I'd been waiting for the scene at the beginning of the chapter, and you did it very very well. The fact that he almost gives in, and that Tatiana understands immediately and helps him calm down, all added to the characters and the story. I really enjoyed that.

I find the subplot with Ben a little bit confusing, however. He escaped in an earlier chapter, but then he appeared in the conference with the Vampires? And now he's escaped again and killed his teacher; I am likely missing something but it seems rather convoluted to me.

I feel really torn about this chapter. On the one hand, I am really getting to like Tatiana and Jack's characters. I love Tatiana's combination of rebelliousness against the full Vampires with her acceptance of the rules of the Dhampir; it creates an interesting parallel between herself and Xavier, who both want to be part of both worlds. I loved that Xavier found the vial, and I really like that there's more to the relationship between Tatiana and Jack than was let on at first, or than either of them will admit.

Quite a few things confused me re: the Vampires, however. I guess something felt off about the relative ages of Lazarus, Edward, Ophelia, Alex, and Tatiana. It's further complicated by immortality, of course, but for whatever reason I had pegged Lazarus as roughly Xavier's age/experience (in part because he was a sort of impudent and immature character and in part because the two fought on at least reasonably equal terms) whereas if he's forced Ophelia into marrying him, it seems as though he must be rather older? In any case, it confused me quite a bit.

Finally, I really did not know how to feel about the revelations about Ally in this chapter. I think I have two completely independent problems with them; the first is with regards to the plot and the second is with regards to the message that it sends. In the first case, I wasn't sure what her backstory did to deepen her character or make it more interesting; it was just this thing, and because she's still a human character and as such has a certain vibrancy and innocence, it almost made the story less significant. I think that you could rework just this chapter and the telling of the story to make it work better -- perhaps she /had/ wanted to be a vampire/dhampir but confronting the reality forces her to realize the advantages of being human -- but I felt like the way you told it lost some of its significance. Second is that, since it had so relatively little power in my opinion, it seemed to trivialize what I feel (and I hope you feel as well) is a very serious psychiatric issue when it comes down to it. Don't take this the wrong way: I have had friends (and I have been there as well) for which it is exactly as you describe in the story -- physicalizing emotional pain was the only way they/we could get through the day. But that was a symptom of an underlying inability to deal with the emotional pain, and since you didn't reference the underlying depression at all (and instead compared it to a cigarette addiction, which does not necessarily imply underlying psychological concerns), it again marginalizes and normalizes the symptom in a way I found troubling. Like I said earlier, changing not the story but the way you have Ally tell the story would fix this entirely. It is also entirely possible that details will arise in later chapters that will have me eating my words. In general you have done such a good job with this story that I look forward to that eventuality.

I'm getting to like Tatiana's character more as time goes by; it's nice to see that she has a softer side as well as her harsh exterior. I enjoyed the beginning of this chapter, as much because developing Doctor Pale as a real character and not a caricature was nice -- and it showed the basic inaccuracies in the main character's portrayal of him up to this point.

I also like the bit of development with Ally. I find it strange that although she seems so central a character I feel like I know her less than most of the others; I think you do a more effective job of characterizing Doctor Pale in the beginning of this chapter than you have of Ally so far. I don't know if it's just that there has been a lot of time spent talking about her and not much spent talking with her, or if it's that her character is more subtle; either one could explain this. It's nice to see that Xavier and Ally get along, but something seems miraculously fast (and again, that might just be narrative causality) not just on Xavier's part but also Ally's. Perhaps going more into her character (and why she does or does not want to become a Dhampir) would help with that as well.

This chapter moves much faster than the previous one; and not just because it's shorter (that would be trivial). I felt like you really got into your groove here; your voice is still wonderfully strong, but with a plot moving elements ahead forcefully it pulls the reader into the story even more effectively.

You do a good job at the beginning of showing Xavier's lust for the hunt -- how he almost slips into his baser motivations. It peeks into the story again later, just after Ally goes to take a bath, but running the risk of pushing it over the edge I would have liked a little bit more of it throughout; just little implications and insinuations of it so that the reader doesn't forget. It almost felt like as soon as he realized who she was, his lust was gone, replaced by the purer desire to save her. And while in terms of plot I would not even suggest changing his actions, showing that the temptation still exists, and is in fact still strong, would add to the tension of the scene in my opinion, and the complexity of the characters.

I really like your use of imagery, and I love the fact that you're not afraid to write a longer chapter. You've created a vivid world here, and you've done a very good job of doing so subtly through the voice of your narrator and smaller details of the surroundings without that much straight-out information dumping.

I did, however, find the very beginning a little bit jarring. That's because you start out almost perfectly -- the internal monologue about Death does set the tone and gives personality to the bitter narrator, and so I loved the first paragraph, but by the second through fourth paragraphs, which were releasing details of the world at a fairly rapid pace, I was falling out of the prose and into just trying to keep all of the facts straight. I'm going to use a basically unimportant example because I think it's indicative of the trend: your use, and definition, of the word Dhampir. Would it be possible to let the readers pick up the specifics of the difference between Dhampirs and Vampires as the story progresses? Or would it even be possible to simply call him and his compatriots half-Vampires? Either one would make the chapter a little bit less top-heavy, and would allow readers to immerse themselves in your world (which you do a very nice job of creating) as they picked up the meticulous specifics.

Sorry, i'm not feelin' it...

Once again, the writing style fits this story like a glove. It really amazes me how you wrote it so well in a way that this type of story is not normally written. Very well done with that. Also, I find that the actual things that you do write have a certain poetic appeal to them. I love it because it makes reading this story so easy and it puts the flow on a whole other level. Furthermore, I don't think I mentioned this before but the pace is well done. It's not too fast and not too slow either. Nicely done.

I really like the main characters voice in this chapter. It speaks so well and it makes the whole story flow. Normally, for a story like this one would see it written in third person for it to be written well but you pulled it off in first. The only thing is that I noticed that there are some formatting errors. It's not biggie but I just looked back at the other two chapters and I noticed that there's a few mistakes. For example:

"Tat glared at him and turned the radio off. “Let him sleep, Jack!” She hissed."

There should be a new paragraph started as soon as she starts speaking. It's not really a big deal because it doesn't effect the reading but I'm just a stickler for small details. Anyways, again, nicely done.

Ooh, well I like the plot so far. It's descriptive without giving too much away. I'm not even sure where this is going yet so that's a really good thing. Also, the characterization is developing very nicely. I can already see the true personalities of each of them. Good job.

I loved the beginning of this because it just drew the reader in right away. Especially that first paragraph. It flowed so well. Also, the word choice was perfect. It had that sophisticated complexity to it but with a certain touch of your own writing style. Nicely done.