GW and its characters don't belong to me, but to Sunrise/SOTSU
Agency, Bandai, etc. etc.



Chapter 10 of Demon Seed.



No real warnings, maybe some mild gore and language. I feel like I
kind of rushed the whole chapter, having skipped a few events since
the last chapter and trying to explain all that had happened in the
length of time, but maybe it sounds okay, it's up to you guys to
decide I guess.



Anyway, for whoever decides to read this chapter, I hope you enjoy it.







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The morning sun was just beginning to peak through the clouds of dawn
when the motley crew of travelers had finished packing up the last of
their belongings. Hildie bit the inside of her lip and looked over,
for what was the countless time, at her friend. The usual feistiness
and determination seemed to have left her, leaving in its place a
solemn, melancholic girl, who had not spoken one word since they had
all awoken.



Being the only other female in the group, not to mention her best
friend, Hildie felt that she had to approach Relena and find out what
was wrong, though she figured it was Heero's abrupt departure that
was affecting her friend the most. She slowly approached her,
thinking of what to say, but as soon as the words left her mouth, she
knew she had erred.



"Is he really worth making you suffer? This isn't like you Eena. You
never let anything affect you in such a way. You're to strong to be
pining away for a guy who obviously doesn't feel the same way about
you."



Relena pulled the last leather strap through the buckle of her pack
and slowly rose to her feet, looking Hildie directly into the
eye. "Why don't you focus on yourself and your true feelings and stop
worrying about mine."



"My what? I was just trying to…"



Throwing her pack on the ground, the half-breed girl gripped Hildie's
shoulders and spun her around until they were both looking over at
Duo, who was securing his own pack on his horse.



The raven-haired girl closed her eyes, almost near tears having
caught the meaning in what Relena had told her.



And since that day, six months ago, Hildie had never left Duo's side,
as his friend or his lover. The lost prince had found his princess
that had been before his very eyes for what had seemed like eternity.





**********************





"Eena, you're not concentrating. What is distracting you today?
Continue like this and you will be worthless on the battlefield."



With a growling huff the vampire princess thrust forward once more,
the sword in her hand as steady and as graceful as her movements,
though today they could not best her teacher the werewolf Wufei as he
sliced his steel under hers which sent it flying to the side, far out
of reach of his newest pupil.



Still, with the sharp tip of the silver blade at her throat, Eena's
breathing remained even and her glare emotionless. "Seems I lose."



"Seems you have." Wufei's Asian eyes narrowed at her, though he
lowered the sword and rested it at his side. "You've never been this
careless, not even when you were a novice."



The young female vampire straightened her stance and turned
away. "I'm just not into this today."



"Well then, you better get into it, because if what our sorceress
friend says is true, you will need every ounce of your concentration
and skill, Relena."



"I told you not to call me that!" Eena spat at him in anger hearing
her birth name, a name she hated and despised. She then stomped away
in an attempt to calm her nerves and hide her tears.



Wufei said nothing as he watched her leave, a slight frown was on his
lips even as a pair of silken arms curled around his waist and tender
pink lips kissed his cheek. "She's acting perfectly normal for a
vampire her age, on the threshold of leaving her childhood to become
an adult."



Wufei's frown turned into a slight smirk, as his eyes seemed lost in
distant memories. "At least she's not as bad as what Heero was at
that age."



A light feminine giggle escaped Sally as she pulled closer to her
husband and snuggled into his chest. "Yes, it's a good thing we
needed to rebuild our house to begin with."





*****************





Milliardo tossed the dead carcass onto the table in front of the two
men that sat at it.



"There you are, I killed the wolf that was attacking your sheep. Now
pay me what you promised me."



With dark beady eyes one of the men sneered at him. "How can we be
certain that this is the wolf we want?"



I could smell the damned thing, thought Milliardo as he tempered his
anger, knowing that he could not disclose his heightened abilities
that he had inherited through his vampire blood. He had run away with
Lucrezia after a heated battle with his cousin Treize that almost
left him for dead, and if it had not been for his chosen mate's
tender care he surely would have died. And for now, he and Lucrezia
had decided to do their best to live among humans, as humans. Though
they had found it hard to survive on what little money Milliardo
could make as a tracker and hunter.



Lucrezia went back to work as a seamstress, her profession before she
had became involved with Treize, but she found she could not go out
during the day, for since having been turned she would easily blister
and burn in the sun. So she spent her days working out of her home,
able to be free of the wooden confines only at night. She had also
found, that she was in need of more blood then even her half breed
husband who often killed for her to limit her exposure to humans.



