Once we were all in the Charger and out of the garage I began following the directions given to me by the GPS toward the house where Rose was currently living with her Aunt Sandra’s family. A quick glance in the rearview mirror showed Carmilla following on her Ninja, keeping the Charger in sight. Carmilla was good, she kept us in sight without staying right on our tail so we didn’t feel like we were being watched over like small children.

The GPS led us out of the river valley westward until we entered the Glenwood area and a nice average-looking suburban home with a white minivan in the driveway. “Are you sure this is the place, Jess?” I asked as I pulled up to the curb in front of the house.

“This is the address she gave me, Sis. Why do you ask?” my sister asked, biting her lip as she glanced nervously from the house and then back to me.

Yeah, she had that nervous look on her face and I could see her ears twitching under the knit cap she was wearing to hide them. She needed to calm down and relax about this so we could have some fun. I needed to inject a bit of humor to help with that so I shrugged and replied with a purposeful smirk, “I dunno, I guess I was just expecting something more murdery? I mean, she was a murder-bunny in a slasher flick and at the shoe store, she attacked you and tried to suck your tongue and lungs out. Though I guess this works though, in a Nightmare on Elm Street kinda way. I’m kinda glad we’re not here for a sleepover, you know how those movies always work out.”

“Hey! Rose isn’t that bad! Yeah, I kinda hated her when she was the competition, but we’ve been texting and she seems nice. She’s just a bit impulsive and the murder-bunny role was acting!” she shot back in defense of Rose.

“I know, Jess, so stop acting like you’re going to your execution instead of a date,” I told her, reaching over to take her hand in mine and give it a gentle squeeze. “Being attracted to girls isn’t a big thing unless you make it one, I’ve been attracted to them since I hit adolescence and I still am.”

“You’re attracted to anyone with a pulse, Babe,” Melody teased from the back seat.

My heart fluttered rapidly, threatening to fly from my chest as Melody called me ‘Babe’. “Does that mean we’re official? Do I want to be official? Maybe it was just a slip of the tongue?” I took a deep breath to stop myself from getting all frantic over a simple word, even if it did make me feel indescribably giddy for some reason. No, this was about helping Jess to get her mojo, I had plenty of my own already.

I tried not to let my excitement and embarrassment show, right now I had to be the wise and supportive bro… sister. So, with a smile that was meant to look a lot more at ease than I actually felt, I shrugged and said, “Yeah, and that’s not a big thing either. I may still be getting used to guys being hot but there’s nothing wrong with that. Who we love is nobody’s business but our own. To the people who really care about you, it won’t matter, and anyone who does take issue with that has no say in how you live your life anyway and can go fuck themselves. Who we’re attracted to and who we love, it’s part of who we are, and we shouldn’t have to change ourselves or pretend to be someone else for anyone.”

Melody nodded her agreement. “She’s right, you have the right to be yourself and to be with whoever makes you happy, Jess. If that’s Rose, then we’ll be happy for you both. For the record, I think you’d make a cute couple.”

“Thanks, girls,” Jessica replied, her cheeks bright red and her ears still twitching under her cap. “It’s… uh… not only the dating a girl thing though, I’ve never dated anyone.”

I reached over to wrap my arms around her, holding her tight for a moment before letting her go and giving her a steady look. “Sis, just relax and let’s try to have some fun and try to get to know her better, okay? Dates aren’t that different than hanging out, at least from my experience. My experience being last night, of course. Is nearly getting killed and/or kidnapped and almost having your car stolen normal for a date, Melody? If it is I might have to re-think this whole thing,” I turned to tease the half-Demon in the back seat.

“I don’t think that’s a normal thing for dates, not that I have much experience either. I think it’s more of a normal thing for being you, you’re a trouble magnet, Babe,” Melody teased right back.

“Oooh! She said it again! Calm down, Crystal, be cool. You’re a Snow Nymph so cool should come naturally.” I attempted to keep myself from getting too excited but I could feel the goofy smile on my face. Still, I managed to reply, “That’s why I have you to protect me. Now let’s get this date going.”

I was still trying to hide my grin as my sister made her way to the front door to ring the doorbell and Melody moved to the front seat so the Púca pair could ‘get cozy’ in the back seat. After a moment the pair approached the car, Rose wearing a thick black winter jacket and calf-length fleece-lined boots and gloves. It looked like she was going for a seasonal look underneath her outerwear with a knee-length red sweater dress and emerald leggings. Atop her head, she wore what looked like an oversized Santa hat that hid her ears.

