The night, like most nights near the Balkan coast, was cold, dark and quite damp. Sleety rain spattered against the leaded windows of the Skolnikov’s family keep, ignored by all inhabitants. Gregor Skolnikov sat quite still in his worn leather chair regarded his sister, Anja, with well contained anger. She leaned against the mantelpiece of the study’s inadequate fireplace and regarded him cooly. Coolness was all she had for him since he had returned from his recent trip to Budapest.

"So why tell me?" he asked quietly

Anja shrugged, a motion he found quite artless and, therefore, insulting. "To annoy you." she admitted.

"Well done." Gregor sighed. "Until this point you had been merely irritating."

Anja looked in the mirror over the fireplace and, indirectly, at him. "Is that all? I suppose I hadn’t been trying hard enough."

"From what gossip reached me from the town, you’ve been trying quite hard enough." he muttered. "With plenty of people."

Anja smiled, hard and vicious. "So you did hear about that. I wondered."

"Yes, I’ve heard!" Gregor snapped. Anja raised an eyebrow. It seemed she was finally breaking down the inhuman resolve that had possessed her brother since the previous summer. He pushed his own chair aside and angrily moved towards her. "I’ve heard that you’ve managed to lie with almost every willing human in the district, and possibly a few who weren’t. I’ve heard that you like to whip men, be whipped, drink their blood, dally with your horse when you lacked any other partner and sometimes even when you didn’t. Yes, I’ve heard!"

Anja laughed, angering Gregor even more. "That’s not entirely true, but close enough. So you do have blood in your veins after all."

"Quite a lot, actually." Gregor replied darkly. Anja looked at him quizzically, but no explanation was forthcoming. "So what am I supposed to do about the fact that you’re carrying some maggot sired by a servant?"

"Nothing, Grisha, I just wanted to let you know. I’ll take care of it. If you wanted to do something about Slovna, well, that’s your problem." The direct look she gave him made it clear that she anticipated any action her brother would take. "But won’t you miss him, too?" She asked lightly.

Gregor’s knuckles whitened with the effort to keep his voice even and calm. "No, I won’t. I don’t know why you persist with that idea."

Anja’s eyes were wide with feigned guile. "I could have sworn I saw you, well," Another artless shrug. "I must have been mistaken."

Gregor regarded Anja with a direct stare of his own. "You weren’t, but that was some years ago. I’ve outgrown him, as should you."

"I suppose I don’t have a choice, now." she sighed dramatically.

"You’ll get over him. There are others." Gregor pointed out.

"Oh, but you’re the only one for me, Grisha." Anja gushed, grabbing her brother’s cool hand.

"That’s quite enough of that." Gregor muttered darkly, pulling his hand free. He had thought that his change in state might have changed what existed between him and his sister, but things were more usual than ever. He wasn’t disappointed, merely surprised. His Sire had told him that many mortal bonds would be broken, and Gregor assumed that the strange relationship with his sister would be one of them.

"Why?" Anja demanded, suddenly angry, herself. "Since last summer, you’ve been an absolutely cold bastard. I mean, you were before, but now you’re being a cold-hearted bastard to me and you’re spending all that time with Ivenyev, who strikes me as a man of limited attraction, and you won’t talk to me, and I don’t like that!"

Gregor stared at her in silence for a moment. "Are you done?"

Anja scowled and looked away. She shrugged and nodded. "I miss you." She admitted quietly. "You’re the only one who matters anything, the only one I love and you’re so far away, even when you’re here." She sighed, genuinely this time. "I suppose it’s because you have to work. All I’ve got to amuse myself is terrifying the tenants and wonder who you’re going to marry me off to."

"Anja." Gregor rubbed his eyes in a familiar gesture of weariness. "I wasn’t planning to marry you off to anyone you didn’t already like. Admittedly, now it could be a little more difficult -"

"Oh, don’t worry about that." Anja interrupted. "I told you I’d take care of it, and I will. I’m not quite as stupid as you think, brother dear. I know a few things."

"Scant relief. If you’d known a little more, you woudn’t be pregnant now."

Anja’s eyes flashed anger. "Well, it’s surprising I’ve not yet carried a bastard by my own brother by now, isn’t it?"

Gregor simply frowned at his sister. They both knew there was no need to dignify that statement with a response. "Just go take care of the matter," he said, with a wave of his hand. He turned then from Anja, effectively dismissing her.

Anja burned. The Gregor of old would have been filled with fury at the thought of another man’s seed within her. This man standing before her gave the air of one who couldn’t care less. What, she thought, has happened to him to make him like this?

Gregor, his attention seemingly occupied by the ledger on his desk, heard a hiss of breath from his sister. With his newly enhanced senses, he easily heard her muttered comment. As she passed from the room, slamming the heavy ash door as she went, a new coldness settled over Gregor’s heart.

"Fine," she had whispered. "I don’t care about you, either."