Odena came home to the quiet sizzling of the television again. She gently clicked the door closed, making sure not to disturb the still, noise-littered silence. Fehn might have fallen asleep with Kaira again.

She sighed soundlessly, massaging her feet as she stepped out of her heels. Her purse slouched onto the floor, scattered shoes arranged in neat lines now; she didn’t find anything new. There was still no sign of Lonel.

Well.

She stretched her neck, trying to ease the tension in her muscles. A small nagging nibbled at the back of her mind. She had raised Kaira alone for almost a decade now, yet this was something else; this was different. His job pulled him away more than she found comfortable. Late nights stretched into days since she last saw him.

She understood it, but that didn’t make her like it.

Odena sighed again, prowling through the short, wallpapered hallway. After all, she knew what she agreed to when…

She stopped at the edge of the square little living room. An uncontrollable chuckle threatened to burst out of her throat, so she pushed her fingers to her painted lips. Kaira’s soft snoring accompanied the concluded broadcast’s frizzle, her small form comfortably weighing on Lonel’s chest. He sprawled on the couch, one booted leg up on the headrest, the other dangling from the armrest. None of his soles touched the textile. His ties were undone, making Odena smile even wider. Kaira must have pulled him away before he could take them off — as she often did whenever he arrived.

With a lightness in her chest, Odena walked over to the coffee table beside the well-loved couch and picked up the knocked-over glitter’s plastic holder. Various coloured and shaped stars sprinkled through half of the wood. The other half should have been on the carpet, and yes, some glinted under Odena’s feet. However, the rest twinkled in the dustpan crookedly propped next to the television.

She considered collecting Kaira’s numerous hair clips that were tossed there but decided otherwise.

Instead, she turned around, as silent as she could, and swallowed back a laughter. Tiny flower shapes in many hues, cartoonish wolf heads, and colourful bat stickers ornated the naked parts of Lonel’s face, in identical order to Kaira’s. Big patches of his beard gleamed from glitter, just like their little girl’s fingers that held onto Lonel’s checkered shirt.

Ever so gently, Odena swiped back Kaira’s cascading black hair from her face, though it was already sparkling like New Year’s night sky. None of them stirred to her proximity.

Still, she leaned down, planting a kiss on her daughter’s forehead, then carefully burying her fingers in Lonel’s beard to leave one at his chapped lips. He grunted quietly, clearly fully awake.

“Hello stranger,” Odena whispered, smiling into his slowly opening eyes.

“Hello yourself.”

His drowsy bariton resonated so strongly, that Kaira took a deeper breath, stopping her darling snoring. She fidgeted a little, snuggling closer to Lonel’s neck, then quietly whining when his beard poked her tender face.

“Give me a minute,” Lonel whispered then too, which fortunately did not cause any more disturbance. He carefully heaved himself up, although Kaira did not seem to weigh anything in his arms. There was not a hint of strain in his movements as he stood and after Odena gave another caress to her daughter’s lovely face, he put her in her bed.

Somewhere outside a muted, sweet melody started as if the slumbering city would just begin dreaming. While Lonel cared for Kaira, Odena cleared off the table and poured them some of the cold tea left on the stove. As she turned out of the kitchen, intending to roll right back into the living room, a hand grabbed her waist.

Lonel captured her in his hold, rough hands just right on her.

“I said give me a minute, not to start fussing about, Blossom.”

“Fussing about would be nagging you to take off those behemoths,” she countered, nodding towards the ground. Then, she turned out of his grasp. He scoffed quietly, diligently staying behind to lose his boots.

Odena turned off the television, only then noticing how the air already smelled of tar and aftershave. A welcome change, one that made this little apartment more like home.

She placed the mugs on the table and did not sit as she heard socks craping at the carpet. “All done.”

“Good,” she murmured, turning as she felt him close. The melody kept playing outside, drowning out every other subtle noise of the apartment complex. She could not erase her smile as she closed the distance between them, touching the wolf sticker under his tired eyes. “She’s grown so fond of these.”

“Mhm. She even named them.”

Odena chuckled, leaning against his frame as he caressed her arm, and held her side. Evenly, without a thought, they began swaying to the calm rhythms coming through the window cracks. “Of course she did.”