Once they were settled in and buckled up I put the Charger in gear while offering a, “Hey, Rose. How goes?”

“Hey… umm… Crystal. I’m okay, except for a case of GSS,” she joked weakly.

A glance in the rearview mirror showed that Rose looked just as nervous as Jess. Jeeze, we needed to get those two to loosen up and enjoy themselves. They obviously liked one another and were just worried about doing something to make one another uncomfortable. Bunnies, what can you do? “GSS?” I prodded gently, trying to get her talking.

“Uhh… Glass Slipper Syndrome. Y’know, like, I have to be home by midnight,” the ebony-haired Puca replied self-consciously.

Jess let out a bit of a giggle-snort at that. “Well, at least your family didn’t insist on a chaperone, like ours. We have, like, literally one of the scariest Paranormals on the planet following us to make sure we stay safe. She’s trying to give us space and privacy though.”

“Huh?” Rose asked, her nervousness momentarily replaced with confusion.

“Turn around and you’ll see a motorcycle following us just far enough to keep us within sight and be close enough to react if anything happens. That’s the Night Princess,” Melody informed the new addition to our little crew.

“No way!” Rose half-shouted, her eyes wide. She swung around in her seat the best that her seatbelt would allow, looking behind us. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“No joke,” I told her seriously. “That’s really her following us, she lives and works at the club where we live. The chaperone thing is kind of my fault, Melody is supposed to be my bodyguard, which is useful since we’re trying the whole dating thing, but I guess that I make a tempting kidnapping target and our date last night was… eventful. So our overprotective new family thought we needed a bit more protection when we go out until Melody is fully trained. Carmilla volunteered because she’s like super-protective of everyone living at the club, especially us ‘kids’.”

“What the hell did you do on your date to get that kind of reaction?” Rose sputtered, her eyes watching me and Melody in the front seats now.

“We tried to have a normal date but I kinda stand out, so I guess Jess will too if she keeps doing the twin thing with me,” I said with a sigh. “Honestly though, a metal mage figured out that I was a Nymph and told a group of trolls so they could kidnap and sell me to the highest bidder and so she could jack my car and sell it. There was fighting, a brief trip to the Fire Plane, and none of them will be bothering us again. Let’s just say that I now know a ginormous lava Kraken thingy that’s only too happy to help me dispose of any inconvenient bodies.”

I couldn’t help but smirk a bit as I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Rose watching me wide-eyed. “I… really hope that you’re joking.”

“Nope, it’s all true. She didn’t even tell you all of the highlights,” Melody said with a smirk of her own. “She completely skipped the part where I ended up bonded to a fire elemental like hers and passed out just as we started making out.”

“Don’t worry Rose, as long as you can keep our secrets and treat my sister right I don’t have any problems with you. I think we could all be friends if nothing else, and I protect my friends,” I told her. I did send an uncertain query to Melody along the Salamander network though. ~Are you sure it was a good idea to tell her about the Salamander thing?~

~If she hangs out with us enough she’s going to find out sooner or later. She already knows about your real past and it’s probably better that she knows and can help with keeping everything quiet than get blindsided later, make a big deal of it then, and possibly reveal everything to those who we’d rather not know in the process,~ the half-Demon pointed out.

Melody had made a good point so we ended up telling Rose about the Salamander situation as we drove to West Edmonton Mall for our shopping. I think that Jess, Melody, and I all had ideas for what to get one another but Mom, Aunt Merry, and the others at the club we had no idea about. We did want to get everyone a little something to show our appreciation for how kind they had been to us and how they had treated us like family since we had arrived but we didn’t really know any of them very well yet.

“I suppose that Aunt Merry would be happy with something stabby, or otherwise deadly,” I muttered as we pulled into the parking lot, our conversation having gotten us nowhere.

“Well if you just want something nice that they’ll appreciate and enjoy you could get all of the women vouchers for a spa day. Get them the works, it might be a little pricey if you were to pay for it on your own, but if all three of you chipped in it wouldn’t be too expensive,” Rose suggested pensively.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Jess agreed. “Carmen would probably like something like that too. So we’d just need to figure out something for the guys and Sorcha. Do you know a place that would work?”

