Chapter 6
“I’ve texted Thomaz to see if he’ll come and make some food, so who’s hungry?” Dave asked.
“We could eat,” Cairo said.
Thomaz and Annie hurried into the kitchen.
“And we will make you all something to eat,” Annie said, looking at the group. “Have a seat at the table. Thankfully, I made some quiches earlier. You can start with them.”
“Annie, you’re the best,” Troy said, kissing her cheek.
“Get away with you,” Annie replied, laughing.
“I’m so confused,” Kitty said, looking around.
Ivan looked at her. “Pretty much all of us live here. That man there,” he said, pointing at David, “Is our boss and coven leader.”
“Coven, as in witches?” she asked.
“Vampires,” Ivan told her.
“Dracula is real?” Karl asked. “Awesome. Jamie used to read us stories about vampires and werewolves when we were younger.”
“No, Dracula’s not. But we are vampires, Bert here is a wolf shifter, as are Kevin and Ian. Troy is a cat shifter,” David told them.
Jamie looked at Dave and Max. “What are you two?”
“Pesky lowly humans,” Dave replied with a huff. “We’ve formed our own support group with Hunter and Taha. You can join as well.”
“Before that, though. Boys, sit down, food is ready,” Annie tells them, as she brought out plates of food to the table, and Thomaz brought more.
Dave got plates and put them out as everyone sat down and sorted out drinks.
“While you sit there, let me properly introduce you to everyone here,” Dave said.
“This is David D’Angelo, my mate. This is his coven.
Next to him is Seth, David’s second in command.
Gio here is his mate and David’s brother, and head of David’s personal guards.
Cairo is a vampire as well. His mate, Troy, is a cat shifter and a fierce mercenary.
Mathis and Gabe are next. Mathis is a vampire, and Gabe, as you saw, is a witch.
He is head of the Southern Witches, meaning he’s a really strong witch.
Bert is next to Max and is the King of the Werewolves.
Finally, this is my mum Annie, and Thomaz, who is also a vampire. ”
“I’m still confused,” Kitty said, sitting next to Ivan and looking around.
“About what?” Jamie asked her.
“Everything. Why did Mum use a broom to hit me and break my arm? Why did Dad throw Karl into the wall? Jay, how do you know vampires?”
Jamie sat on her other side and touched her arm.
“I’ve no idea what came over the parents.
You both told me the parents didn’t physically hurt you, and as for knowing vampires, I didn’t until earlier tonight, well, I mean, I knew Ivan and have seen some of the others before at the library, but I didn’t know they were vampires. ”
“It’s only been the past few weeks that they’ve started getting physical.
Mum lost her job due to her drinking and is in a permanent drunken rage.
Dad is just angry at everything, started drinking more, and decided just being verbally abusive wasn’t enough,” Karl replied. “He only hit me, though, not Kitty.”
“That’s still bad enough,” Jamie replied.
“You need to stay here,” Jack said, walking into the room and looking at David, while he stood between Seth and Gio. “They’ll be safe here.”
“They do, and they will be,” David agreed, smiling at his new nephew.
“We’ve rooms made up for you,” Dave said. “But if you’d rather not stay here, you can stay in my house. It’s two bedrooms, but it has a decent sofa.”
“And our parents can’t get us here?” Kitty enquired.
“No, we have security around the estate, plus guards outside. You will be perfectly safe here,” David assured her.
Kitty leant into Ivan’s side and looked at Jamie. “Can we stay here?”
Jamie nodded. “Thank you, we’ll happily take you up on your offer. I need them safe.”
“Nice. Think of the fun we can have,” Jack said. “Spencer and I are looking for the secret library that’s hidden somewhere in this house. You can help us search for it.”
Karl grinned at him. “We can do that.”
“We can,” Kitty added.
“But not tonight. It’s getting late,” Seth said, looking at Jack.
“That’s okay, we can have more adventuring tomorrow. Spencer is on the phone with Stefan anyway,” he replied, grinning.
