Fan Fiction ❯ The Vampire Hunter II: Bloodlines ❯ Chapter 8

Chapter VIII

Clark woke at dawn and blinked the sleep from her eyes. She knew she'd had several nightmares, but she couldn't remember any of them. She decided that was probably a good thing.

Clark stood from the bed and began one of her simple workout routines in the middle of the hotel room. It consisted of many different martial arts maneuvers performed as quickly as possible, while standing in one place. The practice helped develop muscle strength as well as control and balance. When she was finished, she took a long hot shower and then began getting dressed for the day.

Clark booted up her laptop and logged on to the Internet to check Gabrielle's travel plans. She was surprised when nothing came up. Gabrielle's usual routine had been to purchase tickets for her next destination when she arrived at her current one, but she still hadn't made any travel arrangements.

Clark shrugged her shoulders. Gabrielle had obviously enjoyed her night of dancing with Avarice, so maybe she intended to stay for a longer period of time in order to visit with more of her friends.

Clark still wasn't happy with the way Gabrielle had been dancing with the redhead, but she decided to let it go. It wasn't like they'd been kissing or anything. It had just been difficult for Clark to watch because it had forced her to think about several things that she hadn't considered before.

Like how many others had possibly had the First Born's attention before her. She'd been aware of Gabrielle's approximate age, of course, but thinking about it in terms of lovers had never crossed her mind. And she didn't know whether Avarice had ever had that privilege or not, but it didn't change Clark's feelings on the subject. Gabrielle was hers and anyone who tried to come between them would end up on the wrong end of a stake.

At least, that's how Clark felt about it, but she knew she couldn't start thinking like that. Jealousy was a sign of feeling inferior and she didn't want to go there. It was also insulting to Gabrielle to think that she would betray Clark in such a way, so Clark firmly pushed the thoughts out of her mind.

She decided instead to focus on what she'd learned the night before from reading the two vampires' lips. As she went over the conversation in her mind, she headed down to the dining area to get some breakfast.

She hadn't been all that surprised to learn that vampire servants had made it into the VHA and the local police agencies. Though VHA background checks were supposed to be exhaustive, it really wasn't difficult to gain acceptance into the agency's ranks. If you said you hated vampires, you were pretty much granted a free pass and that was the end of it.

Clark herself hadn't even been interviewed. Her face had been plastered all over the newspapers, so when she'd shown up at the 46th precinct to ask about getting into the VHA, they'd basically handed her a badge and told her to go to it.

On the other hand, Clark was confident that the servants inside the VHA didn't have much more than minimum-security clearance, if that. Though it could be relatively easy to get into the VHA, the organization was very particular about who it gave clearance to.

For example, office personnel, who were hired for administrative purposes only, didn't have access to anything beyond after-the-fact reports and requisitions for new equipment; they couldn't even look up an unlisted phone number. But Clark knew that just being in the precinct would let a slave learn enough to keep their Master informed of current operations and that was all any vampire really needed in order to stay one step ahead of the Hunters.

For even the lowest level of clearance, a slave would have to become a Hunter and Clark found the likelihood of that happening rather low. She remembered her own rise through the ranks of the VHA and she knew that it was usually much more difficult for most people.

Like all Hunters, Clark had been granted minimum-security clearance from day one. But unlike any other Hunter, it had only taken her three years to gain medium clearance, as part of her promotion to Lead Hunter, which had been considered premature according to the VHA's standards.

She'd actually been leading hunting parties for almost two years at that point, something that was unheard of for someone so young and so new, but Graves had been reluctant to promote her early. It usually took at least five years for a Hunter to be eligible for that rank, but her kill score had been way above anything he'd ever seen before and her record had been spotless.

He'd finally gone ahead with the promotion after several of his Hunters, who were also up for possible advancement to Lead Hunter, had come into his office and told him they wouldn't accept the new rank unless Clark was promoted too. She hadn't found out about that until several years later, though.

At the time, she'd only been twenty-one, making her the youngest Lead Hunter in VHA history, and she'd been kept on probation for two years, which had been twice as long as anyone else had ever had to endure. All of her medium-security level queries had been monitored during that time to make sure she wasn't abusing the privilege or accessing certain types of information too often.

And usually, only those who ran an entire division or precinct were granted maximum clearance, but she'd gained that level of authorization on her tenth anniversary. Graves had concluded that the only reason Clark didn't have his job already was because she didn't want the paperwork and her time was much better spent hunting and killing vampires, so he'd pushed her promotion through despite that little technicality. However, she'd again been put on probation for two years and she'd only recently been taken off.

