“What time is it?” she asked as she checked to make sure everyone got off the plane okay.

Steve checked his watch and answered, “Quarter to four, hon.”

“How are we getting to the pier?” Duff asked while looking around at the familiar airstrips. At just that moment, two vans pulled up and stopped next to the group of vampires.

“Ms…um…Alyria?” One of the drivers asked quietly, looking at each female member of the crowd.

Lyra stepped forward as the man said, “I’m sorry, they didn’t get a last name on this order. Could I get that from you for the records?”

“You don’t need it,” Lyra said dismissively.

“I don’t need it,” he echoed hollowly and every one of her companions knew she’d just entranced him. Kirsten shivered involuntarily as they filled the two vehicles.

“That was a little bit of Jedi, don’t you think?” Duff laughed. Lyra gave him a patient smile as he said, “All hail Obi Wan Alyria!”

Shooing him into the van, she chuckled as she said, “Hurry up, Anakin! We’ve only got an hour and a half til sunrise.”

Lyra slipped into the front seat, then checked that her group was all in the van. Looking at the other vehicle, she watched as Leesha did the same. A moment later, the two vans were heading out into the night.

The ride to the pier was quiet as most of the vampires simply stared at the New York skyline in the distance. The logistics of their trip kept Lyra thinking most of the way to the boat. As soon as they arrived, Lyra rushed them down into the belly of the ship with only a few quiet words. Many of them went without a fuss, as they could see the graying of the sky that meant morning wasn’t far off. Only David and Stuart insisted on staying topside as the ship glided silently out into the waters of the bay.

“Gentlemen,” Lyra said softly. “You’ll want to be heading below before the sun gets up.”

“I know,” David answered in a voice she couldn’t quite read. “But am I ever going to see America again?”

“Of course you will, any time you want to,” Lyra assured him. “You’re not going into exile, hon.”

“What about my family?”

“Eventually, you might be able to see them,” she answered. “Just give yourself the time to know who and what you are before you try it. Otherwise, you might make a mistake you’ll regret.” He nodded slowly, for once agreeing with her without a fight. Not long after, he made his way down into the cabin of the ship and laid down on one of the berths. Stuart followed like a wordless shadow. They, and most of the others, were asleep just as the sun broke over the horizon.

“Baby, you need to sleep,” Sav said as he found her at the prow of the boat.

“Someone’s got to watch over them and keep things going up here,” she answered as he wrapped her in his arms.

“Then I will,” he replied quietly. “Go down, curl up with Steve, and get some sleep. You haven’t been feeling right and I really think you need your rest.” She started to interrupt him, but he said, “I don’t have the patience to teach these guys how to fly, Lyra. You do. Even Steve does and maybe Michael. But they’re going to need you if they’re going to make it. If there’s any problems, I’ll come down and get you, I promise.”

“Are you sure, sweeting?”

“Absolutely,” he answered as he turned her to face him. “I’ve already told Steve you’d be down in a few minutes. I’m sure he’s waiting for you…well, maybe talking to Duff and Michael while he waits, but waiting for you just the same.”

“Actually, Steve’s in a berth waiting for her,” Michael said as he came topside. “Duff’s already asleep and, man, can he snore!”

Snuggled into Sav’s throat, Lyra giggled for a moment before wondering how Sav was going to deal with Michael now. Sav chuckled, then said, “Okay, honey, scoot!”

“Yeah, I’ll keep a look out for us,” Michael said, looking at Sav. “If you want to join them down below, you can…”

“No, one of the more powerful ones needs to be up here,” Sav sighed regretfully. “No offense. I mean, you can really kick ass when you have to. But I can keep it from getting to that.” He thought for a moment before he went on, “You’re welcome to keep me company if you want to, though.”

Lyra looked back and forth between them, not knowing if this was going to be a horrible mistake. While Michael looked slightly nervous, Sav’s smile seemed genuine. Worried, she probed into Sav’s mind and blinked. All his distrust of Michael was gone and her eyes went wide.

“GO!” Sav said with a shooing motion. He kissed her deeply, then patted her on her rear end. “Rest well, sweetheart.” He watched as she walked quietly down into the lower part of the ship, then turned towards Michael. Seeing Michael’s narrowed eyes watching her thoughtfully, he turned and looked out at the ocean in front of them. A second later, Michael walked up beside him and let out a long sigh.

