Artemis watched the magnificent stag as he grazed in the afternoon sun. He was beautiful, the largest stag she'd ever seen. As she watched him she found herself not wanting to loose her arrow and kill him. She let her bow drop to her side then smiled to herself as a strange thought entered her mind. Turning herself into a doe she edged into the clearing and towards the stag. 

He raised his head and watched her with large brown eyes as she approached him. When she drew nearer he sniffed at her and walked a slow circle around her before checking around them for danger and looking at her again. His magnificent antlers made him look so regal as he looked down at her. Artemis had never wanted so much to be as close to another living creature as she did this one. He radiated a calm peacefulness she had never known in her long, tiresome life.

Rather than returning to Olympus that night she stayed in her scared forest with the gentle animal. Then the next and the next. She found she just didn't want to leave him. There was something so peaceful and still about the stag and as time went on she desired to leave him less and less. When she'd birthed their first daughter a beautiful doe with brass hooves and tiny golden antlers the Goddess had felt a joy she'd never known before. 

Each summer a new daughter followed the last and Artemis' joy only grew. She was slowly forgetting her life as a Goddess which now seemed like a distant memory. Her youngest daughter Kaia was only a year old when Zeus discovered her and her family in their forest home. The King of the Gods was furious and before Artemis could change forms and stop him, he threw one of his bolts at her magnificent stag. In the briefest moment before the bolt hit him Artemis captured him and the bolt in an orb, clutching it to her breast.

"How could you?" She screamed at her father as she clutched what was left of her stag to her and shielded her children from him with her body. 

"You whore. Giving yourself to some filthy animal." 

"I felt happier as an animal with him than I ever have as a Goddess. I'd have given up everything to live as a deer with him." Zeus struck her across the face and sent her reeling. 

"Stand aside." He pointed to her babies and she shrieked.

"No. No. I won't let you harm them." The young hinds cried in fear and crowded behind her desperate for their mother to protect and soothe them. 

"Move!" Artemis sobbed and fell to her knees, still shielding her children from him. 

"No father, please. You all have children. Please let mine be. I'll leave them here. Wipe their minds so they don't know they are anything but animals but please spare them." Seeing his favourite daughter so distraught softened the God's anger. He couldn't tell her, he wouldn't tell her. He realised the truth wouldn't matter to her, she would still try to protect them.

"Very well." He said putting back his bolt. "Wipe their memories of you and this and release them into your forest. But if they ever find out who or what they are I will kill them." Artemis gathered her children in her arms as the tiny deer cried for her and kissed each of them on their foreheads as she whispered I love you. With each kiss, the deer's memory was wiped and it stepped back from her in fear of the unknown. 

She took her little Kaia's face in her hands last and wiped away the tear that fell from her own eye onto the bambis soft furry snout. 

"I love you." She whispered and with a kiss her last child drew back from her and joining her sisters they all raced away into the depths of the forest. 

Zeus took his daughter's hand and pulled her to her feet. 

Wiping a tear from her face, he held her chin and made her look at him. 

"Remember daughter, your promise or they die. You are the virgin Goddess and they are a danger to us all." 

***

Zeus bellowed in rage as Artemis again threw herself in front of her daughter and took the shot that was meant to eliminate the golden hinds threat once and for all. Artemis gasped in pain and looked definitely up at her father. 

"I mean it, father. We both know one more bolt will even kill me. You will have to kill me to get to her. I will not go through the pain I did before when you killed my other daughters. Your granddaughters." Zeus shoved Apollo forward. 

"Get your sister out of my way." As Apollo moved to do so Lucius launched himself at the God again. Zeus bellowed in rage as the devil's son slashed his face with his claws and shoved him back. As the demon spun to attack again Zeus caught him by the tail and swung him around like a rag doll. Pitching the hapless demon over the railing and down to the floor below. 

Creatures and demons were running from the club in terror of what was happening above their heads. Lucius crashed through the wooden floor and down to the floor below. He coughed and struggled to get up until he noticed a huge piece of jagged wood protruding from his stomach. 

"Mother." He called, coughing up blood with the word. He looked up as a pink glow flashed behind the bar out of sight of everyone. 

"Mother. Help them. Please." He held a bloodied hand towards the spot the glow had been. 

