Chapter 5

"Lilia was attacked by a.....uh...someone," Brent explains hesitatingly, pointing to the mark on her neck.

All three guys exchange tense looks and then turn to look at her. No one speaks for a few minutes.

Lilia is standing with her arms crossed, looking at them.

"We can use compulsion." Tyrus whispers

"We can..." Damion says as he looks at Tyrus.

"But we won't." Tyrus completes the sentence for him.

Damion looks back at Lilia. He knew that the time had come to tell her the truth. He had known this day would come sooner or later. They had hidden their secret for over two years, deflecting questions and spinning lies when needed, and Lilia had also been respectful of their privacy. She had never meddled in something she wasn't supposed to. All three of them had developed a very close bond with her, and today, with a vampire attack on her, he knew she deserved to know. He also knew that the other two would agree with him. But the problem was how. How do you begin to reveal to someone that, for the last two years, she has been living with a werewolf, a vampire, and a hybrid? 

* 

Lilia breaks the silence, "Who was that 'someone' Brent?" 

She feels her heartbeat increasing with a mixture of anger, confusion, and fear. She thinks she knows the answer to the question, but she could not understand or believe how in the world this could be real. 

She looks directly at Brent and feels hurt. After everything that was blossoming between them, the amount of betrayal she feels at this moment has doubled. But she will not believe anything until she hears it directly from him.

"I think you know who he was, Lilia," Brent says slowly, as he continues to look back at her.

The fear in Lilia's heart rises. This can't be true. It just can't be. Her mind was refusing to believe it because it made no sense. Was this some kind of a joke? 

She walks around the couch to look at herself in the large ornate mirror over the fireplace and raises her hand to touch the marks on her neck. This can't be a joke. These marks are real. The blood was real. It is all real. She stares at herself in the mirror as images of that man, his eyes, his teeth, the speed, and the strength run through her mind. 

Then she turns back and sees Tyrus with the wound that looked so bad, but didn't seem to hurt him anymore. 

"We could use compulsion."  Compulsion?

She turns to look at Brent, noticing how charmingly handsome and attractive he is. She remembers the ease with which he picked her up during the dance, the way he picked that man up by one hand, the speed with which he rushed past her to fight... 

Then she spots Damion.

"We are not sure about their clan yet."  Clan?

She looks around the lavish mansion with its expensive furniture and vintage cars in the garage. 

All three men are staring at her. She knows they are waiting for her to say something. But she can't seem to bring herself to say what she knows is the truth.

"I want you to tell me who you are, Brent." She enunciates each word slowly.

"You know..."

"I want YOU to say it"

"I am..."

He exhales sharply.

"I am a vampire, Lilia."

She already knew the answer, but it still came as a shock, hearing him say it. She held the edge of the marble fireplace to steady herself. Brent takes a step in her direction. Maybe to comfort me, she thinks, but she raises her hand to indicate she didn't want that, and he stops. 

"Lilia," Brent says softly, "please sit down, have some water, and we will answer all your questions. Please."

She does so.

All three of them sit in front of her on the couch. She takes another sip of water from the glass Damion had given her.

"So, Lilia, what do you want to know first?" Tyrus asks.

She looks at him and notices, again, that he didn't seem to be in any pain at all from his 'grievous' injury. He had changed his blood-soaked t-shirt.

"Are you okay?" she points to his stomach.

"Completely"

"So, you are all...um.. vampires?"

"No, only Brent," Damion answers, gesturing towards him with his head. 

"So, both of you are..." she meant to say 'normal', but held her tongue, feeling that would be very demeaning and inappropriate. Not to mention, she didn't feel there was anything 'abnormal' about Brent before tonight. 

"No, we are not humans, if that is what you mean to ask," Damion says. 

She nods.

"Ty here is a hybrid, and I am a werewolf."

She places her hand on her heart to somehow compose herself. The shocks of the night seemed never-ending. She hadn't been able to wrap her head around the existence of vampires, and now we have werewolves and hybrids in the picture as well.

"Are there any other creatures that I should know about?" Lilia smiles nervously.

"There are the witches. Know anything about that?" Tyrus responds.

"Well, now I do," she sighs, "But aren't vampires and werewolves enemies, according to legends?"

"They are, generally, but that's not a rule." Damion smiles, "Look at us. We are best friends."

