Darius looks with satisfaction at the female before him. Laura had been right, Karen had wanted to kill her and had already planned how she was going to do it.

He needs to calm down again. He decides to run back to the hospital hoping that will calm him down. He thinks that Laura should have had ample time to think about everything. He does feel a bit bad with having Micah stay and answer any questions she might have, but he couldn't allow the slightest betrayal to him stand. He only maintains his position and power with strict enforcement of his rules.

A short time later he's entering the hospital and makes his way to Laura's room. He hopes that she will be willing to take more blood. He hopes that eventually she will be willing to turn. He misses his sister and her family greatly. The resemblance to his sister is so incredibly strong that it has brought back all his memories of when he and his sister were close. Times were hard, who was he kidding? They starved more than they had a full stomach. They watched helplessly as their mother and siblings died, unable to save them or even have a doctor look over them for lack of money.

They watched as their father was slowly lost to them as well.

Fortunately his sister caught the eye of a well to do lower aristocracy lord. The baron was wealthy enough that he was able to have a wife that was dirt poor. Darius was happy for his sister when she was able to marry a good man. Well, good for those times. Darius knew that he kept more than one mistress on the side, but he treated his wife well and that's all Darius could ask for.

Shortly after his sister was married his father gave up fighting for his life and joined his wife and children in death. That left Darius alone on their farm. Darius's master found him when his horse threw a shoe and Darius helped him. In payment his master changed him and took him with him. He woke in time to see his funeral from a distance away. His master had supplied the corpse for burying. He only did that because he heard that the local lord's wife was Darius's sister. 

Darius's master was thankful beyond belief that he didn't force Darius to kill his sister after he saw what Darius did to those that killed her and her family.

Just the memory of what that piece of shit lord did to his sister and her family makes Darius angry all over again. He's the one that found his sister's body. Found his nephews and their children's bloody corpses. His brother-in-law's beaten and mutilated form. He is the one that buried them all.

He found each and every one of the enemy lord's men that had a part in the death of his family and made sure that they suffered a thousand times worse then his family did. They begged for death for some time before he granted it to them. Then he left their bodies to molder under the sun without a proper burial and destroyed the lord's castle and sowed the land round about with salt.

His master, maker whatever he wanted to call himself just watched in horror as Darius played with his victims. All his maker did was make sure that there was no evidence that it was vampires that were responsible.

It was some time later that he found out one of his nephews had his wife staying with family some distance away while she was pregnant and she had all the younger children with her. He watched over her and the children. He made sure that they had enough to live off of. He made sure that they were protected, so that it didn't happen again. For over two hundred years he was able to watch over and protect them, for the most part. The males were often conscripted into war and he was unable to protect them and their families. So he stayed with the families and kept them safe.

Then he gained some enemies as he had started building up a small seethe. It started with finding Micah and going after Micah's maker. The crazy bitch that wanted to expose vampires to the humans.

He wasn't sure that he could help Micah after he found him crying at the corpse of a female. Turned out that the female was the girl he was courting, hoping to marry. The killer, Micah's maker, or rather one of the children she callously made and left to fend for themselves.

They found the rogue vampire and killed her, a sister of the dead girl, then they hunted for and killed the insane vampire. Micah had remained true and loyal to Darius from that time forward.

He just hopes that Micah will be able to keep himself under control while around Laura. He would hate to have to kill his loyal man for disobeying orders.

Hopefully, Laura will have awakened and showered by now.

With those thoughts, Darius is able to calm down sufficiently that he can hide himself behind the Liberace persona once more, although, his clothes don't match the persona at the moment.

"How is she?" Darius asks after knocking softly and entering at Micah's come in.

"Better than expected, actually," Micah tells him softly. "She doesn't trust the bitch nurse so asked me to give her a shower."

Darius raises one eyebrow at this information. "She asked YOU, to give her a shower?"

"Yeah, I know, it shocked me too. I mean, she didn't exactly trust me when we first met. But she didn't want me to try one of the other nurses, she specifically asked me to help her."

Darius puts a finger up to his mouth and thinks about this, "Good, it shows that she feels safe with you even after you scared the shit out of her earlier today." That's when he notices that she's in the recliner with the blanket he bought her. "She get tired of the bed? Don't blame her."

"No," Darius gives Micah his full attention. "That bitch nurse was informed to have the bed linens changed while I gave Miss Dillard a shower. When we got out it still wasn't done, although she had more than half an hour to do so. She hadn't even moved from the desk during that time. You need to see about firing her. The intensive care unit isn't a good place for a lazy shit like her."

Darius's eyes had gotten hard at what Micah had told him. "I'll see to it. Laura doesn't trust her, and so far her understanding of people is spot on. I won't have someone like that around Laura."

"I'm having a cot brought in. I'll be staying with her until she is ready to be moved to the estate. Then until she is able to be on her own, I'll be staying in a connecting room if not in the room."

Darius is waving that away. "The remodel is almost finished. I've had the wall between the two rooms taken down and a temporary wall placed there. It will be in place once she no longer needs you in her room.

"Did she talk to you about taking more blood?" That's what Darius wants to know more than anything.

Micah shakes his head. "She fell asleep before her bed was finished. I'll be needing to wake her soon to feed her. You can ask her then."

After that the two talked about Karen and what Darius plans to do, but they do so in voices to low for any one else to hear. "So Laura was right about Karen?" Micah asks.

"Yeah, Karen wasn't just going to betray me on that but was also a plant for an enemy about other things as well. I hope that when Laura comes to the estate that she will be able to help me find any other traitors that might be there."

"I can't believe any one is foolish enough to betray you. They have all been with you since before the last person betrayed you." Micah shudders at the memory of what Darius did to that vampire.

Darius gives Micah a slow sly smile, with a gleam in his eyes as he remembers just what he did with the last person to betray him. "Yeah, you would think that it would be enough to keep them from being idiots. Unfortunately some people either have short memories or selective memories. Well they are about to get a reminder of why they should remain loyal."

"Are you revoking Karen's bond to you first?" Micah asks intently. Revoking the bond would make it temporarily more painful for Karen, but overall, the pain would be less. However, keeping the bond would make it more painful overall, it also gives pain to the bond holder, in this case Darius.

"I haven't decided yet. I'm more than willing to take a bit of pain in order to give her a great deal of pain. That too, would help the others to remember and stay in line."

Darius had been taken and tortured more than once in his lifetime. He had learned to accept pain as a companion and doesn't fear it at all. He doesn't go looking for it either, but doesn't have a problem dishing it out to others and feeling the repercussions of that pain.

"You are the boss, Lord Darius."

Darius sighs, "Call me Darius, Micah. I'm not a lord any more and haven't been for centuries. If you feel the need to call me Lord then make sure that you say Mr. Lord. It sounds funny you calling my last name then my first. You have proven worthy of calling me by name, please do so."

Micah stares at Darius in shock. "Yes, sir, Darius." He has a hard time just saying the given name without the title but he manages to do so.

"Well, now that that is taken care of, Greyson, how much longer until dinner? I'm actually hungry tonight."

Greyson turns to his charge and gives her a smile, "Should be coming soon, Miss Dillard."

Laura makes a face, "Please, the name is Laura, if you can call Darius by his name, then you can call me by name as well."

Greyson manages to hold back most of his response, but still a small smile makes it onto his face. "As you wish, Laura."