“This one’s Blossom,” Lonel started, placing her finger over the white flower sticker. “This is Sel and My Sweet.” He positioned her finger over the two bats, one smaller than the other. “And this one’s Giggles.” The wolf head, eventually. Odena glided her fingertips over the pretty little thing, then through his dry, sparkling skin. “Her wolf is called Nel.”

“Makes sense.”

“Does it, though?” He left a kiss over her fingertip when she drew it over his lips absently.

“Sure. You kept telling her she has a wolf’s spirit, and kids don’t take these things lightly. Plus, she claims to have two daddies now, so she must be like you. Naturally.”

“Naturally,” he chuckled, too.

The melody took over the living room, leaving them in a peaceful crack in-between time. Carefully moving not to make a sound, they swayed to the music, tangled and calm. Being there, finally with him, Odena felt her muscles relax if only for tonight.

Lonel leaned closer after a while, breaking the reassuring silence. “Sorry for the mess,” He left a kiss on her brow. “For the boots.” On the cheek. “And for disappearing on you.” Then, in the corner of her lips. “I’ve made sure not to do that again.”

He kissed her, soft and full, and she smiled into it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Mostly that I quit.”

Odena’s fingers stopped playing with his hair, as she leaned back a little. “What?”

“I left the forensic team. It ate up my life, which is why I chose it in the first place. But that’s no game anymore.” Lonel let their hands fall as he stopped with Odena. He did not let go of her hand, however. “So I joined a band.”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

A swirl of emotions attacked her heart. Relief, surprise, worry, joy. She did not feel this intensely, nor this chaotically since… well, since Kaira was born. Not to mention the confusion, given how she told him since their teenage years that he should make music his profession. Something he actively brushed away in the past.

Sometimes she thought Lonel could sense her inner turmoils. Because just like that, he glided them to the couch, gentle but serious. “It’s a blues band, in contract with some bars around the city, so they always have gigs, and they get a fair cut. I knew one of the guys in it, we went to the same group therapy. And he tried to recruit me for a while. So I said yes.”

Odena searched his dark gaze and found no deception or jest. He was telling the truth. He was earnest.

A siren cut through the melody outside, the sharp sound tramping all over the lovely rhythms.

“Congratulations, then?” she asked and did not correct herself. She stayed close to him, their legs pushed into each other, their bodies mere inches away. But she needed to keep his eyes for a little while. “I mean, that’s really great to hear. We missed you. It’s just… can you please consult me next time before you do something life-altering?”

Lonel’s expression pulled into a barely perceptible surprise, then morphed into a serious understanding. He looked down on their intertwined fingers, then back into Odena’s steeled eyes.

“Of course, you’re right. Sorry, Blossom.” She knew when he meant his words, and in that moment, she could see that same devotion. That cold, hard look turned his words into vows. She understood because they both lived without another person for a long time. Yet, that changed, and with that, they needed to morph as well.

She looked over all the little girl glitter and stickers on his brusque face again and noticed a tiny heart-shaped pin in his hair only then, neatly tucked beside the root of his ear. A reassuring sign that even if not easily, but this could work.

Odena smiled then, leaning onto his lips again, and curling under his arm. He draped his around her shoulders, comfortably sprawling on the couch yet again. An uncharacteristically relieved sigh left his mouth as she sneaked a hand between his slightly unbuttoned shirt, drawing circles through his chesthair. “So group therapy, huh?”

He scoffed at her overly seductive tone. “Yeah.”

She chuckled at the casualty of his voice, the utter lack of care or caging.

“Well, that does fit a new beginning.”

“Is this some kind of sick joke?”

Odena held back a smile as she squeezed on Lonel’s forearm. They stopped at the entrance of the ballroom—the biggest room the Phobia held within. Curving concrete twisted into silky fabrics hanging loosely on the walls, and red lightning painted everything into a sensual mystery of the night. The dark, sparkling decoration brought a sinister touch to the environment.

Wicked shadows chased the lights on every idling, masked person’s face.

“The best disguise is standing in plain sight, is it not?” Selys asked, still holding out the wolf mask to Lonel. He ignored the other’s subtle snarling, keeping an oblivious smile on his lips. “Besides, it suits you, wolf. You can rip my head off if it doesn’t work.”

“Don’t tempt me, hellspawn.”