"Please." Before the last syllable left his mouth the pink glow shone again. He dropped his arm and let his head fall back. She still rejected him, no matter how much he needed her, no matter how unlike his father she claimed to be. She always failed and hid him, her fear of judgement stronger than her motherly instinct towards him.

"Father, please. How many children do you have? She is my only one. Please" She shoved her brother back with what little strength she still had. 

"She's your niece." She screamed at Apollo. "Father, please. I beg you. Don't take her from me." Zeus bellowed in rage at the sight of his daughter's tears. He'd only seen them twice before. When he'd killed her stag and made her banish her daughters, and again when he'd loosed bolts on the other four. 

"Her blood..." 

"Is my blood. Is your blood." Shrieked the distraught Goddess Pointing at his bloodied cheek. Zeus touched his cheek and looked at the golden fluid that coated his fingertips. 

Apollo again tried to pull at his sister but she shrieked and kicked him back. 

"Leave her." Commanded Zeus to his golden-haired son. He couldn't bear to see his favourite child hurting so much. The guilt of knowing he'd caused it all sat uneasily with him. "She can't live." 

"Then neither can I." Screeched the heartbroken Goddess as she scooped up the charred remains of her unborn grandchild and held her to her breast. 

"You all get to have children. You all get to mix our blood with mortals and demons, to create entire species, but I have mine taken from me." Rising shakily to her feet, still clutching the child she stepped closer to her father. 

"I will die before I let you take her from me." 

His eyes flickered down to the orb she always wore about her neck. The one that contained the last second of her stag's life frozen in time. He could have left her to live with the creature as an animal herself. But he was jealous of the pure, innocent love they shared and furious that the child who had begged him to protect her maidenhead had given it away so freely to an animal. Time moved so differently for the Gods that it had taken him years to notice was missing from his court. But nothing could have prepared him for what he found when he found her. He looked at her tear and soot-streaked face and down at the granddaughter he'd mutilated. Then to his own, once half-human son Heracles and back to Artemis. 

"No." Said Hercules. "She's mine. I love her." 

"No, you don't." Bellowed Zeus. His anger boiling over he pointed to the vampire cradling her and then her mother clutching the dead child. "It's just one of Eros' spells. Or it would have been you protecting her with your life. Now leave." He shot a venomous look at Apollo then back to Hercules. "NOW!" Bellowed the King of the Gods. When they both vanished he caught Artemis as her legs buckled under her and she succumbed to her wounds. 

"Please, father." 

"Look away, daughter. It will be over in moments and I'll take you back to Olympus to heal yourself." 

"No." Screamed the Goddess. Clawing her way back to her daughter she grabbed her ankle, grasping it and cradling the infant to her she began to glow a soft blue light that slowly filled the room. Zeus bellowed in fury as he realised what she was doing. 

"No!" 

When the light faded the gaping hole in Kaia's belly was healed over like it had never been there. The infant cradled in the Goddess' now stone hand began to whimper as the cool air hit her soft pink skin and she began to wail. Kaia sat up as Gabriel took his daughter from the now stone Goddess' hand and placed her in her mother's arm and held them both close, tears rolling down his cheeks.

Zeus dropped to his knees and cradled his daughter's peaceful-looking face as her unseeing eyes gazed lovingly at her now empty hand. 

"What? What happened?" 

Kaia held her daughter to her chest and stared at the statue that had moments before been her mother. Despite being on the verge of death Kaia had heard every word. Tears flowed down her face as long-dead memories of racing through the trees between her mother and father swam through her mind. 

"She gave herself to bring you two back." Replied Zeus, his tone flat and hollow. 

"How long will she be like that?" Asked the doe her voice trembling. 

"Could be centuries, could be forever. There's no way to know." Zeus finally fixed his clear blue eyes on her and studied the girl's face which looked so much like her mother's. 

Gabriel moved between his bride and the God to shield her and their daughter, it was futile. He knew that. But he'd at least die trying to save them. 

"I won't kill her vampire. Artemis gave her life to save her. I didn't think she would. I thought she'd back down. Us Gods are fickle selfish creatures when it comes down to it. But if she loved her enough to sacrifice herself I won't end her." With that, the God climbed to his feet and picked up the statue of his daughter in his arms. 

"Name the child for her grandmother." Said the God and vanished with a flash of lightning. The whole club was deathly silent as Gabriel looked down at his Kaia and their daughter in her arms.