truth. Indeed, Theroen smiled at her, and nodded.

Strong arms, lifting her, carrying her toward the bedroom. Her arms were around his neck. In this short moment, Two bid her mortal life farewell. Pain, anguish, hatred and despair; these were the hallmarks of this life, a dark void lit only by the occasional candle of friendship, an almost nonexistent light. What chains bound her to these things? Two fled without moving, fled on Theroen’s feet, toward the bedroom, and away from the darkness which had oppressed her since her first memory.

* * *

There was pain, but not like before. Theroen’s teeth pierced the flesh of her neck, but to Two it seemed minor. Far away. The pain was a vehicle to an end result which truly she craved.

“Ah...” the slightest sound as she felt her blood begin to flow. No pulsing orgasm this time, only a bittersweet ache of desire. This act was no culmination of lust, but rather a final act of love. Two sighed, feeling tension leave her. The draining sensation increased, seemed to swallow her. The thudding of her heart, the deep rush of her breath, these things soon brought her to a state of near hypnosis. Theroen held her gently in her swoon, drinking, his lips against her neck, judging her pulse. Waiting. At last pulling away.

Two looked up, eyes half-lidded. Breathing seemed difficult, but the sensation was so far removed she could not be sure. The world was grey and dim. Theroen’s eyes alone seemed to shine out at her. She heard herself say something, the words lost instantly. She would have to remember to ask Theroen later what it was, what she’d said.

Is this death? She had time to think. This apathy, this dimness? Her heart pumped in her chest for what felt like the first time in minutes. Weak. Two could not keep her eyes open.

A voice, whispering. Drink. Drink. And there was pressure at her lips, and warmth, and a deep rushing sound which seemed to swell in her ears until it vibrated through her entire body.

Theroen felt Two’s arms tighten around him and breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment he had been in mortal terror that he’d killed her before she had a chance to drink. Her words to him had shaken him quite badly, more so for the fact that she clearly had not heard them herself.

He’d made the cut at his throat immediately following her declaration, and pressed her lips to it, imploring her to drink. He felt now the force of those lips, burning like heated iron, felt the draining of their blood. Hers, his -- intermingled -- the vampire blood a part of it all, and enough now that the change was assured. He was dizzy. Trace amounts of the drug must still have remained in her. It was no worse than dining on a young woman filled with red wine, or warm brandy, though, and he had done both.

Melissa’s voice at the door. A gasp of surprise.

“Oh!”

Theroen gestured to the chair beside the bed, careful not to disturb Two, now locked so tightly to his neck that he would have to pry her off. She was gasping for breath here and there, whimpering slightly, still lost in swoon. Her thirst would be far greater than ever before. It would take time to satiate her. He heard Melissa sit down, felt her take his hand and press it to her cheek.

“I’m so happy for you, Theroen.” He felt her muscles stretch as she smiled.

But he could feel tears there, too.

* * *

Darkness, my love. All I see for us is darkness.

Two’s voice, Lisette’s words. Had she not whispered this exact prophecy more than three hundred years ago, tears coursing down her cheeks, reflecting the moonlight like rivers of silver? Bare skin, sharp fangs, joined at the waist, joined at the neck. Dull throbbing, dull roaring, the blood, the skin, the tears, and then that whisper.

And all that had followed.

Tears at his fingertips. Melissa weeping, he knew, for the beginning of the end. Theroen had betrayed her at last, as they both had known he would someday do. How was she to live as Abraham’s servant? What was left for her now that Theroen had Two? Only Tori, and the darkness at the end of the hall; madness on either side greater even than her own.

Tears at his throat. Two’s? Lisette’s? Theroen drifted between New York of the twenty-first century, and London of the seventeenth, and heard