I've done this many more years than you, he would tell her, it would
kill me if anything were to ever happen to you, or our child. He
spoke the tender words to her as he stroked her abdomen, which housed
within it the life of their unborn baby who had been conceived the
night of her crossing over from her human life to her demon life.
What the child would be, or how the child would fit and cope within
the world they did not know and because of this they both feared for
it.



"I've been tracking and hunting since I could crawl. I know ravenous
creatures when I see one, and from the descriptions by those who have
seen it you know very well that this is the animal that's been
attacking your herds."



The other man nodded his head and tossed to the ex-prince a small
burlap sac of coins. "As agreed upon. Forgive my partner. He's quite
cynical and greedy." He then rose to his feet and extended his hand,
which Milliardo accepted, though apprehensively. "If we need you're
services again can we count on you?"



"As long as you have gold to fill my pockets I am at your service."



Milliardo nodded a good-bye and then left the establishment, mounting
his horse and beginning his long ride home to the outer banks of the
village where he and his wife had settled. A few miles down the road
he picked up a presence behind him.



"Come out, Stalker. I know it is you."



"Still as sharp, I see." Heero speed up his horse slightly until it
was side by side with Milliardo's. "So what's the great prince of the
second kingdom doing working off his ass for a few gold bits? Is your
kingdom on such hard times? How the mighty have fallen."



The blonde hair man did not seem to physically react even as he
spoke. "I'm no longer associated with King Peacecraft. I've no doubt
been branded a traitor and will soon have bounty hunters right on my
heels having been promised pockets full of gold and jewels to show my
father my head."



"Isn't right for a father to turn on his own son, no matter who that
man may be."



"I don't need your pity."



"I don't pity you. Half of me feels you deserve what you have gotten,
though I'm curious as to what turned you from your father."



"He was going to betray me to my cousin. I was set to turn the tables
and betray him, but something happened, she happened and in one
night, my life and priorities changed, I changed." Milliardo studied
the other half-breed out of the corner of his eye when he didn't
reply. "You must really think me a fool now, Yuy."



"To throw you life away for a woman. I don't understand it."



"Love's never gotten you, has it? Not even my sister's. I figured by
now…"



Heero quickly questioned Milliardo, cutting off his words. "You're
sister? Who would that be?"



"The girl who attacked me to save you, the blonde with the quick
temper and sharp tongue. Her birth name is Relena."



"Relena? That girl…your sister?" His eyes grew wide as he halted his
horse and remained stunned for several seconds while Milliardo
continued on ahead.



The wind rustled the long gold locks of Milliardo's hair as he turned
his head to yell back at the shocked Slayer. "If you're in need of a
place to stay, feel free to spend it with me and my wife. I figure
you have a lot of questions you wished answered.





****************




"Why have you called me back here wife? I was on a very important
mission before I heard your cackle to return home."



The brunette woman cocked a thin brow as she sipped on her glass of
blood. "And as any obedient dog would, you came, when called."



A half smile formed on Treize's mouth as he took a sip from his own
glass. "No one is master over me, wife, not even you."



Setting her glass down Anne stood up from the table and stepped
gracefully over to where her husband was seated, taking a seat
herself in his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck. Her left
index finger traced the line of his nose and then the curve of his
lips as she bared her fangs slightly before darting out her tongue to
lick the side of his mouth. "And you, my darling, only wish you had
mastery over me."



Taking a deep breath through his nose the vampire king of the first
kingdom growled, his hands tightening their grip on the hips of his
queen. "Well, I suppose," he spoke to her in hushed tones and through
whispery kisses on her face and neck, "if you had not sent Dorothy
out to find me when you did, I would be…"



"Quite dead, my love. Be glad I have the gift of foresight and
dreamed of your peril two nights before it had happened."



With his wife still in his arms, Treize rose from his chair to make
their way to their bedchambers. Lady and now Queen, Anne Une
Kushrenada tightened her hold on her husband and closed her eyes,
thinking of another dream that she had began having for the last
three nights. Come hell nor high water, my little blond beauty, you
will never steal him from me, Relena.



*********



"I am absolutely exhausted." Hildie sighed as she plopped herself
down on the bed that along with a table and dresser furnished her and
Duo's one room cabin.



"So are you enjoying your training as a sorceress?"



"Absolutely. I think Lady Catherine knows everything. Of course she
tells me I have a natural gift, considering my mother and grandmother
were both witches. Who would have known she could tell that by my
aura." The raven-haired girl rolled on her stomach and kicked her
feet up in the air. "How was your day?"



"Same old same old. My cousin, Quatre and I worked with the owls
today. You know, I think owls are even smarter and greater hunters
than the other breeds of birds Trowa has. I never would have thought
our family would come from a long line of falconers and such, and
then to find out I have a second cousin who is rightful heir to the
first kingdom, it's a small world ain't it?"



