Netta had been piling luggage in the back of the new car that she and the oddly still operational blank card had managed to procure. She jumped when she was interrupted by the sound of Opehlia talking.

"I'm coming with you."

Netta stopped as she readied herself to throw a duffel bag in the back of the vehicle.

"Uh, no thank you," she murmured, not bothering to turn around to look at the ingenue.

Ophelia continued, undaunted.

"I didn't want to go to his temple, I wanted to follow you as you started to hunt down your Sisters."

"I can't let you come along, so go back inside of the house."

Ophelia let out an exasperated sound. "You're not even trying to understand me -"

"I understand completely. You're a young Witch with your whole life ahead of you. Don't waste it on me. Trust me, I'm not worth it."

"I can hold my own on the road. Besides, a Coven rule states that we're never to be alone. It's too dangerous to travel alone-"

Netta cut her off. "-especially when you're an untrained Witch who's much too young to even consider a Sacred Contract -"

Ophelia, who had been standing at the beginning of the long and winding driveway, walked up to Netta's side. Quickly, she grabbed onto one of the remaining bags to help.

Netta turned around to snag her bag back from out of the girl's hands. "In short, hell no, and go back inside with the others who are watching me from the windows."

Netta turned and watched as the faces in the large front windows disappeared, replaced with hurridly shut blinds.

Ophelia growled. "I am not a burden. If anything, you need my help. You - your Familiar's not exactly useful in a fight, being an Incubi, and your old Sisters are dangerous. I think that extra help shouldn't be turned down, you don't have the - the luxury of turning away help -

Netta tossed the bag into the back of the car with more force than was neccesary, winging it into the back of the car.

"Inside of the house. Now." She snapped.

She stared down the severe, but undeniably pretty black girl. Finally, Ophelia rolled her eyes and stomped back inside.

With the girl gone, Netta turned around and make quick, angry work of flicking the remaining two bags into the back before slamming the trunk closed. Rushing to the driver's side door, she threw the door opened and slammed it behind her.

Before she could let the deep breath that she had taken out, Ash remarked, "That went well, considering."

Netta didn't bother to ask what he was alluding to. "This is why I did not have children."

Ashwood - now looking like the man that she had first met so long ago, with a rough, almost cruel-looking face, a long, powerful body encased in a white sweater and well-fitting jeans - said, "No, you didn't have children because I am physically incapable of giving you children."

Netta bit the inside of her cheek and turned to look at Ash, who gazed at her. The deep red of his eyes were hidden behind dark Aviator glasses - a carry over from his old form.

She shook her head at him and pulled down the drive, leaving with a brief twinge of regret over what she was leaving in the rearview mirror.

Ash had not bothered to hide his enjoyment over the fact that the first head on the chopping block was to be Saorise's.

When Netta had dug around with Sia's information, using a bit of Ash-influenced charm that he had more than eagerly lent her, Netta discovered that Sia's visa had been used as of the day before.

Trying to not think about what was sure to come, Netta drove until she got tired. At the end of the drive, she found a bed and breakfast that looked like something out of the Addams Family to rest for the night.

Getting upstairs, Ash made it clear how keen he was on finishing what they had begun back in Europe.

With his pants pushed down and his penis thrust up, Ash had begun to grope and kiss Netta with a relaxed aggression.

Netta was close, trembling the with need to give in in spite of her misgivings about jumping into this lust-fueled bad idea, the fear that she could not control this was being worn away by the novel feeling of lust.

He had been murmuring to her in her mind and against her ear, long licks of sweet and not so sweet endearments.

"Nettles, you don't know how much this shit drives me insane." His voice was rough, lacking in any finesse.

Netta shuddered as she felt his lengthened tongue as it swelled and lengthened against the hill of her forehead, the concave of her cheek and to her chin.

It was a Monster's organ that ran the length of her face - something that should have been repugnant, disturbing.

