Netta was relieved to be away from the other women, in light of the awkward situation that they had been caught in.

Netta eased back into her seat and was saved from having to choose between falling asleep or making conversation with him when Ash leaned over and said, "You seem to be taking this part rather well."

Netta sighed. "I was trying to not think about it, so thank you for reminding me. I've gotten a bit... used to this, if you want to call it that."

The feel of Ash's arm on her shoulders, a heavy, large weight, made Netta jolt in her seat. She almost pushed his arm off of her - for whatever that expenditure of effort would be worth. After all, Ash could do as he wished now.

He looked different than he had since reappearing in her life - large, lanky and dark haired.

His face was a worn one, angular - hungry looking, and with thin lips. When he smiled, sometimes Netta saw sharp teeth as opposed to the flat, human ones hidden beneath the curving line of his heavy mustache.

He was not a handsome man - his face a discomforting array of features that warned of a predator -

But, still -

Ash chuckled in that deep, rumbly way of his.

"Now that we're away from those two, how about we get caught up?"

Netta took in a deep breath and felt her eyes widen. A gentle writhing lit up in her abdomen, a residual memory.

"What's the matter with you, Lovely, you look as though you've seen a ghost." He almost sounded sincere, if not for the slightly sadistic smirk that his lips possessed, or the way that his eyes, which could be easily mistaken for a particularly ruddy and deep shade of brown, seemed to light up.

Shaking off her disturbingly potent reaction to him - one that he could read far too well - and having to remind herself, again, that this Monster was hers now, for good or ill - Netta struggled.

Finally, she stuttered out, "Q-quite a bit happened - then, uh, you died..."

She proceeded to explain what had happened, glancing up every once in a while to examine Ash's face for his reaction. She was did was look at her, cupping his chin in his broad hand.

After she had finished, she looked up at him, slightly exasperated, and said, "Well?"

Ash shrugged. "You traded one group of Witches for another. It's like, I don't know, trading one curse for a slightly nicer curse, like one that makes you shit yourself less so."

He blinked softly, as though he were thinking about something, then he looked away.

"Gee, Ash, you could just tell me what you really think about me."

She sighed and sat back in her seat, relieved that he had taken his arm away.

Ash glanced at her, beginning to stare, and it made Netta's skin seem to creep on its own from the prolonged stare of the red eyes beneath those arched brows.

When he spoke, Netta could not stop from noticing those sharp, shark's teeth of his. "I'm still coming to terms with... you being one of them. I can hardly believe that someone as reasonable - about forty percent of the time - can be one of those harpies. You know, I bet if we looked hard enough, we could find a way to shed your physical form..."

The burring, thick quality of his voice seemed to increase as he spoke, and his eyes became half-covered by his eyelids dreamily.

Netta shut her eyes, sighed. "Even if I wanted to take you up on that, there's nothing that I can do, until I deal with my Sisters." She looked away, becoming concerned that, among the many things that Ash was so far unwilling to explain, was the possibility that was becoming increasingly probable was that he could spur her to his will with his eyes.

He snorted. "Those women are like rats. Good luck catching them without a good net on a pole."

"Anything blow up while I was gone?"

Wu's words rang off of the entrance to the home of the Gardenia Coven as she dropped her bags on the ground.

Witches came in until the tiny foyer was filled with them.

Instinctively, Netta walk backward until she hit Ashwood, and felt his arms come down and around her to wrap themselves around her chest in a surprisingly gentle hug. Netta's face burned with the feeling of the sudden, unexpected intimacy of the feel of Ash encircling her.

And then there was the fact that, since he had awoken, Ash was now visible to everyone.

He was now, seemingly, a part of the physical world. A very tall, quietly powerful part of the physical world.

Just how powerful IS he? 

The other Witches gawked up at him and it was Morgan who said something first, crying out.

"Who let this corn-fed beast into the house?"

Ash sighed and she could feel his fingers tightening around her hips.

Netta quickly said, "This is Ash - he's... different from before."

Morgan spoke up from where she sat. "Like for instance, we can see him."

Miss Kienna stepped forward through the mass of her fellows, her arms opened. Netta wasn't sure what to expect until she felt the woman wrapping her arms around her shoulders, the taller Matriach pulling her in for a hug.

She was hardly aware of Ash's arms disengaging from her as he stepped back, feeling the Witch's citrus smell wrapping itself around her.

Miss Kienna patted her on the back gently and murmured into her ear. "Congratulations. I'm so proud of you, you did it."

Netta clenched her eyes closed, feeling the unexpected shock of the beginnings of tears.

Shuddering, she found herself hugging the woman back wordlessly.

After a moment, they dropped their embrace, but Miss Kienna took a small step backward and examined Netta's face.

