I made my first two fledglings at New Haven, then my third at home, before I began making my way around my properties and letting all my humans in on the plot. The humans who were not a part of my schemes had a wide range of reactions, everything from hilarious outright shock and confusion to considering gazes and understanding nods. Apparently some of them had noticed clues that everything was not as it seemed.

At every location, I gave all my humans the option to flee, although I advised against it. Even during the upcoming war, they were safest under my protection. I did lose a little more than a dozen, which was disappointing, but I allowed them to leave after compelling them to keep their mouths shut. I also reminded them that they were welcome to return if they changed their minds.

As much as losing a single human bothered me, our human recruiters were doing quite well considering I had given them leave to be more free with information, and the numbers of free humans pouring into my lands more than made up the difference. Even if the majority never fought, or even if they never even supported the cause, each one we brought in was more food or forces kept from our enemies. The influx of humans also made up for the dozens I turned from the humans I thought could manage the existence.

Through reports I knew that Jamie had gone to look for his people but had returned alone, although apparently some humans were set to follow him when they were ready.

I missed him, but my time was taken up turning the humans who wanted to make the change. While I enjoyed the attention of giving speeches and the entertaining reactions as I revealed all my carefully kept plans, I was quite pleased to return to New Haven, both because it was the location of my favourite human, and because it was the hub from which we would begin our first assault. It was hard to believe that so much had been accomplished in slightly more than a week since I had captured and killed the council forces.

My time with Jamie was rushed, but I did not care, happy to absorb the warmth of his presence when I could get it. He was also in all the planning strategizing with Connor, but it was not the same because his attention was laser focused on the coming confrontations. I turned more New Haven humans as well, and my nights were no longer so quiet now that I had my fledglings awake with me.

While they did make the nights go by faster, a small part of me missed the solitude of my nights. They had been peaceful, if a bit boring.

Well, the grass was always greener on the other side of the fence, but at least the illusion of greener grass gave you a goal so you did not spend your entire day looking at your own lawn.

"Vienne, we've caught a vampire," Shania said, running into my chamber with her new vampiric speed. I cringed, these ungainly neophytes kept knocking things over in their haste. Young vampires were so hasty, and it seemed like even being my fledglings did not improve matters.

"Oh? And who is it?" I rather hoped it was a council vampire so that I could kill another one.

"We're not sure, but he says his name is Drak."

I rolled my eyes. "His timing really is truly terrible. Don't bring him here."

She shifted apologetically. "It's already too late for that."

"What were you thinking?"

"He was snooping around outside, Vienne," she said.

I groaned and drew out my response in a most melodramatic way. "Fine. Bring him to me."

She nodded, and rushed from the room again. Young vampires and their bloody energy.

It was only a couple of minutes before Drak was dragged before me. I made sure to be lounging indolently in preparation for his arrival.

"What in the world do you think you're doing here, Drak?" I asked him.

"What am I doing here? What are you doing here?" he responded in a most unsatisfactory manner.

"You're the one trespassing, old friend," I said.

He sputtered. "Since when has it been trespassing to come and see you, Vienne?"

"It's one thing to visit my home, it's another to stick your nose in where it's not wanted."

He scowled, that handsome jaw set like stone. "Not wanted? I noticed suspicious vampire activity on my way to see you so I thought I would check into it to warn you, Vienne. I didn't know you were at the heart of whatever this is."

"It's in the heart of my territory, of course I have something to do with it."

"You hate vampires, why would you have dozens of fledglings here? A vampire daycare?"

I shrugged. "I relaxed my stance on that a touch since I last saw you," I said, waving my hand dismissively.

"Did you turn them? What are you doing here?"

I sneered at him, hoping to dissuade him. "I hardly see how anything here is any of your business, Drak. Why don't you leave before you get caught up in something you can't handle?"

His clear blue eyes looked at me with something that appeared very much like hurt, and I scowled.

"Do you really think so little of me, Vienne?"

"Not entirely."

"Then just tell me the truth for once. I know you've been hiding things. Didn't we used to be close? What happened?"

I heaved an unnecessary breath. Maybe keeping things from him had driven a wedge between us. I had always told myself it was to protect both him and my schemes, but at this point, what did it matter? "Fine. I'll tell you, but if you get killed, that's on your own head."

"Really?"

"If you can shut up for long enough for me to speak properly, flower child."

He did not even seem slightly bothered. Perhaps he considered it a compliment, or perhaps he was just so pleased that I had decided to tell him the truth he did not care. I supposed that would be a rare treat for this poor male.

"Let's see... Staging a coup, obviously. The council is boring and their dreary world is a mess, so I've been plotting against them with my humans. Luckily we've been forced to start early so I turned a few trusted humans into vampires to tilt everything in our favour."

Drak just stared at me for a long moment while he thought about my words.