Instead, she felt a shudder that ran down the length of her body, pooling in her abdomen. Sense memory was too much, as her body recalled with ease the feeling of being ruthlessly penetrated by the same tongue.

The sound of the phone ringing made Ash actually roar.

Stuttering, Netta extricated herself from an only partially willing Ash and answered the room's phone with a timid, "Hello?"

She had a hand clamped between her legs, and she could feel her own pulsing, thrumming desire - was surely echoing it in her words.

Five minutes later, Netta was standing by her bed as the door opened. The familiar face of Ophelia appeared in the space between the partially opened door and the frame.

"I got the room right next to this one."

"Hello to you, too." Netta said, her arms crossed over her chest.

Opehlia paused as she pulled away from the door, then pushed the door open a measure and said, "Look, I'm sorry. I know that you didn't want me to tag along, but Miss Kienna has a rule that we're never to journey away from home alone."

Netta sighed and motioned her away. Once the door closed, Netta turned to Ash, who was standing in the corner of the room with his own arms crossed. "This just keeps getting harder."

Ash shrugged. "You Witches and your pack mentality."

They had a meal at a surprisingly nice restaurant. It apepared to be an Italian place kept alive by the sheer love of the local foodie population, and the prices reflected that.

Netta counted herself lucky in that she was able to not look at the prices for longer than it took to glance over them, now.

With Ash, dressed in surprisingly elegant green sweater that had a folded turtleneck, and with some clothes that Netta had been able to procure for herself - a dress that was daring for her, how it ended above the knee - Netta could almost make herself believe that she was there for a lovely meal.

Ophelia herself was wearing a yellow blouse and a colorful pair of jeans that only the youthful could pull off. Netta found herself surprised when she first saw the girl in the outfit she was wearing for dinner, and her reaction was noted by the girl.

"Stop looking at me as though I've turned into a female."

Netta said nothing to that, only turning around to drive them with her two passengers remaining almost ominously silent in the car.

Once they were seated, Netta planned to wait until they had ordered their food until she would broach what needed to be said.

As she was scanning through the steak options, Ophelia suddenly said, "What's the plan, exactly?"

Ash, who had been feigning interest in the menu, murmured against his raised fist, "Traveling with a Witchling for a pet."

"If anyone's the pet, it's you, Monster," Ophelia retorted.

Netta shut her menu and tried to control the heat in her face.

"The both of you, please. Not in public." When both were quiet for a moment, Netta said, "I have a lead on my eldest sister, Saorise. I expect that they think that I'm dead, so I should have the element of surprise on my hands."

"So you know where your eldest sister is?" Ophelia asked quickly.

Netta looked down at her menu then. "I know where she is most likely to go - and where my other sisters likely are." Netta shifted uneasily, feeling the full scrutiny of the intelligent and headstrong Witch's eyes on her.

"So - you don't know." The way that Ophelia said it was so flat and harsh that it made Netta wince - and become all too aware of how unplanned she sounded.

Netta could feel the blush in her face, a violent warmth. "I know where they're going to be. I can't think of anywhere else that they would want to be other than the old Homestead. They all have some form of egotism, they never think that they'll get caught for anything that they ever do."

She could sense the girl's dismay at her now obvious lack of reasoning, and it engendered doubt in her.

"So, do I need to say that this feels like a bad idea?"

"Hm?" Netta blinked, realizing then how close she had been to falling asleep just before that moment. She glanced to her left at Ash, who looked, as always, cramped in his small seat as he drove.

Ash glanced at her for a moment before turning to look back at the road.

"Before the kid wakes up at some point. We need to talk about the obvious. Aloud, since you have an aversion to sharing your mind with mine while we're not..." He cleared his throat.

Netta glanced back then, saw the teenaged girl laid out on the seat, using one of her bags as a pillow, her eyes shut, her breathing soft.

