As the three passed through the perimeter, Nzinga and Micheal fell in behind them. The circle reformed, closing with practiced ease as the two operatives stalked behind the family.

Troy bowed his head respectfully to Kali, a gesture quickly copied by his family. Raising his head, Troy met Cesare's eyes. “I wanted to thank you for keeping my son alive.” His hand rested on Blaez’s shoulder. “He would've died without you. Slaughtered by that thing rather than forfeit a match he should have died in.” Sorrow rolled over the man’s eyes, his hand tightening on his son. “That he didn’t think he could come to us when he needed, is my shame. That he thought we’d rather see him die rather than walk away from a fight he couldn’t win, is our sin.”

Troy settled his eyes on his son. “No matter what Blaez does, he’s our son. That fact outweighs anything and everything. There’s nothing he could do, nothing that could be done to him, that would make us turn our back on him.” Sighing, Troy straightened as he faced Cesare. “We owe you for saving our boys life. The others won’t hear about your gift from us.”

Cesare nodded, not in thanks but in understanding. The man had driven his son away, it was only by fortunes grace Blaez wasn’t dead. Cesare didn’t know how it had gone down between them, but it was bad enough for Blaez to decide he’d rather die than let them down. It was hard to be a failure, especially when your used to being a winner. It hadn’t been his parents that had made him risk his life, the boy had decided on his own that he’d rather die than let them down.

“Will you keep training me?” Blaez asked, eyes never leaving Cesare.

“Why would I?” Cesare met the desperate hope in the werewolves with grim truth. “Training you brought me closer to my goals. It broke you from the Thagirion and advanced my reputation with the student body. I got everything I needed from our arrangement.”

Troy locked himself down, face going neutral, fingers tightening on his son’s shoulder. He wanted to take control of the negotiation and secure this chance for his son. In that small gesture Cesare found all the answer he needed on how important this was to the werewolves.

This wasn’t who Blaez would fuck or marry, not just another fight to win and walk away from. It wasn’t even his education or career. This was a chance for greatness, for Blaez to get something denied his ancestors. A way to step above and beyond the other werewolves and become something more, to reclaim a part of a heritage taken from them.

Taking a deep breath, Blaez let it out slowly, eyes never wavering from Cesare. A feeling of gravity surrounded the boy, his life turning on the axis of Cesare's words. “I wouldn’t have made it out of there without you. When I was down with nothing and no one, you came through for me. I know you had your reasons, but that doesn’t change anything for me. The only thing that matters is when I needed someone, you had my back.” Swallowing, the boy steeled himself, before continuing, “I don’t have anything. My pack left me, my friends walked away, any influence or power I had is already yours.” Lifting his hand, he clenched his fist, knuckles cracking under the force. “All I have is meat, fury, and blood. It’s not much, but it’s yours.”

Cesare measured the boy as the others watched in silence. “As long as I train you.” He laid bare the abortion of an offer. Loyalty paid for was worthless, a mercenary was only ever loyal to wallet. The loyalty you bought was as strong as the paper it was written on.

“No. You’ve earned my loyalty. You’re the only friend I have, it’s a shit thing since you hate my guts, but you’ve done more for me than any friend I’ve had. No matter what you decide. I got your back,” Blaez said, fist lowering, the scarred mockery of a face grim and resolute.

Cesare didn’t like the boy, there was too much blood under the bridge for Cesare to cross, but that didn’t mean he was blind. Blaez was a werewolf, strong, determined, scarred by life, and desperate to find something to believe in. Cesare had broken his life and scattered it to the winds, mangled his body and flayed his heart.

A human would hate Cesare for taking everything from him. The pain and humiliation Cesare burned into their bones would make them enemies for life, but Blaez wasn’t human. Whether he knew it or not, the wolf was still a part of his soul. Wolves expected their leaders to hurt them, train them, to be better than them. Most times it was done with gentle force, but if the wolf got out of hand, it could be brutal and bloody. Blaez didn’t hate Cesare for breaking him, he respected him for being stronger.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to give you the same time, but if you show up, I’ll see what I can do for you.” Boundless, triumphant hope rushed into the family’s eyes.

