"Pharley? Are you Alaric's?" she asked. He was at least polite enough to not be trying to detain her yet, possibly because she was only barely standing by her own willpower, or because her ability to fight the toxin fascinated him. She didn't know what the reason, she was just glad he wasn't punching her.
"Indeed, our esteemed king asked all of us to keep an eye out for you. How lucky am I that you came into my lands?" he sounded genuinely pleased to have run into her.
"Glad to have been of service Milord," she quipped. Her right leg gave out and she was rather suddenly on her knees, not sure how or when she got there.
She knew her body would be trying to burn off the toxin but it would take time, the toxin itself though might make for an interesting defence later if she could just figure out what it was made of.
"It's taking longer than I expected," he said as he approached, reaching down to cup her chin and lifted her face to his.
Her entire world seemed to swing backwards and around in a somersault and she paled, thinking the lord wasn't going to like it very much if she threw up on his pretty armour.
"Surprisingly long," someone else said and she was surprised to see a new man dressed just as well in classy silver coloured armour.
She looked up at the new man and frowned, sure she had seen him before.
"Hello again, princess, how're you holding up?" the man asked.
"It's not very polite to dart a lady," she replied, the hand under her chin now the only thing keeping her up.
"It's also not very polite to kill ten of my men."
"We were only defending ourselves," she said and he gave a slight nod.
"This is true, but you are trespassing."
He had her there and she smiled vaguely.
"Touché good fellow. Where do I know you from?"
He grinned to show long pointed teeth and it clicked. He was her supplier of poisonous substances she needed to make many of her chemical weapons.
"Harla?" she asked finally and he smiled. "And here I thought we were friends."
"Oh we are princess, but the king comes first and I'll admit to a professional fascination with your biology."
"I don't blame you," she said wryly, knowing that she probably would have done the same thing if their roles were reversed.
"Would you be terribly offended if I took some blood?" Harla asked.
"Do I have a choice?" he shook his head and she took a deep breath, speaking on the exhale. "Feel free then."
He was delighted, Pharley was polite enough to keep her upright with a light hand on her shoulders while Harla set up a little kit of supplies.
She looked over the man's armoured back to the net and it took her a long moment to realise it was empty. She didn't know when Versalis had escaped, but she was glad for it.
Harla drew a full syringe of blood from her arm with an air of a man who knew exactly what he was doing. He bent her arm up when he was done and stored the blood back in the pack.
"We can keep her drugged, I have enough to get back to Ayathian," Harla said, bending down to study the size of her pupils.
"You have a freckle on your nose," she observed, he was so close that she could see all three of them.
"Do I? I'll have to check that out," he said. She knew he was humouring her in her drugged state, but she had become obsessed with that freckle and followed it up as he stood.
"Why are there two lords here?" she asked and the two exchanged a look and it dawned on her a second before they told her.
"We're married."
She nodded slightly, the tiny gesture making her pitch forward onto the grass. The grass felt absolutely delightful against her face.
***
"What do we do about the vampires?" Harla asked from above her. She was quite content to stay right there, watching an ant crawling up a thin blade of grass and seeming to be shocked to see the giant alien watching him.
"Hello little ant. You're a tiny little thing," she told it, it didn't respond.
"They are to come back too if we can get them but she's the priority. Is she talking to an ant?"
She had begun to talk to it at some point, telling it all about a flower she could see out of the corner of her eye. The ant didn't seem overly interested in what she had to say.
"Talking to bugs is better than her ripping us apart I'd say," Harla said and they shuffled around her.
One of them swore.
"Where's the damned vampire?" Pharley asked and the low growl from behind them told them exactly where the vampire was.
She knew from personal experience that it was very difficult to kill a man in full armour when one didn't have a weapon. But when they went down, one usually had a good twenty seconds before the armoured man was able to get his lungs working and stand up again.
Versalis seemed to have the same thought as she, for when the two men were down, he didn't try and kill them, and instead he dragged her off the ground and interrupting her continued conversation with the ant, who was still refusing to speak to her. She didn't know what she had done to offend it, but she thought it was rather rude not to talk back. The ant never got the chance to learn how to speak, as Pharley rolled onto it in his attempts to get up.
Making their way quickly to the house, they found Jaia had been waiting, three dead guards and his cheeks flushed.
She cheered at the sight of him and he looked confused, Versalis only shook his head and handed her over. Smiling wide, she kissed his cheek and settled into his lap.
"Jaia, they killed my friend," she complained, frowning at the grip on her chin and she looked up at him, his expression wary and stern. Studying her face, and in particular, her eyes, he sighed and let her go.
"Which friend is that, darling?" he said gently, his arms going around her.
"The ant!" she almost yelled, throwing up her arms in exasperation. How could he not know about her friend?
"Is that right? Why did they do that?" His tone was very calm and she found his calmness to be just as frustrating.
"Because they're bastards!" she cried and he pushed her hands back down into her lap where they belonged.
Versalis snorted a laugh and was back at her side, a large bag in his hands.
"We need to move out of the area, then wait for her to come down before we can think of a plan," Versalis said, giving her head a little pat and she wrinkled up her nose, irritated.
"I'm not a child," she grumbled.
"No, just high off your gourd," he said gently. "I'll carry her, you take the supplies."
She was exchanged for the bag and she was happy in his arms, his grip tight and smelling strongly of male vampire.
"North?" Jaia asked from somewhere behind her.
"Yes, we should get out of this area before what happened to them is found out. What do we do with the house?"
Two sets of eyes turned to her and she frowned.
"Burn," they said together.
She watched as the house was quickly torched and she was still watching it as they ran from the area, her mind still for a moment as she realised a part of her life was destroyed. She felt Lee stirring, attention focused for a short time on what she was seeing.
'Everything is vanishing,' she whispered to that other voice, aching at the thought.
Lee didn't respond, only turning away in silence with the sense of a deep, heart wrenching pain filling their shared mind.