"Has this occurred to you that all of this seems awful on-purpose, leaving you for dead but with enough energy to be picked up by the near-by band of the very Witches that they had killed a member of? Come on, if they had wanted you dead, they would have just done it then." Ash huffed out an indignant breath, his eyes on the road.

Netta leaned back into her seat and found that she could not seem to find any comfortable position in the seat. "Maybe they just wanted me to suffer. It seems like a typical homecoming to me." She crossed her arms over her chest, glanced out at the snow drifts outside. "Sounds like a normal birthday to me."

"Come now. I need you to speak plainly to me." There was a note of sincere worry in his voice that surprised Netta. "Surely you know why they sent the Witchling with you, to keep you from -"

Netta sighed and sat stock-up in the seat. Around the car, the ensuing darkness from sun down cast them in an eerie world wherein only she and Ash existed. In the vague glow of the light-up dashboard, Ash's face looked menacing.

His facial hair, its darkness clashing with the soft gold of his face and the flash of his unnatural eyes, gave him the look of a demon.

She interrupted him, saying her words in an annoyed ramble.

"I'm not stupid, I think you know that. Though - this'll be the first time that any Witches have ever taken a personal interest on my behalf. I may be purposefully naive, but I know what this all looks like. Their well-meaning attempt at not letting me turn this into a suicide mission is noted, but I have no other choice right now." She stopped with a huff, trying to stop her hands from clutching onto the front of her coat in hard claws.

Ash was quiet for a moment, so when she finally did speak in the unnatural quiet of the car, his whispering voice sounded like a part of the ambiance.

"...Duty." He snorted. "Everything always comes back to that - that... fucking idiotic term." The snarled, hateful way that he said the word shocking Netta. "Why is it your job to rise to the occasion? Why can't we be happy together? Why?"

Suddenly, Ash turned to look at Netta.

For a moment, even with the hardened carapace that seemed to have ensconced her heart, she felt her heart turn at the uncertain, vulnerable look in his eyes.

She recalled, then, seeing a similar expression on his face in the woods.

Netta felt her mouth open and the words left before she had a chance to censor them.

"I was happy when I had Dad in my life, and then I was happy when I thought that I would always have you. I've never been truly happy since I was young. My life slips out of my fingers even as I'm immortal, watching as humans live a more vicarious life than mine, letting my body going to shit and allowing the melancholy to rot my soul."

Netta turned to look out of the window, and not caring if Ash could hear her or not, she murmured, "I've been living my own death for a hundred years. Dying now wouldn't make any difference."

Ash said nothing for a long time, and then she heard his voice in her head.

You might be surprised by what you might find along the journey of your life, Nettles.

"-So, this is... the desert." From the back seat, Ophelia spoke up for the first time in over an hour.

Netta, who was driving after having been grudgingly awake, turned around and glanced at the girl. A quick look back revealed the teenaged girl looking out of the rightside back window.

"Yeah."

"So, this is where you're from?"

Netta chuckled. "Sort of. I guess you could say so, but I was born in Ireland."

"Why did they bring you - here?"

Netta shrugged. "A lot of people were fleeing Ireland around that time. There was enough blame to go around the superstitious humans about any possible Witches, that's for sure."

The girl didn't say anything. For a moment, Netta's mind wandered to thoughts of a cottage that was cold mostly all of the time. Unerringly, she thought of the all-encompassing love of her father.

What was your youth like before you met me like?

The feel of Ashwood, entering her mind so readily like an unlocked door, made Netta jolt up in her seat as though he had just slid a wandering hand down her shirt.

She could feel the ensuing bolt of rippling laughter in her mind.

"Are you alright?" The girl in the back seat asked it softly.

Netta rose a hand up to her forehead instinctively. "I - I'm alright. A little too tired right now, maybe." I can't think of how to describe it right now, Ash.

You don't have to, his voice was warm, entreating in her mind. You can let me feel what it was like.

Netta hesitated with a shiver. This was almost more intimate that having sex with him.

