Welcome to Gaia! ::

Gabriel began to cry along with his mother, the tone of her voice making him all the more scared. One final image flashed into Layna's mind before Gabriel's eyes returned to their platinum hue, the image of Daiguren's tail and swords ripping through Ceon's arms and cutting his jaw.

Layna whimpered softly before she quickly stood up, wiping the tears from her face with her free hand. She walked toward the door, and twisted the knob as she slid the deadbolt back. She opened it, and gasped loudly. "Ma...Maximilian!" How long had it been since she had seen this vampire? Why was he here?

"Hello Layna. I went into hiding for some time. The vampires have been looking for me. Don't worry though, they did not follow me here I made sure of that." Some blood could be seen on his trenchcoat that was not his own. "I got a hold of some old lycan contacts and found your address. Just thought I'd stop by and make sure an old friend was okay."

Ceon crept back into the apartment through the window, wanting to surprise Layna. He grimaced slightly as he got into the living room as he grasped his arm, where two large gashes from Daiguren's swords and a giant hole from Daiguren's tail could be found bleeding on his left bicep. His mouth was filled with his own blood as well as Daiguren's, and the bottom of his jaw was cut slightly. But he didn't care. He was back home now. He came up behind Layna and hugged her tightly against him, then whispered, "Guess who." Ceon then looked up and was surprised to see Maximilian at their apartment.

Layna gasped, nearly swiping at the arms that wound tightly around her. She felt tears welling up in her eyes. "Now I can beat the crap out of you for leaving..." She growled, staring down at the wood floor, whimpering softly. But she was overly relieved.

She knew he was right almost immediately. "You don't realize how relieved I am..." She whispered. "How relieved the both of us are..." She turned and hugged Ceon back gently. "Never do that again..."

"I know, love. I know. I won't be leaving for a long time." Ceon leaned close and whispered, "We'll discuss more later. For now, we should catch up on things with Max. Ceon then turned around and headed to the kitchen, where he began cleaning his gashes. "So Max, where have you been these past few months?"

"In hiding," he said, taking his gaze off of the lycan child, "as I told Layna, the vampires have been tracking me insatiably for quite some time." He slipped out a rolled up damaged piece of paper from another pocket and tossed it to Ceon. "It's a wanted poster I found posted up in Coven territory. Yeah it was stupid of me to go there, but that's the last place they'd expect to look for me. They've got a quarter million going for my head." He grinned slightly, almost taking it as a compliment. "I bet he'll grow up to be a strong lycan and kill many of my heathen brothers," Maximilian said responding to Layna. He smiled at the kid through under his mask.

(edit after reading Midnight's post)