“As much as I enjoy watching bickering men tearing at each other, we should start mingling, don’t we, gentlemen?” Odena offered, putting up her own mask: a beautifully crafted hummingbird with feathers that felt too real to the touch, and a small, gilded beak adorned with gemstones. It was a masterpiece of a true craftsman, just like every other one that VIP attendants handed out to guests.

“The lady is right, of course.” Selys mimicked her, placing the horned, hardened paper over his face. Its red matched with the lightning, and the colours of the Phobia. “Shall we then?”

He gestured with his hand, eyes creased deeply from his now-hidden smile. Lonel huffed, snatching the wolf mask away, and putting up with a disapproving grunt. The creation did fit him, actually. Detailed to the sharp point of the carved fangs, it was no less a sight to the laical eye.

Odena hooked back her arm into Lonel’s as they walked deeper into the enemy’s den.

They earned — very proficiently disguised — glances with their pause, but none of the people seemed to think too much into it. Staying alert, however, never hurt anyone. Therefore Odena pulled out her filigrane cigarettes gifted by Selys and offered one to Lonel as well.

“Thanks,” he said, distaste evident in his tone.

Her smoke slipped through her teeth as she smiled at him, the nearly translucent, forming and disappearing shapes crawling to the thin cloud that occupied the rest of the ceiling.

“And how should we know which one is your kind?”

Lonel emphasised the last words with syrupy venom in his throat. He might have accepted Selys, but not the other… vampires.

Odena found it still odd to name such creatures with certainty.

“You’ll know. This way,” Selys led them to a table packed with bite-sized tasters and tarts. Overwhelming perfume and incense clouds lingered in the air since they stepped into the club, yet here the scent of food finally overruled it. One could nearly taste the salmon salt and lemon sour, champagne sweet and absinthe bitter with every breath. She was glad for that humble dinner they ate before coming so her focus wouldn’t falter. Selys began filling up his plate. “They’re preying, and outnumber the warmbloods. I’m positive you both can spot predators on a hunt.”

Odena ran her gaze over the crowd, careful not to make eye contact with anyone longer than a few seconds. She felt Lonel’s biceps tense a little under her palm, so she gave it a reassuring squeeze. Not that he would need it, she knew him too well to believe it could calm him. But it was something, and it helped her ignore the name Sleys addressed them with.

She took a plate, and packed some fruit and cheese at it, letting Lonel handle the drinks. Orange and red reflectors rushed to embrace them, then slid onward without a goodbye. The sensual, quiet music played relentlessly somewhere above. Odena could barely see the food in the dimness of the room, so she did her best to follow Lonel’s forever advice and let her nose guide her.

A man walked beside her, reaching for another glass of drink.

“Good evening,” he said, clear intention in his voice. Odena turned to him, alongside Lonel and Selys. The man wore a black tuxedo over his wine-red shirt and vest. Chest covered with frizzled cotton, corn blond hair freely flowing onto his shoulders. He looked as if he had stepped out of one of Selys paintings in his manor. “Who are your lovely guests Dumwermere?”

“Mr and Mrs Morninger. A pleasure to meet you, sir,” Odena initiated, offering her hand which the man took with clear amusement. It was the coldest kiss ever planted on her skin.

“The pleasure is all mine.”

Lonel’s arm tensed again, pulling it out from her grip and rather resting a hand on her waist. He did not offer a handshake to the man, but after a hidden poke in his side, he nodded as a greeting. The skin creased softly around one of the man’s eyes underneath the gilded fox mask, gaze steady on Lonel’s face. He kept staring with a smile as if he mused about a secret irony.

Selys continued, polite, yet distant. “They’re old workmates of mine. Mr and Mrs Morninger, this is Silvenus Galhart, the Phobia’s event manager. The praise you’ve showered me about the interior Mrs Morninger, they all shall go to him.”

“Oh, marvellous job, Mr Galhart. I’m thoroughly impressed.” Odena mimicked a smile sweet enough. She hoped for an opportunity to pry, but Silvenus simply bowed his head a touch, sipping from his drink.

“You flatter me, my lady. But it’s still early. I should only get a hold of my musicians so the evening could bloom into its full form.”