“What’s up, man?” Sav asked, careful to moderate his voice and kept all emotion out of it.

“It’s…oh, nothing, man,” Michael answered as he grabbed the railing with both hands.

Sav turned to face him. “It’s something or you wouldn’t have been looking at her like that.”

“Like what?”

“You think I’ve never seen someone who’s torn apart by someone else before?” Sav reached up and turned Michael to face him, but Michael refused to look him in the eye. “Tell me what you’re thinking…”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Michael answered, trying desperately not to think about Lyra now. What if Sav decided to read his mind? That could be, well, what could it be? Michael couldn’t decide. He knew he didn’t WANT Lyra, at least not as a lover. That much was for sure. By why was she so damnably intriguing then? “Fine, you want to know what’s up with me and her?” Sav nodded. “She confuses me in a way no one else ever has. It’s not about sex or anything like that. Well, it was at first, but not now. Now, it’s just like, um, this kinda nagging feeling? Like I should remember her from somewhere. But we’ve talked about it. We never met until that day in Rome. So I don’t know what it is.”

“That’s the same thing she says,” Sav said thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s all that reincarnation stuff? You know, maybe you knew her in a past life.” Then he stopped, shaking his head. “She’s been alive for a thousand years, so I’d imagine it’s been in this lifetime for her. I don’t know, maybe Cyra would remember something.” He paused, almost satisfied with that until he remembered something. “No, damn it, she hadn’t seen Lyra in hundreds of years before a few years ago.”

“Isn’t there anybody who was there with her then?” Michael asked, a sudden desire to solve this puzzle exciting him. Maybe he’d finally know what this was all about!

“I don’t know, I mean, Cyra left before the rest of the guys died,” Sav answered, thinking hard on it for a moment. “For a long time, Lyra said it was just her, Lisel and…LEESHA!!! Damn, maybe she’d know something!” A second later, both of them were running down into the hold of the ship.

“There she is, over that way!” Sav whispered with a smile. He walked quietly up to where Leesha and Phil were curled into each other’s bodies and stopped. Maybe they should wait til they’d woken up that night. But Leesha’s eyes popped open, solving that little dilemma for Sav.

“What’s up, guys?” she asked worriedly. “Problems up top?”

“No,” Sav said as he wondered if he was doing the right thing.

“Can we talk to you for just a couple of minutes?” Michael asked anxiously.

“Sure,” she answered, slowly trying to climb over Phil without waking him. He started to move with her, but she told him in a whisper that she’d be back in a few minutes, that nothing was wrong.

On the way back through the cabin, they tried to be as quiet as possible. But, because of the situation, Lyra wasn’t heavily asleep and woke with a jerk. As soon as she spotted Sav, she threw Steve’s arm way from her and sat up. That woke Steve with a start as she asked anxiously, “Is there a problem up there already?”

“No, honey, go back to sleep,” Sav answered softly. “We just wanted to talk to Leesha about somewhat, that’s all.”

“What?”

Sav took a deep breath and looked at Michael, who was looking right back at him. Finally, after a long moment, Michael answered. “Me.”

“What about you?” Lyra asked impatiently. She failed to notice the horrified expression on Leesha’s face when Leesha realized what they were up to.

“Sav brought up something that I think might finally help me figure out what happened between us,” Michael went on.

Duff had rolled over and was watching the older vampires with mild interest until Lyra noticed him. She smiled at him before saying, “Let’s take this topside, so the rest of them can sleep in peace, alright?”

Without another word, they all filed out of the cabin. Steve followed, hoping he wasn’t going to end up breaking up a fight between two of his friends. After all, he and Michael had roamed the world together the last few months. But Sav had been his friend for nearly fifty years. He didn’t want his loyalties test here on the boat, that was for sure!

As soon as Lyra’s feet hit the wood of the deck, she had to grab the railing to steady herself. A second later, Steve scooped her up in his arms and headed for the nearest chair. He sat down and settled her on his lap, though she kept protesting she was fine.

