The auburn-brunette ducked under the awning above the door and gave the man guarding the entrance a sweet smile. She closed the umbrella in her grip carefully, trying not to splash droplets on her cream-colored beaded dress, the fringe bouncing against her calves with the movement. "Excusez moi, chér. Je suis ici pour voir le docteur," she said in her most alluring voice. ("Excuse me, darling. I'm here to see the doctor.")

"Va droit dans, mademoiselle. Le docteur est à l'intérieur," he answered, holding the door wide for her. ("Go right in, miss. The doctor is in.")

"Merci beaucoup," she giggled and stepped inside as the sounds of piano playing filtered up to greet her. ("Thank you very much.") She leaned the soaking wet umbrella against the wall and followed the sounds of the party coming from below the street level. Her vampire eyes immediately adjusted to the dim lighting and the shadowed steps. She took a moment to adjust the headband that adorned her forehead and then tapped her curls to be sure they were still intact from the weather outside.

"...Meet me in Paris, on the second Saturday of July. I know a little place where no one will see us. Ask for the Doctor. I will see you there, Fair Lady, and know that I am missing and loving you more than the centuries we have spent apart..."

She could recite his letter by heart. She had read it so many times that the ink had begun to smudge and blur where her fingers had traced over the words.

I cannot wait for you to take me away from all of this dreadful world's offerings, she thought as she descended into the speakeasy.

The Roaring Twenties had painted Paris as a town of nightlife, art, music, and intellectualism. She had often made stops within the old French city when coming and going from the Shadow Stalker Capitol in Italy. It was easily one of her favorite places and decades in the modern world. When he had told her where to find him, she had planned the trip with care. She had been sure to leave enough behind in her apartments in London that her sire would not immediately suspect she had run away, taking only the smallest and most valuable items with her. She'd instructed Nathaniel that she would be gone for two months to the Capitol with Grand Elder Seren Winslow and not to be disturbed there while they continued to work on the latest translations of the prophecy omens. If Hadrian inquired, he was to simply refer to her scheduled itinerary: the Capitol, then Egypt, and then home to London.

But she knew he wouldn't. Hadrian had no need for her anymore like he once did. His only pleasure he still invoked from her was the suffering that she would never be able to escape him, and never able to be with the one man for whom she had affections. The Winslow Grand Elder and Count Dracula had been certain to maintain those orders for centuries.

She could only hope that her sire was wrong on both accounts. She had every intention of escaping Hadrian's command and being with the Blood Warrior at last.

And nearly three centuries later, she could only count down the remaining minutes until she saw him again. She wished he was already in the bar, sipping Scottish whiskey and waiting to take her away to some quiet corner of the world where no one would ever find them.

Ranelle found the bottom of the steps and followed the music to the bar, Le Médecin de Nuit. As she stepped into the speakeasy, she smiled. Dancers graced the open floor while others hung around a man on the piano who played and sang a song about love. Girls in black negligée passed out glasses of champagne to those lounging on plush, velveteen couches and divans. At the back of the room, an oak bar took up the whole wall, bottles of liquor displayed on the shelves. She quickly scanned faces, blocking out the sounds and smells of human heartbeats and hormones.

She hoped he hadn't changed much in the past fifty years since she had last seen him. His waistcoat with tails, the top hat, and white gloves would be replaced to fit the new era. But his emerald eyes and blonde hair couldn't have been altered. They were his defining traits, ones that made him unlike any other before him, or after.

And she hadn't changed much either in that time. Her dark hair was cut shorter to brush her shoulders, but she was still as young as she had been when they first met. Her body had gone unchanged, despite never wearing a corset any longer as they fazed out of fashion through the years. She no longer tried to conform to who he had last known; he would know her soul no matter the decades of change that had passed. Her memory of him stroking her bare cheek, telling her how young and beautiful she was then was one she would never forget.

There were a lot of memories she would never forget.