"Yea." Hildie sighed as she placed a curled hand under her chin. "To
think we grew up never knowing our families and now, we have so many
people to call family."



Duo walked over from the table he was standing at to sit beside his
ladylove. She laid her head down on his lap and closed her eyes
relishing in the feel of his calloused fingertips running through her
dark locks.



"You're beautiful ya know, and the day when I get back my throne,
you'll make an even more beautiful queen."



Hildie rolled on her back and stared up at him as she raised her hand
to smooth his cheek. "And you shall make quite the dashing and
handsome king."



"Well, that's pretty much a given." Duo teased as he hunched his back
and lowered his head to steel a kiss from the glorious girl below him.



*************



Heero sat in a nearby tree, unable to stay inside of the small house
that served as the home of Milliardo and Lucrezia. He had taken the
ex-prince up on his offer, desperate for information on Eena, er
Relena, or whatever name she went by. He hated himself for still
thinking of her, that since he had left, no other woman's arms or bed
ever felt right or warm to him. She occupied his thoughts night and
day and it took every ounce of strength he had, not to go rushing
back to her like one of Trowa's trained birds.



Now he had found out that she was part of the very family he had
vowed to hate. The cousin of the very man who stood by and watched as
his uncle raped and killed his mother and left him broken and crying
in the dark, his clothes and skin drenched in her blood as he held
onto her dead body sobbing. The same blood that had been forced to
drink by King Peacecraft, which had brought him from the boughs of
death himself, left alive as a cruel punishment for his mother's sin
of taking a vampire lover and giving birth to a half-breed child. He
had grown up hating the Peacecrafts and Kushrenada's and now he found
out he was in love with the very girl that carried their name as well
as their blood.



"She's not to blame for any sins my father, or cousin had committed."



Heero refused to look at Milliardo who had joined him and interrupted
his thoughts; the blonde half-breed tried again.



"Do you wish to kill me? Her?"



"I should kill you, but your father doesn't care about either of you,
killing you both would not hurt him the way I want to hurt him."



Milliardo knew Heero's stern words were his way of saying that he
bore no ill will towards him or his sister.



"Do you think she knows of her true identity, her family's history?"



"I don't know." Heero whispered and shrugged. "I don't know."



"Well, if you think my father is bad, you've never met my cousin,
your half brother in fact. He is ten times worse and I'm afraid he
has set his sights on having my sister for his own pleasures, as well
as to bear a son for him. And he'll have her, whether she is willing
or not."



The thought alone made Heero burn with anger as well as fear for
Relena, yet he remained calm. "So why don't you go and save her. She
is your sister."



"I cannot go and leave Lucrezia. She is too far along and I…"



"Well, then." Heero snapped as he jumped down from the tree and
walked a few paces to his horse. "It's a good thing that she is
training with one of the best swordsman I know."



In a flash Milliardo was beside Heero's mount looking up at
him. "You're not going to save her?"



"She is no concern of mine. She is merely a girl who I have vaguely
any interest in."



"And you say my father is a bastard."



"Then perhaps I am even more of a member of your family then you
realize."



With those words, Heero left Milliardo alone and silent in a cloud of
dust as he rode away on his horse.



*****************



Smoothing back her wet hair, Relena rested her naked back against the
edge that rimmed the hot spring. The steam that rose from the heated
waters encased her body in a hazy mist. She leaned back her head and
looked up at the clear night sky and gold full moon, her ears picking
up the sound of Wufei and his wife in the distance no doubt on a hunt
for their latest prey.



Wufei and Sally are so happy and content together. I wonder if I'll
ever find a man who is beholden only to me and I to him? Oh Heero,
why can't you love me and why do I still have feelings for you? I'm
not like this, I don't need anyone, I've never, no don't lie to
yourself, you know your life would be empty if you did not have Duo
and Hildie to comfort you in your childhood, but even now, both of
them are so wrapped up in each other they hardly know I exist. But
I'm happy for them…they belong together. Perhaps Heero has the right
idea. Vampires are meant to be solitary creatures. Besides if he ever
found out what my family did to him…it's hopeless, he's not coming
back and so I'll just move on…then why did I just wish on that
shooting star for him to return to me?



And far away, in another land, lying on his back on a mound of grass
that looked over a valley like any other valley, was a lone half
human, half vampire man. His eyes searched the sky as his head rested
on clasped hands behind his head in an attempt to gain comfort so
that sleep might overtake him, yet it did not come for his thoughts
were elsewhere as his eyes caught a flash in the sky. But, before his
mind could stop his heart, the beating organ made a wish on the blaze
of streaming light to return to the maiden who it loved. The brain
agreed, sealing the wish, so that even in denial he could not resist
speaking her name, "Relena."







TBC…