Rouge shivered and curled tighter into herself as she watched the outline of Kaia the hind jogged on the spot. Her eyes had finally adjusted to the unending gloom and she could now make out shapes if not details. 

"You should get up and move, it will warm you up and stop your muscles seizing up." 

"I don't feel well and I'm too hungry." Rouge had no idea how long she had been in with Kaia, but they had yet to feed them and she had gone from feeling hungry to barely even being able to remember being full, her stomach gnawing at itself mercilessly. 

"I know, but moving will at least warm you up and keep your muscles from being eaten away by your body." 

"What's the point?" She could hear a crack in her own voice as she fought back tears.

"Don't you dare!" Kaia's voice was angry as she snarled at the witch. "You've been here a short time compared to my thousands of years if you're right about how long I've been here. I haven't given up, I've kept going, kept believing, you don't get to give up after five minutes." She stopped jogging to glare in the direction of the witch, Rouge broke and let out a sob.

"I spent my entire life hiding from Mab, never living, just surviving to hide another day, and she got me anyway, what's the point? I'm better off just giving up and hoping I starve into a coma or something." Kaia moved back to the rocks they spent most of their time on and put her arms around the crying witch, she felt hot and calmly to the touch. She felt her way to the witch's forehead, she was on fire. In some perverse way, the hind didn't want to move her hand, it was the first heat she had felt in so many centuries.

"You're very warm." 

"I feel so cold and my arms hurt." Kaia groped in the darkness and felt one of the witch's arms, it was hugely swollen, roasting hot and kind of sticky.

"Have you hurt your arm?" 

"They were both sliced up when I woke up here." Kaia suspected the witch's arm was infected but there was nothing she could do in this dark dank place besides take her mind off it. 

"What about your vampire and his brothers? If what you've said about them is true they will be searching for you. You said yourself, he will move heaven and hell to find you. Surely your father will help"

"Doesn't mean they will find me, not even if Papa helps them." She burst into even more hysterical sobs.

"They know Mab has been after you. That gives them a good starting point to search for you, they must know it was her. Keep faith in your fated one. The fates will have given you him for a reason won't they?" She rubbed the sobbing witches back remembering how it had been for her when she first found herself here. She was scared but also so sure her sisters would be searching for her and would come in time. Over the centuries she refused to believe this would be her end. The Fates had a plan for her she was sure. Maybe Artemis herself would come for her, she came for her sisters after all. She was finding her faith in the Fates renewed since the witch's arrival. The fates had a plan for her, she knew it. Why else would she have been kept alive all these centuries?

"I want Raphael." Her voice came out in a broken, squeaked whisper. In all her life she'd never felt as hopeless as she did right there in the hinds arms as she cried out her fear and hunger. 

The witch had finally sobbed herself to sleep. The hind laid her gently down on the rocks and covered her as best she could with the tattered rags that were all they had ever given her for her comfort. Sighing heavily and worrying about the witch's health she returned to the workout that she did religiously every day as the window above them began to give the dim glow that she took as daylight. No matter how hungry or tired she was she wouldn't allow her muscles to decay. Stretching she shifted from her human form into her hind form and stretched again. Since the witch arrived she'd barely spent any time as a doe which was so much warmer with her once shiny coat in the icy dank hell they were in. She continued to jog on the spot and watch the dark shape that was the exhausted witch.

Kaia woke with a start and listened, her ears twitching, there was a lot of noise outside, there was never noise outside, it was always silent like the grave. She shifted back to her human form and nudged Rouge. 

"There's a lot of noise outside." The witch didn't stir. "Rouge?" She began to shake the unresponsive witch but her head just lolled on the rock and her body stayed limp. Finally, as Kaia began to panic she shook her more and more violently, the witch murmured something under her breath. 

"Rouge? Can you hear me?" Again the witch mumbled inaudibly but at least she was making sounds. "Rouge, I need you to wake up, don't you give up witch. Your vampire will come for you. You just have to hold on." The hind didn't know if a witch could die from an infection, she'd never met one before and only knew what Rouge had told her. She remembered a child in the village had died after cutting himself, while she was hiding from Heracles. The whole village had gone into mourning over the child. Would they leave the dead witch down here with her if she died? Quickly she pushed that thought from her mind.

She didn't know what was happening outside their prison but she had a fluttering feeling deep in her stomach, something monumental was about to happen. Was this the witch's vampire? Or was Rouge wrong and it was her dear sisters, alive and come to take her home? Never had she wished more that the window was within reach so she could look out of it and see what was happening.

***

They had made their way through the gates with a surprising ease, the fae and trolls had been caught completely unaware, Lucius' incredible speed had proved too much for the slow dim-witted trolls. Raphael had completely lost control, his claws and fangs ripped through every creature that got in his way as he snarled like a caged animal as he moved across the courtyard in a bloodied blur. All his demon could smell was his bride's strawberries and cream scent. He would get to her, he would get her back, she was his. The demon was revelling in the bloodshed and death as they ripped through skin and muscle as each creature tried to stop them under the incredible strength of a crazed vampire. Never before had Raphael so fully let his demon take control. Always in the past he had fought it and tried to control it. But now as they slashed and leapt their way across the dark courtyard that was fast filling up with Mabs minions, and up a flight of stairs to a narrow walkway he didn't care about the death and carnage, he didn't care that he'd fed on the blood of creatures as he ripped out their throats and gorged himself. All that mattered was getting to Rouge and his demon was as focused on the task as he was and the blood gave him an energy he'd never known before.