"Are you unscathed?" She asked in a low voice.

"If you're asking if I raped and or attempted to disembowel her, then only partially on one account and totally on the other," Ash said, twining an arm back around Netta's abdomen and pressing her back towards him.

Miss Kienna looked above Netta's head, the previous warmth in her blue eyes now gone as cold as chips of ice as she regarded Ash with a leveled, strong gaze.

"You will speak when spoken to. I have never allowed a misbehaving Monster free reign of my home and I do not intend to start it now."

From behind Miss Kienna, Netta could hear one of the Witches saying to another one, "D-disembowel?"

It was after the other Witches had gone to bed for the evening after the meal that Netta was summoned to the balcony by the enigmatic Miss Kienna.

Walking onto the balcony lead Netta onto the wooden platform that overlooked the very long pathway that lead to the line of trees.

The path, lit by the moon, seemed then to be almost more beautiful than anything else in the known world. All Netta could see, however, was that it was where the ill-fated Anais had attempted to make her escape.

Still, after being in the house and having had to deal with the close proximity of all of these other Witches - and a decidedly more touchy-feely Ashwood - Netta felt the crispness of the winter air like a relieved sigh.

In a moment, Netta smelled the difference in the cold cleanness of the air - the smell of citrus wafting along the cold. The Witch herself was leaning over the balcony's railing and did not turn around to engage Netta as she walked out.

Netta leaned herself on the railing to the left of the Witch. She thought about saying, something, but shut her mouth. It was the sight of the faraway, uncharacteristically vulnerable look on the older Witch's features.

Maybe it was the light of the moon, or just the way that a lost moment of vulnerability looked on the usually quite stern woman's features, but Netta thought that she could see an almost youthful beauty on the woman's rich-toned features.

When she turned to look at her, the stone gray of her eyes seemed to shine like silver in the darkness. "I know that what I'm about to ask of you is... unjust in the light of what you've gone through."

Netta swallowed a lump in her throat.

"Okay."

Miss Kienna chuckled humorlessly and leaned forward to look away and up at the path to the woods before she said, "I'm not even requesting this. All I know how to do - all I've known how to do for the past century - is order. You know," she smiled faintly. "my mother was the lowest of the low-ranking Witches in the court of the last of the royal French Witches. And a Moorish mutt, to boot. When I was fourteen, I had to bring together twenty orphans, and from that point on, I never got to experience what it was like to be a child."

Miss Kienna rose a hand, curled into a tight fist. "I wear power like a suit of armor, and I've forgotten how to take it off."

"Miss Kienna -"

"Please," she turned to look at Netta, her gray eyes warming. "call me Lucia. All issues of control and power aside, we're Sisters now, bound by fate."

"Lucia. I - I am certain that you're wary of me, in light of what my Sisters - my ex-Sisters did. I want to assure you that although you were forced to take me in that I will promise you, now, for whatever it's worth -"

Lucia waved her hand at her impatiently. "Silence. You do not need to exhaust yourself on my behalf." Underneath the sternness of her voice, Netta could hear the almost affectionate warmth beneath her words.

She smiled softly at Netta. "Your actions have spoken immeasurably louder than anything that you could say. I must admit, what I asked you to do was in no small part a test. And it could have turned into a suicide mission, as I am certain that you were well aware of."

"Yes." Netta thought about Ashwood for a moment, then said, "I had so little trust in him - my Familiar - for so long. And now - he could have killed me, worn my power - but he didn't."

Netta sighed and looked down at the woods ahead, and unerringly, she thought of the night that she and Ash had shared. "Perhaps I should trust him more. I mean, now that we're bound together."

The words felt odd to say on Netta's tongue, but not in an altogether unpleasant way.

Lucia was quiet for a moment, before she hesitantly said, "...Perhaps. I hesitate to weigh in on your predicament, as mine is altogether unique for a Witch."

"How do you mean?"

Lucia smiled softly, her arms reaching up to wrap themselves around her chest. "My darling was not my first, I am embarrassed to say. I was hasty in my youth, and entered into a Sacred Contract with a Monster before I was seventeen years old. My darling - he was a large reason why I was saved from the fate of possession. Since the day that I agreed to having him bound to me, I have not once looked back, not longed for another's embrace."

Netta felt her eyes widen at the Witch's confession. "Miss Kienna, it sounds to me as though you're admitting to loving your Familiar."

"You would be correct. I know that it's an old-fashioned, outdated idea, but I dream with my Familiar's energy wrapped around me. He's my true strength, the weapon that I wield sparingly to save as much of his energy as I can." She turned to look at Netta, turning around from where she had been leaning over the balcony's railing to look at her. "You look scandalized. I take it that your upbringing was, shall I say, more classical?"