Ravenous need reshaped their faces into feral things. As one, they bowed low, a profoundness marked the gesture, turning it into something tainted with sacredness. They’d won what they'd come for, taking their kill, they got the fuck out before Cesare changed his mind.

“Do you really think he’ll be loyal?” Kali asked, eyes following the retreating backs of the werewolves.

“As long as they get what they want or think they’ll get it.” Cesare shrugged. “They’re no different than anyone else. They'll fight for me as long they get what they want, when I stumble, they'll be the first with their fangs around my throat.”

Silence gripped the women at his words, it was uncomfortably close to their own designs. He was an asset. If that changed, all that protective fury would bleed out, leaving him alone again.

“Dinner?” Kali asked, already pulling him lightly toward the trail to Vagabonds Exile.

The trees pulled in around them, the dim, clouded sky, adding shadows were sunlight usually reigned with impunity. A wind slid between the trees, caressing along the skin with cruel, icy fingers, it was the kind of day Cesare loved. Gloomy and sad, sorrow and despair around every corner, it was a suicide kind of day. It spoke to those that knew happiness was only ever a fading blush quickly replaced by the pallor of death.

Anastasia and Kali kept up a quiet conversation. Being separated for long stretches made the times they spent together a frantic effort to update the other on their lives. Kali focused on the incidents that plagued the school while Anastasia was intent on getting updates about friends that had stayed home instead of coming to Primrose.

Alexandra stayed close to Cesare's side and one step behind, eyes sweeping over the harem. Careful and watchful, the vampire was from hilt to tip on Cesare’s side. Everyone knew if it came down to a blood bath, the vampire would be standing beside him. He was the only thing that held her to this cast of misfits.

Elizabeth entered the conversation between the two akatharton’s spottily, and only when it centered on school. The eternal outsider, tolerated because she was too powerful to be discarded. There was some kind of relationship between Kali and Elizabeth, one Cesare made a point to steer clear of. Kali was a voracious sexual predator, and Elizabeth preferred the fairer sex, it added up to something Cesare didn’t want to know.

The trail dead ended at a crooked sign nailed to a tree, weather beaten white with a growth of green moss climbing up one side, ‘Vagabonds Exile’ was carved into the long dead wood. It hadn't changed since the last time Kali brought him.

There was nothing to tie the collection of cast offs homes together. Each a fragment of an extinguished culture, bits of rotting flesh hanging on long after the body had decomposed into history. The end of the road before the abyss takes them, the places that dotted the street were last stands, each monument to something lost beyond saving, a love betrayed by a world that giggled at the slaughter. And it was that despair that tied the unwanted together. Each had a past of glory that was long gone, looking into a future dominated by the slow rot of time.

Standing off to the side was a leather, canvas, and wood yurt, the round home draped in garishly colored blankets of red, blue, and yellow. The sour smell of fermenting milk filled the air from bags dangling outside the doorway. Its squat structure looked too short for anyone to stand in, but the yurt went deep into the ground, earth shielding it from summer and winter.

Rubbing shoulders with the yurt was a mound of grass twice as high, sprawling out, its gentle incline was unbroken grass spotted with grass. A propped open door showed an expansive hall of benches and sunlit wood. A fragment from the age of long boats and raping along the coasts. The Viking long house had enough space for a fist of families related by blood. A fortress equal to a castle, the earths blessings keeping it livable in any weather, protecting it from everything short of an army.

Kali stopped outside a beautiful Japanese styled fence. The slates came up to his shoulder, a wooden mesh continuing a good three more feet. Through the delicate wooden lattice, Cesare peeked into the fantastically shaped garden. Taking the red stick handing next to it, Nzinga gave the hanging black bell a tap, a subdued ring sounding through the air.

Opening the door, a small man dressed in robes of black bowed deeply to Kali. “You do my house honor, Lady Kali.”

