"Anything else I should know?" I lean up against a dying tree, it's peeling trunk scratching against the memory of clothing I wear. I play with a small chunk of Amethyst as the silver woman rambles on, blocking out a few stray sentences here and there.

Her fogged features transform into a scowl, brows furrowing at my childish behavior. "Are you even paying attention? I saved your life last night! The least you could do is listen to me as I try to save it again!"

"Listen...what's your name?" She gives a light huff at the question but my mind is far too occupied by the deformed lump rolling across the bumpy ground ahead of me to care.

She straightens out her dress, pulling her hair over her shoulder and braiding it. "It's weird." She blushes, if even possible.

"So is Moon."

The woman takes a deep breath, peeking around the trees to make sure we're alone. "I shouldn't say here..."

Dropping the gem I say, "It's Descansar, not a mall."

The woman shrugs, wrapping her braid into a bun to avoid conversation. "Faramund." She huffs, crossing her arms in embarrassing defeat. "Listen now! It's much colder so when you wake up keep close under the blankets."

"Yes, Mother." I roll my eyes sarcastically, ignoring the imaginary incision in my chest at the word, before continuing on a more serious note. "Where do we go now?"

"You need to leave California, the snow hasn't reached much of elsewhere yet."

Using the tree as support, I push myself up and cross the small clearing to where I'm face to face with her. "We're tugging around two humans." I confess, biting down on my lip. "Will they be okay?" Though the thought of the girls should be the last thing on my mind in a situation like this, I can't help but wander endlessly about their well being. More of Mikayla's than Claire's but still...

"I have faith that you'll be able to care for them. It's time to wake up now but before you go...if you're so worried about them why not teach them some self defense? A spell or two? Everyone holds a little magic in them." Faramund gives a wink, waving goodbye as I blink away the dying forest and fade into the dim inn.

"Is it still night?" I ask an up and about Julius, shutting my eyes to an orange-tint darkness I'm more aquatinted with.

"It's about ten in the morning. The windows are just too icy to tell." Taking Faramund's warning into consideration, I wrap the blanket securely around my body and cross the room to the door. A thin sheet of ice shields it from my touch, giving us a good idea of just how cold the room really is. "Where are you going?" He asks, spinning around in the bed and entangling himself in the comforter.

Typical Julius. "To check on the girls." He nods but replies vocally when realizing we're drowning in night.

I cross the hall, shuffling my feet against the carpet for additional warmth. "Mikayla." She stands in the doorway seconds later, Claire still wrapped in bed shivering.

Mikayla stands in the doorway nonchalantly leaning against the frame as she pulls her blanket closer around her face. "It's dark."

"Please don't remind me. Er..." She pulls me into her room with a shy smile, wrapping her blanket around me just like I'd done with my cloak. "are you two okay? Our doorknob had a sheet of ice on it."

She laughs lightly, morning breath filling our tiny fort. "We are." Claire rises from the bed, combing out her strawberry hair with her fingers and pretending not to notice me.

"Moon!" She shrieks, pulling the blankets over her bare chest. "You could've warned us you were visiting so I wasn't so indecent!" With an impressive slight of hand the blanket drops towards her waist, only her fingers blocking her breasts from my less-than-interested view.

Mikayla's arm grazes mine, the perfect opportunity to flash her a look. The girl nods, backing into the hallway and into the bedroom I share with Julius. She gives a shy smile at my embarrassment. "She really does sleep naked though..."

"Who?" My head snaps back as Julius rounds the corner topless, pants lying low on his hips and his socks strewn about the floor. Mikayla turns away, her attention on a frosted Aloe Vera as a blush invades her features. "Did you sleep well, Moon? I didn't get to ask you this morning."

"Um...Claire and pretty decent I guess..."

"And you?" With his focus on her she's forced to glance up, brown eyes meeting pale skin with an odd admiration and curiosity, dusted with a pinch of light embarrassment.

"I slept well, thank you." She coughs up, shuffling closer to the Aloe Vera and dragging me with her. "Where are we going next?"

"Out of California."

Julius takes my hushed tone into consideration. "I'll go wake the others."

Alone with Mikayla I take in our surroundings, most of the bedroom is dark from the iced windows but I'm still able to make out Mikayla's cloak beneath the blanket. The jeans and sweater she had wore the day before visible through the small ray of light breaking through the ice. Wool socks cover her calloused feet and gloves wrap around her hands, a knitted scarf tied securely around her neck.

