Giving them a tug, they followed reluctantly, eyes sweeping everything to try and take it all in while they had the chance. Leading them back into the woods just enough to hide them from prying eyes of the courts, they headed in the direction of Summer for about an hour, moving as quickly as they dared without using excess energy. She knew the two were straining to keep from tapping into a store of energy they had never known existed and the longer they stayed, the harder it would be for them to hold back from it.
When they reached the location she thought was correct, she pulled them to a stop and ignored their fidgeting as she paced back and forth, trying to find the right spot. It looked slightly different now than it had when she was there years ago. Deciding she had the right spot, she bit the tip of her finger and drew a line in the air. The blood hung in the air and she pressed the door open to show darkness. Smiling, she turned to the two but they were hesitating.
"Move, or I'll move you," she said, her tone as pleasant as she could make it, but the threat was clear.
Versalis swallowed hard, but Jaia took him by the arm and shoved him through. Following after him, she threw one last look at Winter and went still, her eyes on that of a man with pale skin, two dark blue triangles pointing down from his eyes. His hair was midnight black and his eyes were a deep, shockingly vivid blue.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she had already slipped through the door to greet two very angry vampires.
Jaia mostly just looked irritable, Versalis was in a full rage and by the time she stepped through, he had ripped a large tree out of the ground and thrown it. Even she was struck by his strength and he turned to her, muscles hard and teeth bared.
"You!" he barked as he started for her. "How could your kind keep this from us? How can they deny us?"
She backed away as he approached, knowing full well he had just tasted the strength his kind should have but had been denied by hers.
"Think about what you are feeling, then think about what a hundred vampires with your current strength can do. Think about the destruction," she was trying to calm him down, but all she could do was let him rage himself out and calm on his own.
When he swiped for her, she danced back and his miss seemed to agitate him all the more. Deciding that he had turned his rage on her for the time being, she decided to keep his attention from a safe distance. Darting past him as she knew she shouldn't do, she took two steps and then launched herself at an enormous tree, climbing up easily with her nails digging into the soft bark.
As was instinctual for him, he took chase and he prowled the base of the tree, looking up at her.
He might be an exceptionally powerful vampire, but the tree she was perched in was too big for even him to rip out and she thought it was too difficult for him to scale. He seemed to think so too, as he stayed on the ground glaring up at her.
"Come down here and let's talk," he said as she dropped her rear onto the branch, settling in for a long stay.
"I'm not so sure you're interested in talking at the moment Versalis," she replied calmly, looking down at him as he rested his hand on the tree and gave it an experimental shove. The tree didn't even shudder. Cursing, the vampire king sat down on the ground and the three settled into a long staring session. At least Jaia seemed to be okay, though he was jittery and moved at an alarming pace where she could barely see his movements, but he seemed to be calm enough.
"How're you holding up, Jaia?"
His eyes found her before she could blink and he smiled in a way that made her distinctly nervous.
"Just fine Etani, thank you for asking," he was too calm. The man was a genius at strategy and she could see his brain working but she wasn't entirely sure what it was working on.
She was right to suspect him, as he had wandered off after around ten minutes of their stalemate. Searching for him below, she didn't see him coming from above.
Boots thudded beside her and she very nearly fell out of the tree in her surprise.
Scrambling back from him, he was smiling as he followed. His hands in his pants pockets.
"So, Etani..." his hands were suddenly on the tree on either side of her head, appearing out of nowhere.
"Let's talk," his arms seemed to materialise all around her and suddenly she was airborne. She fell through the air and landed lightly in a different pair of arms. Looking up into the face of Versalis, she swallowed and his lips pulled up into a savage grin.
***
Jaia appeared with a thud and she looked between them, afraid and doing her best not to show it.
Teeth grazed her neck in the next instant, she hadn't seen anyone move but suddenly they had both vanished and they bit, Jaia at her throat and Versalis at her shoulder.
She refused to scream or make a sound at all, instead she clenched her jaw and trembled between them.