“You’re not ‘fine’,” Sav answered before the sound of her voice had even died away. “There’s something wrong with you and you’re not going to ignore it. Let somebody take care of you for a while, okay?” He knelt down in front of her and said, “Please?”

“Fine,” she answered as she looked into his worried eyes. “I’m just a little weak, that’s all…”

“If your hungry, sweetie, go ahead and take some from me,” Steve offered and she started to object again. But Sav cleared his throat and she looked up at him with startled eyes.

“Feed and quit your bitching, woman!” Sav said with a laugh. Lyra’s eyebrows raised as high as they could, nearly meeting her hairline before she realized Sav was joking. Steve pulled her back against his chest and moved his hair back from his neck, offering himself up to her without a word. She brushed a stray hair back and traced a line down his throat with her finger before finally giving in. Lowering her head, she kissed the spot on his throat that hid his jugular, then let her fangs come down into her mouth.

Waiting until she had settled into Steve, Sav turned and looked at Michael, then Leesha. “Okay, Leesha, you know there’s been all this concern over Michael and Lyra, right?”

“I know you were hell bent on being jealous over it,” Leesha answered nervously.

“Yeah, well, there is that,” Sav said with a laugh. “But that’s in the past.” Leesha looked at him in surprise, but he continued speaking. “Michael and I were talking a little while ago and we’re wondering if the problem isn’t something in their past. You know, if maybe Michael’s someone else who’s been reincarnated, just like I was.” Leesha looked ready to panic and Sav realized they were on to something. She knew what had been going on!

“OH God,” Leesha said, looking over at Lyra. “Where’s Cyra when you need her?”

“In England, awaiting this traveling circus,” Sav answered as he studied her face. “Leesha, if you know what’s going on, you’ve got to tell us. It’s driving both of them crazy.”

Hugging herself tightly, Leesha cocked her head and looked at Michael. “How much do you know about reincarnation, Michael?”

“Not a lot,” he answered softly, hoping he was finally going to get the answers to questions he’d had since he’d met Lyra.

“Sometimes, souls are born with certain destinies attached to them.” She looked away for a second and said, “You’ll have to be patient with me on this, cuz Cyra’s the one who explained it to me. Now, that destiny is the path that soul is supposed to follow in that particular life. It could be that the person was meant to be rich and famous. Or die a beggar in the streets. Or…”

“Become a vampire,” Michael asked quietly.

“Exactly,” Leesha replied. “But sometimes, that path gets blocked by things the fates didn’t see. The beggar manages to find a winning lottery ticket and makes good. The singer is stricken with laryngitis at the pivotal moment when he was meant to be discovered. A celebrity runs into a vampire at the wrong time…”

“And we end up with that cabin full downstairs, right?” Sav piped in as Lyra pulled away from Steve’s throat and looked around.

“Now, according to Cyra, if that destiny gets taken away in one life, it can resurface in another,” Leesha said, looking up at Michael. “That’s what we think happened to you, Michael.”

“So, you think I was meant to be a vampire in a previous life?” he asked with a puzzled expression.

“I do.” Swinging around, she sat down facing Lyra and asked, “What do you remember about the time between when the men died in Germany and the time you found Steve?”

“What are you looking for?” Lyra said with a shake of her head. “You’re asking me about nearly three hundred years, Leesh. I mean, there was World War 2, World War 1, um, tons of other wars, plagues, inventions…”

“What about men, Lyra?” Leesha probed. “Mortal men you cared for?”

“OH!” Her eyes went distant as Lyra said, “There weren’t many of those. I mean, Duff just had to remind me I’d been with him and that was only thirty five years ago. Before that, God, let me think…”

“Early eighteen hundreds,” Leesha whispered, trying to jump start Lyra’s memory.

Shaking her head, Lyra answered, “No, I’m not remembering it.”

“An historian?” Leesha added, then sighed. Jarring her memory was proving harder than Leesha‘d thought it would be. “He was killed by a vampire when you left him alone for a short while?”

Lyra stared at the deck for a long moment, then her eyes went wide. Her hand covered her mouth. “Oh my God! Andrew!”

“Andrew,” Leesha answered as she looked up at Michael.

