The dead rogue vampire's ash was mixed in water before it was fed to Conner's father. And though it was given in the intention of helping the man to get better, the hunters who stood in the room weren't happy about it. It was because they felt it was unethical for a human to consume the remains of a vampire.

  Conner stood at the bedside, waiting for his father to feel better.

  Simon stood at the side, watching the hunters expression, where they looked like they were ready to take action if something would go wrong. One of the men asked Mr. Davis, "Who is this new boy here? Can we trust him?"

  "He is a fellow hunter and studies in the same university, where Melanie and Conner study," replied Mr. Davis, his eyes shifted to look at the red-headed boy, who held a worried look on his face while looking at Rob.

  In less than a few minutes, Conner's father's condition turned all better, and his skin started to turn back to its usual appearance. Conner let out a sigh of relief, and he said, "It worked!"

  "Looks like it did. Good job, Simon," praised Mr. Davis, who then said, "If you don't have any group that you are part of, I think we would love to have you work with us in bringing these vampires down."

  Melanie's gaze moved from Simon to her father with a look of slight disbelief. She finally understood what the vampire had achieved. He had gained the people's trust here, and somewhere, she doubted if he was the reason why the rogue vampires had appeared in the forest in the first place.

  Simon offered a polite smile, "Thank you for your kind invitation, Mr. Davis, but I am used to working individually. I will have to refuse it."

  Mr. Davis chuckled, "Think again. Wolves work more efficiently when in packs. You don't have to answer it right now, take your time and let me know of your decision later."

  The vampire only nodded, as if he would like to consider it after a long thought when this had been his real intention since he had appeared in the forest.

  "Thank you, Simon," Conner turned to look at him, "If it weren't for you, my father would have not survived."

  "I just shared some knowledge. It is what we hunters do, isn't it?" asked Simon, and Melanie, who stood there watching the interaction between him and others, couldn't believe how easily he was twisting things around. "I have already overstayed, I should get back to the university now so that I can complete my project work in time. Senior year is the toughest and we depend on our grades for work later."

  Conner offered, "I will see you outside."

  Before they left the room, Melanie noticed how Simon spared a look at her, as if wondering if she would come to follow them to keep an eye on him so that he wouldn't do anything to Conner. But she decided to stay there than to be in his presence. He had saved her. Then he had saved Conner's father. For now, she decided to not inform her parents about him.

  On the other side, far away from where they were, by the time of noon, Roman and Julie returned to Veteris. The campus was mostly deserted as most of the students were either cooped in their rooms or had gone to visit their families.

  On arriving in front of the girl's Dormitorium in Roman's motorcycle, Julie got down and removed her helmet, giving it back to him. Donovan had stayed back at the Winter's residence for a little more time while compensating it by apparating from there, not too far from where the couple now stood.

  When Roman was about to carry her backpack, Julie shook her head, where her eyes didn't meet his eyes immediately. She said, "I will take it."

  Roman didn't force her, and he hung the hamlet she gave him to hang it on the motorcycle's handle. He heard Julie say,

  "I will take a nap."

  "Okay," replied Roman, watching her turn and walk inside the Dormitorium.

  Donovan walked towards where Roman stood, with his hands in his pockets, and he said, "She seems upset."

  "Whose fault do you think it is?" Roman turned his head and looked at Donovan, who wasn't in his usual cheerful self. Instead, he held a thoughtful expression on his face.

  "I think she's upset for more than one reason here, Rome. And apart from me, it looks like probably doesn't want to talk to you too," stated Donovan, his lips twisting, but Roman didn't comment on it.

  Julie had lost her aunt because of Donovan's eagerness to kill humans or hunters. She had lost the relationship with her uncle, where he had believed and trusted her, and they were the closest family she had. There was something Roman had picked up right away when he had uttered the words to her uncle. He had done it to scare the man, but Julie wasn't pleased with his approach to threaten and spill out answers.

  But at the same time, he knew that Julie was aware that he would never hurt her, and it was an empty threat.

  "What are your plans for the day, Rome?" questioned Donovan.

  "To go to my dorm and take a nap. It would be highly appreciated if you don't follow or bother either one of us. Can you do that much or will you go killing the next person you meet?" questioned Roman and Donovan raised one of his hands upward.

