They used the carriage that had been left by the stables to transport the female back to her family's home. Tohrment took the reins up front and Darius stayed in the cabin with the female, wishing there was some comfort to give her and knowing there was little to offer. The trip was long and the thundering hooves up in front and the creaking of the seat and the clanging of tack were very loud and precluded much discussion.

Although Darius knew well that even if their mode of transport had been whisper quiet and still as water in a goblet, their precious cargo would have uttered nothing. She had refused drink and sustenance, and did naught but focus on the landscape as they sped through farmland and village and forest.

As they proceeded in a southerly direction, it occurred to him that the symphath must have chained her mind in some way following her initial capture, assuming this carriage was the manner in which the pair had gone up to that stone manse--otherwise she would have been at risk for dematerializing free from the rushing confines.

Tragically, such an egress was not a worry now because she was so weak--although he had to wonder. Given her expression of painful forbearance, he had the distinct impression that she felt imprisoned even though she had regained her freedom.

The temptation had been to send Tohrment ahead to tell her mother and father the good news that she'd been rescued, but Darius held back. A lot could happen during the trip and he needed Tohrment to drive the horses whilst he minded the female. Given the threats from humans and lessers and symphaths , both he and Tohr had their weapons out, and still, he wished he had more backup. If only there was a way to get in touch with the other Brothers and call them forth....

It was just on the verge of dawn when the exhausted horse pulled them into the village that came afore the female's home.

As if recognizing where they were, she lifted her head and her lips moved, her eyes growing wide and tearful.

Leaning forward and holding out his palms, Darius said, "Be of ease... it shall be--"

As her eyes shifted to his, he saw the scream she held within her soul. It shall not be , she mouthed.

Then she dematerialized right out of the carriage.

Darius cursed and pounded on the side panel with his fist. As Tohrment brought the horse to a clattering halt, Darius leaped out--

She didn't make it far.

The flash of her white nightgown appeared in the field to the left and he followed her suit, flashing over to her as she started to run. Lacking any true vigor, her weaving gait was that of the desperate but injured and he let her go for as long as she could.

Later, he would reflect that it was then when he knew for sure, during that mad rush she put upon them both: She couldn't go home. It wasn't what she had been through... it was what she was carrying forth from her ordeal.

When the female tripped and fell to the ground, she did nothing to shield her belly.

And verily, she clawed at the ground to keep going but he simply couldn't bear to watch the struggle anymore.

"Arrest your exertions," he said, pulling her up from the cold grasses. "Arrest thee now..."

She fought him with all the strength of a fawn and then fell still in his arms. In the frozen moment between them, her breath came out hard from her mouth and her heart raced--he could see her flickering jugular in the moonlight, could feel the quiver in her veins.

Her voice was weak, but she meant truly what she uttered. "Do not take me back there--not even to the start of the drive. Do not render me returned."

"You cannot mean what you say." With gentle hands, he pulled her hair back from her face and abruptly remembered seeing the blond strands in the brush in her room. So much had changed since she'd last sat before her vanity mirror and readied herself for a night with her blooded family. "You have been through too much to think clearly. You must needs rest and--"

"If you take me back there, I shall run again. Do not put it upon my father to see that."

"You must go home--"

"I have no home. Anymore and evermore."

"No one needs to know what has transpired. That it wasn't a vampire is of aid, as no one shall ever--"

"I am with the symphath 's young." Her eyes grew cold and hard. "My needing came to pass the very night that he forced himself upon me and I have not bled as females do since. I am with its young."

Darius's exhale was loud in the silence, his warm breath bearing forth a cloud of mist in the cool air. Well, this did change everything. If she held the young to term and brought it unto this world, there was a possibility it could pass for a vampire, but half-breeds of that sort were unpredictable. You never could be sure of the balance of the genes, whether they would lean to one of their sides over the other.

But perhaps there was a way to implore her family....

The female grabbed the lapels of his sturdy overcoat. "Leave me for the sun. Leave me to the death I wish for. I would take mine own hand to my throat if I could but I am not that strong of arm and shoulder."

Darius looked back at Tohrment, who was waiting by the carriage. Calling the boy forward with his hand, Darius said to the female, "Let me talk with your father. Let me pave the way."

"He shall never forgive me."

"It was not your fault."

"Fault is not the quandary, the outcome is," she said bleakly.

As Tohrment dematerialized over and took form before them, Darius rose to his feet. "Take her back to the carriage and render you both into that stand of trees. I shall go to her father now."

Tohrment bent down, awkwardly arranged the female in his arms and stood. In the boy's strong but gentle hold, Sampsone's daughter reverted to the listless condition she had passed the trip home in, her eyes open but vacant, her head lolling to the side.

"Take good care of her," Darius said, tucking the female's loose nightgown closer 'round her. "I shall return anon."

"Worry not," Tohrment replied as he began striding away through the grass.

