon seeing her expression, he continued “and we’ll know soon enough. We can find out just by going back to the tavern” he stated more quietly.

“What? You wanna go back there?” Claire asked fearfully.

“If I can touch something at the scene, I can probably tell what happened for sure” Sean explained.

“Another trick Haven taught you?” Claire shook her head at that.

“After he heard the prophecy, he started teaching me a hell of a lot of tricks, and secrets” Sean admitted, as he gestured toward the steel door he had just locked, and then added “you can learn them all too. You just have to want to” he added more softly.

Claire just shook her head, but posed no more concerns over what all Sean had trained his mind to do under Haven’s tutelage during the last century. Instead, she moved on to her other worry, “still, I don’t want you going anywhere near that place… I cannot take losing you too. I just can’t” Claire whispered as another tear broke the surface.

“I’m pretty sure the prophecy doesn’t think that tonight will be the night I die” he reminded her with a sad reassurance, considering her own death was most likely predicted by that damning warning.

“If the prophecy is still true; which we still don’t know. And I refuse to let you just run off to the place where another Kindred, only embraced fourteen years after us, was ripped to shreds tonight!” Claire pleaded.

“We have to know what happened, Claire; and to do that, I have to be able to touch something at the scene. This has to be done just so we know what we’re up against at all. Just guessing at it is a really good way to get more people killed” he told her with that same forceful gentleness he usually only reserved for her; as his other advisors just got the forceful part of that when balking at his plans.

“Sean…” she began her plea again, then had a different thought, “you can see what happened by touching anything that was there when the murders happened?”

“I believe I can” he assured her. That was when Claire braced herself and bent down to begin unlacing her high boots underneath her skirt. Sean watched her questioningly for a moment before speaking, “what are you doing, Claire?”

“My boots; they’re covered in blood… the blood of all those people who died” she sniffled again as she finally pulled the high boot free from her foot and handed it to him, “that will work, won’t it?” she pleaded further.

“There was that much blood?” he repeated quietly as he let her place the footwear in his hand.

“The place was drenched in it” she whispered as she sniffled again.

Sean sighed sadly but did not voice any further arguments as he turned away a moment, running his fingers over the tread of her boot. He had to take another moment to compose himself as his fingers did indeed find vast amounts of blood there. Trying to push away the thought of what Claire’s beautiful eyes had taken in only an hour earlier, he called upon all his concentration and his psychic abilities to see what it was that had indeed transgressed at the scene of such horrific violence.

After another moment, Sean’s psychic abilities paid off, though in such a gut-wrenching way as he was then bombarded by visions of the events that had taken place at the tavern that night. Finally, Sean was forced to drop the boot to the floor as he leaned back against the wall next to the armory door, shutting his eyes tightly against the horror that he had just willingly let pour into his mind.

“Sean?” Claire asked worriedly as she immediately moved to his side, afraid to touch him as much as she wished to offer some comfort to the pain he appeared to be in right then.

“God, Claire” he whispered as it took him another long moment to even open those ice blue eyes again.

“You saw what happened?” Claire asked with an obvious fear of what he did indeed see, considering the grisly aftermath she had witnessed herself.

Sean seemed to need another long moment to compose himself before he could even move away from the support of the wall behind him. He swallowed hard, as though trying to chase away those visions before offering any answer, “yes, it was a werewolf who… who tore them apart like that” he added in a raspy tone as he tried again to force away the brutal scene that was now ingrained in his mind.

“A werewolf?” Claire swallowed, “singular?” she asked for further clarification, her fear even more obvious then.

Sean took another moment to brush locks of blonde from his troubled eyes, “now I know why Haven wanted all that silver on hand. And I actually worried that he was paranoid” he just shook his head sadly.

Trying to muddle through all the thoughts in her brain right then, most of which were crippling fear and guilt, Claire had to make some attempt at logic to quell what Sean had already discovered to be true, “but I thought werewolves usually stayed away from civilization; that’s why he only mentioned them when we were traveling through the wilderness all those years ago.”

Sean just scoffed, though the sound was sad, “this is hardly civilization” he mumbled, then added, “and if one had a reason to come here, then…” he just shook his head.

“A reason?” Claire whispered as she looked up at him with even more sadness, guilt and remorse.

“Like coming to track down a missing family member” Sean stated softly, though he could not look up at her as he said the words, knowing that the guilt they would cause her would be just as painful for him to see; considering all the guilt she already had carried around with her for so very long.

“So, now more people have died because of me?” she choked on the words.

“Claire…” he attempted, but his words were lost on her as she rushed away, all those tears replenished once again.