By the time they had withdrawn, she felt woozy and when she finally fell to the ground, she clutched the grass for support to keep the world from spinning.
They had begun to talk but it was too fast for her to understand and so she tuned them out and tried to figure out what to do. She had no idea how to handle the situation, having never dealt with a vampire or a vampire king high on Faerie and her blood, but she could only assume it was going to be some time before they came down.
After their conversation, it had come to a surprise to her that they had decided to use her dress to rather effectively bind her and she was thrown over Versalis's shoulder, his expression smug.
It was uncomfortable and humiliating, but she could only assume they wanted to keep her alive or else they would have drained her. She had to wonder at what would happen if they had done that, given what the twins had gone through to turn her.
She didn't really understand their thought process, given she was their willing companion, but she was willing to placate them until they were able to get themselves under control again and she was at least glad they were heading in the right direction.
The building was visible in the distance and the two vampires looked to each other before heading that way, relatively calm all things considered.
The building was small and had a very abandoned look to it as though it hadn't been lived in for years. A single storey, single room, squat affair that seemed so incredibly random that it had piqued their interest. It was even more interesting to the two when they stepped inside and the interior was enormous. It was sectioned off using long strips of colourful fabrics and little folding screens that divided it up into five sections. One for sleeping, another for bathing, a kitchen, an area for her experiments and attempts to make a host with a little sitting room being the centre.
The outside looked as though the place were going to fall apart, the inside however looked as though they had left mere hours ago.
Dropping her onto the couch in the centre of the room, they snooped around the place before turning back to her some ten minutes later.
"What is this place?" Jaia asked
"My sisters and I hid out here in the early days of our coming to this world. This is fairly similar to what the average apartment looks like in Ceress," As she spoke, she squirmed to get more comfortable and to twist her arms, allowing her to get her nails against the strips of her dress that bound her.
She began to cut at it and when it came free, she held it to keep them from sagging around her.
Versalis prowled the room to ensure that everything was as it seemed before moving to her and looking her over, his eyes hungry on her face.
"I can see every detail," he whispered and she jerked back as he was suddenly a mere breath from her face.
"Versalis, you need to think-" She cut off as he licked up her cheek with that long tongue and he laughed at her shock.
Moving away from her again, he picked up a small bottle and sniffed the contents.
Behind her, Jaia seemed to materialise and she shivered as she felt his breath on her skin before she felt the air moving at his approach.
"You might as well take them off, we heard you cutting them," he whispered a mere inch from her ear and tugged the fabric from her fingers.
Letting them fall free, she turned her head just enough to see her friend and he smiled in delight at her discomfort.
She knew it would wear off, but until then they were hostile, violent, hungry and dangerous.
Several hours later she found herself on the bed between them, Jaia's leg over her hip as he breathed heavily, sprawled out against her back in an exhausted sleep.
Versalis however had remained awake with her, his eyes searching her face and taking in every tiny detail as though he had to memorise it.
"You are young," he said finally and his eyes snapped to her lips when they pulled up into the hint of a smile.
"I only look it," she responded, her eyes lowering as she shifted and Jaia grunted at her movements, jostling him. The man was like an overgrown puppy when he slept.
Versalis looked at her in confusion and she lifted a brow, realising he may not know.
"I could die, before. I don't know if I can die now. When I died I would be reborn into the form I had when I died the first time," she yawned, opening her eyes to see Versalis looking at her mouth with a slight frown. "I died when I was in my twenties. Pushed off Ceress when I accidentally almost killed a boy," she gave a sleepy smile at the memory, wondering what had ever happened to that boy. "He didn't like it and so he pushed me off the city wall. It was a long fall and then I was in this place with all these misty creatures. I followed a ribbon and came back to my body. We didn't know about the age reverse until a few years later when Ava had come to realise that Letari looked older than me even though I was the first born."
Nuzzling herself closer to Jaia, who growled softly in his sleep, she allowed her eyes to drift shut.
"You are a strange creature Etani," Versalis whispered and she smiled, drifting off to sleep.