The next two days were surprisingly calm for Ekaterina, as the preparations for school were underway. Valentina regularly checked in with Ekaterina to ensure Ekaterina didn't have any second thoughts, and the concern she showed made Ekaterina subconsciously happy.

'Is this how a family feels?' It reminded her of Ms. Gracey, but where Ms. Gracey couldn't show too much love to one person, but Valentina's attention was either on Sabine, Eliana, or herself solely.

"I'm bored..." Selene lay on Ekaterina's bed, in an over-sized shirt, her cheeks puffed up in dissatisfaction. While Sabine got along well with Selene from what Ekaterina could tell, Selene seemed to enjoy Ekaterina's presence.

"Didn't Sabine drag you off my bed so many times already?" Ekaterina asked while sitting at a desk, reading a book Selene had advised her to flip through.

"It's not my fault she's all hot and bothered for her sister..." Selene spoke glumly, then flipped on to her back down and stared at Ekaterina.

"Why do vampires not act old? Like mature? I'm pretty sure I was more mature when I was human, wasn't I?" Ekaterina asked Selene, who was nominally her teacher.

"Humans are forced to mature because their time is finite. If I had to remain serious and steadfast for the past eight thousand years, I personally would be glad if someone killed me." Selene then looked at Ekaterina and squinted.

"And you'll find comparisons often make your mood worse. Humans are humans, and vampires are vampires." Selene's silver eyes held a hint of seriousness, but then it disappeared, leaving behind her usual casual demeanor.

"I know, I know, I was just curious." Ekaterina mumbled as she sunk her head back into the book. Selene was very adamant about humans being humans, but not in the way one would expect.

She didn't seem to despise them much. Instead, it was a kind of indifference, as if no matter what transpired, humans would only be just that, humans.

"With the difference between vampires and humans already being as extreme as it is, you'll soon find yourself like me." Selene chuckled and groped around the bed for her tablet.

"Like you? Aren't demons vampires, too?" Ekaterina's question seemed to make Selene smile, then she raised two fingers and waved them slowly.

"You can consider a demon separate from the vampires, but also a part of the vampires. It's hard to explain. We are vampires, but we are also more." Selene's fingers twitched, and a small silvery moon shimmered above her fingers.

"I've lived for eight thousand years, and with my level of power, not very much can threaten me, and although we've cooled off in the recent ages, vampires are predators by nature." Selene flicked her finger, and the moon danced in the air and exploded into silvery magical photons that dispersed.

"Of course, I'm not saying I want something that can threaten me. That would be pure idiocy. It's just that as time passes, no matter what, the world will go on spinning, and so we simply do what we want." Selene then gestured to the door.

"Like Sabine eavesdropping at the door." With her words, a stiff Sabine was teleported in front of Selene, who stuck out her tongue in displeasure.

"Just come inside next time." While Selene seemed to be genuinely forgiving Sabine for a mistake, Ekaterina couldn't help but press her hand to her cheek in amazement.

"Even if Sabine stood at the entrance to the Starikov Estate, she could hear you if she just listened." Ekaterina's words made Selene puff her cheeks out, and Sabine finally took her emerald green eyes off of the impish thing that kept sneaking into Ekaterina's bed.

"How are you doing, Kat?" Sabine approached Ekaterina and asked, her eyes roaming her body, but not in any sexual way. She was just ensuring Selene didn't try to nibble on her sister.

"I'm fine, I've just been reading. What about you? Did you already pack?" Ekaterina's question made Sabine smile and poke her forehead gently.

"We don't really travel with clothes, we just buy clothes when we arrive at our destination or have it delivered." Sabine glanced at the book and then shook her head.

Ekaterina could be hailed as a prodigy in magic, and she doubted even the Demi had someone as adept with magic as Ekaterina, as Eliana seemed to bypass the process and achieve the result with little to no effort.

Christabel wasn't a demon, nor did she have the exaggeratedly absurd magical energy reserves that defined the demons, but she had more than enough magic to keep Eliana in reality.