As Clark thought about it, though, she realized something else. If anyone within the Order found out that Gabrielle was basically in charge of the organization that was attempting to destroy their race, Gabrielle would be killed. And no matter how powerful Gabrielle happened to be, she wouldn't be able to face down the entire Order. So, it was a pretty good bet that Gabrielle would never allow anyone within the Vampire Order to reach the maximum-security level. The risk to herself would just be too great.

But that also meant there was probably no one working for Gabrielle to keep tabs on Clark the way Clark was keeping tabs on Gabrielle. As for the rest of the Vampire Order, Clark was pretty sure they'd learned to leave her alone.

When Clark had first made a name for herself, she'd been attacked constantly and had practically been followed to the bathroom for months. She'd finally had enough and had set up her assailants in one massive ambush. She'd nailed a total of forty-seven vampires in a single night, twenty-two of the kills attributed to herself, with the rest going to the half-dozen other Hunters who'd agreed to back her up. She'd been left alone by the vampires and elevated to the status of legend by her fellow Hunters after that.

Clark chewed the last bite of her eggs and tried to bring her thoughts back to the vampires' discussion. She'd been unable to understand the majority of what the two vampires had been talking about, mostly because they'd been very vague in their comments.

Gabrielle had mentioned something about it almost being time. But time for what? From what Clark understood, Blake had been running the Order for at least the past few centuries, if not longer. Granted, that had been with Gabrielle's permission, but it had been obvious that Gabrielle had preferred her place in the shadows, as opposed to her now much more prominent position as head of the Vampire Order. So had she been making plans the whole time?

And Avarice had talked about Gabrielle ruling the world. Ruling over the vampires, Clark understood, but the world? That was a difficult concept to grasp. The world was a big place. Of course, there was the possibility that Avarice had simply been exaggerating, really meaning only the vampire world, but for some reason, Clark couldn't get the idea out of her head that Avarice had meant exactly what she'd said.

Clark looked down at her empty plate. She needed more information, but she would only get that by continuing the Hunt. She paid her bill and headed back to her room.

A quick check of the computer showed her no new reservations had been made while she'd been away. Clark looked at the GPS tracker to get a reading on where Gabrielle was staying for the day, but the numbers seemed off somehow. When she plugged them into the location program, she felt her stomach drop as the map came up. Gabrielle was in the air, somewhere over Nicaragua.

"Shit!" Clark hissed out loud.

She brought up her alert program and checked it again. There was still nothing new. She started a new search anyway and ran a check with LAX itself for all the names she had for Gabrielle and her group. Two sets of reservations for Samantha, Theresa, Trevor, and Chen Wu came up in alphabetical order, all made by Samantha.

It only took a moment for Clark to figure out what had caused the alert program to miss the new reservations. She had set it up to find Gabrielle Alucard and then to look for the other seven names. Since Samantha had made the reservations, the search hadn't included them without Gabrielle's name to flag them first.

Clark fixed the glitch and reset the program. With the new parameters in place, Clark went back to the reservations she'd found. The first set showed that Gabrielle and her entourage would be arriving in Buenos Aires, Argentina at 8:10PM, local time. The second set had the group leaving for Melbourne, Australia at 1:15AM later that night.

Clark opened up another browser window and searched for the next flight to Melbourne out of LAX. There was a plane leaving in less than three hours, but it had a seven and a half hour layover and she would arrive only two hours ahead of Gabrielle.

Clark decided it would be enough. A few clicks later, she had a window seat for the first leg of her trip, so she closed down the laptop and quickly started throwing things into her bags. She only had two hours to get to the airport and she knew traffic would make it a close call.

In fact, Clark didn't even get to her seat until five minutes before take-off. Her status as a Vampire Hunter gave her an automatic passport to any country that supported the VHA Charter, so she didn't have to wait the usual 2-6 weeks to get a regular passport. But she'd still been subject to the same checks that everyone else had to go through, even though the weapons and other equipment she had with her wouldn't keep her from being allowed on the plane. There had just been a lot of forms to fill out before she'd been authorized to proceed.

Clark looked out the window to see the tops of the clouds going by beneath her. She had fourteen and a half hours to kill. She brought out her laptop and looked at her list of games. DOOM would keep her occupied until dinner at least.

~\/^^^\/~

The stretch limousine bounced as it continued down the road on its way to the airport. The passengers inside the car ignored the discomfort and went on with their conversation.