  "I will go and see what the others have been up to. I am sure one of them has been eagerly cursing me. Take the day off, Rome. I am sure you need it," stated Donovan before he walked away from there, and Roman rode his motorcycle to park it before getting into the boy's Dormitorium.

  Reaching his dorm, he unlocked the door before stepping and throwing his leather jacket to rest on the chair. Going to the fridge, he pulled the blood cans before gulping down on them one after another until not a single can remained inside. He finished all of them and threw the empty cans into the dustbin.

  Now that he was all alone by himself, his face subtly scrunched because of the pain he felt in his abdomen. Going to stand in front of the mirror, he removed his shirt and noticed the wound that he got from yesterday's fight with the hunters had not healed. The skin there had turned tender, looking similar to the infections that a rogue vampire caused in a human. His eyes had turned completely red, and he stared at his reflection.

  In the girl's Dormitorium, Julie had thrown her backpack at the side before slumping her body on the bed.

  Julie laid her head on the pillow, staring at the wall without blinking until her eyes started to burn after several minutes. Tears filled back up again in her eyes, and she tried hard not to shed it, but it welled up to the point where her eyes couldn't contain them anymore, and the tears trailed down her face.

  She closed her eyes, feeling her eyes had turned warm, while the distance and things around her had turned cold.

  When she had stepped out of the Dormitorium to meet her uncle, she didn't have any remote thoughts that this would happen. She had hoped that she could set things right and spend quality time with her uncle and his family before returning to the life she belonged to. But stepping near Uncle Thomas and his family, it had ended up with his family being pulled into her side of the world.

  She now had no family of her own… the ones that she had before… she had lost them all. She didn't know what hurt her most. If it was Aunt Sarah's death, or if it was Uncle Thomas's decision to put up distance between them, where he didn't seem like he wanted to talk to her anymore.

  Julie didn't know when she fell asleep, but after some time, she was woken up feeling someone's hand gently running on the side of her head. The touch was gentle enough to make her cry again. The sky outside the window looked dark.

  "You are here," whispered Julie, without opening her eyes as she felt that if she opened it right now, the tears would spill again.

  "I wanted to give you space, but I was worried that you would end up crying all by yourself with no one to take care of you," said Roman, and Julie opened her eyes, feeling the heaviness in her heart grow his words.

  Julie didn't turn her head to look at Roman, but she felt him to pet her head gently.

  "Do you want me to leave?" asked Roman, and Julie shook her head. She didn't want him to leave her side because he was all she had in this wide and lonely world. Silence filled the room, and neither of them spoke to each other for several seconds before he asked her, "Do you think it is true?"

  "What is?" asked Julie, her eyes continuing to stare at the wall.

  "That my bloodline is cursed. And it will affect the people around me," stated Roman, and Julie finally broke her gaze away to turn and look at him.

  "You heard it?" she pushed herself to sit upright on the bed. She noticed the way he stared at her with a doubt in his eyes. "It doesn't have to be true, it was possibly just Donovan. Your father…"

  Roman looked into Julie's brown eyes, and he picked her hand up, caressing the back of her hand with his thumb. He said, "It isn't just Donovan, even his brothers and the other people in his family had suffered similar fate like us. Some things are unexplainable, and it runs deeper than the blood that circulates towards the heart. If we could have somehow dodged Donovan from entering your uncle's house, or if he hadn't stayed the night, what happened this morning could have been avoided."

  Julie stared at their hands, wiping her tear-streaked face, "It already happened… and I don't think there could be a way to fix things. It is too late."

  They didn't even know if Uncle Thomas would open his mouth to reveal what he knew about vampires. People in grief often did stupid things, thought Roman to himself, while the words that Knox had uttered to her when they were in Willow Creek didn't leave his mind.

  "I saw a vision of Uncle Thomas and Aunt Sarah… of her going to mend things with me," Julie's voice sounded feeble, and her eyes looked slightly lost.

  "I am sorry to hear that, Winters," said Roman and Julie shook her head.

  "Aunt Sarah… she seemed to be someone who was trying to not be part of the hunters. She was trying to protect Uncle Tom," Julie's voice trailed.

  "From us vampires," added Roman, and hearing this, she stayed quiet. He raised his hand, wiping one lone drop of her tear that rolled down her cheek. "Was it because of what Knox said, that you decided to keep a distance with them?"

  He heard Julie's heart skip a beat as if confirming his thoughts and words.

