Settled...

I'm working on Blood Angel with the subheading Franz, where Léonidès seduces the young nobleman into his lifestyle...well, death-style. What Léon doesn't understand is, once Franz joins him as a vampire, all hypocrisy about himself is stripped away. Franz had superb manners and can still affect them, but they hid his quiet cruelty and selfishness, and that all comes to the fore. While he is subordinate to Léon, he cannot be controlled, and his turning causes a lot of trouble. My guess is it will wind up between 22,000 and 25,000 words for this part.

The second part with be 1871, where Léon, now caught in buyer's remorse, seeks out Gabrielle to see if she's willing to swap her subordinate BA with his. She made her mistake with Dmitriy, in Moscow sixty years earlier. She was attracted to him and turned him only to find out he was in the closet. She keeps him around to torment for fooling her.

Léon doesn't trust his sister to honor the swap, but she is stronger than he and far more cruel, so she might be able to tame Franz. It would also help make the Oyim, the vampire world's overlords, a bit happier. They had put out an edict, thanks to Gabrielle's mistake with Dmitriy, that no BA may be turned without their approval. Léon violated that and is in deep shit over it.

But it's kind of understandable, on his part. Léon seeing Franz being tender with his horse when it's been wounded would confuse anyone into thinking he was a nice person. And he was seriously wounded. But caring for an animal is no real indication for how they view other humans. I've known a few who've hated people and saved all their concern for dogs, cats, horses, you name it. The way the world's been going, I'm beginning to think that's the best way to be.