"So, just like that, he said okay?" Michelle asked, after Gabrielle had told everyone about her short meeting with the Argentine head vampire.

"Yes. Manuel's main concern was receiving support for President de la Rúa's fight for the Falkland Islands, or should I say la Islas Malvinas. As soon as I'd promised him that, everything else went smoothly," Gabrielle explained. "Apparently, it would mean a great deal to President Fernando's career if he could settle the dispute with the UK in Argentina's favor."

It would also be useful to Gabrielle to have a group of islands owned by a country that was run by vampires who were loyal to her.

"I guess it's a good thing we didn't allot more time for the meeting then," Shiri commented.

"Well, I don't know that I would have postponed the flight for any reason. I'm anxious to see Kevyn again. It's been two decades since I last journeyed to visit with him," Gabrielle said.

"I'm afraid I know very little about him," Yelena confessed.

"Oh, I think you'll like him. He's actually from Ireland originally. In fact, he's the eleventh Great Grandfather of William Wallace, the Scottish hero."

"But you said he was Irish," Trevor pointed out.

"Originally, yes. You see, back when Kevyn was born, most people didn't have last names. Towns were small enough that everyone had unique names. You knew who was being talked about when you said a name because only one person had that name. But when the towns started becoming larger, last names became a necessity. Among the Celtic tribes of Wales, the practice of giving the first name of the father as the last name of the son became the norm. That's where you get names like Erickson, or McPherson, which actually translates to the grandson of Pher, if I remember right."

Gabrielle shook her head before she got lost in thought.

"Anyway, another naming convention was taking the name of the place you were born or the people you belonged to. Wallis, W-A-L-L-I-S, was the Irish version of "person from Wales" or "Welshman" and usually meant "stranger" to anyone who wasn't Welsh. When the Normans invaded in 1066, the Scottish spelling of W-A-L-L-A-C-E took over, so Kevyn went with it to fit in. Two hundred years later, William Wallace was born and the rest is history."

"When did he go to Australia?" Theresa asked quietly.

"1791. I think he was just looking for a change, but he got a lot more than he bargained for," Gabrielle replied.

"What do you mean?" Yelena asked.

"Kevyn owns about half of Australia through all the corporations, deeds, and people he controls. And he has one of the most legitimate identities of any vampire around. He got in on the ground floor, just like we did in the United States," Gabrielle explained.

"Wasn't he shipped over as a prisoner in the beginning?" Michelle questioned as some of the vague rumors she'd heard at the time came back to her.

"No. He was a mate on one of the ships and stayed behind with the prisoners. At first, he had to kill them in order to survive, but then he managed to keep a few as feeding slaves, so that he wouldn't run out of food before the next shipment arrived. It was a very hard time to live through."

Gabrielle remembered it vividly. She'd come to see how he and the other vampires who had followed him were doing. He'd emerged as the de facto leader by the time she'd arrived for a visit in 1800, which had only been a few years after the territory had been opened up to free settlers looking for new land to conquer. Her obvious support of his power had cemented his position, though she'd only stayed for a few months and then had feigned death to leave the island continent without being noticed by the humans.

She would have stayed longer, but she'd found it difficult to deal with the lack of food resources. She'd refused to leave any of her prey alive and no amount of persuasion on Kevyn's part had been able to change her mind. The bond that was created between a vampire and their prey during the act of feeding was intensely intimate and Gabrielle was unwilling to allow anyone who had been that close to her to continue to live. But having someone die or disappear every few days had caused too much panic among the colonists. Kevyn had been unable to maintain order with her around, so he'd politely asked her to go home. She'd agreed wholeheartedly.

"By the time they stopped shipping prisoners in the 1850s, he controlled over half of the major holdings in the country. He's held onto those key posts, too."

And Gabrielle intended to put some of those resources to work very soon, since she'd helped Kevyn acquire and maintain most of them in the first place.

"We're almost there," the driver called through an intercom speaker.

"We should get ready then," Gabrielle decided.

~\/^^^\/~

Clark dropped her bags in the middle of the floor and shut the door to her room. She set up her laptop and the little GPS tracker on the desk that came with her business accommodations. Then she took a quick shower and changed into a clean outfit before sitting down in front of the computer. Though she was dead tired from the twenty-three and a half hour trip, it was time to go to work.