The Witch was referring to the practice of what was commonly referred to as Humbling. It was a process through which a Witch burned through the energy of their Familiar that they mated with rarely, if much at all, following the Sacred Contract's creation, and then allowed themselves a chance to go for more. Or even multiple ones at the same time.

To profess to love what was commonly thought of as a tool at worst, and a simply more exotic version of an animal at best...

"How do you - how can you trust him?" Netta felt the words blurt out of her, the result of an upbringing among Witches who showed only mistrust to Monsters.

"How can you ever trust any man? The stakes are higher, but the chess pieces are essentially the same. Safety affords no real intimacy, nothing to lose, but nothing to gain. Risk rewards with the grandest of prizes - and no small amount of power, safety."

"Power?"

Lucia turned to look at her with a conspiratorical smile. "There's more to the make-up of a Monster who lends their whole being to a Witch than what can be drained of them and leave them hollow. Trust allows for power uncharted by those who drain their poor Familiars until they're nothing. I am sharing this with you, now, like this, because I don't want any of the rest of this Coven to know about this side of me. And I feel a kindred soul in yours."

"Why?"

Lucia laughed. "Even in my home, I rely on those who abide by the old ways. I cannot risk rocking the boat and disrupting this peace by projecting even a belief that I hold as dear as this one onto the others. And besides, you know how our kind views love - and with Monsters."

That Netta did. Certainly growing up, her Sisters viewed love with Ash's kind in the same way that a human might view romance with animals.

Even thinking of the concept felt odd in her mind. Even as she felt the whisper of truth.

"Why are you telling me this?"

Lucia looked up at the sky, a thoughtful, calm expression taking over her warmth. Finally, she said, "Your unique predicament makes you an outsider to much of our kind. I would rather see you content in any happiness that you can snatch from this life that your old Coven has made for you. To boot, if you could ever find it in your heart to love Ashwood, then he could afford you strength and defense unparalled by those women who killed him."

The memory of Ash laying beaten, empty of life shook Netta with an unnamed emotion.

Lucia turned to look at her, a concerned look on her face. "Young one, what's the matter?"

Netta shook her head. "I'm sorry. I was just - I remembered seeing him, dead."

Lucia smiled gently. "Time comes for humans and bound Monsters alike. Only our kind in the old days, and the free Monsters, can feel the chain of immortality relieved from our shoulders. If you accept the devotion of one of his kind, you need to be ready for the inevitable. In all likelihood, you will see that one die before your eyes at least once more."

Netta shivered. "What they did to Anais... And what they did to Ashwood... I didn't know that they were capable of this."

Netta knew, too well, what her Sisters were capable of - but murder, such extreme violence -

Lucia leaned over and offered her arm to Netta before she closed it around her shoulder.

"They're feral. No Witch would ever do what they did to their own kind. You shouldn't feel bad about doing your duty by them. Whatever they are now, they're hardly the same as the women that you grew up with, I can assure you."

"Why are they - why do you think that they're doing this?"

She was shaking, and she could not stop herself from glancing up at the lonesome-looking moon. It hovered, a cold giantess, over her court of stars.

Lucia was silent for a long moment. Finally, she turned her head to look closely at Netta. "I have been thinking that one over in my mind for a while now. The closest thing that even makes any sort of a connection in this is a series of murders that took place in the turn of the twentieth century. I've done some digging after we spoke about the murders."

Netta found that she could not look down over the balcony any longer, a feeling of dizziness overcoming her.

"Uh - more murders?"

Lucia nodded grimly. "Yes, if you'll remember, quite old, but there's something to this that is unmistakable about them that seem to coincide eerily with Anais' death. There was a ritualistic aspect to these murders, and they seem to have been completed by a group that slayed Witches. Some believe that they were done by humans."

"It sounds like you're not convinced."

Lucia snorted. "We're always so quick to project our fears and problems onto humans. Me? I want to know how humans could have found Witches, these Witches, and killed them. No human can tell the damn difference from a purely physical point of view from a woman and a Witch. So I would like to know how a band of humans could get together and start tracking down Witches like they're big game hunters."

Netta shivered and, unable to stop herself from doing it, she looked out into the gloom of the forest beyond the line of trees.

"Why? Why would my old Coven be doing this?"

"It's always related to power hunger. I can tell you that much; for what purpose and why the desperation, I have no idea. But, it is my belief that they left you alive because you did not provide what they wanted. What they got from my Anais and your Calliope."

Netta spoke before she could regret opening her mouth, afraid of the answer.

Finally, though, she asked, "Whats that?"

Lucia looked at her in a measured, careful way.

"A complete severance of any tie between Witch and Familiar."

In that moment, Netta realized that when she had saved Ash by not agreeing to sever ties with him, that she had been saved twice-over by the Monster.