The other Púca nodded eagerly. “Aunt Sandra took me for a spa day when I first got here and it was really nice, they do massage and everything. My cousin Lisa and some friends of hers opened the place during the summer after going to school for that kind of stuff. They didn’t like that there weren’t any places like that specifically for Paranormals in the area. Lisa said that we need to relax more than anyone. We could swing by and find out how much it would cost, though it’s all the way up on the third floor of the mall.”

“I don’t mind us going a bit out of the way for nice gifts for the others,” I offered. “I was thinking of getting Sorcha a stuffed animal or something but maybe we can find something nice for Lou and the other guys that we can chip in on too.”

The shopping went well since we had most of the gifts covered by the spa vouchers. It was actually pretty reasonably priced, especially with the three of us chipping in. We also found a decent tool kit that I thought that Lou would like since he was so into cars. The other guys were a bit harder to shop for since we didn’t know Derek, Jack, or Brock very well. We ended up getting them each one of those nice gift boxes with the cologne and grooming stuff.

For Sorcha, we searched through the toy section and Jess wanted to get her some Barbie dolls but we found these Monster High dolls that we thought she would like instead. It sort of made sense with all three of us being Paranormals that were going to be starting at a high school with others like us after Christmas. As for one another, it was difficult to get enough privacy to buy anything for each other since we all had to stick together, even though I did spy Carmilla a few times ‘shopping’ and watching us. We were probably going to have to save buying one another’s gifts for a different day when I could get someone else to play bodyguard while I shopped.

One good thing was that Rose and Jessica seemed to relax more and more as we walked the mall and did our shopping. So things weren’t quite so tense by the time that we made our way to the massive food court for dinner. In fact, Jessica and Rose had relaxed to the point where they were talking about acting and their other interests.

It seemed that while Rose didn’t want to do acting anymore since she was out from under her mother’s thumb, she was very interested in makeup artistry and prosthetics and stuff in the movie industry. I could kind of understand why and it was amusing to discover that they were both considering going to Concordia University after graduating high school. They were having a very animated conversation about it when we finally all sat down at a table.

The plan for our date had been for dinner and a movie and luckily we could get both at the supermall and, as a bonus, we could all get whatever we wanted for dinner. So while the bunny girls talked excitedly amongst themselves, Melody and I went to find something to eat. “How about Chinese?” Melody asked as we looked around.

“We’ll have to get like double the portions, remember, we’re both eating for two now,” I replied as I considered it. I hadn’t had Chinese in a while. “We’ll probably be hungry again in like an hour though, but I guess that means we’ll have room for popcorn and stuff at the theatre. Oh! They have a Dairy Queen! I want ice cream for dessert!”

“Of course you do,” Melody replied with a giggle. “Okay Chinese for dinner, ice cream for dessert, does that sound fair, Babe?”

I could feel myself flushing and my heartbeat quickened as she used the B-word for me again. Wow, it was hot. I was so glad I wore a panty liner too because right now I was dripping with need for her and it felt like the void between my legs that felt so achingly empty at the moment had a pulse all its own. Damn, I really needed to get in front of this thing. Oh, my Goddess. I was so excited, nervous, and afraid all at the same time by the time I found my voice again. “Um… yeah, that sounds great. You… umm… keep calling me ‘Babe’. So… are we, like, a thing? Y’know, a couple-thing?”

She smiled, turned me toward her, and swallowed a lump in her throat before replying. “Do you want us to be? I do, I mean, I really like you, Crystal. It’s not just physical attraction either. You’re a wonderful, beautiful person, and you’ve made me weak in the knees since I first saw you as your new self. I’d like to give this a try.”

“I like you too and I’d love to be your girlfriend, but…” I trailed off with a sigh, my heart being squeezed as I realized that I needed to be upfront about things. l stepped forward, leaning against her and putting my head on her shoulder to whisper softly in her ear. “But you know what I am. You know what that means. I want sex all the time, and you said it yourself, I’m attracted to anyone with a pulse. I don’t know if I have the self-control to hold myself back from giving in to those urges all the time. The past week has been driving me mad, it hasn’t even been a full week yet.”