Ranelle skirted around the outer corners of the room, still searching for a glimpse of him in the crowd. When she didn't see him sitting at the bar, she withheld a disappointed sigh and found an empty barstool. As she made herself comfortable and positioned her knee on top of the other, she looked up in time to see the bartender appear with a thick mustache and bowler. His tweed vest and buttoned collar shirt were freshly pressed and she appreciated his polished appearance.

"Le docteur va te voir maintenant. Que puis-je vous server, mademoiselle?" he asked. ("The doctor will see you now. What can I serve you, miss?")

She smiled again with closed lips, careful to hide her fangs. "Vino rouge, s'il vous plaît," she answered. ("Red wine, please.") She waited for him to turn away to find the appropriate bottle before she went back to scanning the patrons. Please don't make me wait long, Logan, she thought solemnly.

She had considered the chances her sire would have her followed. He had before, sending his favorite and most obedient henchmen to linger in doorways and alleys, watching her every move. Once upon a time, he had even forced his siblings' progenies to keep tabs on his plaything. But it had been a long time since the Count and his infamous bloodline had been newsworthy in the London Shadow Stalker coven. She was counting on Logan Mezdor being one of the last names that Hadrian thought of anymore.

But until she was in his arms at last, and safe, she would continue to be diligent and look over her shoulder.

The bartender returned with her glass and she smiled again, pulling a folded bill from the strap of her dress. He waved her off and shook his head. "Les jolies dames ne paient pas." ("Pretty women don't pay here.")

Ranelle almost blushed. It wasn't often a man was outwardly kind. Perhaps the new modern world was finally valuing women in being worthy of kindness. "Merci beaucoup, monsieur." She picked up the glass and took a sip, finding it was a sweeter red than the English wine kept at the coven house. She rolled the drink around on her tongue for several seconds before swallowing and replacing the glass on the bar. She turned her head again to look around.

She had often wondered what their life would be like, if they ran away. The talk of the prophecy was building and it was a matter of time before all of the key portions were accurately translated. The coven had already learned that the blood of Dracula was the ancestry the savior would be born from. And while Ranelle had often mulled over the thought of whether or not that meant Logan Mezdor, she only prayed they could handle that responsibility should it fall on their shoulders. They were old souls in young bodies; they could handle anything given to them. The past three hundred years had proven that.

If they were given the opportunity to have a real life together, she knew she would make the best of it and no longer hold the centuries apart over his head. It hadn't just been his error for why they had hardly seen one another over the past several hundred years. It was hers, out of caution and fear. Fear of what Dracula would do if his treaty was threatened, of what Hadrian would do if his fledgling was taken from him like a stolen slave. Begging the Count to remove Logan Mezdor from England had been the hardest task of her then-young immortal life. She couldn't risk Hadrian killing the man she loved.

But that hatred was long-since stale. She could no longer deny her heart...

And if Logan was the key to the prophecy, she didn't want to give any other woman the honor of being his counterpart.

But, she couldn't get her hopes up in case there was more to the puzzle than she currently thought possible. Receiving his letters, sent to her only safe house in London, had been her saving grace in the previous few months. She had tried not to give him any more of her mind or heart for years. But then the first letter had come from an address in Prague. And she decided it was time she begin to live her immortal life for more than just indentured servitude and emotional torture. Perhaps happiness still existed in the world.

Ranelle scanned the crowd again, her blue eyes shooting back and forth to the entrance anytime a person passed the doorway to the stairwell. She took another sip of wine.

Where are you?, she thought silently. She wished they still had the old psychic connection that maker and fledgling shared, but it had been centuries since his blood had been in her veins. And she hoped with all of her heart that, on some level, he could hear her.

Logan sighed as he watched from the automobile when the auburn-brunette descended down into the Parisian speakeasy. He gripped his hands onto his knees, the battle within him tearing at his very soul. It took all of his self-control to stay in the car and not rush down the steps of Le Médecin de Nuit to greet her. It had been nearly fifty years since he had last seen Ranelle Faire-Linhall.

"You know what will happen if you go to her," the woman across from him said calmly. "It has been foreseen."