"Dad is working..." Sabine sat beside Ekaterina and crossed her legs, propping her head up with her head full of long black hair framing her caramel colored skin with a faint smile adorning her lips.

"Ugh, I think I'll be anywhere but here. The lonely person in me is gonna make my eyes water." Selene rolled around in the bed and then sat up with bright silvery eyes that only shone so brightly when she came up with a mischievous idea.

"How about I join you two? I think I'm bigger than you both as an adult. My cup is about C or D..." While Selene said something that made Ekaterina's jaw drop in shock, Sabine quickly moved at a speed that seemingly rendered everything still, besides the still smirking Selene who vanished in front of her eyes.

"Too slow!" Selene's movement wasn't teleportation. Her speed was so fast, and her movement seemed to be teleportation at short distances.

"I'm just joking. Don't try to unscrew my head, please?" Selene ran to Ekaterina and then climbed on to her lap and shrunk her head like an ostrich in Ekaterina's chest.

"She must really like you if she's offered to sleep with you... Don't be fooled, Selene is an eight thousand year old v-" Before she could finish, Sabine was tied up with silvery strings, and tossed on to the bed in a strange position, with Selene riding on top of her in her adult form.

"Do you want to test your claim? I've been told I'm very good with my tongue..." Selene licked her lips, and her tongue seemed to slither like a serpent's before disappearing back between her cherry red lips.

Ekaterina sighed, stood up, and walked over and picked Selene off of Sabine, placing her back on her lap, while Selene cooperated and returned to her younger form.

"Can you free Sabine, please? She looks like she's about to die from embarrassment." While Ekaterina sounded tired, she didn't think she could get tired of seeing Sabine's behind wringling in the air as she struggled to move.

"Ptuh! Why did you put it in my mouth, too!? Selene, you hag!" Sabine complained, wiping the saliva from her lips with a look of discontent.

"You were talking nonsense! If you talk nonsense again, I'm going to launch you across the continent by hand." As if someone would doubt her claim, Selene flexed her arm and raised her chin proudly.

"I am very strong!" While Sabine glared at Selene before reluctantly sitting beside Ekaterina once again with noticeably glaring eyes, Ekaterina clapped her hands softly and returned to reading.

In truth, no matter what was said or done, Sabine and Selene were close friends, and while Ekaterina thought vampires put demons on a pedestal, in day to day affairs, vampires and demons interacted freely.

"Sabine is an old cow eating fresh grass..." Selene's snicker and Sabine's angry retorts came from time to time, and Ekaterina couldn't help but marvel at Selene's remarks from time to time.

"Sabine is an old crone who lived with the dinosaurs..." Selene's joy was brought by Sabine's anger towards her, and Sabine's happiness arrived when Selene was deflated in their arguements.

Eliana was accompanying Christabel on her adventures around the estate, and Ekaterina didn't have the heart to ask Eliana to stay and learn history with her.

She could see Eliana's happiness when Christabel came in the morning to bring her along, and seeing her smile, not the mocking and playful ones she often showed, but an actual smile, made Ekaterina happy.

Flipping the page, Ekaterina hummed softly in thought. Witches existed, and vampires didn't seem to predate them, and witches didn't seem to really make it into recorded vampire knowledge.

Put in Selene's words, 'Why should we document something like them?'. Through asking Selene, although she was very clear on expressing her displeasure, she answered to the best of her ability.

Vampires weren't afraid of witches in a straight on clash, but witches could secretly cast curses and make a vampire downright miserable.

Faced with an enemy who would often run at the first sign of trouble and who also held vicious methods and liked to avenge slights, vampires just avoided them altogether.

Apparently, a vampire had been unlucky enough to be cursed and spent an entire year as a bird due to a curse, and while Selene pretended not to know, she'd laughed back then.

"All in all, the moral of the story is to make sure you swat them hard the first time so they can't pester you afterward." While Selene was strong enough to view everything as beneath her, Ekaterina certainly wasn't.

Well, Ekaterina felt she could make a pretty cute bird with all black feathers and red eyes. Imagining it actually made Ekaterina feel a sense of mirth.