“Okay, so you’re not built for a monogamous relationship, but I know that going in. It doesn’t mean we can’t have something special between us. Just look at your mother and Pandora, they’re both like you, and part of their job is having sex with other people, and yet they’re obviously in love and they make their relationship work. There’s no reason why we couldn’t do the same… if you’re interested,” she told me gently, reaching up to cup my chin in her hand.

Gently she raised my face so that I was looking into her eyes, and the look there made my breath catch in my throat and my loins flare with the heat of my desire for her. Goddess, I was so interested, in giving this thing a try and in getting her to my bed as soon as possible so that my first time would be with her. “Yeah,” I replied breathily, my breathing heavy and my voice husky with need for her. “I’d like that… Wait they have hotels in this mall, maybe we should just skip the movie and…”

She put a finger to my lips to halt my words and shook her head but I barely noticed that in the haze of desire that currently gripped me. My hands were all over, shaking a bit as they caressed her back and ran down her sides, taking in the muscles beneath her dress and soft skin and the tapering of her waist, and my body was pressed so close to hers that I could feel her heartbeat against my chest. I needed her so badly right now, even more than I needed to get my clothes off. Why was I wearing those anyway? They were so uncomfortable and I was so damn hot right now. Yeah, those needed to come off.

“No, Crystal,” Melody said firmly and clearly, somehow managing to cut through the fog of my lust-addled mind. “We can wait until we get home, I’ll make sure it’s worth the wait. We’re in public right now so you need to control yourself, Babe. We’re here for your sister right now and I know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t want to bail on her. Let’s get our dinner and our ice cream first then go to the movie.”

Oh yeah, food. Because Cinder and I were both hungry. I felt a brief stab of guilt that I had lost control of myself enough to even consider abandoning my sister to have sex after promising to be there for her on this date. It was enough to help me get control of myself again, and a few deep shuddering breaths helped even more. “Okay, I’m good. Thanks, Melody, I kind of lost it for a minute there. Food and ice cream would be good.”

We went to one of the Chinese places in the food court, where Melody had four plates loaded up with a variety of dishes and surprised me by speaking with the counter attendant and ordering for us both in Chinese. “Did you just order in Mandarin?” I asked in wonder.

“Cantonese actually,” she gently corrected as we walked back to the table. “When I was two I was fostered out to a family in Chinatown because they thought I’d fit in, being Chinese myself. Since I was just learning to talk anyway, they made sure to teach me to speak, read, and write in both English and Cantonese. I stayed with them until I was seven so I’m bilingual and I still try to practice and improve as much as I can, I feel like I owe it to them. I loved the Chans, they almost adopted me but they couldn’t really look after me after they found out about Mo… Mrs. Chan’s Cancer, so I was sent to live with another family. I never really fit anywhere else though, so I never lasted more than a year at any one home until I Manifested and ran away.”

As much as I felt bad for bringing up what was possibly a painful memory for her, it was nice to learn something more about her childhood other than what she had glossed over on our last date the night before. I wanted to learn everything about her, the good and the bad. I found myself smiling as we returned to the table, where Jessica and Rose were deciding what they wanted to eat.

Rose stared at our trays, each with two heaping plates and a large drink. “How can you possibly eat that much?”

I shrugged and made sure that my voice was just low enough to carry to them across the table as I informed her, “Bonding with a Salamander changes our physiology a bit, I guess. We’re kind of eating for two now and they need a lot of energy.”

“That’s so weird, kinda cool though. We’ll be right back, there’s a pizza place here that makes an awesome vegetarian pizza.” She stood up and seemed to take Jessica’s hand in her own without even thinking about it, making my sister blush. They were so cute together and it seemed that they were over their rivalry so I found myself watching them as they walked off and Melody and I started to eat.

Throughout dinner, we had to fend off several guys who seemed very interested in me and Jess particularly, but they didn’t seem dangerous. They were just horny normies and most of them backed off when we made it clear that we weren’t interested. One guy was a bit too insistent for my comfort but he was dealt with when Carmilla sauntered up to the table just oozing sex appeal and invited him to ‘share a meal’ with her somewhere more private. I was guessing that he was going to be the meal, but he likely wouldn’t remember that part.

