By the age of twenty he had, to some extent, forgotten the world outside the walls. Not forgotten a desire for it, no, never! But forgotten the details of it. Books, for all that he loved them, were not the same. And Father Tedesco, his most frequent companion, was more inclined to talk of the glories of Heaven, than the glories of the world outside.

Vlad heard someone outside the doors, and wondered if the old priest had come to visit him again.

There was a faint clatter and the door swung gently open.

It wasn't the elderly priest.

It was a vision.

An angel.

Naturally she had come to save him from this hell.

So why was he so afraid?

The Southern Carpathian Mountains

The hills echoed with the howling of the wolves. The slim, dark-complexioned man with the silver earrings did not appear to find that a worrisome thing. He slipped along the ghost of a trail as silently and as sure-footedly as a wolf himself. The full moon shone down casting spiky shadows on the pine-needle covered forest floor. The wyvern was just a slightly more spiky piece of darkness. Spiky darkness with red eyes that glowed like coals. Wyverns could shift their opalescent colors to match their surroundings. Here she did not have to.

"So, old one. The blood moon time is coming. The signs say she will capture him," said the lithe man, looking warily at her.

The wyvern nodded. "She will watch over him carefully. And she has killed many of our kind." It spoke his tongue. That was part of the magic gift of the creature. A small but vital part.

"Blood calls. We must answer. We have a compact to honor. Blood to spill." His teeth flashed briefly at that.

"You are too fond of blood, Angelo."

He shrugged. "It is in my nature. My kind needs to see it flow. Life is just the song of the hunter and the hunted."