He paused to look at his companion, his emerald green eyes determined to scorch her. She was petite in frame with pale skin and jet-black hair, reminding Logan of his sire every time he laid eyes on her. She was without question of his bloodline by birth. "I know," he replied pointedly.

The Dracula-blood dhamphir shrugged a shoulder and played with her dark curls that framed her chin in the decade's latest fashion. "Father's already killed Wilhelmina for wagging her tongue, and she was his favorite. Do you really think he'll spare you and give you the happiness you seek?" Her dark brown eyes shifted to the entrance of the basement bar again. "He's told you not to interfere with his treaty."

"And I'm tired of following orders," the Blood Warrior said. "She's waited long enough for me."

The woman rolled her eyes. "You are so blind in your love for one woman that you cannot see you are putting a stake through her heart. Leave her be, Logan. It's better if she's left behind."

He sighed again and ran his hand over his chin in a nervous tick. He looked down at his lap, his jaw clenching. His blood-sister was right; but it felt wrong to walk away from someone he had spent hundreds of years aching for.

"Let her go, Blood Warrior. Your time will come."

Two nights later, Ranelle found herself still hanging about the Parisian speakeasy. When he hadn't shown the night before, or the night she had arrived, she had decided to wait until he found her. Perhaps he had been delayed coming from somewhere else in France, or perhaps he had been detained by other business. No matter his reason, she wanted to wait. He would come for her...

The auburn-brunette sighed as she looked out at the rain that poured down from the summer night sky. Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance, notifying everyone that the worst of the storm had yet to arrive. She leaned back against the glass window from beneath an awning, her hands gripping the handle of her umbrella tightly. She watched as couple after couple came and went from Le Médecin de Nuit while the night wore on.

The doorman had asked her to come inside twice when the rain had first hit that evening, but she politely turned him down. Once the storm broke loose, he'd gone inside to leave her alone in peace as she tried not to fall to pieces.

Where are you, Logan?

Ranelle reached up and touched the pendant around her neck, feeling the details of the chain and then the metal hieroglyph through the thin material of her silk gloves. It was an Egyptian ankh, given to her by a woman who had helped translate documents the last time she visited the ancient country on coven business. The symbol meant "eternal life," and the human had thought it was fitting for an immortal vampire. She continued to caress the metal with her thumb and forefinger, trying not to think of the alternative should Logan not arrive.

She sighed a second time, staring down at the wet sidewalk.

If he didn't come for her, she had two options: Run and never look back in order to rebuild her life, but constantly look over her shoulder for signs of her maker; or, she could simply return to the life she had in London, as Hadrian Winslow's servant and progeny, while continuing to serve the Shadow Stalker agenda in building a regulated and unified vampire nation.

Ranelle inhaled a shaky breath, determined to wait just a little longer. She glanced over her shoulder to peek into the jewelry shop that made up the ground floor above Le Médecin de Nuit, finding the clock on the wall. In the low lamplight from a solitary light, she could make out that it was nearly two in the morning. Her time was running out.

If she meant to run, she would need a solid few hours of darkness to make her way as far west as possible and book passage to Spain or Portugal. And perhaps from there, she could find a way to make it to America. It would be harder for Hadrian to find her if there was an ocean between them.

But if she was going to return to London, she would need to return to the coven safe house and pack her few belongings. There would be questions as to why she was returning from Italy early, but those were easy to fix with a feasible lie.

She stood there for another hour, each minute making her heart crack and break, her soul aching. This was his last chance to find her, to claim her as his and he as hers. And she didn't want him to see her so broken as each passing moment took a piece of her kindness and love away.

Finally, as the first tears dropped onto her cheeks to join the storm, Ranelle walked away in the rain and let the cool water soak her to the bone. Her umbrella remained in her grip, her trembling fingers grasping it as if it were the only thing they could feel. Her heels made soft clicks on the cobblestone road as she disappeared into the night. She felt numb, but she thought perhaps it was a blessing. The most painful thing she had ever encountered in her near-three hundred years was having feelings for someone she could not be with...