Winston ran for all he was worth trying to keep up with the seemingly out-of-control Raphael while weighed down by his helmet and chainmail. Swinging his axe he felled another fae that had launched at him with his pike and continued up the steep staircase after the heart-sick, crazed vampire. The courtyard behind them was filling up with fae and trolls faster than they could kill them, as they all fought to follow Raphael up the staircase. Duncan charged past the dwarf and ahead of Raphael, he raced to the end of the walkway and began sniffing and pawing at a low grate in the tower that loomed overhead and began to whine. Raphael dropped to his knees as the wolf leapt over his head grabbing the throat of a troll in his fangs with a feral snarl, the vampire pulled and tugged at the bars with all his inhuman strength but they didn't budge. He roared and snarled as he heaved at the bars again.

"Rouge?" He called through the grate, his voice thick with fear, she had to be in there he could smell her. "ROUGE!" He snarled desperately.

"She's down here." Called back a distant voice he didn't know. Winston dragged him with difficulty away from the grate before turning back to heft his axe over his head and slam it with all his strength at the bars. Two blows and they shattered under the force of the dwarven-steel, no other metal was as strong as the sort after, incredibly expensive, steel. As soon as the window was clear Raphael threw himself through the gap and dropped twenty feet to the ground. 

Gabriel threw a fae off the staircase and yelled over the fighting. 

"Everyone follow Raphael, now!"

Winston watched in horror as Lucius stepped behind Cassiel and was impaled on a pike that had been aimed at the young hybrid. With a bellow the stout dwarf ran past his Master, ignoring Gabriel's yells to swing his axe and decapitate the fae that had just stabbed the demon. Cassiel turned unaware of what his friend had done and grinned like a child before carrying on up the stairs. 

Kaia watched the dark figure as he stood up from the floor, he was huge and she felt a stab of fear that made her voice tremble. 

"Rouge. Rouge, you need to wake up. He's here. He came for you." It had to be him, but seeing him, he was a terrifying figure in the dark. The scent of blood clung to him as he took the three steps toward them. He didn't seem like the soft and gentle artistic soul the witch had lovingly described. Struggling to regain control of his demon whose screams were filling his brain, Raphael dropped to his knees next to where she lay and stroked her face. Her skin was hot and clammy to his touch.

"Rouge?" he whispered. 

"She's ill." Said the woman, her voice thick and shaky. Would he kill her for allowing his fated one to become so ill? After all these centuries, would this be her end?

Kaia jumped violently as another figure thudded to the floor of her cell, then another. Her eyes were wide with fear as she tried to see them in the gloom. They were all huge and darkly menacing in the gloom.

Winston helped Lucius to the grate then stopped to snap the wooden shaft of the pike off. The demon had tried to pull the weapon out of his own back but the barbs kept it deeply embedded in his flesh. 

"Can you jump down?" Lucius gave him one of his usual debonair smiles then dropped down into the dark, landing with a grunt of pain. Winston was right behind him.

Gabriel threw the portal bottle through the opening as at the same time, in a fluid motion swinging his sword to fight off a huge troll that was lumbering up to him. The glass smashed on the ground and the swirling purple vapers began to form the opening. As soon as it was formed Raphael stopped stroking his witch's forehead and scooped Rouge into his arms to leapt through it without waiting for anyone else, the others started following him. Cassiel stopped and held his hand out to the unknown woman who was squinting away from the dim purple glow.

"Coming with us?" Kaia faltered for a moment then took his hand as she squinted in the unaccustomed light of the portal and let herself be pulled through by the hybrid, going with them couldn't be worse than staying here surely. 

Shoving the troll back Gabriel slid into the gap and dropped straight into the portal just as it was starting to close, landing heavily on his back on the gravel driveway of his home with a groan.

"Where are they? Did everyone make it back.? He asked desperately as he climbed to his feet.

"Rouge is ill, Raph ran straight to Marie's Hospital with her. Cassiel took her companion there too. Duncan went to get trousers. We were starting to worry you wouldn't make it." Azrael for once looked completely lucid as he gave him a relieved smile. 

"Companion? Lucius?" Instantly distracted at the sight of the demon, Gabriel rubbed his neck. "I owe you an apology. We might never have retrieved her without you." 

"Think nothing of it, Gabriel. You do not know me, only my father's reputation, I make it a policy to never judge a man by his father." The vampire stifled a wince at that dig about his own bloodthirsty lunatic of a parent. "But I am nothing if not a romantic, and will always help a broken heart when I can." Winston frowned at the demon.

"We should get you to the hospital." 

"Nothing of the sort my good man. I am fine. Nothing but a scratch. Will be healed by morning." The dwarf pulled his helmet off and narrowed his eyes at the demon. "Which reminds me," He said quickly before the dwarf could say another word. "Azrael I have several scrolls that came into my possession back at my club that may be of interest to you in your quest to find your missing sister. Do drop by sometime and pick them up." With that the demon started to make his way across the lawn to an odd-looking pair of trees that seemed to shimmer in the sun, swinging his swagger stick high as he strolled. The group watched until he disappeared through the family's portal that connected them directly to the nearest creature city, Zeus Square. Their father had had it installed decades before.

"He's an interesting gentleman." Said Winston in his usual formal tone, falling straight back into his role as butler and mentor to the vampires. Gabriel nodded and rubbed at his neck. "I'm going to get these bloody clothes off then I will go to the hospital to check on Rouge." 

"Very good Sir." Winston shouldered his axe and started towards the house. "Shall I draw you a bath Sir?" Gabriel' attention had been caught by an odd scent in the air for a moment, it was like he'd caught a whiff of cinnamon on the air. He stood transfixed for a moment before locking eyes with his confused-looking brother then turned to the dwarf.

"Sorry Winston, I was distracted. What did you say?"