~~Beatrice~~
The war was over. Jacob laughed when he told her that. Told her it was temporary, because the Carthians and the Invictus and 'Churchies' always eventually got in each other's face and business. Tale as old as time, he said. But either way, for the moment, there was a truce, and that meant people could breathe easy; dumb metaphor considering vampires.
Triss and Jen were at the cave when Sam showed up, and she smiled and waved at them before she slipped into Jacob's alcove. They hadn't started working on crafting a body for her daughter yet, but they had scouted for potential people to kill. They'd brought Sam on those trips, too. Sam hadn't liked that, but at the same time, exposing some of the horrible shit kine got up to settled her guilt, a little. Some kine really had it coming.
Ugh, Julias would not agree with that. He'd have counter arguments and shit, and most frustratingly, they'd be good ones.
Killing humans was a shitty thing to do, and Triss didn't exactly like that it came easier to her than other vampires. Probably part of the reason Jacob took her under his wing. Probably part of the reason she got on the whole witch wavelength so easily. It wouldn't be easy for Samantha, but the woman insisted on being part of the process. Best Triss could do was make it as easy as possible for Sam, and hopefully avoid scarring the woman for the next hundred years.
"I worry about her," Triss said. Jen and her sat up in Jen's alcove, a half dozen feet above the ground floor of the cave.
"So do I."
"Elen's still kicking. Last Jacob checked, he thinks she'll be good for longer than we thought. More than long enough to get her daughter a body."
"And when Elen's mind goes?"
Triss shrugged. "She'll still be alive? Jacob thinks whatever magics she's powering will keep. No brain, but a pulsing, beating pile of flesh. And if we lose her somehow, we have her book, and her knife. We're witches, right? Maybe we can put something together, a ritual or talisman, to keep her shit running." Last thing she wanted was her Julias body to die because Elen's magic stopped.
"New goal?"
"Eh, not yet. Strike when the iron's hot, right? Or some other bullshit analogy. Let's get Mary a body, and then we can worry about preserving Julias. Not like we'll need to worry about Mary's."
"Assuming we can put Mary in the new body."
"Black Blood says there's something in the book to help with that. Mary can't just hop into the body; that'd be possession and temporary, according to him. To actually put the soul into the body and bind it is different."
Jen sighed and shook her head. "Binding souls to empty bodies. You know, four years ago, the biggest thing I worried about was staying out of Tony's way, and which ghouls I wanted."
Laughing, Triss slipped an arm over Jen's shoulder. The two of them were sitting, leaned up against the cave wall with some blankets behind them, reading stuff. Triss was a moron, and didn't do much reading in the past. That fucking changed when Jacob put a bunch of ancient tomes in her lap and told her to read them so she didn't get herself killed doing some ancient ritual wrong. Lots of stories about people dying in weird, mysterious circumstances. Some of them were straight up horror stories, with people's hearts exploding inside their chest, or eyes melting inside their skull.
The Circle had their own books, but were pretty damn secretive about them, Dracul-level secret. And according to Jacob, they didn't like writing shit down in general. Word of mouth, stories told and not written, that was the way of the Circle of the Crone.
She still hadn't told Jacob the details about the vision, about when the Crone and the motherfucking moon had had a chat with her. Maybe she would some day, but not now, not yet. It wasn't like she didn't trust him, but she didn't trust him, not completely anyway. Same for Black Blood.
"I'm hungry," Triss said.
"My boys aren't here. Want to go hunting?"
"Sure. I wanna go talk to Jack, too."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Uh... hi," Triss said, and she damn well knew she had one eyebrow raised right up to her hair. "Thought you had someone to answer the door for you."
Jack squirmed, wearing the sort of rich, royal red robe a dude would wear, a hundred years ago, after getting laid. All that was missing was a pipe.
"Uh, Veronica's indisposed."
"That she is," the Prince said from the top of the stairs.
Triss and Jen both looked up, and gulped. The white-haired bitch was so, so, so fucking hot. Wearing only a purple silk robe, and barely wearing it at that considering how loose she'd tied it, she looked like some sort of goddess of sex and power. Which had probably been her intent, when she did whatever she did, to give herself the crazy features, and the crazy huge tits.
"I was gonna ask if you wanted to go hunting," Triss said. "Been a while since we've done that."
"Oh. Um..."
"The lord of the manor has recently fed," Antoinette said, grinning.
"I can see that," Jen said, and she winked at Jack. "Has your harem grown?"
"It's not a harem!"
"Of course not," Jen said in a motherly, dismissing tone, which of course had Jack frowning and fuming.
Triss snorted on a chuckle. "Dude, you're a Ventrue. Embrace it."