Still she struggled to maintain her composure with him imbedded in her mind, even as he looked casual next to her in the car. He kept a knee thrown over his left leg, the fingers on his right hand tapping out a low staccato on his knee that was not keeping in rhythym with the slow alternative on the radio.

Netta had to keep from letting her surprise and discomfort showing on her face. She could not keep her nails from digging into the faux leather steering wheel.

How would I even do that? She found herself asking back, even as she had fully intended to tell him no.

Maybe she was feeling wary of the alien preseance in her mind, the tether between them, steadily fall because of how he had gone about impressing himself in her mind. It was as though she were an exotic predator and he was keeping a good distance between them, even his hands tucked behind his back, his gaze lowered so as not to offend her.

But, there his voice was, a hot summer breeze in the cold, deep woods.

I am not making you uncomfortable communicating with you like this, am I? There was a slight tease in his voice, a dare that reminded Netta too much of halycon memories. I'll tell you what. You show me yours and I'll show you mine.

Netta felt his words so potently in her mind, and the immediate image of something erotic hit her so hard that she was not able to stop it from blazing in her mind where even Ash was unable to not see it.

As she nearly skidded off of the road, she could hear him laughing aloud and in her mind.

For a moment she sat, with the car still on the side of the road.

She sat, shivering at the wheel and trying to shake off the impression. She wanted to scrub it from her mind, the sheer embarrassment of being caught as proccupied about sex as Ash himself shockling her.

She felt the pressure of Ophelia's hand on her shoulder.

"Netta, are you sure that you're okay -"

Ash, who had blinked out of the car, was standing in front of the now opened driver's side door with his hand outstretched. Taking it gratefully, Netta was pulled out of the car as Ash told the teenager in the back seat that Netta just needed to rest for a bit.

As he walked her to the passenger's side, she felt him lean in close to her left ear and she almost jumped as she felt his teeth - sharp - gently clamp down on upper ridge of her ear, let go, and then breathily whisper, "Not what I was imagining at that moment in time, but just wait until we can get away from the little Witch later..."

Netta found herself letting him settle her down into the passenger's side seat with an almost ironic show of chivalrous gusto before he blinked into the driver's seat.

"Are we all good?" Ash asked, looking first and Netta and then back at Ophelia before his gaze returned to Netta once he had heard a murmured, "Yes," from Ophelia.

The irises of his eyes, already red, seemed to smolder and burst around the alien black orb of his pupils. "Are you alright, Lovely?"

Even as Netta murmured back an automatic response, she felt the tether that had been established in between their minds groan as Ash pushed deeper into her mind enough to leave the definite impression.

Unimistakably, it was Netta as she had been in the woods, but from Ash's point of view, as he looked down at them. Fully nude, her legs wrapped around his hips, pulled apart from each other at their cojoined abdomens.

Her head was lolled back in what could either be intense pleasure or pain, her mouth opened, her tongue hanging out of her lower lip, watering eyes rolled in the back of her head.

She felt a hand on her arm, shaking her, and she shook the alien image out of her mind. She realized that Ash was looking at her with an impression that could have been construed as worried, his brows actually knit, creased.

His eyes, that almost violent shade of blood-red, however, were lit with something else entirely. "Oh, Lovely, you look pale, sweaty. You aren't getting the flu or -"

"N-n-no, I'm fine." Even to her own ears, her voice sounded shrill - desperate.

Tsking, Ash leaned in closely and cupped the side of her face in his left hand. The heat from his palm was incredible - as was the strength that she could feel in his fingers.

He cried out in dismay. "You feel feverish!" Tell me, which do you like more after being with me thrice - on bottom, bent over, or -

"Maybe I just need to lay down," Netta announced, flopping back in a seat. As she did, she quickly realized her mistake - it smelled too much of Ash so that it felt as though his preseance had wrapped itself around her.

How did you like it when I did this - the image, of Ash's head buried between her legs, the dark brown locks of his hair creeping over her thighs and stomach like tentacles, blazed in her mind.