“Andrew.” Her voice barely audible, Lyra closed her eyes to fight back tears. “I haven’t thought about him in a century…”

“Because you felt like you let him down and couldn’t deal with it, right?” Leesha continued to probe into Lyra’s thoughts. “If you’d only been able to make him a vampire, he wouldn’t have been in any danger when he was attacked.” She paused. “Am I right? He’d have been able to fight back in a way no mortal could have. Or might not have been attacked at all. Correct?”

“It was my fault he died,” Lyra whispered.

“No, it wasn’t,” Leesha assured her. “You’re not what kept him from his destiny, sweetie. The death of the men in our coven shaped what happened between you and Andrew. If not for that, you’d have never made the promise we all did.”

“And what was that?” Michael asked quietly, hating to interrupt them.

“That none of us would make another vampire until we’d found the men reborn,” Leesha explained. She turned to look at Michael, saying, “We all made that promise. Me, Lyra and Lisel. We just didn’t know how long it would take for them to come back to us.”

“How long?” he asked as he looked at Lyra. She couldn’t face him, curled instead into Steve’s throat as she cried silent tears of pain and regret.

“They died around 1711,” Leesha said, running her hand over Lyra’s leg in an attempt to comfort her friend. “And she didn’t find the first of them until 1991.”

“Leesha, was I Andrew?” Michael’s eyes never left Lyra as he asked his most important question.

“Yes, you were,” Leesha answered.

“Why didn’t she remember him, then?” Sav asked as he knelt down in front of Lyra once more.

“It’s hard to lose anyone you love. Especially on someone like Lyra. You know how deeply she feels things, Sav.” Sav closed his eyes, remembering the one time she’d felt he’d rejected her. She’d disappeared for months over a few harsh words. “The only thing Cyra could come up with is that she’d repressed the memory of losing a lover. How was she supposed to know that the main reason he’d found her then was to become one of us?”

“How long was she with him,” Michael stammered. “I mean, I guess, me?”

“Twenty three years.”

“Whoa,” Michael leaned back against the railing and tried to absorb this new information.

Before anyone could say another word, Leesha started speaking. “More than likely, if she’d have made you a vampire, the relationship would have run it’s course and ended. But when Andrew died, it left things unfinished. So your soul found it’s way back to Lyra to do what needed to be done. That’s why, after you became one of us, the two of you didn’t pull together anymore.” She turned to Sav, saying, “With your telepathic gifts, you probably picked up on the residual from that connection. That’s why you were so jealous of Michael, but not anyone else. After all, you were seeing images of them together that didn’t fit with where Lyra is at now.”

“That makes sense, to be honest,” Sav said as he continued to comfort Lyra.

After what seemed like a long while, Lyra finally looked up at Michael and said, “I’m sorry.”

“God, don’t be!” Michael answered with a smile. He leaned down and brushed away a bloody tear as he said, “Whatever happened before, I’ve gotten where I need to be now. Everything else is just in the past and ain’t nothing we can do about it now!”

“I guess you’re right,” she sniffled. “I just hadn’t let myself think about Andrew in such a long time…”

“Don’t,” Michael assured her. “It’s all over now.

“I’m so tired,” she said faintly, slumping back against Steve.

“Steve, why don’t you go ahead and take her downstairs again?” Sav said, leaning down to pick her up so Steve could get up more easily.

“I can walk…” she said wearily, but Steve shook his head.

“I’ll carry you down, sweetie,” he said emphatically. “Maybe after you sleep, you’ll start feeling better.” Sav transferred her back into Steve’s waiting arms, where she clung weakly to his neck. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, walking down there at the moment might have been a bit embarrassing. Especially if she’d ended up on her arse!

Sav kissed her quickly, then looked at Steve. “Careful on those steps, mate. There’s hell to pay if you fall holding her!”

“When’d you change your name to hell?” Steve quipped, then smiled. “No worries, Sav. I’ll take it easy on her, plus she’s light as a feather these days anyway.” With that, Steve turned and headed, very carefully, down the steps into the cabin. Leesha followed them down a moment later, leaving Sav and Michael alone on the deck.

“God, that’s such a fucking load off my mind,” Michael said with a smile. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Leesha!” Sav answered, slapping him on the back. “I’m just glad it’s all finally resolved.”

“Me, too,” Michael said as they both turned and watched the newly risen sun’s light playing over the waves.