Gabrielle's plane had landed almost twenty minutes ago. So the first thing Clark did was log on to the local VHA office's network to start a search for new reservations made anywhere in Australia for Gabrielle and the others. An alert beeped at her almost instantly. She pulled up the window and saw the list of bookings, which had been made by Samantha again. The group would be leaving for New Delhi, India on Wednesday at 1:05AM.

Clark sat back in her chair and regarded the screen.

India's government had flatly refused to allow Hunters to keep their equipment when they entered the country, so the entire VHA Charter had been rejected. That meant she couldn't use her badge as a passport. And if she tried to bring any of her weapons with her, she could be arrested as a terrorist.

When Clark had first considered the idea of following Gabrielle around the world, she'd expected Gabrielle to only go to places where the VHA was firmly established and recognized as a legal force. Apparently, Gabrielle wasn't nearly as tied to the VHA as Clark had assumed. Well, there was a saying about not assuming. Maybe she should have listened more carefully to it.

Clark shook her head. She hated having limitations imposed on her and she knew that if she had to, she would find a way to go anywhere to fulfill her job as a Hunter. But nothing she'd learned so far made her think that there was something special worth risking her life and liberty for in India. She would just catch up with the Queen at her next destination like she had before. And even from afar, Clark would be able to know almost exactly where Gabrielle went to within a few city blocks. It would just be very difficult to find out who Gabrielle met there.

"But it's not impossible," Clark mumbled in defiance.

She closed down the window and checked the GPS readout. Now that she knew where Gabrielle was going to be in the future, she needed to know where Gabrielle was in the present, so that she could prepare for a scouting mission.

It was almost three hours and a meal later before Clark decided Gabrielle's lack of movement confirmed that the vampire had made it to her final destination. Clark studied the map she'd bought at one of the airport terminals and located Gabrielle's current position on it. It was some place along the coast, southeast of Melbourne, that didn't have a town name to mark it. Clark realized it was probably in a remote area, which meant if she tried to check it out in person, she'd probably be noticed.

Well, there were ways around that.

Strangely enough, the fact that she wouldn't be able to personally scout out Gabrielle's location made her feel better about not being able to follow the vampire to India. She realized there were many things that could interfere with her Hunt and she needed to accept them and figure out ways to work around them. Overcoming this challenge would be good practice for future circumstances.

Clark logged back in to the local VHA office. If she couldn't be there in person, maybe she could get a look at the area another way. She used her clearance to do a search of Australia's version of a hall of records and input the map coordinates surrounding the transmitter's general vicinity.

A list of deeds for the property within the plot points she'd outlined came up on her screen. Each deed belonged to a different person, but Clark did background checks on each name and found that they all worked for the same local business. A thorough check of the company led her to its much larger parent corporation whose Executive Director turned out to be the jackpot she'd been looking for.

Kevyn Wallace VIII, who was only twenty, had recently taken over for his father, Kevyn Wallace VII, who had retired that year at age fifty. With only a few clicks of her mouse, Clark was able to trace the family line all the way back to a death record for Kevyn Wallace I. He'd apparently arrived with the first free settlers in the mid-1790s and had fathered Kevyn Wallace II in 1800. The boy's mother, who had died in childbirth, was named Gabrielle.

As Clark continued to look over the records she'd found, she noticed a pattern that repeated itself every thirty years.

Though the pattern began in 1800 with the birth of Kevyn Wallace II, it didn't really take shape until 1830, when Kevyn Wallace I died. Within days of the eldest Wallace's death, Kevyn Wallace III was born. His mother, Abby, died while giving birth, just as her husband's mother had.

The pattern continued with Rhea, Elle, Gabby, Ellie, and Brie, all of who appeared to be immigrants and had been recorded on their children's birth records with only their married name of Wallace. And the marriage records were all but illegible, when they could be found at all. A further search showed that all of the women had been married for less than a month when they'd supposedly given birth to the next generation of the Wallace Empire and then died, thereby destroying any chance of future documentation turning up for them.

And the Wallaces were definitely an empire. It took her most of the day, but Clark was able to track down enough information to link Kevyn Wallace whatever number to hundreds of institutions across the entire country. Though he didn't officially run most of the businesses she found, he had the key voting percentage in the hubs that the smaller affiliate companies had to listen to, so the effect was the same.

Clark rubbed her eyes and looked towards the window. There was no light, so Clark checked her watch. It was after eight o'clock and she hadn't eaten since lunch.

"Damn it," she muttered under her breath as she stood up and tried to stretch. "Oww."