Netta gasped and sank further down into her seat, her legs crossing and uncrossing compulsively.

Stop it, Netta ordered him.

"Are either of you Witches hungry, or tired? I mean, we could pull over for a nap," Ash seemed to be adjusting himself innocently enough in his seat, but when he jostled, Netta saw the way that his hand reached down to cup at the front of his jeans. Netta had to stop from letting her eyes bug out of her head as she saw the bulging outline that ran down his crotch to the top of his thigh.

Oh, Goddess, Netta felt herself blurt out over their mental link, heard the ensuing rumble of laughter in return. Ash, this has gone too far.

Why? Whatever's the matter? You aren't horny, are you by chance, Master? The sudden use of that term, used with a biting sarcasm that surprised Netta, made her look over at him in shock. You aren't by chance sexually aroused by your Familiar, are you?

"Netta looks like she might need a moment to freshen up for an hour, maybe two - hell, three might be best, a good nap and a wash should get her feeling well before we do anything too strenuous." Ash said, his voice cheery, warm.

An image of Ash was branded into her mind, naked and reclining on a four-poster bed that she recognized as her childhood bed. His frame far too big for the bed so that his left leg was extended with his foot hanging a good distance off of the bottom edge of the bed, with his knee raised. His hand was extended to her in a welcome, even as his eyes were a dare, violently red underneath heavy, arched black brows.

His penis was quite erect - as unfortunately overlarge and monstrous as she had remembered, his foreskin pulled back to reveal a bludgeoningly thick appendage.

It seemed to be pointing at her accusingly.

"Enough!" Netta snapped out, wincing as she tried to forcibly remove the image from her mind. "I just want to go back and get this over with."

Why are you doing this to me? Anything that you would want to get out of this partnership you've already got in front of you to use. Why do you act like you want to have sex with me?

Has it ever occurred to you that having sex with you is the point? The lack of sarcasm in his voice then, the seriousness of it, sober, shocked Netta.

I'm sick of being interrupted and not being able to experiment in a bed. Come now, I am like a rabbit - if you don't have sex with me, I'll die from sadness. After all, Ash glanced over at her and fixed fiery red hot eyes on her face. we're going to be doing this for a long, long, he bent a hand back down and massaged along the length of the bulge that ran along his thigh. long, long time.

There was a long silence, and in it Netta realized her mistake by sounding to the Witch in the back seat as though she was angry for no reason.

Finally, Ophelia said, "Maybe your Familiar's right. You look - tired."

Netta raised a hand to her forehead and realized that she did sound, and indeed felt, feverish. It was certainly not, however, from lack of energy.

Ash, who had pulled over to the side of the road, turned to her and leaned over. He cupped the bottom half of her face in one of his massive hands.

"Ooh, you look like you need some rest. You look like something's bothering you."

Netta looked into his eyes, and realized her mistake only when it was too late to reverse it.

His eyes seemed to burn into her gaze, where they were seemed to be branded in her eyelids in pin pricks when she blinked.

What do you keep cooped up in here, Ice Queen?

She felt his preseance sweep through all of her as though the doors on her mind had been thrown open to a rogue wind that swept through the inside.

She gasped, the feeling of him fusing himself with her in a one-way trade leaving her feeling exposed.

She could feel him able to look at her hidden emotions. Her feelings for him chief in her mind, flanked by mostly bittersweet feelings for Wallace and for the miserable feelings towards her family.

She leaned over and slapped Ash.

She felt him recede from her mind like a leech touched with salt, the emptiness left by his preseance yawning widely inside of her.

"Thats enough!" She nearly yelled.

When she looked at Ash, she felt her surprise return as she saw the almost innocent look of what looked like genuine surprise on his face. Numbly, he rested a hand on his cheek.

As they looked at each other for what felt like far too long, she wondered if the look of surprise was because of the light slap, or was perhaps because of something that he saw in her mind.