The reminder prompted Derek to stifle a chuckle of his own. Sofia gave him an innocent smile, though we all knew where she was going with this.
“It’s true,” she continued. “Lucas was a difficult vampire in his heyday, but after he died and came back, he changed, deep in his core. Derek and Vivienne have a better brother now than they did before. And my husband is absolutely fair in his assessment of you two, as well,” Sofia said, looking at us. “Your strong bond is something worthy of admiration.”
“Now we’re both blushing,” Tristan muttered.
“Oh, if you want, we can start telling them about all the times you two were absolute handfuls,” Mom shot back. “All the trouble you got yourselves into.”
“No need,” I replied dryly.
Dad scrunched his nose in his typical “If I had a penny for all the times they’ve given me white hairs” fashion. “I’m just glad you two stayed on Earth, where you were supposed to be, during the Hermessi episode.” He sighed, surprising both Tristan and me. I’d expected a different remark from him.
I gave Sofia and Derek an apologetic smile. “We wanted to help, you know.”
“You couldn’t have done anything. Don’t worry about it,” Derek said. “It was out of our hands from the very beginning. Honestly, I only hope that we never have to deal with that kind of enemy ever again.”
“Speaking of which, how is River feeling these days?” I asked Ben.
I knew the entire affair had taken its toll on her. She’d practically lost her entire family in the blink of an eye. Even though she’d been happy upon their return, I knew it couldn’t have been easy for her to cope with the flurry of emotions that came afterward, when all the dust had settled.
Tristan and I had been far from the conflict, focused on our tribal studies. Of course, we’d both been ready to return to The Shade at a moment’s notice, if needed. But Derek had made a good point just now. We wouldn’t have been able to help. Not against the Hermessi. But as soon as the fae had been resurrected, we’d come back to check on everyone. Needless to say the scene we’d returned to had been quite the shaker, emotionally speaking.
I’d never seen so many people laughing and crying at the same time, on that fateful day…
“She’s doing much better,” Ben replied. “She still has nightmares sometimes, you know. Waking up in the middle of the night, terrified that we’re all gone.”
“Hasn’t Corrine been able to help in any way?” Tristan asked. “Some potion or herbal remedy, perhaps?”
“She did offer her assistance,” Ben explained, a smile testing his lips. “But River wants the recovery to be as organic as possible.”
Rose sighed deeply. “She’s incredibly strong.”
“I, for one, can’t believe how she pulled through,” Sofia replied.
“The same could be said for you, actually,” I said. “I mean, you suffered quite the loss yourselves.”
Sofia and Derek exchanged glances before looking back at me. “I think we were too busy worrying about everyone, including the rest of our surviving family, to fully comprehend what we were dealing with in that moment. By the time Seeley revived all the fae, our mindsets changed, completely.”
“But enough about that nasty day,” Rose interjected. “Tell us, how was your Amazon trip? I heard you did another short one last month.”
I nodded enthusiastically, my brother already lighting up like a Fourth of July fireworks show. “We spent some time with the hybrid tribe. It was impressive,” I said.
“Oh, right, the human and werewolf tribe, near the pink water cave,” Derek said, a fascinated smile spreading across his face.
Somewhere to our right, Amane and Ridan had shown up, watching Amal as she finished checking the supply bags, before handing them over to Dmitri and Douma, who then carried them into the shuttle.
“Yes. The synergy there is unbelievable,” Tristan said. “The humans have not had any contact with civilization as we know it. They’re extremely isolated and reclusive. In some instances, they’ve been known to be quite hostile to outsiders. But it wasn’t the case with the werewolves. It took a few years for the whole pack to settle there, though.”
“How so?” Derek replied, genuinely intrigued.
“From what the werewolves told us, it started with one of their younglings. The pack had chosen a campsite of their own, a few miles north of the tribe. They didn’t want to be around cities and other settlements, preferring wilderness instead. So, one day, the cubs were out with an elder wolf, learning how to hunt. One thing led to another, a doe went deep into the jungle, and, before they knew it, the cub got lost.”
“Didn’t they track him?” Dad asked.
“They did, but they lost his trail at the river. The cub wandered for a while, too young and feeble to hunt or survive on his own. He was only six at the time, and he’d never been out on his own like that,” Tristan continued. “Eventually, he stumbled upon the human tribe. At first, the kid was understandably worried, so he kept his wolf form to himself. The tribespeople took him in, fed him, cared for him.”
“Until the next evening,” I added, “when the boy shifted into his wolf form.”
