18 years later

Crimson had spent 239 years believing that she would never find a vampire that she would see eye to eye with, but so much had changed for her. Though certain things hadn't.

It was in the middle of the night and as she had spent so many of her nights, she was on a rooftop in London, keeping her eyes and ears open for the tell-tell signs of a vampire being about to feed and kill. A muffled scream reached her and she turned her focus in the direction of it. She ran and jumped to three rooftops over and peered down.

As she had expected there was a vampire, sucking on a human's neck. In a flash she was down there and before the vampire could even react to what happened, she had separated its head from its body.

All of that was as it had always been, but this time she wasn't alone. Lamech checked on the man the vampire had drunk from.

"He'll be fine," Lamech stated. "Would guess he's unconscious rather because of chock than loss of blood."

"Good," Crimson answered as she took out her lighter and turned the vampire to ashes.

They brought the man to a nearby hospital, but left before anyone could notice them.

"That was the first in half a year," Lamech said as they ran back to the clan house. "I would guess most vampires are aware to not drink and kill in London by now."

Crimson nodded. The nightly hunts for vampires had indeed started to get boring. During their first year as mated, they had spent a lot of effort on cleaning up the streets of London from vampires that enjoyed killing. But since then, it had slowly gotten more and more boring to find wrongdoers. In fact, she had started to think that they could stop all together. Or at least not spend every night looking for them.

"Saida and Stuart will be back tomorrow," she pointed out.

"Alair is already busy with the welcome back party if I know him right," Lamech replied.

That was another thing that wasn't truly necessary anymore. The wolfpack's problems with rouges had already almost disappeared after the massive attack 18 years previous. Except from two bigger attacks, the pack hadn't had any problems. Stuart had anyway stayed there and rotated the vampires living there to have them train with the wolves and to serve as extra protection, Saida had followed as well of course. Over the years, the vampires stationed here had been exchanged several times, resulting in that most had familiarized themselves with the pack and the pack with them. The cooperation, that had been fragile due to prejudices, had become a close friendship.

Especially after it had turned out that the Alpha's and Luna's youngest child was mated to Everett.

As such, there was no reason for Saida and Stuart to constantly live there anymore. They had already over the years spent longer periods away from the pack, either in the clan house or alone travelling together, but the time had come for them to officially move back to the clan house.

When Crimson and Lamech came back to the house that night, Crimson went down to the first floor while Lamech went to his office. Crimson did indeed find Alair busy preparing for a party. She checked what he had planned, but shortly withdrew from there as Alair had everything under control.

She went to find Aideen laying on the bed in her room reading a book. With her she had brought one glass each for them. She handed a glass to Aideen and then they sat together on the couch and talked while drinking.

Crimson couldn't help but worry a bit about Aideen. It had been so many years, but Aideen had still not dared to try to drink from an actual person. Of course, that didn't matter much, but it made Crimson wonder if Aideen was comfortable with who she had been forced to become. The fact that Aideen also spent most of her time alone, didn't help with the worrying. But Crimson knew that all she could do was be a friend, and always when they spent time together, Aideen seemed as happy as ever.

Once she had finished the glass and talk with Aideen, she went back to her and Lamech's room. That room had changed its appearance a lot. It was wasn't dark and red anymore but rather a mixture of beige and dark wood.

Crimson vaguely thought about taking a bath, but then her eyes fell on a letter on the bed, addressed to her in a handwriting she didn't recognize. Curious of its content, all other thoughts disappeared as she opened the letter to read.

Dear Crimson,

We have met once, but you wouldn't remember as you were just a new-born baby. Your eyes were so beautiful and it saddened me to have to turn them black. As I hope you understand, I did it for your protection and I have been watching over you ever since. And I got to tell you, you have had me worried sometimes. Out of you five, you're the only one that have made me wonder if my plan would actually work, and I mean that as both berating and a compliment.

Time has come for us to meet again, for as you know, faeries only do things for a good reason and it is time for me to tell you my good reason. The truth is that I need your help. The whole magical community needs your help. I won't force you to help, I want that to be clear. The protection I gave you was not due to a deal, it was not a bargaining chip to hold over your head now. Even if you refuse to help, I would still do it again if given a second chance. But I do hope you will help for we all need you. Rest assured though, you won't do it alone. There will be four others whose help is also required to make the world to a peaceful place for all magical beings.

Please come and meet me in the Library at noon on Friday in a week. I'll explain more then. If you want to, I encourage you to bring Lamech along. The support of a mate is the best support one can have. You, Zoe, Morana, Mirai, and Danae have proven that to me time and time again.

Always with love,

Rheseis

She read the letter through three times, before getting out of bed and going to Lamech's office. He sat behind his desk as she entered.

"Oh, good. I was about to go and find you. There's something I want to talk to you about," he said as he saw her.

"What about?" she asked and went to sit on his lap, deciding to hear him out before telling him about the letter that would potentially change their whole lives.

"So I've been thinking," he said and hugged her. "We won't really need to patrol London anymore and everything with the pack is good. Really everything is all good and I know we talked about it before and said we wanted to wait, but... I was thinking that maybe it could be time for us to consider... a child."

Crimson felt her heart flutter and happiness fill her at his words. She hadn't herself thought much about it, but as he said it, she instantly started imagining what their children might be like. But the letter she still held meant that the time wasn't right.

"I want to," she admitted. "But I think we have to wait a little longer."

She then handed him the letter and watched as his eyes grew darker and darker while he read it.

"I'm coming with," he said in a voice that left no room for argument and Crimson smiled and kissed him lightly.

"Of course. I wouldn't have it any other way."