It was Monday and supposedly their first day back at college after the holidays but Elsa was sat in her Dad’s office with Sebastian, tapping a pen on the desk so fast and hard that the wood of the desk was starting to give off a small wisp of smoke. Sebastian reached across silently and placed his hand over hers. It broke her trance and Elsa’s eyes snapped to his.
“You’re setting the table on fire,” he explained.
“Oh,” Elsa let her eyes linger on him as he took the pen from her and placed it just out of her reach. She felt overwhelmed at times by how much she loved and wanted him and with memories of the previous evening still flying through her mind she was finding it difficult not to jump him right then and there, despite her impatience to speak to her father and her worry over Grant and Emily. Sebastian caught her watching him and flashed the sexy half grin she adored, Thank you, thank you, her mind repeated, for giving me something else to focus on.
Her ears pricked then as she heard footsteps approaching. She moved from her father’s chair and Sebastian stood for her to sit down. He leaned against the wall, arms folded and as she sat down, Marcus appeared at the door.
Elsa studied her father’s face, he looked tired, the signs of age suddenly more evident to her in his face. It made her feel - sad. She knew in the grand scheme of things it hadn’t been that long since she had stopped ageing but she still hated it when something reminded her that her father hadn’t and as much as that didn’t cause problems now, one day it would.
Marcus sat down wearily. Like Elsa he hadn’t slept, unlike Elsa, he really needed to. Elsa felt a pang of guilt that she had gone back to warehouse with Sebastian and would have blushed to her roots thinking about what they did if she could have done. But there was nothing she or Sebastian could have done last night whereas Marcus had had a very busy evening. Elsa resisted voicing the multitude of questions she had, she didn’t want to badger her Dad for information he was going to give her anyway.
“How are you Dad?” she asked instead and Marcus looked at once surprised and grateful for her concern. He rubbed at the stubble on his jaw line, “Tired,” he admitted with a wry smile, “It’s been a little while since I pulled an all nighter.” He shuffled some papers on his desk needlessly, took a deep breath and began, “Emily is doing well,” he said, “Hesper’s transfusion has helped her heal quickly and she’s resting, we haven’t been able to speak to her yet. We recovered the carcasses from where you had hidden them and ran some tests - definitely werewolves and definitely their first turn.
“So Emily will turn next full moon?” Elsa knew the answer, she’d known it as soon as she saw the beast’s jaws close around Emily’s waist; but she needed to keep hearing it confirmed, as if at some point someone would say no, no it wasn’t a werewolf and yes, yes she’s going to be absolutely fine.
“She will,” Marcus sighed deeply, “And so will Grant.”
Elsa’s heart sank, she had been hoping against hope that they’d been wrong, that Grant had scraped his side on something and it wasn’t a werewolf scratch.
“Does he know?” she asked.
“I have spoken to him myself,” Marcus confirmed, “He’s with a counsellor now.”
“How did he take it?” Sebastian asked from behind Elsa.
Marcus shifted his weight in his chair, “It’s a lot to take in for him,” he said, “He’s worried about Emily and exhausted himself, I don’t think he really took in what I was saying which is why I let the counsellors take over. Remember Elsa, when I had to tell you how you had changed? You had experienced your vampire side, you knew something was wrong before I told you what it was but Grant, he still feels normal apart from a cut to his side. Everything he saw, however, was far from normal, so I think his brain is trying to deal with that first.”
They were all quiet for a moment then Elsa remembered her clothes, “Dad, why did the lab need my clothes?” she asked.
“Ah yes,” Marcus opened a thin file on his desk and took out a piece of paper, “It was Hesper who suggested it, she was surprised, as we all were, that you had no injuries.” Marcus frowned as his eyes scanned the page, “Your clothes had traces of Emily’s blood, werewolf blood and_” he looked at Elsa, the frown remaining on his face, “And your blood.”
Elsa felt Sebastian tense behind her, she shook her head, “But I wasn’t hurt.” she insisted, why would her own blood be on her clothes?
“Are you absolutely sure?” Marcus asked.
“Of course I’m sure!” said Elsa, “I’d have noticed surely? Werewolves being poisonous to me and all that?”
Marcus looked thoughtful, “Maybe if it was just the werewolf's claws that caught you, no saliva or blood…” he shook his head, “It would still have taken longer to heal,” he said.
“Could it have been something else?” Sebastian asked, “Glass or something, she was in a pub car park.”
Marcus was reading the file again, “Hmmm,” he said absently, “Yes I suppose so.”
“It must have been,” Elsa said, “I was rolling around on the floor, there would have been all sorts of rubbish around. I must have just cut myself and then healed before I even noticed.”
Marcus snapped the file closed, “I’m sure that’s it,” he said but Elsa could detect something in his tone and his expression that made her uneasy. The only thing her dad had tried to hide from her since she’d become a vampire was his relationship with Katherine, other than that he had been open and honest with her in an attempt to make up for hiding the truth of her mother’s death from her for 17 years. She couldn’t tell if he was lying to her or hiding something exactly but Elsa knew that there was more her dad wanted to say and for some reason he wasn’t saying it. She decided not to challenge him now, she had more important concerns.
“Are we going to tell Kate?” she asked, “About Grant?”
“I think that’s up to Grant,” Marcus said.
“Can I speak to him?”
“I’d have to speak with his counsellor first,” Marcus said, “Maybe not today, but when he’s ready you may be able to help him having gone through something similar yourself. Logan is going to speak with him too when the time is right.”
Elsa nodded, “Where did those werewolves come from Dad? Why didn’t we know about them?”