Odena caught a peek of the moderate stage in the belly of the club. A varnished guitar body and cymbals glinted around the three figures shuffling around the pedestal. The blackness of the stage was lost in the shadowed corner they were put into, making the people above glide on nothing but pure, thick darkness. Lonel joined her gaze for a second.

“Aren’t they out there?” he asked.

Silvenus inclined his brow in what seemed like well-contained irritation. “Only half of them. Our frontman and lead guitarist vanished into thin air, and we’re about to start in ten minutes.”

His tight tone told Odena that it wasn’t exactly the first time they might have done this. Silvenus, also, was surprisingly talkative. She assumed he might be rather ashamed of difficulties concerning the event, yet he didn’t give any indication of that. He simply looked as someone who had had enough.

“That’s tough. Are they playing tributes or originals?”

Lonel’s continuing question earned a subtle look from both Selys and Odena. His body was still tense as ever, yet he sounded nothing short of calm. There was the slightest hint of his distaste from earlier, but that was barely perceptible too. She took a drag from her cigarette, trying to figure out where he was heading — and why. Silvenus, on the other hand, had rearranged his face into the amused expression from before.

“Triubtes for tonight. Some of our guests might not be familiar with their work otherwise, given the large number of new faces,” he said, creasing his brows over his mask, and offering a darkly curious stare. “Forgive me, if I’m frank, but I feel like you have a proposition for me, Mr. Morninger.”

Odena did have the exact same feeling.

The music overhead began to quiet ever so slowly. A sign that the start was near, perhaps. Silvenus glanced up when the lights began to dim, then brighten again.

Lonel put out his smoke on the closest glass ashtray, and his hand pulled Odena a touch closer with a gentle tug.

“If you need people, I can get around a guitar, and she was the lead singer back at home in our school band. We’re also familiar with all the big hits of the last decade, so we could fill in for the time being.”

“A musical couple, I see,” Silvenus purred in a suddenly deeply intrigued manner. He conjured a wide, yet somehow sharp smile on his face. “It must have been fate that brought us together tonight then. It would be much help, if you could do that, Mr. and Mrs. Morninger. Alongside a fair compensation for your trouble, of course.”

Surprise would have been an understatement to what Odena was struck with. She kept her face friendly, nodding along, but she moulded into Lonel’s side sharp as a sign to elaborate on his train of thought immediately when the opportunity arose.

“Well, I wouldn’t have thought what a turn this event would take,” Selys commented, his words edged with jest for the public ear. “Although I had the pleasure of hearing them both in their respective roles separately, and I must say, they are definitely great candidates, Silvenus.”

Lonel spared a sharp glance at Selys, but only for a moment.

Silvenus put his palms together when the next dimming and brightening danced through the room, glancing towards the stage this time. “Excellent, wonderful. I’d like to ask for a minute then, to talk to the present members. Just a minute.” And with that, he slipped into the shadows of the half-lit ballroom.

Odena leaned towards Lonel’s shoulder, half turning to Selys too. “Would you please let in on us, too?”

She let her voice drip with a hint of her awakening frustration. She didn’t mind trying something with more risk, but she was never for improvisation. Not this kind, anyway.

Selys drew up a brow in support of her question.

“He must have been one of him.” Lonel scratched at his short beard, a habit Odena knew to be a nervous movement since he could grow it out. “And he seemed the type who could get us to the rest of them. If not, then the attention will.”

“Always an advantage to make the enemy owe you,” Selys smiled in impressed agreement.

On the far end, Silvenus’s faint figure seemed to finish talking to the assembled band members. His mask gleamed wickedly in the light while he turned to them, gesturing something Odean couldn’t see, but interpreted as an inviting motion. Her skin prickled from the possibility that he might see them clearly even through the shadowed distance.

“If they’re not trapping us first.” Her words met with a half-lidded, waiting set of eyes from Lonel. “Keep the possibility that he realised what and who we are. Just to stay alert.”

A small smile — barely but a smirk, really, found Lonel’s lips. “Look at you preaching caution, after dragging us here in the first place.”

They made their way to the stage, leaving Selys behind, and pushing through bodies at some points. It didn’t go unnoticed how Lonel made way to her with his hands, paying attention to that none of them touched her if it wasn’t necessary.