One look in a nearby mirror shows I'm not off to a great start, eyes honey in color and skin paler than Hades's ghosts. A crack has started up under my ear, blood seeping out freely while I shiver closer to the human girl.

The water on the mahogany dresser is pure ice, the bed sheets are chill, and the ivory tile of the bathroom is slick from the leaky faucet, whose leftover water hangs as an icicle above the closed drain.

"Ready?" Andrew gives a small smile, staying towards the back with me by his side.

"We need to leave California." I whisper when we reach the slick stone outside the inn. A man stands awkwardly at the wood line, his arms positioned as if running away from something. A closer look confirms him dead, hard chilled blood bursting from his skin.

That was almost us.

Kai ignores the gruesome scene, his arms swinging happily at his side. "We have about three more days before everyone goes insane."

"What happens when we get hungry? We are human you guys." Mikayla turns to me for the answer, something in her body language giving away that she's scared. Of us or our situation I'm not quite sure of yet.

"My hunting skills are a little weak but I should be able to catch something." She takes my shrug negatively, leaving my side with a small frown etched on her makeup smudged lips.

Andrew leads us into the woods again, my legs getting caught up in branches and my anger bubbling with every small irritation. "I don't have the answers to everything so stop expecting me to!" Julius's eyes widen then immediately soften into a violet pool of sympathy, body shifting as if coming to comfort me but feet firmly planted in the snow. Mikayla turns away embarrassed and frightened, skipping up to the front towards Clide's protection.

"You're stressed out. It happens to the best of us, baby." Baby. The coal inside me loses it's fire at his words. Baby. A feeling rises up to replace the lost warmth but it's hastily pushed aside when the group moves forward without me. Julius turns back every now and again with a grin upon his features, snow dusting his cheeks like powdered sugar off of a doughnut.

I return his gesture, the night of the party coming back to me stronger than when the memory was first made. Julius's mouth forms an 'O' at my traveling thoughts, heat flowing into his body and shining through his cheeks.

Love. The word always meant hate to me. Dark basements and heavy chains and a hell of a lot of pain. Maybe that was the reason I was afraid of loving someone but Jules took everything I knew, every rule I carefully set up, and shattered them. I can no longer tell if love is bloody bed sheets or cuddling at midnight. Hell, before Julius came around I didn't even know what cuddling was. It was only a term that paid me significantly more after a client finished.

So if I'm in love with Julius why can't I tell him? Why am I still afraid that something will happen to him, or he'll change his ways and hurt me? "Moon?" What if he is planning to hurt me? "Moon?" I'd deserve it. "Moon!"

"What?!" Jules's links his fingers with mine, roughly pulling me into his chest and tugging at my black hood.

"Stop thinking to yourself it isn't good."

I look up at him noting the stubble beginning to appear on his chin. "You're supposed to be able to think to yourself." He answers me with a frown. "Tell me you love me." I whisper, our bodies stopping and starting before the group has a chance to notice.

Hand slipping to my waist he gives a shy smile, kissing the top of my head and sliding his hand to my waist. A shiver crawls up my spine at his touch, warm in contrast to the bitter weather we endure. "I love you."

"Promise me." My voice shakes, the command coming out more scared than I had wanted. Julius seems to notice, his brows furrowing at my antsy moves and awkward positions.

"I promise I love you, now what is this about?" Julius blocks my path with his body slightly, the angle he's in preventing me from moving forward.

"Promise me you won't hurt me."

Hearing my voice plagued with pain, his own tone softens out to barely a whisper. "A bad dream?" He asks, ceasing the movement of his hand.

"Promise!"

He seems taken aback by my sudden outburst, his hand absentmindedly rubbing circles while I clench and release my fingers into a fist. "I promise you. That's the last thing I would ever want to do."

Julius holds his hands up in surrender, my back feeling abandoned when his fingers leave my body, the cold snaking back up my shirt in his absence. "Creek." A voice calls from ahead, my teeth chattering and Julius puzzled as we come to a halt.

"Sirens." My attention shifts from love to fear, my senses focusing in on Kai and how close he is to the water's edge. I call for him to back away though the siren's will have little affect on him due to our being bound.