Marcus frowned again, “Gray is furious with himself for missing it. It wasn’t his fault of course, there had been no reports of anything that could be a werewolf attack and he knows every werewolf in our region, he’s confident this has come from outside our area. We are running what human DNA we could recover from the wolves to see if we can identify who they were before they were turned.” Marcus looked intently at Elsa, “Just know Elsa, that you did the only thing you could have done, I don’t want you thinking about who they once were, you could only deal with what you were faced with and you saved a lot of lives last night.”
“I know Dad, it doesn’t make me feel any less guilty though.” Elsa didn’t want to talk about the werewolves and who they may have been, she wanted to be alone with Sebastian again, the only way she knew to block out those kinds of thoughts, “Is there anything we can do to help today?”
“Honestly? No sweetheart. Grant’s not up to talking, Emily just needs to sleep. The clean up team have pretty much finished, well, cleaning up and we’ve got Hesper tying up a couple of loose ends.” He sat back in his chair, “You just need some normality I think, take your mind of things.”
Elsa could have sworn she heard a tiny sound from Sebastian and once again the clear and vivid memories of their night together flooded her mind; she wondered if her Dad would be so ready to advise her to take her mind off things if he knew how she and Sebastian chose to do it; college certainly had nothing to do with it. Her ability to recall past events with perfect clarity could be a blessing or a curse at times. She couldn’t blush, that was definitely a blessing right now.
“What about you?” she asked, “Do you get to go home and get some rest?”
“Maybe I do,” Marcus said, “I think if I don’t go home soon, Katherine will take it upon herself to come here and drag me away herself.” His eyes flickered to Elsa, she knew her father wanted her approval, he certainly didn’t need to ask for it. Elsa desperately tried to stop her agile and over-active mind asking if Marcus and Katherine took their mind of things the way she and Sebastian did - another one of those times when her quick mind was a definite curse. Bleurgh!
“Quite right too,” she said, concealing her embarrassment at her own thoughts effortlessly. Marcus smiled and Elsa felt happy for him, he smiled much more nowadays.
“Thank you Mr Shaw,” it appeared Sebastian thought it was time for them to go, “We’d better show our faces at college I suppose.” Elsa wrinkled her nose with distaste, normality could be so - boring. Plus Kate would be at college and Elsa wasn’t sure how to deal with that. She placed her hands on the arms of the chair and pushed herself to standing as if it was an effort.
“Let me know as soon as I can see Grant,” she said, “As soon as.”
“Will do,” said Marcus, “Now get out of here, I have a few things to do before I can home.”
Elsa leant over the desk, kissed her father lightly on the cheek and, taking Sebastian’s hand, they left Marcus to his paperwork.
She leaned into Sebastian as they walked down the corridor, “You and Dad always gang up on me where college is concerned,” she pouted, “I don’t even need to go, I could have done the exams six months ago and passed with full marks if I wanted. And you don’t need to go either, I don’t know why you insist on it, you’re nearly a hundred years old for goodness_”
“Who said anything about going to college?” Sebastian cut her short, throwing an arm over her shoulder.
“You did!” Elsa said indignantly, she pulled a serious face and did her best impression of Sebastian’s gravely voice with just the tiniest hint of growl, “We’d better show our faces at college I suppose.”
“I suppose we should,” said Sebastian wickedly, “If that’s what you really want?”
Elsa looked up at him, for a vampire she realised she could occasionally be a little slow on the uptake.
Sebastian raised an eyebrow questioningly at her, “Is that what you want Elsa?” his voice was low and warm - with the small touch of danger that would have sent her heart racing if she was still human.
“No it is not,” she smiled and her day began, once again, to get better.
Marcus’ eyes flicked to the screens in his office which showed the security feed. He watched his daughter leave and although he couldn’t hear what she and Sebastian were saying to each other he had a sneaking suspicion they would be going nowhere near college for the rest of the day and he forced the uncomfortable thought from his mind before it went any further. He had more important things to think about. To worry about.
He placed his finger tips back on the slim, innocuous looking, brown file that he had referred to earlier. He tapped the file twice with his index finger then slid it towards himself again and opened it. The top sheet of paper detailed the test results collected from Elsa’s clothes and attached to the top right hand corner, precisely positioned, was a yellow post-it with a note written in Hesper’s elegant script.
This opens up a possibility, Marcus, which we need to discuss.
Simple and to the point, the ramifications of what Hesper was saying could be anything but. Marcus sighed and peeled the note slowly off the page before placing it in the paper shredder under his desk. The shredder made short work of the tiny, sticky note and in seconds it was gone but the fact remained that Elsa’s lack of injury was highly unusual given the state of her clothes and he knew exactly what Hesper was getting at. He knew she would not have voiced her concerns to Elsa yet, Hesper was all about discretion. He quickly typed an email agreeing that they needed to speak with some urgency and then he sat back in his chair, staring at the wall opposite him. This could reach so far beyond Elsa he couldn’t even begin to entertain comprehending the possibilities.
As if he didn’t have enough to worry about. He was already trying to decide how to ask Elsa exactly why it was she needed to read police files regarding her mother’s death and why she had felt she needed to hide the fact that she was looking from him at all. He had already told her everything. Marcus brought his hands to his face and rubbed his palms over his eyes.
Had he told her everything? He truly thought he had, but now? Now, he had no idea.
*Ok, come on people, give me some predictions! What do you think it is that Marcus is worrying about? How did Elsa come away from her werewolf encounter with no injuries? I love to keep you guys guessing ;) Oh and, as always, don't forget to vote! Much love xx :) *