  Even though Julie didn't admit it to him, deep down, Roman knew that she had taken measures so that her Uncle and her cousin's fate would not be affected by Donovan's bloodline. Keeping people near would only increase the rate of their death in one way or another.

  "You know family is important, isn't it?" questioned Roman, and Julie continued to stare at their hands as if she was in a daze. "When I came to live in this manor, that time I didn't have an idea of what it felt like to have a father, or a brother, or a person to take care of me. I came to learn the importance of the roles of a few people who were around me in the past. I would do anything to see them once again, sometimes I regret not being able to keep them closer. Wishing I could save them, or maybe turn them into vampires. Are you sure you won't regret it in the future? One day you might look back and regret that you let go of the family you had."

  Julie bit the inside of her lip, letting the pain enter into the emptiness that she was feeling.

  "Why do you ask about it when I have already decided it," murmured Julie, her gaze lifting to look into his red eyes.

  "Yesterday when I went out with Donovan to get ice cream, we didn't just drink blood before returning to the house," said Roman, his hand squeezing her hand. "We spoke about my mother and him."

  "How did it go?" inquired Julie and a small smile appeared on his lips that didn't quite reach his eyes.

  He responded with, "I am not sure if it went well or not. He told me about the curse, the same one that Knox had mentioned to you."

  Roman's thoughts went back to last night, where the first thing he had done when both he and Donovan had reached a quiet alley was punching square at the older vampire's face.

  'Ouch, won't lie that it hurt more than I expected it to be,' said Donovan, as he rubbed his jaw with his hand.

  'Stop messing around for no reason. Leave the Winter's house right now,' said Roman.

  'You won't let me stay around you and I have to resort to such means. I told you I want? to spend some time together with you. I gave you all the explanations that you wanted, what are you so angry about?' questioned Donovan. 'Back then I thought I did the right thing, by letting go of your mother… not knowing I had attached something of me permanently on her.'

  'Me,' said Roman and Donovan gave him a nod. 'Is this about the curse?'

  'I see you have heard.'

  'Is it true?' questioned Roman, his eyes burning a hole in the Elder vampire's eyes.

  Donovan chuckled, running his tongue on the corner of his lips where he felt the metallic taste of blood. Roman didn't like the man's nonchalant behaviour, and his loose fist tightened.

  'Your mother was unlike anyone I have ever met. You of course grew up with her when you were a child, so you must have some recollection, but she was a woman I have thoroughly admired. More than Opaline La Fay or anyone else. I didn't mean to come and visit her again, because there was something about her that kept pulling me back to see her, to hear her voice, to know about her,' explained Donovan, pulling out a cigarette from his pocket before lighting one end of it.

  The Elder vampire took a drag before he continued, 'If I knew she was carrying my child, maybe I would have got rid of it, to make sure for her to continue to live. Of course, I am very proud to have you by my side now, but it would have been something I would have done, knowing my cursed bloodline, is bound to bring loneliness and death around the person.'

  Roman had hoped for it to be not true. His jaws clenched because he couldn't help but think about the one person he cared about.

  'I don't know if it was love that your mother and I shared, but we liked each other a lot. More than a lot,' confessed Donovan.

  'Is this anywhere related to why you didn't want a human girl involved with me?' Roman's eyes lightly flared, and Donovan took his time to blow the smoke in the air.

  'Part of a reason,' answered Donovan, pulling the cigarette away from his lips and taking a look at it. 'Humans… they will never sustain for a long time, I still hold the thought. When I killed the other girl, it was to pluck out the pain at the beginning itself. It is easier to remove a seed than a whole tree from the soil.? But I don't know if it was by luck that you ended up with the great witch's daughter.'

  'But your's and Opaline's relationship didn't work out,' pointed Roman.

  Donovan hummed before he said, 'We weren't exactly compatible. Also the witch was smart enough to dodge and not get attached to me.'

  'You are telling Julie will be subjected to the same things.'

  'I am not sure, but there is a possibility,' Donovan lightly shrugged his shoulders, and the frown on Roman's forehead deepened. 'Julie is different and has death already associated with her. Then at the same time, who knows. We don't have any rule book, and people who are closer to us, directly or indirectly, get affected.'

  Roman returned to the present, noticing Julie stare at him while he quietly looked at her. Julie felt the grip of his hand loosen on her hand and heard him ask her,

  "Do you think we should…"