"Meal time." Eliana skipped into the room, opening the door and speaking softly, then she left with hurriedly receding footsteps to return to Christabel.

"She seems to enjoy having a mother... Well, I have no problems with it. She's cute and obedient." Sabine crossed her arms and spoke with a smile while Ekaterina also smiled.

"She's happy, so I am too?" Ekaterina could only assume this was how the elder out of twins felt, proud and happy for the younger one when they were happy?

While Ekaterina was reading, Sabine looked at her side profile and smiled, running her finger along Ekaterina's neck and tracing her fingertips along Ekaterina's impossibly perfect skin.

"We should eat. Mom is very strict about family dinners, remember?" Sabine's smiling face met her own almost grimacing face as she recalled the situation.

If Ekaterina had known meal time meant Christabel cooked, she wouldn't have delayed half an hour because by the time she got there, there wasn't much left for her.

Christabel had saved her a plate, but the amount was just enough to keep Ekaterina wanting more of whatever she bit into.

Now, Ekaterina was never the last to the table. When Ekaterina and Sabine left the room, Selene clambered on to Ekaterina's back and was carried downstairs by piggyback.

"Kat, Sab, Eli, Selene." Valentina greeted everyone with a smile, running a hand through her blonde hair and quickly pecking Christabel on the lips, then pulling away with a light giggle.

"Christa, I had a very interesting day..." Despite Valentina's elegant steps and perfectly maintained manners, she was the first to the table, pulling out Christabel's chair and then pushing her chair in after she took a seat.

"I talked to the Wells and Harrisons, they'll send their children to school too." Valentina smiled at Sabine, who groaned and slumped in her seat slightly.

"Thea is a little monster!" Recalling the seemingly angelic appearance of Thea, despite her conflicting personality was enough to make Sabine slump in defeat.

"Thea isn't a monster, Sab. She just enjoys making you angry." Valentina smiled faintly as Sabine's expression shifted from shocked to displeased and laughed lightly.

"Damien and Inara have three children, and they're sending the younger two to school, and the older one too?" Christabel asked Valentina, who nodded with a smile.

"Well, the world right now is kind of chaotic. The Central Continent of Eliria and most of its witches are stuck expending energy to resist Safiya's magic." Valentina then shifted her attention to Sabine and Ekaterina.

"We won't be staying in the Oceanic Dominion State's mainland, but we will fly over and spend a few days." Sabine grumbled but didn't seem too phased by it, but Eliana's face fell.

"If you want to see Christabel, just let me know, and I'll teleport you over." Selene spoke after swallowing a mouthful of chicken, nudging Eliana's leg with her foot.

"Oh, it's okay, Eliana." Christabel got up and came around the table, hugging Eliana into her arms and consoling her gently, wearing her gentle smile, but everyone could feel her sadness at seeing Eliana's expression.

While Christabel accompanied Eliana to calm down, the meal continued, this time in a slightly more somber mood, but then Christabel returned with a visibly brighter Eliana.

"Val, we'll stay with them, okay?" Christabel's words made Valentina pause, but then she nodded and continued eating, but she couldn't quite restrain the smile that crept on to her face.

...

A handsome man with deathly pale skin and unkempt hair lay on a cold concrete floor, inside of a circle drawn in symbols no one could decipher, unmoving.

"The amount of magic we can take is lessened due to his thirst. Should we feed him-?" Several people stood in an underground chamber, and someone asked in a low tone, but a look of disgust from a person casting a spell made the speaker's words trail off.

"So what? It doesn't matter what happens to him, now that we've found a workable spell, as long as we can infect a vampire, they'll be stuck like he is, unable to move, deprived of all their senses, locked in their own mind." Another person looked at the vampire nearest to them and scoffed.

"Disgusting creatures, if not for the fact we don't want to alert those demons, I'd have already disposed of them all!" One of the men snorted, and the group left the underground room.

With their departure, silence returned to the chamber, and darkness once again fell on dozens of vampires, each laying motionless inside a circle made of symbols.

Thea Wells