"Uh huh. Um, Antoinette, did you--"
"I would prefer to spend the night together, you and I, my love."
Jack shrugged and nodded toward Triss. "You heard the lady."
"But," the Prince continued, "I would like to speak to Beatrice privately. If you do not mind, my love."
She did? Well, sure, probably to talk about Jacob, Samantha, and the nasty shit Triss was up to that Antoinette had to know something about.
"Yeah. Let us in." Triss folded her arms across her chest and gave the little punk her best angry face.
He rolled his eyes as he motioned for them to come in. They did.
"You can't run a mansion without servants," Jen said. "And you are a vampire, and a Ventrue. You might as well make those servants a harem."
"He will," the Prince said as she walked down the stairs. And of course she made damn sure to sway those big hips under her tiny waist as she did. Just like Othello, the girl couldn't help but flaunt her body with every motion. Jen did that, but it was something she actively did. She had to think about it and make the conscious effort to show off her body as she walked around. Daeva though, they did it as easily as kine breathed, and just as subconsciously. They couldn't not do it.
And Triss was just as susceptible to looking at them as anyone else. Antoinette was hot, freaky hot, too hot in a weird kinda way. Super tall, white hair, red eyes, and utterly ludicrous tits? Yeah, it was actually hard to not look at her, and get pretty damn intimidated. Sure, dudes liked Jessica Rabbit, but there was a limit. Well, whatever, Jack liked it apparently. And if people could look past Triss's crocodile teeth, or even find them oddly appealing, then there was damn sure a lot of people who were into girls as tall as giants with the white hair, red eyes, and tits each bigger than their head.
And Big Tits wanted to talk to her.
"Come Beatrice," the Prince said once she got down to them. Hell, even barefoot she walked like she was on a fashion runway. "Let us leave the two Ventrue to discuss Ventrue interests."
"Harems," Jennifer nodded, and she grinned at Jack as she stepped in beside him. Jack inched away, but she inched after him.
Jen had balls to tease Jack with the Prince right there. But knowing Jen, it'd be her dream come true to be the subject of some angry sex from Antoinette.
Of course the Prince just laughed, and motioned for Triss to follow her down the halls of the mansion. She did, and she took a moment every so often to admire how damn pretty it all was. Yeah sure, Viktor's taste had been hilarious cliche for Dolareido, but all the royal reds, the golds and woods, it made every wall, every bench, every fucking window god damn gorgeous. And when the Prince took Triss into a private room, she got hit with the same sense of wonder.
And then memory. And then sadness. She'd been in this room before, with Julias.
"I--oh. I am sorry, dear Beatrice."
"Sorry?"
"Do not attempt to deceive me, Beatrice. I can see the pain in your eyes. For a single moment, I had forgotten that you frequented this mansion to be with your love."
Triss looked away. Wearing her emotions on her face in front of a Daeva was dumb, but it wasn't like she had a good poker face to begin with. Which made the whole conversation pretty damn dangerous for Triss. She couldn't lie, not well, especially not to the Prince.
"Lot of painful memories here, yeah."
"But you came of your own volition?"
"Didn't plan to hang out. Like I said, just wanted to take Jack out hunting."
The Prince smiled down at her as she sat in a luxurious chair, red and gold. "I am happy to know you are still friends with the boy."
"It was a bit rough at first." Triss sat down on the couch across from the seat, and did her best to ignore the memory of the time she'd fucked and cuddled Julias on it. "Even blamed him, for a little while. But my head calmed down eventually." She pointed at her temple for a second. "And moved past it."
"It will be a cold day in Hell, young Nosferatu, when someone can simply move past losing someone they loved with such fervor."
Triss looked away again. God damn it, she didn't come here for this.
"It's a work in progress."
"Jennifer has helped you with that, I assume."
"She has. But I didn't come here to talk about Julias, or my shit, Prince."
"Indeed, but I am asking nonetheless." She said it in her Prince voice, her 'do what I fucking tell you to do' voice, solid and flat, without a hint of anger or anything.
Triss frowned at her. "Yeah, Jen and me are pretty damn close."
"And close with Samantha."
"I--that what this is about? Your childe? You asking me if I'm ok, cause I hang out with Samantha?"
"Why can it not be both? Oui, I test the waters, to learn what waters my childe swims. But I am concerned for you as well, Beatrice. The waters you swim are dark and murky, and I can only guess what lies beneath."
"You..." She almost asked if Antoinette meant about Elen, and what Triss, Jen, and Samantha were up to. Sure, Triss was a shit poker player, but she wasn't stupid enough to just reveal her hand flat out. "You know a lot about what I'm up to."
"Oui."
