"What are you?" He asks me, breaking the silence. I am quite shocked by this question. Mostly because I don't even know how to answer it.
"Werewolf. I think... And you are a vampire," I state. He nods.
"You don't smell like a werewolf." He lifts his...
I wake up the next morning on my stomach as the rays of the sun dance over my eyelids. I turn my head to the other side while moaning in frustration over having to wake up. Dom is lying on his back with one arm tucked underneath his head for support. He looks so peaceful and majestic lying like that. It almost looks like he is just resting his eyes, and not actually sleeping.
At that moment he slits one eye open and glances at me through it. Turns out he was just resting his eyes, and not sleeping. Maybe vampires just don't sleep?
"Morning," he mumbles and smiles lazily. I lift myself over to him and plop down on his chest.
"Morning," I reply with a gruff morning voice - only made raspier by all those moans and shrieks from yesterday. The memory only makes me smile wider. I'm now dressed in a night robe, which I had put on yesterday before going to the bathroom after our small escapade.
"Did you sleep well?" he asks, and I nod in response.
"You?" I ask in return, to which he shrugs.
"I don't really sleep - I just go into a state akin to deep meditation. But yeah, it was very recuperative," he answers before gently pushing me off him and springing out of the bed.
"Come on, breakfast is being served," he says, before pulling on the pants and shirt from yesterday. I yawn and rub my eyes, before standing up, looking over at the dress from yesterday, and then deciding that the night dress must suffice since I can't put on the dress myself.
I wander into the kitchen where Alasdair, Farlan, Isobel and Dom already sit, each drinking from a glass of blood. In the one empty space sits a plate with thick slices of bacon, scrambled eggs, a piece of toast, beans and sausages. My mouth instantly water as I jump into the seat, before digging in.
Only after the second bite, do I notice the awkward silence around the table. I look up, noticing how Isobel, Farlan and Alasdair glance inconspicuously between Dom and I, and then my cheeks start to heat up. Dom notices them as well and clears his throat.
"Ye got a problem?" he asks sternly with one eyebrow raised, as they all look away, down at their glass or up in the ceiling, mumbling 'No, no' and then trying hard not to look back at us. I just roll my eyes and continue to eat my meal.
"So, do we need anything before we leave later?" I ask when the silence becomes too awkward. Isobel is the first to regain her composure.
"As much as I love dresses, I did go out to find some more practical clothes for us early this morning. I can give it to you when we are done eating," she suggests, and I nod gratefully, happy that I won't have to go exploring in a corset. I doubt it would make me able to fight, not to mention that it might limit my ability to scream, which at the moment is my greatest asset.
"And I had one of our servants find us a big and roomy car for the travel," Farlan then adds before gulping down the rest of the contents in his glass. It's quickly refilled again by a servant behind him who holds a pitcher in his hands.
"Wouldn't it be easier for you to just run instead of driving everywhere?" I ask, piercing a sausage before pulling it off the fork with my lips.
"For short distances, it's easier to run, or if we have to cross terrain," Alasdair starts explaining.
"But for longer distances, where we would just have to follow a road anyway, it wouldn't make sense - especially since we are so few in this clan, that our speed isn't that great anyway. I think our top speed might be around 120-140 km/h, which is about as fast as a normal car can go." I nod in understanding at Alasdair's explanation.
"What is the fastest you have ever run?" I then ask Alasdair, but it's Dom who answers.
"Of all of us, I'm the one who has been in the largest clan and therefore had the largest quantity of power. I think my top speed then was about 270 km/h - and that's from a clan of 300 vampires," he explains, and I lift my eyebrows in amazement.
"What do you have to do to define a group as a clan?" I then ask, before shoving the last bite of food into my mouth.
"Just be together, I guess," Farlan answers, to which Alasdair continues,
"I think just having a common conscience that we are friends and help each other makes us a clan," he explains, and I nod. That makes sense I guess - even though I had thought it might involve some blood pact or something - but that would become increasingly difficult, the more members there were. Imagine having to cut a wound in your hand, and then proceed to shake hands with 300 people, just to obtain some of their power. Couldn't have been me.
We all finish our meal, and then I follow Isobel back up the stairs and into her room, where she has laid a couple of outfits out on the bed. They are in stark difference to the dresses I've seen in her closet and her wearing so far. They are a lot more muted in colours, with earthy brown, green, grey and black tones - better for camouflaging I guess.
"Since we don't know what we might encounter, I thought these would be the best options. We expect to have Harris back by tonight, but Farlan advised, that we should prepare for the worst - which I assumed might mean a confrontation or fight, or that we won't find them for several days. In any case, these should work," she finished gesturing to the outfits.
They are very similar in cut and style - slightly baggy pants, that would make crouching and crawling easy, a tight-fitting and breathable t-shirt, and then a thick sweater to top it off. I grab a fit at random, and then Isobel grabs one before a maid folds the remaining four pairs and puts them into a rucksack.
We both change while chatting about what we might expect to meet on this small adventure and as we are both fully dressed again, Isobel looks over at me.
"You ready?" she asks and sends me an exuberant smile. I nod in return, and then we leave the room to rejoice with the men.
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