"So your bite would not kill these two?"

"Not Ty. It can kill Brent, but only on a full moon."

"So, it doesn't have to be a full moon for you to, you know, transform?"

"No, I can do it at will. It's pretty cool, actually, once you get used to the sensations." 

Lilia sits silently for a few minutes to let the information that she is sitting in front of men who can turn into wolves at any moment sink in. 

Then she says, "I thought vampires couldn't walk in the sun, but you can." she gestures toward Brent. 

"Not everyone can. A spell needs to be cast over you by a witch for you to be able to do so, and witches are, mostly, extremely unwilling to do that. I am one of the few lucky ones."

He opens the third button of his shirt to show a small red tattoo of a sun on the left side of his chest, just above the heart. "This is the mark of the spell."

Lilia ignores the small involuntary flip that her stomach performed as she witnessed him opening the button of his shirt to reveal his chest and quickly goes on to ask the next question, "What about things like 'you can't see a vampire's reflection or shadow' and 'they are afraid of garlic'?"

Brent laughs, "I am sure you've seen both, my reflection and my shadow. As for garlic, didn't you make an onion-garlic soup just last week?"

Lilia smiles, but then her expression changes, "What about food? Don't vampires drink blood?"

"They do."

"Hybrids and werewolves?"

"I have to," Tyrus says.

"I don't," says Damion.

"But I see both of you eating human food all the time" Lilia questions. 

"Yes, it keeps our bodies more human-like and makes them function better," Brent explains.

"Plus, food is tasty," Tyrus adds.

"Yes, it tastes the same to us as it does to you," Brent continues, "But we have to consume blood to keep our bodies from desiccating. It is the blood that gives us superhuman strength and speed." 

"So, you consume blood like...like that vampire tried to tonight, from me."

"No, we don't!" Both Brent and Tyrus answer in unison.

"We drink it from blood bags. That is more ethical" says Tyrus. 

Lilia immediately felt relaxed after hearing this. She was continuously having flashbacks of that vampire trying to drink from her and did not want to associate two people who meant so much to her with that image.

"So, you guys do not age and cannot die?" she was perplexed even thinking about it.

"I age and can die." Damion replies, "The aging is slower than a human's, but it is there, and I will eventually die as humans do."

"But we can't," says Tyrus, pointing at himself and Brent, "at least not naturally. There are ways to kill a vampire and a hybrid, but aging is not one of them."

"That means you guys have looked like this since...? Wait a minute, How old are you?” She looks from one to the other.

"I am quite young, just 32. I turned into a hybrid when I was 21, so it has been just eleven years for me."

"I, on the other hand, am not so young. I have been 19 since 1857."

Lilia gasps, "Oh, my god. That means you are," she pauses to calculate, "184 years old."

"That's right."

Lilia stops to think about it, to grasp the idea of living for centuries on end. This is crazy. What do you even make of eternity? What do you do? This reminds her of the next thing she wanted to ask.

"What do you guys do?" she asks them mockingly, "Real estate?" 

They laugh.

"Presently, we are working against our clans and are in the process of trying to make this world a more peaceful place to live" Brent replies. 

"Ohhh...So, you guys are the revolutionaries of your species." Lilia smiles.

"We are doing our best," says Damion.

"That's how you got injured today?" she asks Tyrus.

"Yes, we were spying on an attack when someone spotted us. There was a fight. We escaped somehow, but not before he bit me."

"And now you are completely healed?"

"Yes"

"How long does it take for the healing to happen?"

"For normal wounds, it's almost instant, but this was a werewolf bite on a full moon night, and I am part-vampire, so it took some time."

They sit in silence for a few minutes, then Damion asks, "Is there anything else you wish to know?"

Lilia shakes her head, "I think it is more than enough for tonight, I still have to get used to knowing what I already do. I need some time to decide what I feel about all of this."

"You can take as much time as you want" Tyrus says as Damion nods.

"But we want you to know one thing that we never have and never will cause any harm to you. You are our friend, and we all care about you a lot" says Brent.

"We did not share this with you earlier because we did not know how you would react," says Damion, "but we understand if you are mad at us for not being completely honest. We will be, from now on." 

Lilia gives them a little smile, "Good night guys."

She looks at each of them, one by one, before leaving, looking at Brent for a few seconds longer and thinking how the night might have turned out if she had not been attacked."