The indention of their scales rests fossilized in the snow, red streaks dripping back into the body of water as it begins to move, pace quickening as a speck of blonde comes into view. Next thing I know I'm running, Kai's hand clasped in mine while more heads join the water, demented Scylla's clawing at the sloshing snow.

One manages to lift it's heavy body from the creek, a scar across her naked breast and feathered arrows piercing her side. Covering Kai's ears, I shove him on to the lowest branch of a tree, instructing him to quickly climb to the topmost branch and hide in the shade of the brush.

"Moon!" Julius grips me by the forearm in the tree top, panic in his eyes at the thought of me dropping down to my death. "What the hell are you doing?" He yells through clenched teeth, hushing his tone to avoid us being heard.

I glance down at the snake like creature on the floor, it's tail still emerging from the water while it's head is a good few yards away. "I'm a shifter remember?" And with a kiss to his hand I drop down landing just outside of the creature's eye range.

I quite often tend to act without thinking.

It whips its head around, black eyes staring into mine as it opens its mouth and let's out a screeching note angelic only to those it affects. Instead of halting I make a run for it, digging my heels into the snow and hoping I won't trip to my death.

"Moon..." It calls out, smashing a tree with it's oversized tail. "Moon?" Though I know the siren's tricks I can't help but peek up to the tree where Julius hides, the siren's voice mocking his all too well. "Moon!" A knife plunges through my heart at it's games, Kaiien's screams feeling all too real. "Moon!" My mind replays film I thought I had burned, flashbacks I never thought I'd see again rising to the surface and clouding my vision.

The sirens must've learned a few new tricks. I stumble towards the trunk of a wide tree, shielding myself briefly until I can recover, hand over my mouth as I gasp for breath. "Moon!" Niko's voice has me paralyzed, my body trembling and my fingers digging into the trunk until I feel the familiar run of blood down my knuckles. "Moon you pathetic, worthless whore." A new type of fear takes over, a nagging feeling in the back of my mind slowly easing itself forward.

Kaiien. It's Kaiien's fear.

My body lunges forward just as the siren turns the corner, it's mouth dripping blood and a belt of frost covering where it's tail and torso meet. "Moon." Niko's voice growls in warning, the siren's rugged lips forming each new curse. "Moon be a good boy." The forest begins to blend with the wooden bedroom, trees fading out into frame covered walls and the crunching of snow dissolving to mimic the shuffling of bed covers. I can briefly make out the slanted eyes of the siren looming over me through my blurred vision, it's voice lullabying me into a nightmare. "Thank you for being a good boy."

The transformation from forest to little boy stops midway, my eyes widening at the siren's mistake. The one thing Niko would never say was a 'thank you' even if it was meant to dehumanize and embarrass me. Struggling to stand, the siren switches plans before I can get away to grab any kind of weapon. "Moon!" The Kai impersonation gets to me for a second before I'm grabbing at a branch, slicing at the siren's torso. "Moon! Niko's hurting me!" It plays at my biggest fears but even a routine as flawless as their's has mistakes. Kaiien never called him Niko, neither of us did.

It's blonde hair bleeds to ginger as I slice the wood against cold flesh, it's mouth opening enough to get one good stab in. "Baby, stop! You're hurting me!" Julius. I get in another jab, another slice with each alternating voice. Niko, Kai, Julius, Andrew, Jesse, Crew, Mom, Dad, Violet. Every impersonation fuels my pain, each voice ripping open the stitches allowing fresh blood to pour from old wounds. My makeshift sword slashes the divide between tail and torso, the injured top half sliding away from the still moving bottom as venom leaks out from the gap.

One by one they fall out of the tree, Julius hugging me with tears in his eyes, whispering for me to never try that again. Kai seems unaffected but he wraps his arms around my neck nonetheless and squeezes as hard as he can. Andrew rubs the silver scar on his neck absentmindedly, giving a good idea of what the siren had made him relive.

"That was terrifying." James breathes shakily, a hand resting gently on my shoulder. "I thought sirens couldn't affect you though?"

"I didn't think they could." Worry flashes across his face, eyes full of brotherly concern.

"Then I guess it's starting sooner than we thought."

Note:

This chapter was a hot mess. Sorry!

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^I've been working really hard to update every ten days instead of about every 3wks or however long it was! So please vote/comment because it means a lot!

The name Faramund means traveler's/journey protection

Thanks for 2k reads!