Clark bent forward and grabbed the backs of her ankles and just let her body's weight pull her down as far as she could go. She took deep, even breaths and could feel the tension and strain gradually leave her back muscles. After a minute, she stood back up and bent backwards until her hands were bracing her upper body against the floor. She let her muscles loosen themselves up and then continued to arch back until her legs came over her head and she was back in a standing position, having done a slow, but complete, flip.

"Food," Clark whispered to herself and grabbed her wallet and her room key on the way out the door.

~\/^^^\/~

"Gabrielle, it's good to see you," Kevyn greeted his old friend.

"You have no idea, Kev," Gabrielle whispered as she gave the vampire a tight hug. "I've really missed you lately."

"Only lately?" Kevyn pouted. "How quickly ye forget the little people."

Gabrielle smiled at the joke concerning her recent rise to power, but then she turned serious.

"But really, Kevyn, I'm sorry I haven't visited in so long. Things have just been..."

"Complicated, I know. You're not the only one who has spies," he grinned, but there was more truth in his eyes than Gabrielle wanted to question at the moment. "And I knew you would have been by in another decade or so anyway."

"That's true. You know, I think we should have a girl next time, what do you think?" Gabrielle kept a straight face, but her eyes were sparkling.

"Um, I think that would make my life just a tad bit more interesting than I'd like," Kevyn replied as they both laughed.

He tried to imagine what it would be like to dress in drag for sixty years in order to pretend to be his own daughter and then his own mother. The fact that, half way through, he would have to pretend to give birth to his own child to continue the "family line" was a little daunting. He thought the make-up he wore to make himself look older for certain public appearances of the elder Wallace was bad enough.

Kevyn led his honored guest to the lounge, so that they could continue catching up with each other's lives in more comfortable surroundings. Though they'd always maintained contact on at least a monthly basis, the past few weeks had been filled with major events and Kevyn had only heard pieces of the story. As Kevyn learned about the fiasco with Blake, he was also filled in on all of the First Born's dealings with The Vampire Hunter.

"So, she doesn't know," Kevyn stated neutrally, after hearing the whole story.

"No. Not yet."

"You need to tell her," he advised.

"I..." Gabrielle fell silent and looked away.

"What?"

Gabrielle took a moment to order her thoughts and then spoke.

"I've lived for thousands of years, Kevyn. In all that time, I've never felt what I feel when I'm around her. What if she blames me?"

"If she's as intelligent as you say, she'll understand that it wasn't your fault. In fact, it was just blind luck on Gannon's part that you didn't get to him first."

"I made her who she is."

"No, you didn't. And if you really believe that, then you should kill her and be done with it. You don't need any loose ends right now."

Gabrielle felt an intense pain at the thought of Clark's death. Her heart clenched and her only response was to protect Clark from any and all threats. It wasn't until she heard Kevyn clear his throat that she became aware of what she'd done.

"Uh, Gabrielle?" Kevyn didn't move a muscle.

Gabrielle's eyes refocused on her hand. Her nails were fully extended and less than a millimeter from slicing open Kevyn's throat. She withdrew them and then moved her hand to a safe distance. It seemed Clark wasn't the only one who needed time to get herself under control.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what happened."

Kevyn felt his throat for nonexistent scratches and then smoothed down his shirt.

"Quite all right. I guess I wouldn't take too kindly to threats against the people I love either. I apologize for my remarks. I wasn't serious. But I seem to have made my point. Or maybe you have. She's too important to you to not be honest with her. And if she cares about you even half as much as you care for her, then you have nothing to worry about."

Gabrielle nodded, though she was still less than convinced. She knew she would eventually tell Clark everything, but she couldn't think about it right now. She glanced up and noticed Kevyn's thoughtful expression.

"Hey," Gabrielle said quietly.

Kevyn looked up and then seemed to focus on her again.

"What were you thinking about?" Gabrielle asked curiously.

"Oh, I was just thinking about some of the things you told me. You said you haven't fed from her yet?"

"No, you know I don't leave my food alive," Gabrielle admonished her friend.

"Well, I didn't think that had changed, but you said you healed her?"

Gabrielle had explained how she had mended Clark's broken bones on numerous occasions and had then been chastised for not disclosing that particular ability sooner.

"Yeah, many times."

"And you said when you were fighting Blake that you could hear his thoughts and that you hadn't fed on him at that point either."

"Yeah, it was the only reason I won that battle."

"Well, I seriously doubt that, but regardless of whether that's true or not, that wasn't what I was talking about. You do realize that you have an ability that has never been seen among our kind before."