“Off to bed now, then,” Gio said.
Jack hugged Seth and Gio. “See you all in the morning.” And with a final wave, Jack went off to bed.
“Once you’ve finished eating, we can show you to your rooms,” Dave said.
“We should think about getting back,” Bert said. He was sat next to Max, his arms crossed on the table, his hand on Max’s arm.
“Thought about it, don’t wanna,” Gabe grumped out, leaning into Mathis.
Mathis kissed the side of his head.
“Things going well then?” Ivan asked.
“Too well, there is so much to go through, and we keep uncovering more,” David replied. “We’ll have a quick catch-up before we head back.”
Ivan looked at Jamie and his siblings and saw they had all finished eating. “Let’s show these guys to their rooms and get them settled. Seth can catch me up later.”
“In that case, I’ll show you the rooms I helped Davy and Louise get ready for you, as they’ll want to stay and catch up with what’s going on,” Annie offered.
“Thanks,” Jamie said, starting to tidy the plates up.
“Leave them, I’ll clear up,” Thomaz said.
“Are you sure? We can help,” Kitty replied.
“Yep, go get settled. If you see a dog and a puppy, no stealing them.”
“Dog?” Karl grinned, just as Kitty said, “Puppy?”
“Yep, they’ve taken to sleeping at the top of the stairs. It’s quite funny watching Diablo climb the stairs.”
“If we bump into them, I’ll introduce you,” Ivan told them, standing up and walking over to the bags that had all been dumped to one side. He noted the large bags Cairo and Troy had packed. He handed the backpacks to Karl and Kitty and picked up the two large ones.
“The dark blue one is Kitty’s,” Cairo told Ivan, before looking at her and Karl. “We packed up everything we could for you. Sorry if we forgot anything.”
“Thanks for that, whatever you packed will be perfect,” Kitty replied, beaming a smile his way.
“Yep, what she said,” Karl added. “Also, thanks for coming to rescue us, for healing us and bringing us somewhere safe and for the food.”
“You’re more than welcome,” David replied.
“Let me show you your rooms,” Annie said, heading for the door.
“See you all tomorrow,” Ivan said as he ushered Jamie and his siblings out of the kitchen.
There was silence for a moment, the only sound came from plates being collected and the table being cleared.
“Young Karl was lucky; his head injury was severe. It was lucky we got to him when we did,” Gabe said.
“What I healed was bad enough,” Adrian added. “I’ll keep an eye on him over the next few days, but I don’t envisage any issues.”
“We might need to look into schooling,” Seth said. “Jack and Spencer still need to enrol in one.”
“Or you could look into homeschooling,” Max suggested.
“That might be a good idea, thanks, Max,” Gio added.
Max smiled, and Bert gently squeezed his arm.
“How are things at the council going?” Gio asked.
“The council guards are having fun, according to General Goldberg,” Cairo said. “Apparently, they’d been getting bored.”
“We’ve sent some guards out to search specific locations, and Bert has called in help to go through all the paperwork,” David said.
“We still need to finish going through the paperwork Leonard had,” Gabe said.
“I’m sure if you ask Rafe, he would help, or even Brian, Stan, or Danny,” Mathis suggested.
Gabe nodded. “I’ll ask Rafe. I’ll have to pop back and let him in. I also need to see what’s happening there.”
“As for us,” Seth said. “I have people out, checking homes and searching for any more incriminating evidence.”
“The same for us. Ian took photos of some of the paperwork in Leonard's office. I have teams out searching locations that were noted.”
“I contacted some international alphas, asking them to look into child sex trafficking rings. Hopefully, they’ll find something. I’m hoping there are addresses in some of the paperwork that I can send them,” Bert added. “I might even call more of my men in to help with the searches.”
“We also started to interrogate Quintus and his assistant.”
“How did that go?” Seth asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Mathis said, with a slight shudder.