Darius watched them go for a moment and then cast himself upon the wind, re-forming on the grounds of her family's estate. He went directly up to the front door and put the massive lion's head knocker to use.

As the butler opened the portal wide, it was obvious that something terrible was afoot within the manse. His pallor was that of fog and his hands were shaking.

"Sire! Oh, blessed be, do come in."

Darius frowned as he stepped through the door. "Whatever is--"

The master of the house came forth from the males' parlor... and right behind him followed the symphath whose son had triggered the series of tragedies.

"Whatever are you doing here?" Darius demanded of the sin-eater.

"Is my son dead. Did you kill him."

Darius unsheathed one of the black daggers that were strapped, handles down, to his chest. "Yes."

The symphath nodded once and appeared not to care. Damn reptiles. Had they no feeling for their young?

"And the girl," the sin-eater demanded. "What of her?"

Darius quickly pinned the vision of a blooming apple tree to the front of his mind. Symphaths could read more than emotions and he had knowledge that he did not want to share.

Without answering the thing, he looked at Sampsone, who seemed to have aged a hundred thousand years. "She's alive. Your blooded daughter is... well and alive."

The symphath drifted over to the door, its long robes trailing on the marble floor. "Then we are even. My son is dead and his progeny is ruined."

As Sampsone put his face in his hands, Darius went after the sin- eater, grabbing its arm and yanking the thing to a halt just outside of the house. "You did not have to reveal yourself. This family has well suffered."

"Oh, but I must." The symphath smiled. "Losses must be borne equally. Surely the beating heart of a warrior must respect this truth."

"You bastard."

The sin-eater leaned in. "Would you prefer that I have her kill herself? That was another path I could have trodden o'er."

"She did nothing to deserve this. Neither did the others of her bloodline."

"Oh, indeed? Perhaps my son only took what she offer--"

Darius put both his hands upon the symphath and spun him around, slamming him into one of the massive columns that held up the mansion's great weight. "I could kill you now."

The sin-eater smiled again. "Could you? I think not. Your honor will not allow you to take an innocent and I have done nothing wrong."

With that, the sin- eater dematerialized out of Darius's hold and re- formed on the side lawn. "I wish that female a lifetime of suffering. May she live long and bear her burden without grace. And now, I shall go anon and deal with my son's body."

The symphath disappeared, gone as if he had never existed... and yet the ramifications of his actions were borne out as Darius looked through the open door: The male of the great house was weeping upon the shoulder of his servant, the two taking comfort from each other.

Darius breached the arch of the grand entrance, and the sound of his boots brought up the head of the family's patriarch.

Sampsone broke away from his loyal doggen and he didn't bother to stop his tears or obscure his sorrow as he came forward.

Before Darius could speak, the male said, "I shall pay you."

Darius frowned. "For what?"

" To... take her away and see that she is provided with a roof o'er her head." The master turned to the servant. "Go unto the coffers and--"

Darius stepped forth and took Sampsone's shoulder in a tight grip. "Whatever are you saying? She lives. Your daughter is alive and she should well render herself under this roof and within these walls. You are her father ."

"Go and take her with you. I beg of you. Her mother... could not live through this. Permit me to provide--"

"You are a scourge," Darius spat. "A scourge and a disgrace to your bloodline."

"No," the male said. "She is. Now and evermore."

Darius was momentarily stunned into silence. Even knowing the debased values of the glymera , and having been subjected to them, he was as yet shocked anew. "You and that symphath have much in common."

"How dare thee--"

"Neither of you has the heart to mourn your offspring."

Darius headed for the door and didn't stop as the male called out, "The money! Permit me to give you the money!"

Darius did not trust himself to respond and dematerialized back unto the wooded glen he had left mere minutes ago. Taking form by the carriage, his heart was afire. As one who had been discarded, he knew well of the hardship of being rootless and unsupported in the world. And that was without the extra burden the female carried, literally, within her body.

Although the sun was threatening to break free of the earth's edge, he required a moment to compose himself and formulate what he could say--

The female's voice emerged from behind the carriage's window drapery. "He told you to keep me away, didn't he."

Indeed, Darius found that there was no manner of expression with which he could cast what had transpired in better light.

He laid his palm on the cool wood of the carriage door. "I shall care for you. I shall provide and protect."

"Why..." came the aching response.

"Verily... it is right and proper to do so."

"A hero you are. But what you seek to save cares not for the gift you offer."

"You will. In time... you will care."

When there was no reply, Darius hopped up onto the driving seat and took the reins. "We shall go unto mine home."

The jangle of the horse's tack and the clapping of shod hooves on packed dirt accompanied them out of the woods and on their way. He took them a different route, keeping them far from the mansion and that family whose social expectation was thicker than blood.

And as for the money? Darius was not a rich male, but he would have sooner cut off his own dagger hand than accept a pence from that weak- souled father of hers.