"It occurred to me, yes."

"And you said you felt like Clark had been watching you with Avarice," Kevyn said and then waited for Gabrielle to come to her own conclusions.

"No, she couldn't have been there. She told me she was going on vacation. I would have known if she was lying and she wasn't," Gabrielle argued.

"What exactly did she say?"

"She said..." Gabrielle stopped as Clark's exact words came into her mind. "She said, 'I have a ticket for the Bahamas and the plane leaves tomorrow at noon.'"

Gabrielle realized that Clark had never actually said she would be on the plane.

"But why would she follow me? She has no idea I'm even gone," Gabrielle argued automatically.

"Maybe she knows more than you think," Kevyn replied.

"Maybe," Gabrielle said skeptically.

"At any rate, you seem to have an intense connection to her. Even the mention of her death seems to override everything else. I just want to suggest that you pay attention to that feeling that tells you she's near. It may be telling you the truth."

Gabrielle nodded her head. She felt the need for a subject change. Kevyn saw the look on her face and decided to give Gabrielle an easy out.

"Well, why don't we get business out of the way and then we can go hunt. There are some great new tourist places near here where you can feed in peace on the locals who come to visit. Just remember, it's not a good idea to eat the tourists themselves, so make sure you hear the local accent before you move in for the kill this time," Kevyn teased her.

"That was not my fault. How was I supposed to know that scum was a prince of some royal house on a tour of the country?" Gabrielle protested, even though they'd been joking about the international incident for years.

Kevyn laughed and shook his head as Gabrielle brought them back to the original subject.

"Anyway... So, business. Well, first off, I want you to know that I'm not here to take over. You still have complete autonomy when it comes to running this continent and the vampires on it. However, new vampires may only be made with my prior approval. Anyone who doesn't want to follow that rule is not to be protected by anyone in the Order. And Clark is under my personal protection. Anyone who touches her will die a slow, painful death. If I ever let them die. And I'm going to need access to your excess resources for some of my own personal projects," Gabrielle finished.

Kevyn smiled.

"Gabrielle, I already knew all that. I figured you would be coming to ask for my support as soon as I'd heard you'd taken your place as First Born, so I've been preparing. Only those I trust with my own life have been allowed to remain in this household and those I don't are in positions that would not be missed if they were to disappear suddenly. I haven't contacted Chris yet, assuming he's still handling your financial affairs, but as soon as you give the word, you can consider my assets part of your own. Everything I have is due to your influence, so anything you need will be yours without question."

Gabrielle had a fair idea of the size of Kevyn's portfolio and the fact that he was willing to simply give it to her was astonishing.

"Why?" Gabrielle whispered and tried to keep the blood from falling from her eyes.

Kevyn remembered a night several centuries ago, when Gabrielle had been very relaxed and she'd spoken her thoughts more freely than she'd probably intended.

"Many years ago, you told me that you hoped to help the human race become more than it was, that your father had never intended for us to become enemies, and that our species should live together in peace. I didn't understand you at the time, but after tonight, I've come to realize that you are exactly what your father always wanted you to be. And though I didn't know the truth until now, I've always tried to live up to your expectations to be the same."

"Kevyn, I've never expected you to..."

"Just let me finish. I meant that you are the example I've tried to follow. Everything I am today is because of you. If I had known what Blake was planning, I would have hopped on the next plane to New York and fought beside you against him. My loyalty has been to you for almost a thousand years and that will not change no matter how long I live."

Gabrielle sat speechless as several drops of blood rolled down her cheeks. She could hardly remember telling Kevyn about her dreams of peace back then. It had been rare when she'd let her guard down like that, but he'd apparently used her words as a guide for how to live his life.

Kevyn looked away and Gabrielle carefully wiped at her tears and licked the blood from her fingers. They each needed space to get their composure back after the emotionally intense display. When Gabrielle was finished, Kevyn faced her again and waited for her to speak first.

"Thank you. I didn't know you'd remembered any of that," she smiled a little and cleared her throat. "Well, I guess I'll give you a list of things I want you to invest in and you can go ahead and let Chris know that he has more capital to play with. He really enjoys juggling numbers," Gabrielle smiled a little more.

"Consider it done," Kevyn replied, glad to be through with all the emotional stuff. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm starving. Shall we?"

He rose from the couch and offered his arm to the beautiful Queen. Her eyes finally made her smile genuine and she let him pull her up to a standing position, before walking beside him to the nearest exit so that they could begin their search for a few local delicacies.