There in that small, frigid room I was bound to chains restrained to the wall. I knelt there, my arms restricted, staring straight into the eyes of the man who I followed for seventy years. For decades, I couldn't conceive him doing anything such as this. Clearly, in the years that I was gone, he became much more corrupted.

Once my shirt was stripped from my back, Chris directed Rickie to leave the room. I felt the cool air bite at my sides, causing me to shiver.

He held the syringe tightly in his hand as he stepped closer and I could hear his footsteps echo off the walls.

“So, Lucious.” He smiled. “You survived the fire and now your back here with me.”

I pulled at the chains as I stared out at him in disgust. “What the hell is this about, Chris? What the fuck did you do to me?”

He stopped and looked down at me. “Do not underestimate me Lucious. There's much that you do not know and for good reason.”

“It was that drug,” I said silently as my eyes focused in on the floor. “That drug you forced down me before the fire. Wasn't it?” I looked back at him. I desperately needed to know.

“You do catch on easily, though.”

“Then why? You know I'm not bound to you. You know we have no bond!” I tried to struggle under the weight of the chains.

“Trying to do you a favor,” he said in a whisper.

With those words I looked at him in wonder.

“For years, I've heard you whine about how you wish to be free of Serena once and for all. And for decades I studied hard, many times without you knowing. Mixing drugs, separating elements, combining them together, like all the wonderful scientists out there today. Medicines and street drugs all running through my own body to find just the best elixirs.” He looked up and closed his eyes as if in a dream. “Some nights I thought I would perish with all those potions running rapidly in my veins... other nights I knew I had found the best drugs to cause hallucinations, or to cause such exciting sexual fantasies.

“But it was all for one true purpose, Lucious. The drugs, the medications, all of it to serve one purpose and that was to help you find a cure. To help you to break those chains so you can be free!” His eyes returned to look at me.

“I-impossible!” I looked at him, feeling a shiver run down my spine.

“No,” he cut in. “Nothing is impossible, I do know that now. Just like it's still quite possible for a vampire to feel emotion as like the human feels, the vampire can and does... love.” His eyes wandered away from mine and his smile disappeared. “Though difficult as the centuries past by so quickly. A vampire conforms to their animosity, completely disregarding their human emotions.

“I always thought love was impossible.” His eyes returned to look into mine, a strange melancholy in them. “Until I saw you again, coming to me with the message that you had found him... and then your fight to retrieve him from Serena's grasp. And I wondered, if that same passion could ever arise in me.”

Suddenly, he began to kneel down slowly, the syringe in one hand as he placed his other hand upon the side of my cheek. “It was then, I realized that it had... it was always there, Lucious. From the day you walked in that old tavern and sat at that table, I knew that I could discover how to love again.”

I looked deep in his eyes, though covered by dark blue contact lenses, I could see the red in them like a shadow peering out at me. His true thoughts, his true emotions right there.

“And you leave me to die in flames? You call that love?” I whispered in anger.

“I call that separation, a test to myself really. Would I continue to feel this way after you are gone?” His lips drew closer to mine as he spoke softly.

“But as luck would have it—“

“Mikael saved you,” he interrupted. “Yes, I feared as much. Your connection with him is much more powerful than I could have ever imagined. So I turn to this.” He held up the syringe now and I spotted the deep emerald colored elixir awaiting to be plucked into my vein. “Your freedom, Lucious. This will relieve you of your connection with Serena once and for all.”

“It can't be.” I looked at the syringe in disbelief.

“It's so very true, Lucious. You see, your bond is made up of chemicals that come straight from her blood cells and attach themselves to yours. You shared blood, her poison still runs through your veins... the same as yours through her veins. This potion attempts to kill any foreign cells still attached to yours. And while she will still carry your chemical, this potion also acts as a shield to prevent her from sensing you. Absolute freedom,” he explained.

“What of my bond with Mikael?” I looked at him.

“Ah, that is one downside. This will kill all foreign cells, not just Serena's. You will no longer have your chains with Mikael.” He finished with a sly smile.

I froze. Despair shooting through my body and I realized that this was the last time I would sense Mikael so close to me again. There was no way to talk Chris out of this deed, he was sure to perform the impossible, to release me of my bond with them. One bond I so wished to be freed of the beginning and the bond between Mikael and I that I never wanted to be lost.

He began to fold back the cuff of my jeans until he exposed a clear spot of flesh right above my ankle. Immediately he looked back at me and smiled. “And you thought this was going in your arm, didn't you?”

At once, he pierced my skin with the tip of the needle and slowly inserted the cool metal into my skin and deep into my vein. It wasn't long until I could feel the liquid slowly drain into me, working its way through my veins, closing in on each one of those chemicals he spoke of until the connection between Mikael and I began to fade away.

“Can't lose a drop.” He smiled and looked at me.

My eyes opened wide as I gradually felt our bond disappear. As Chris worked to explain his potion to me, the entire time I could feel Mikael and Serena approaching quick. However, now their existence became less and less until the entire elixir was coursing through me and I began to feel utterly alone. Knelt there struggling to feel him again, in my head I could hear his voice calling out to me as that wall was being placed between us. That indestructible shield between us keeping us apart forever.

“Works too quickly, doesn't it?” Chris asked me as he withdrew the syringe from my ankle and returned the cuff to wrap around my shoe.

Immediately, he worked to unchain me from the wall and grabbed my hair lifting me up to my feet. I stood in a daze trying to fight the drug pulsating through me. It was still impossible in my mind that Chris broke our bond so easily and I fought to sense Mikael again. However, his existence faded quickly and I almost broke down and fell to my knees.

Chris held my underarms and pressed me firmly against the wall.

“Don't cave on me now, Lucious. Remember this is what you've always wanted.” He leaned in and whispered into my ear, “Come on, we're leaving.”

He escorted me out of the cold room.

*****

Serena and I approached the area where we felt Lucious was being held captive. Chris had to have taken him back to the downtown district somewhere inside one of those old, worn out buildings. I could sense his tension and almost hear the strange sound of chains clanging together as if he was struggling in them.

However, just as we drew closer to the area, an overwhelming sense came over me and his existence started to fade.

Serena was the first to touch her feet to the ground, and I followed only to find her looking around in a panic.

“Mikael, do you... feel that?” she asked as she looked up at the sky then around at the buildings.

I stopped in front of her only to feel the same shock. The sound of chains clinging together began to fade into my memory, and the radar-like connection I had with him had suddenly been blocked.

“It's Lucious...” I whispered quietly. “It's like our bond... has been broken?”

Serena turned to look at me. Her eyes wide, her lips dipped in sorrow. I stared out at her ready for anything. Yet just then she lifted her head and began to scream up into the sky.

I ran to her and caught her by the upper arms. “Serena, get a hold of yourself!”

“It's impossible, Mikael. He couldn't have.. he just couldn't,” she whimpered. “Our bond was eternal, a century old... how could he? How could he!”

I couldn't conceive how it was possible. Either Lucious was dead, which I highly doubted, or Chris must have found a way to break our blood bond. I was so used to feeling him around and knowing where he was at all times. As it was, I always felt at some ease knowing I could find him if I needed to. Now, all my hopes of finding him were starting fade.

“Serena.” I shook her out of her shock. “You do remember where you felt him last, right?”

She looked around until her eyes stopped at one particular building. Then she turned her head to look at me again. “Yes.”

“Let's go there. Maybe he's still there,” I said in hopes I was correct.