"You're starting a rebellion?"

"Isn't that what I said? Although the starting bit was actually quite a long time ago. I suppose it depends if you consider when I began plotting or when we actually got violent as the beginning."

"And you turned all these people? I thought you said you never turn humans."

I shrugged. "Well, now I've modified it to 'I never turn humans against their will.' Still doing better than both our sires and more than half the council. Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that. In the end there'll still be less net vampires, and the ones that do exist will be much more tolerable on average."

"Why didn't you just tell me? I would have helped you."

I sighed. "You've got no poker face, Drak. I couldn't risk it. Your overemotional soppy heart would only be a threat to my ultimate goals. Probably, now that you know, all my plans will crumble to ash."

"How can you still be such a bitch even when you're doing good?"

"I'm not trying to do good, I'm trying to do entertaining. If I am doing good, it just so happens to coincide with my interests. I was fed up, I don't like most vampires, and I don't like the tedious vampiric world. Don't try to make me into some hero, because everything I've been doing has been entirely self-indulgent."

"So, the whole feral human branding thing was just cover to remind the council how terrible you were?"

I scowled. "No, the whole feral human branding thing was to provide camouflage for my humans who I had to disappear. They could not keep my brand anymore, because someone would be bound to notice, but they stood out far too much amongst the human population even if it was destroyed, but now there're tons of humans with destroyed brands wandering around."

"So practical. So what was the whole Mistress of Hollywood thing?"

"A wonderful idea. I still intend to implement it. We can begin with making war propaganda to rally the humans. Maybe some subversive messages to make vampires feel inadequate."

"There's always some dark side with with you, isn't there?"

I rolled my eyes. "Naturally. It's fun. Besides, how else am I supposed to set the humans free? Later, we'll make some wonderful movies, then slowly over the decades the film industry will sell out until the only movies that make money are the fifteenth incarnation of some popular superhero blockbuster. But, by then we'll have moved on to dominating digital streaming so I'm not too concerned."

Drak was rather quiet for a time and I realized he had not been properly listening at all to my delightful plans. Then he looked at me in that way I hated like he could see through me.

"This actually makes a lot more sense."

"Of course it makes a lot of sense. A new golden age of cinema was my brilliant idea."

"No, you, this."

"I don't know what you're talking about, hippy."

"If I cover my ears and ignore all the venom that comes out of your mouth and simply look at what you're actually doing, you're the softest of us all."

"If you sit there with your hands over your ears you'll look like a fool. Also, I'm going to have you thrown out for speaking nonsense."

"I could hurt your precious fledglings or humans in the struggle."

"Then I'll do it myself."

"Ha! See? You don't want them hurt."

"You're insane. I don't want them hurt frivolously, because they're valuable forces for future conflicts. Plus, they're all mine and I don't like it when my things get broken."

He smiled and looked at me knowingly.

"Shut it, Drak."

"I always knew you had a heart in there, Vienne, and now—"

"We all have hearts. It's a vestigial organ from our mortal days."

"And now I see your vestigial organ is full of love."

He was really going above and beyond to annoy me today. "I'm going to kill you."

"I don't believe you."

I scowled. "You're really beginning to get on my nerves now, Drak. Back off." I considered getting up, but I was not about to give him and his ridiculous ideas ground. Instead, I shot him my most haughtily superior expression.

"Fine, but I want to join."

"You just focus on being the vice-president of New Hollywood and leave me to my own business." I ignored the determined look on his stupid handsome face.

"Your fledglings are still vulnerable. You could use more old vampires, and we both know it."

I scoffed at him. "Just because you're old, doesn't mean you can fight. It's not like they gave out medals of valour for surviving Woodstock."

"Well, they probably should have."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Fine. I'll let you join, but you have to obey my orders." I stared into his lovely blue eyes.

"If I agree with them."

"When did you become so stubborn?"

"Have I ever not been?"

I frowned and ignored him. "Your first mission is to go out and scout for New Hollywood talent," I said.

Drak did not look impressed with the order.

"And really, any humans you can convince to come to my territory either to join or for safety are also welcome. I'm trying to get as many humans away from the council as possible."

"Starving them?"

"Hopefully. And tomorrow we're making our first move. A force of my humans are going to take out Tory. Do you know her?"

The disgusted expression on Drak's face showed he had at least heard of her. She truly was one of the worst. I looked forward to her destruction.

Perhaps I would be nice to him and let him revel in her imminent destruction before he looked for more humans. "Scrap that order. First, you can amuse me for a couple of days before starting, since it's been such a long time since I've seen you." I smiled in the sweet way he did not trust.

Instead of squirming like he was supposed to, he smiled back, looking truly delighted. Well, that was not at all according to plan. I would complain, but at least he was being unpredictable.

His irritatingly smug face looked determined. "Sounds great."