“I’ve had a great mentor to learn from,” she said, matching his casually accusatory tone nonetheless. It should have been evident that none of them were to sit around and wait until Selys alone figured something out. Not with all at stake.

They climbed backstage, joining the figures waiting in the ominous darkness of the curtains. Silvenus wore a dark smile, but a welcoming posture.

“Band, they would be your mates for the next forty-five minutes, the least. Go easy on them.” He then turned to Lonel and Odena. “Thank you for your offer, again. I’ll make sure our people are here until you finish, and after that, your food, drink and entertainment will be on the Phobia.”

“That is most generous of you, Mr Galhart.”

Odena reciprocated his smile, seeking a hold in Lonel’s warm touch on her back. Her mind clouded just a touch, yet it cleared as soon as it came. So, the cigarette truly neutralised mindreading from the vampires, just as Selys claimed. That, at least, was a relief.

However, it also confirmed Lonel’s previous statement about Silvenus.

“Alright, warm up to each other as much as possible before we start, and make the evening shine,” was the last thing Silvenus said, before he departed to the front.

The three members eyed them with a united gaze that bordered on curiosity and disdain. Two men and a woman, dressed in what seemed a fusion of blackened leather and dark satin. The harsh, expressive make-up on their faces only sharpened their look.

The woman stepped forth first, a gum livid between her teeth.

“Which one of you sings?” she asked in a rather soft voice. It did not go much with the look.

Odena stepped forward, extending a hand. “Livia Morninger, nice to meet you.”

“A delight.” She looked down at her hand, then back at her face. “Sing for me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sing for me. We need to check if you match with tonight’s tone. If not, that gruff should do behind you.”

Odena retreated her tongue from her cheeks which she pushed into, and met the woman’s nonchalant eyes. If they wanted to get rid of her, then they should do better than that. She inhaled softly and began a song she couldn’t get out of her head when she first started to wonder about joining the school band. Her voice came out rusty and in clear need of oiling. But, it wasn’t half bad. She sang the lyrics, hitting most of the notes clearly, and the others a touch twisted, yet not breaking the harmony. She added her own flair to many parts, even those that she experimented with the family during holidays.

In the end, the two men stepped beside the woman too.

Odena’s throat dried out, not used to such a use anymore. She felt Lonel’s presence beside her, close and ready.

The woman shrugged, nodding towards the water bottles on a little stool, while the shorter of the men handed Lonel an electronic guitar. “Good enough. I’m Marcelin, this is Jerico,” she gestured to the tall, lanky man. Then towards the shorter, bulkier one. “And that is Bichtra. Here’s the setlist. Study it, while we tune in, and follow our lead outside. That goes to you too, wolfman.”

Lonel grunted, plucking some strings and visibly cracking the arrogant demeanour on all the members for a moment, as if to wordlessly say he didn't have faith in his skill in vain, after all. Odena crossed her arms at the fact he had a more well-maintained skillset.

“Huh.” Jerico didn’t add more, but he did pluck at his own guitar. Soon enough, the two men began a routine of some kind, harmonising, and what seemed to practicing some passages. Bichtra joined them with his drums here and there. Odena, in the meantime, earned a little from Marcelin’s grace. Turned out, she was the keyboardist and one of a kind at that. She could help Odena work out some of the kinks before a staff member arrived to tell them it was time.

Odena felt at her neck. It was a long time ago since she stepped onto the stage, let alone was expected to rule it. She wouldn’t have been nervous for the crowd if she had known there weren’t people — creatures among them that actively feasted on her kind. Yet there she was, about to entertain them.

The things she didn’t do to gather information.

Lonel’s palm touched the small of her back, the soft fabric of her dress thin enough so she could feel the calluses on his skin. She turned to him, finding his overly calm, almost bored expression close. “Ready?”

“Hardly.”

He scoffed a half-joking sound. “Just like old times, then.”

“Just like old times,” she huffed out a short laugh, walking close beside Lonel. The bustling outside began to quiet, people’s chattering softening into a barely audible buzz. “It better work, Nel, or I’m going to rip your head off.”

They took their places at the edge of the stage. Even in this situation, a kind of nostalgia found her. Lonel, wrinkled and hardened with age, seemed to morph back into their teenage years as well. And he truly did, as he leaned over to her ear and whispered like he did back then.