I knew that I would eventually have to put on my big girl panties and figure out the latest shit show that had fallen into my lap, but I was just so happy and content in Viktor's arms that I didn't want to move just yet.
Our relationship seemed to have changed, but I couldn't put my finger on exactly where or when it did. No longer was I simply another monster that fell under his jurisdiction, but it felt like I had become more to him. And I know that he had definitely become more to me.
Either way, I was just going to enjoy it, not demanding an explanation or anything official, I felt that this worked best for us, more natural.
"Feeling better?" his voice grumbled above my head and his chest vibrated under my cheek. I had to chuckle at his question.
"Not sure," I admitted. "Maybe I should stay here a bit longer just to be certain," I joked, looking up at the man that was holding me in his arms like I was the most precious thing in the world.
I felt his answering soft laughter in every part of my body. "Fine," he agreed. "But we will need to have a talk soon. I have a whole house full of Van Helsings demanding to hunt."
I shuddered at that idea. I mean, I knew that he was the head of the Van Helsings and that there would be easily a few hundred of them in the world, but the idea that there was more than one of them in this city and I was an abnormal monster (to put it nicely), made my skin crawl.
"Don't worry. As long as you don't break any of the laws, you will be completely fine," he assured me as he gently rubbed my back.
"But that's the problem, right? Monsters haven't been breaking the laws enough to set you guys off, but they have still been breaking them. Is there any way we could change the laws? I mean, using humans as the loophole seems…" I broke off my long line of questions to figure out what I was trying to say.
"Human?" chuckled the man. "Using humans to circumvent the Laws of the Six Houses seems to be a very human thing to do."
I thought about his statement for a moment and then had to agree. "That must be why Pandora and the other gypsies could come up with it," I said, as I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath of his smell.
"Not calling her 'mother' anymore?" asked Viktor as he looked down at me. I wrinkled my nose over the fact that he immediately picked up on that. "I… learned some things…" I started. "And now knowing what I know, I don't think that I can refer to that woman as 'mother' anymore."
"Well, if that was not the vaguest statement telling me absolutely nothing I have ever heard, I don't know what is," grinned Viktor, trying to make me feel more comfortable.
"It was, wasn't it?" I agreed with a smile of my own. "But it turns out that the body and some of the memories are from my Mother, but the monster inside that allowed her to come back was Baba Yega, and I don't want to call her mom," I shrugged as if it was not a big deal that my mother was taken over by a witch.
"I could see that," agreed Viktor. "But when I think about people in my family, I have to wonder if they didn't get taken over by a witch or something like that," he joked.
I simply hummed in agreement and let the silence take over for a while.
----
Viktor Van Helsing looked down at the woman in his arms and felt a sense of contentment that had thus far alluded him in all of his years. He didn't feel the ever-present need to hunt, he didn't feel overloaded with all of the small laws being broken all the time, he just felt… contentment.
Feeling her take another shuddering breath, he gently played in her hair that hung in waves down her back. "It's okay, my little cub," he whispered into her hair. "I am here with all of my Knights and kin and will take care of everything." Doing his best to reassure her but not knowing what to do or say left him at an impasse.
"I had to cut a thread tonight," came the soft voice from his arms. "My monster said that I would know which one needed to be cut, but I didn't understand at first." She hesitated, as if not sure where to go next. Viktor just stayed still, letting her take from him whatever she needed, his eyes flashing from green to red as his monster tried to rise.
"I can only see the threads that I have interacted with," she continued after a pause. "Most are rotten, but many are clean, beautiful." She let out a breath before looking up at me. "Yours is such a beautiful silver that every time I see it, I just want to wrap myself in it and never come out."
Viktor could feel his monster lunge to the surface at her declaration, trying to take control. Wrestling him away just enough that the man and the monster could share one body, he replied, "You are more than welcome to." His voice came out sounding like two distinct people. Both he and his monster agreed that the idea of her being wrapped in their thread of life sounded like the best idea possible.
She chuckled at our response. "But I am scared to," she admitted, looking up at Viktor. "I want your permission before I completely entangle our threads together." Her eye flashed between chocolate brown and pure silver as her monster rose up.
"You have it," the monster and the man growled, in complete agreement. She let out a bright smile and the silver quickly faded from her eyes as her monster retreated.
"But I found a different color," Natalia said as if she never spoke about entwining their threads.
Willing to follow her lead Viktor looked down. "What color was it?" he asked softly. Honestly, he didn't even know that there were different colored threads, but he was not going to take her away from her story to ask.
"Purple," she said, scrunching her brow. "And brown, and metallic," she continued staring off in the distance as if trying to pinpoint the actual color. "The base layer shone with such a beautiful metallic purple that seemed to call to me to touch it. Only my monster snapped me out of it long enough to take a step back… if I had.."
She looked up at Viktor with the most vulnerable look on her face that he just wanted to surround her in bubble wrap and promise that he would save her from anything and everything. "What would happen?" he pushed.
"I would have been tainted with his rot and eventually become a demon. Or at least, that is what my monster thinks."