Exton

I come forward wordlessly and hold Raina in my arms. Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all. She cries almost silently, her whole body shaking. Somehow I think this is something she needs, but I'm no empath, so what do I know?

Finally she falls silent, and I tilt her face up to mine. "Hi, there." I smile. "I'll run interference for you if you want to go to the ladies' room and fix your face. Your eyes are nearly as red as Nick's."

She doesn't rise to the bait. "Why am I such a fuckup, Erik? I failed Tara, I failed Father, I failed Alise… I'm scared shitless I'm going to fail her again and she's going to lose her babies."

"She's not going to lose her children." It comes out as a growl. "That red-headed bitch will have to go through two Vikings and a vampire, and that's one vampire more than we need to get the job done."

We spend a while talking, just talking… we haven't had much time for that so far, even after spending the last seven hundred years trying to find each other. What the fuck's wrong with us?

I reassure her, again and again and again, that I don't blame her for what happened to Tara, that I'm proud of her, of what she's become… we talk more about the situation, about Alise and her babies, about Morgan and Gareth. We resolve to keep a close eye on everyone in this mess and take nothing and no one at face value. By the time we're ready to come down, I've been teasing her about Nick - but she turns the tables when she teases me about Star….