We were all sitting and talking peacefully while we ate the delicious stew Troian had made. It was Saria's special recipe, and since the witch was feeling merciful, she agreed on shifting Alice back to normal so she could also eat.
"What was it like to go on missions to hunt other supernaturals? Was it like... creepy?" Mason asked, curious, and Troian and I exchanged eye contact.
"Sometimes it could be entertaining, but also creepy. Hey, remember that time when we went on that mission to find that big vampire who cosplayed as Dracula and was super dramatic?" Troian asked, nudging my arm, and I almost choked on my stew.
I could feel Casey instinctively rub my back, but I assured her I was fine before continuing.
"It took us days cause the guy refused to even get close to sunlight. We had to chase him into a cave," I said, cringing at the memory of what happened after that.
"And then we also found fifteen skeletons, not mentioning the rotten bodies," she finished.
"Sometimes things get rough like that. Vampires and rotten bodies, witches trying to kidnap children, werewolves running you over-"
Casey pinched my arm in annoyance.
"You run a girl over once and she never lets it go. So annoying." She pouted, but it soon disappeared when I kissed her cheek. "For real now, have you ever had trouble with werewolves?"
"I don't think we did," Troian answered, and when she smirked, I knew what was coming. "Except when that popular movie with werewolves and vampires came out."
"That was a doozy to us," I snickered at the memory. "We had to deal with vampires who were cosplaying and charging teenage girls so they'd bite them."
"And let's not forget the werewolves who were doing the same with their packs, but they'd charge them to pet the giant wolves." Troian was holding her laugh in, but she was starting to lose that battle.
"When we got into the place the wolves were, they just bolted through the door. I don't know if the scary part was the 6ft wolf running aimlessly or the teenage girls crying their eyes out because they didn't get to pet them." The both of us were now laughing so hard it started to sound weird.
The witches were also laughing, but the werewolves were not.
"Come on, it's at least a bit funny," Sinna teased, but her expression quickly turned from laughter to amusement. "Wait, you're all looking like you know too well about those events."
"We did it once, okay?!" Mason was the one to break first, getting a groan from the others. "We charged five bucks for them to pet Alice."
"Hey!" She slapped him a bit too hard, his spoon falling.
"Calm down, wolfy, there's no need to get all aggressive," Sinna mocked her behavior. "Now be a good girl and fetch your friend's spoon, please."
I guess we all had the same feeling that Sinna had some kind of grudge against Alice. Or she just thought the girl was fun to tease.
"Over my dead body," she stuck her tongue out.
"Darling, I guess we all know for a fact that you do not want the cat to get your tongue, so do as I say."
"Over.my.dead.body." Alice challenged, raising her voice.
But her tough expression didn't last long, not after the witch started to glow in a threatening way like she was radioactive.
Soon enough, she had gotten up, retrieved Mason's spoon, and washed it on the sink.
"Such a brat," the witch breathed out.
"Excus-"
"So, I heard you stole a painting?" Saria asked, cutting Alice and saving us all from a more awkward situation.
"How did you know?" I asked.
"Your little wolf kept bragging about it when we were back in the living room," Saria laughed, making Casey blush slightly. "You really went for the most expensive one?"
"You know what they say, go big or go home," I smiled at the girl's reaction. "By the way, is it still in your car, Avery?"
"Yeah, we should go get it later before the police come searching."
"Don't worry, if anything happens we'll deal with it," Saria assured him, and Alice scoffed.
"See? Why can't you be nice like your sister?" She pointed at Sinna.
"Oh, it reminds me," Mason asked, ignoring the two of the girls who were almost pouncing at each other. "If Renna is your witch mother, how come Salem is a lot older than you all?"
"Renna is only my and Sinna's witch mother. She found us and turned us at the same time, but since we are also biological sisters, she's still a year older than me," Saria explained. "Then there's Samantha, who's around half a century older, Serena, who's around 120 years older, and then Salem, who's..." She stopped, not sure about what she was about to say.
"We're actually not sure about her age, she's as old as dirt and that's all we know," Sinna finished.
"You should respect her more, you know? She isn't a grandwitch for no reason," Saria pointed, but Sinna just scoffed.
"Come on, she's so old she probably wouldn't hear me saying this stuff about her even if she was three inches away from me."
"Sinna-"
"She's so old she probably needs a whole century just to shift dimensions," she snickered as her sister warned her again.
"Sinna!"
"She's so old that if we placed a fan close to her, dust would fly all over the room." The witch was now laughing, ignoring Saria's words.
"Is that a portal opening up?" Alice asked, and both the sisters stopped and looked startled to where she was pointing, making the werewolf laugh. "Gotcha."
