She looked up at him, eyes clear and all too beguiling. He was untouched by the eyes at the moment. His purpose clouded his reason.

“We meet again, Morrigana,” he said to her. His cold smile was partly false, partly true. The room seemed to hover in time, constrained only by the gaze of the two upon each other. “This time, you shall share your secrets with me.”

Her smile was as cold as his, yet different. “Perhaps… one,” she said, “or two. You may not wish to know some of them, Angelus.”

“I wish to know all of them, lady fair and dark,” he told her. Looking around at the others in the room he grew wary. “But not here.”

“Then perhaps a stroll, Dark Angel of the Moon,” she replied. She rose and walked before him. The walk was not long to a place where only their voices could be seen or heard. She perched upon a tombstone, her feet swinging slightly as a child’s might as she sat.

“I want the Tome of the Dark Paths,” he told her. His tone was commanding, yet he knew she could not be commanded. He moved in closer to her, an electricity forming between them as he did. He would pull her to him. Perhaps it was time for her to become as he was, then she could deny him nothing. No, that thought had crossed his mind before, but he knew somehow that it might not be a good idea, or even possible.

“That way you already follow,” she said, sighing. “But if you quest for the Tome, you will find me at the end of that path. That is the price you will pay. For one of you I am his greatest hope, for the other his worst nightmare. You will not know which until the end. I do not fear you, Angelus.”

“Why should you?” he asked, a smile again curling about his face as he moved yet closer.

“I should fear you no more than you should fear me,” she said. His face showed that he did not believe her. Her eyes showed that she spoke the truth. Yet neither, in that moment, was thinking of face or eyes…

The charged air between them altered slightly.

Morrigana took out a dagger, and with a small movement pulled her hair back. The point of the dagger entered her skin just slightly at the neck. Angelus watched her, fascinated yet wary. “The first secret must be shared then. You must understand what waits for you at the end of your journey.” She pointed to the small amount of blood that welled from the wound. “Kiss me then, Dark Angel of the Moon.”

At the sight of the blood, the lust grew within him. He bent and kissed her neck, the blood seeping into his mouth. A warm spread over him. Like elven blood, her blood was heady, a brandy to a wine of human blood. Unlike elven blood, her blood began to warm him. Color flushed in his cheeks.

He stepped back. “You know that is not enough, Morrigana. I wish … “ The glow began to dissipate. He recognized it suddenly for what it was.

Life.

He stepped back once more and looked into her eyes.

“Long ago,” she began, “there was another as you are. He wished to be bound to me. For many months, I was all he needed. His name, too, spoke of the moon.” Her voice waivered slightly, then she continued. “Of all in the past, he most affected me. Each day I fought to maintain balance within. He, too, fought. One night, the blood lust overcame him, and the draught he took was too deep. He returned to the living. The next morning, he looked into the mirror and then took the life he had been given.”

Morrigana sighed. The blood stopped flowing. She had not told Angelus all. She could not tell him all. Ulrich Moondancer had taken his own life because he believed he had killed her. He almost had. Fire and Ice had worked their way upon each other. As he saw her lying there ashen, and himself healthy and alive, he could not live with what he had done to her. Love comes not often to a vampire… but it comes. It comes with a vengeance and a fury. It comes.

Angelus’ cheeks grew cool again. He fought back his hunger and regarded her warily. He was content to be as he was. He did not wish to change. Something about her story bothered him, but he did not know what.

“I will have the Tome of the Dark Paths,” he said to her, “whatever the cost.”

“I know,” she said, “just as I know the wind will carry the seeds to the earth. When next we meet, the first part shall be yours. Remember… I await you at the end of your journey.”

He bent down and kissed her. The kiss was cold and searing at the same time. The air became charged again between them for a moment. Angelus pulled away, and something fluttered across his mind. He put it to rest as quickly as he could, but he remembered what it was. Such things, such feelings, were not allowed to him.

Yet how, he thought to himself as he turned to leave, do the seeds keep from the earth?