“That was the biggest surprise,” Tristan said, smiling as we both remembered the werewolf’s account of that experience. By the time we’d met him, he’d turned sixteen. “He’d worried the people might want to hunt him or kill him, but they didn’t. They kind of worshipped him, actually.”
He went on to tell them about how the pack eventually found the cub after a few more days, having been held back by some serious rainfall. The Amazonian tribespeople had welcomed them all with arms wide open, and they’d reached an incredible relationship, which, in turn, had led to a more complex society. With the wolves doing most of the hunting, the humans could focus more on gardening and crafts, upgrading their homes and establishing a small but still isolated settlement at the river’s bend.
“What are they like?” Derek asked. “The humans and the werewolves, now living together.”
“Peaceful, but definitely protective of their haven,” I said. “Tristan and I spent days studying them from afar, understanding their social relationships and customs before we engaged them; and even then, they were quite thorny at first. They cherish their little space, and they don’t want anyone disturbing it.”
“Speaking of pink water… Are there still unhatched eggs in there? You know, Shills and whatever else the Hermessi had planned to use against our people?” Derek asked.
“No. I mean, the eggs are there, but they’re covered in a thick layer of crystal,” I replied. “I reckon they’ve gone dormant since the ritual was stopped—the Hermessi no longer have the power to use them, so whatever is in them is harmless.”
“That aside, I’m not sure I asked, but why don’t you use Earth’s pink water to take you straight to Trexus-2?” Rose said, occasionally looking back at the shuttle.
I shook my head. “Not a good idea. We’ve already discussed this among ourselves, actually. We want to make our presence seen and heard from the very beginning with a new civilization. We can’t just show up there out of the blue. I mean, we could, but it would just scare the crap out of them.”
“Or worse, trigger a violent defensive reaction,” Tristan agreed. “If we go in via a more traditional route, they’ll have time to see us, to understand where we come from, in a way… to understand we’re foreigners.”
Derek nodded. “From there, we’ll have to rely on diplomacy in order to investigate and find the source of the day-walking protein. We’re assuming that the civilization on Trexus-2 represents the original carrier.”
“So you’ll definitely need to handle them with kid gloves,” Mom concluded, giving me another concerned look.
“We’ll be fine, mom,” I said.
Personally, I was itching to get on that shuttle already. My brother had packed a tablet and a couple of notebooks, just in case the tech failed. He was eager to take notes and draw sketches of the people there—to understand what they were like and what we shared in common as species.
In that sense, the two of us were incredibly alike. We were both adventurers, always open to see new places, to discover new worlds, especially in the Earthly Dimension. I was the Indiana Jones-type, though, while my brother was more of an observer.
But we all had the same objective in this small team, and the same respect toward blood—the very life force that kept us alive and strong. It was with this in mind that we were embarking on this voyage, aiming to convince the people of Trexus-2 to give it to us. The correct approach was crucial here, because we weren’t yet sure how much blood we’d need for Amal and Amane to develop a day-walking cure.
Much like GASP had done with our grandmother’s blood to revert vampires to humans, chances were we’d need enough to cover a few generations—or even a steady supply. The witches had found a way to duplicate our grandmother’s blood, ensuring that the vampire cure would never run out. We weren’t yet sure whether the witches could do the same with these strangers’ blood—a different species could entail a different method of duplicating the protein we needed. Either way, we wanted to make sure we’d never run low on it, so that no vampire would ever have to suffer in the sunlight again.
Nethissis
Despite what I’d told Lumi, I was nervous about this trip. Not because I had something in particular to fear, especially after what we’d been through, but because I had yet to fully recover from the Hermessi incident. I was still on edge most of the time, though I’d learned to keep my reactions in check.
Nightmares of Shills had been haunting me. Sometimes Titans and Hermibugs would join the mix, forcing me to wake up drenched in a cold sweat, my muscles crippled with sheer terror. The Hermibugs, in particular, made me squirm—swarms of poisonous insects created by the Hermessi through the pink waters just to come after us. Sometimes I worried that the Hermessi might make a comeback. That Brendel’s friends might find another loophole in the laws of the universe. The thought alone was enough to make me shiver.
I wasn’t scared of what we’d find on Trexus-2. I was scared of my ability to keep it together, even though I knew I was nowhere near the possibility of having some sort of breakdown. I’d spoken to Kailani about it, and she’d brought up the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder, which was something that mostly humans had dealt with, often after fighting in wars. Technically speaking, it did seem like an accurate assessment of my state—and not just mine.
Our entire Death crew was still reeling from everything we’d done and dealt with.