"You little brat, just wait until I get my hands on you!" Sinna was about to attack her, but Avery intervened with more conversation to save the girl's life, probably saying the first thing that came into his mind.
"Troian! Nice... huh... hair you've got there! So white and... white. Do all of you bleach your hair? Is it like a family thing and Hunter has it platinum cause she's edgy?"
"Nope, metas have natural hair like this. Hunt has platinum cause that's her family's color, but mine's white," the girl answered, more than pleased to avoid war from bursting. "Oh, look at the time! We better go get that painting now, right?"
We all nodded awkwardly, Saria holding her sister's wrist while Mason dragged Alice by the arm.
We all crossed the portal back to the dorm and went to where Avery's car was parked, but as it got into view so did the police vehicles.
Without missing a beat, Saria did some kind of masking spell and his car was now appearing to be a truck as the cars passed by.
"Do you think they saw you stealing it?" Avery asked, probably concerned that he could be tracked down.
"There were no cameras, so I doubt it, now let's go," I said, approaching the car as he unlocked it.
I got the painting out with the help of Mason, and as soon as we turned it around, Casey screamed.
"No way! No way! Holy fucking mother of God is that my painting?!" She was now hugging Avery excitedly while jumping, making the boy lose his balance.
"Yours? Didn't you steal it?" Saria questioned.
"Someone had stolen it from her, so I just stole it back."
"Fair enough," she brushed it off while we walked back to the dorm.
Casey was jumping, still holding into Avery, and I couldn't help but laugh. She looked like she was waiting to lift me like she was doing with him but refrained from doing so since I was still holding onto the painting.
"Go for it, I'll take it inside," Mason winked as he got ahold of the painting by himself, and Casey immediately let go of a very annoyed Avery and rushed into my direction.
"I can't believe you found it." She hugged me so hard I heard my back crack. "I thought I'd never see it again."
"I can't believe I found it either, but I couldn't let the chance go, could I?" I cracked a smile, ignoring the slight backache and hugging her back as she lifted me and walked us both to the dorm.
"Why is it so hard to find someone who'd steal you a 50k piece of art for your first real date?" Alice pondered, being her usual single self.
"I gotta agree with you," Sinna said. The both of them finally had something to bond over.
"You can put me down, you know?" I said to the girl, who was happily grinning.
"Man, I just can't believe it! It's looking better than the last time and I haven't even seen the upper half of it," she said, not letting go of me.
Okay then.
"When was it really stolen from you?" I asked, assuming that she might have lied about the painting's age.
"Around twenty years ago, I think, when I finally finished the flowers and the face. Before that, they were always a bit smudged in my dreams."
I hummed, getting more comfortable in her arms as we got into the dorm with the others already waiting for us.
"Well, let's see it without the upper cover." She placed me down and got closer to the painting, taking the protection off.
The painting was the way she had described. The landscape was impeccable, with layers and a well-made and shaded sky, but the pale pink nemesias stole the show.
A woman in a simple dress was taking care of them, and when Casey finally took the cover out, allowing us to see her face, there was a collective gasp.
"Is that... Hunter?" Mason asked, clearly dumbfounded.
There was no way that it was me, but the resemblance was uncanny. The platinum hair, pale face, my mother's brown eyes. All of it.
"So I was right? The girl who painted this was your mate and also the werewolf girl?" The voice of someone who wasn't there before got our attention. Haven, in my dorm. "And here I was thinking it was just my mind making up stories."
"Excuse me, but who are you?" Alice assumed an offensive stance along with the other wolves. "Don't you have to be invited in or some of that?"
"That's Haven, I told you guys about them," I said, making everyone relax. "Now, what are you talking about again?"
"The story I told you the other day? About people mated to vampires seeing them in their dreams?"
Oh.
Oh, shi-
"I was passing by and saw this painting, found it pretty, and asked to see it fully. When I noticed it was you, I decided to tell you that story, and then I'd go buy it and give it to you as a gift so you'd know that you also have a mate somewhere." The vampire explained, making things a bit more clear.
"When I heard that it was stolen I got a bit upset, so I decided to come here today to talk to you about it," Haven added before motioning to all of us. "But I guess life had other plans. Also, are you having some kind of party here? There's an interdimensional portal in your living room and blood on the floor."
"It's a... long story," I said, taking everything in.
"So you're saying that I had strange dreams about mates and when Hunter was born I saw her face so I'd know who to look for?"
"Pretty much, yes," the vampire said.
"This is so confusing," she massaged her temples. "Am I the only one who thinks it's creepy?"
We let out a collective "no", and Haven seemed to be disappointed with our lack of romance appreciation.
"Anyways, you better fill me in on what's going on and then you can talk all you want."
I agreed, and we told them everything that we had discovered.
If we're fighting a war, we might as well have as much help as we can.