Nzinga slipped her shoes off before stepping onto the stone path, half the harem spilled into the yard behind her. Kali popped her shoes off with a practiced gesture born of long experience.

Cesare grimaced as he pushed his shoes off, pink toes peeking out of the worn holes in his socks. Sighing, he looked into Kali's small smile. Pulling her socks off, she tucked them into her shoes. Grinning, Cesare copied her, tucking his tattered socks into his shiny boots.

It meant … a lot. Cesare had never fit in. Kali didn't need to understand what it was like, she knew he’d be embarrassed and rather than offer up a poisoned platitude, she’d lowered herself to his level. She’d included him, that simple action meant more to him than all the sweaty sex she could give him.

Kali's eyes softened, a piece of who he was fitting into place in her mind. “No one will make fun of you when you’re with me.” The promise was soaked in savagery; the oath of a creature that had walked the earth and extinguished races. It wasn't ego or pride, it was simply fact.

The others watched, caustic pity swimming in their eyes. Pity stripped its victims of who they were, making them less than a person. It was as unwelcome as the jeers and jokes that hounded the unwanted.

His rage sparked to life. He didn’t need their pity, there was no part of his life worth it. He’d fought and survived while others died, sold parts of himself in the game of one more day. Carved into his flesh to feed the monsters that stalked him, watched as darkness spread over his soul like blessed cancer. He wasn’t proud of how he’d lived, but he’d never given up.

Taking Kali's hand, Cesare turned away from the others. She didn’t understand, maybe she didn’t get him at all. But she pitied nothing under the moons glory, she was from a time of tooth and claw, soft emotions were unworthy of her.

Winding through a garden born of love, the weathered gray flag stones were swept clear as black glass. Green flowed over the land, shades moving into each other as the eye moved from plant to plant. Far from being overgrown, each feature was a piece of art fitting perfectly with its brothers. A cherry blossom tree bent sadly forward, pink blossoms drifting like tears on the cold wind, flowers dusting the green grass around it. Solitary and alone, it breathed sorrow into the air, a living monument to immaculate despair.

A red maple bush added a splash of color, standing starkly in a sea of greens. The verdant greens washed up around it, seeming on the edge of conquering its life. It was out of place, and yet beautifully unbroken by its differentness.

Rough looking stones stacked up to head height, moss growing across them, the ravages of wind and rain stripping it with deep lines and flacking chips. Stripped of illusion, it was breathtakingly beautiful like the wrinkled face of an old soldier. A life lived in every wrinkle, leathery skin sucked dry by the deathly fingers of time, survival skinned of illusions, leaving only hardship endured.

Ferns ran leafy hands across the ground, whispering over the edges of the stone path. Low and forgotten, they lived a life below the eyes. He’d always seen them as little brothers. Brownish green, they blended into the dirt, hiding themselves from the world. Their rough leaves were too coarse for people, leaving a smear across the hand. Ugly and dirty, it was his kind of plant.

Cesare slowed his steps, enjoying the carefully sculpted landscape, but also for the interest in Elizabeth’s eyes. No doubt she’d been here before, but like any work of art, something new was birthed in your soul with every visit. The others looked around with interest and appreciation, but it was nothing compared to the love that warmed the Chthonic's brown eyes.

The man in black followed behind, far enough back to avoid intruding but close enough to help at the slightest word. Even the harem seemed to soften surrounded by the manifest life around them. Their relaxation born in the illusions of their green brothers. Everyone thought plants were peaceful, gentle things, living ideal lives. A conceit born of naivete. Plants lived desperate, scary lives, depending on water, sunlight, soil, and the most capricious of all, the kindness of the cruel gods that walked by them.

There was no peace in their lives, only survival and luck. Each a fighter that had clawed, fought, and worked there assess off every day to reach the sun. They’d been mangled, crippled, forced into the shape their tormentor desired. They lived desperate lives, uprooted and cast aside at a moment’s notice.