The ice cream at least dealt with one of my cravings and it was nice snuggling up with Melody in the theatre. Honestly, I don’t even remember what the movie was since we kind of spent the whole time making out. It was difficult keeping it just to that with as horny as I was. I mean it was dark in the theatre and it wasn’t like I had any modesty or even cared who was watching. I almost tried to get undressed twice before Melody had to get me to calm down and remind me that the theatre wasn’t the place for sex.

Don’t ask Jess what the movie was either because I’m pretty sure that Rose took charge and they were sucking face the entire time too. Their clothes were certainly disheveled enough when we left the theatre. It was the first time that I had seen Jess truly happy and not holding anything back since Dad died and that came as a huge relief to me. I thought that she and Rose just might be good for one another, and that made me so happy for her.

It was after we had dropped Rose off at home and were making our way back to the club when things went off the rails. We were driving along a quiet street and passing an alley when I heard screaming. I didn’t hesitate for a second, slamming on the brakes and bringing the Charger to a stop right there in the middle of the street. Jessica looked at me uncertainly from the back seat. “Sis, this isn’t our…” she started to say.

She didn’t believe what she was saying for a minute, she was just trying to keep us both safe and we both knew it. Yeah, I was eager to get home and have a night of hopefully amazing sex with Melody but if I did that when someone was in trouble and I could help, I would never forgive myself. “Someone’s in trouble and we’re here, so I’m making it our business,” I said. “It’s probably just normies so Melody can probably handle them on her own.”

I opened my door but Melody and Jess still seemed doubtful. Those doubts were erased though as we heard a male voice shout, “Let’s just kill it and get the fuck out of here, I think I saw a car pass!”

Melody was out the door and toward the alley before the voice even finished the sentence and by the time I had gotten out and shut my door, Carmilla had pulled up to a stop behind us and leaped off her motorcycle to follow Melody. When Jess and I got to the alley four teenage guys were already on the ground, either dead or unconscious and the Vampire and the half-Demon were dealing with the last of the six. Melody was laying the beat down on one while Carmilla held one by the throat one-handed, his feet dangling nearly a foot off the ground before she casually tossed him aside to slam into the wall of the alley and slide down to the ground as unconscious as his friends.

“Human filth,” the Vampire spat with distaste before turning to me. “I will ensure that they do not remember this incident. Check on the victim, we may need to call 9-1-1.”

I nodded and made my way over to the slumped form of what appeared to be a girl in a mid-thigh length skirt, warm leggings, and a thick jacket with a feminine cut. She was in bad shape, her face was a mass of bruising and she had blood was pooling around her, it looked like she had been stabbed several times in the midsection. Her breathing was erratic and came out in raspy whimpers that didn’t sound good at all. There was no way she was going to last until an ambulance got there, even if I could stop the bleeding.

I felt for the light of the Divine within me as I pushed up her jacket and the t-shirt underneath to try and make skin-to-skin contact, pressing my hands to the worst of the knife wounds to try to staunch the bleeding. I needed to heal her, to make her whole again. Why did those guys attack her? Her face was so bloody and swollen already that it was hard to make out her features. They had called her ‘it’, was she some type of Paranormal perhaps? So many thoughts ran through my head as I frantically called upon the light and shoved it into her, willing her to live.

I was only vaguely aware of the alley turning bright as daylight for the few minutes that I felt my power rip through me and into the girl. When it had had its way and I had half-collapsed atop her form she was breathing steadily once more. I pulled away wearily, looking down at her as her eyes fluttered open.

She had amazing eyes, bright turquoise with a circle of gold around the iris, and slit pupils. Her face was pretty too, like a Fey’s, and she certainly had the pointed ears for it. Her skin was a dark blue mottled by glowing golden freckles and her hair was a golden honey blonde but with streaks of turquoise that matched her eyes. I had never seen anything like her before and she was young too, maybe fourteen or so.

“Hey, you’re going to be okay, Miss. Those guys won’t hurt you any…” I started to assure her before my thoughts caught up with me. “Wait a minute, I’m almost certain that she had brown hair when I started healing her, I don’t think her skin was that dark either, or I would have noticed it even with the bruising. Did I just…”

I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat as I noticed that Melody, Jessica, and Carmilla were all gaping at me and the girl and briefly, I wondered just how bad that I had just fucked up this girl’s life before that thought was interrupted. The girl, who had been patting down her body with a confused look on her face, reached her crotch and gasped, “It’s gone!”