Cerulean Sins   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

I was beside them now, and the noises behindme were escalating. There was going to be a fight soon, a bad one. "I swear to you that what I say is true. Look at him, look at the terror your touch inspires in him."

Stephen wasn't looking at either of us. His eyes were squeezed closed, and his tears had smeared the eye makeup to black tracks down his face. He hugged his body tight. He'd given himself up and over to what was happening, as if he were still a child.

Valentina looked down at him, and something like horror began to grow on her face. She stared at her tiny hand, as if it were something awful that had just appeared at the end of her arm.

She shook her head. " Non, non ," and more French that I couldn't follow.

"He's coming," Merle said, and I felt him and Noah brace themselves in front of Micah and me.

I touched Valentina's arm, and she raised eyes glassy with shock and turned towards me. "Call off Bartolomé, tell him why Gregory's afraid of him."

I felt the impact of the vampire slamming into Merle and Noah, and they pressed forward, taking the fight away from us by a few feet. Micah stood over me, ready. He could shape-shift and use claws, but he just didn't have enough body mass to stop the vampire.

Valentina's voice cut through the fighting, echoed through the room, and I realized she was using vampire powers to make herself heard, "We broke truce first, first blood is on our hands."

Musette screamed, "Valentina!"

Valentina repeated herself in French this time. The fighting slowed at Valentina's words, slowed, and began to die.

Valentina turned to face Musette, who was in a dress of all white, so that she looked like a bride. "It is truth, Musette. These two men have been abused enough by us. I will not let it continue."

"He was so afraid of me Valentina, such fear to feed on," Bartolomé said, "now you've spoiled it." The slender boyish figure was dressed in nearly solid gold, old-fashioned, very seventeenth century, cloth, so that he sparkled as he moved.

Valentina spoke low and soft, in rapid French. Bartolomé's face didn't pale, but he looked back at Gregory. He turned to look at me. "Is this true? Their own father?"

I nodded.

Gregory's sobs were loud in the sudden stillness.

"To force yourself on children is an evil thing," Bartolomé said, "to use your own sons," he spat on the floor and said something in what I recognized was Spanish but couldn't follow.

"I brought them here tonight so they'd be under my protection, safe. Their father has returned recently, and is trying to meet with them again.