The entire city was ablaze with rumors. They came from every corner with unrelenting blame. Everyone was turning on one another, firing off wild theories of likely perpetrators. Adeem had a hard time keeping up, but he'd heard more than enough whispers about his own involvement. They said he'd emptied the boy's brain to the brink of death. He wasn't even sure if he could do such a thing. Others were certain.

Nev crammed himself into the corner, opening the worn menu seemingly to pass the time. The vampire had been on edge since they exited the apartment, dangerously close to sulking because he'd been kept out of the excitement.

"Are you still mad?" Adeem asked.

"Mad that you put me to sleep like a good little wife before your meeting with the dragon? The very same dragon that you've been colluding with behind my back? I'm peachy." Nev continued to read the menu, flipping the two pages back and forth.

"Well, I've told you everything now."

Nev's composure snapped. "You could have told me from the start. Don't you trust me?" His dark blue eyes shone with annoyance, but he kept his voice low.

"I do trust you."

"Then enlighten me?"

"Let me order a fucking pancake first." He flipped open the menu and scanned the content. The crêperie was perhaps an unlikely restaurant to choose, but he preferred a smaller place to get away from other paranormals. It was a tiny place with no more than a few tables, but with excellent food and friendly faces.

Nev waved for the waiter. "Can I get a beer?"

The middle-aged man had to be a head shorter than most men in Stockholm, somewhat stocky, but agile enough to navigate the crowded room. "Oui, what kind?"

"Doesn't matter," Nev replied, almost sounding as fearsome as his exterior implied. The vampire had applied more eyeliner than usual, and his clothes matched the color.

"And I'll have the chocolate, hazelnut crepe. With ice cream," he said, trying to sound a bit friendlier than Nev.

The waiter nodded. "Anything to drink?"

"Water, please." He felt like having something a lot stronger than beer, but he wanted his head clear. Any distractions could prove disastrous as long as the tension continued to rise throughout Stockholm. He'd even heard regular humans talking about the murders, and all the tabloids were shouting out the gruesome details. Those papers had no tact whatsoever, and even less respect for the dead.

He listened in on the conversations from the other guests, hoping that they had better things to talk about, but was distracted by a young couple kissing fervently.

The waiter left, saying something in French to the other guy behind the counter. Nev didn't waste any time, scrunching his nose. "You're having dessert for dinner?" It sounded like the vampire was offended by that as well. Nev had also changed the topic, which came in handy for once.

"Chocolate is the food for gods. Did you hear that they'd found a Pharaoh embalmed in chocolate?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

He shrugged. "Just a random fact."

Nev leaned closer over the table, nailing him with an insistent stare. "Since when did you start blurting random facts? Besides, we're talking about the dragon and how you don't trust me."

Damn, he'd hoped that Nev would swallow the bait and follow the distraction.

"I trust you more than anyone." It was the truth. Simple as that. "And, maybe I should have told you from the start, but I wasn't sure what to tell you. It's not like this has been going on forever. He's mostly left me alone."

"Right, like he left you alone when he entered your apartment when you weren't home."

He'd told Nev pretty much everything since he'd returned back after the visit to the morgue, tired of keeping secrets that were destined to come back and bite his ass. But, he'd kept Kyung's intentions about the council out of the equation since those secrets weren't his to tell. That pesky detail made it a bit difficult to motivate his involvement with the dragon, however, something that Nev had picked up on right away.

"I still don't get why you're doing this. I thought you hated the guy."

"He's not that bad." He wanted that to be an outright lie, but after what had happened during the night, he felt less certain than ever if his hate was well bestowed.

"Right, and you want me to believe that?" It was a somewhat interesting comment coming from Nev. The vampire usually leaned more toward the naive side—a trait Adeem treasured. Nev wanted to think well of people, even when they were outright assholes. He suspected that was one of the reasons Nev had managed to get entangled with the Nighters.

The drinks arrived, and Nev took the small interruption to check something on his phone. "Vincent is on his way."

"What? You told Vincent to come?" The fae was by no means unpleasant company, but he had a hard time believing the fae wanted to hang out with them on a night such as this.

"Yeah, he wanted to see me," Nev replied, wearing a somewhat sheepish expression. Clearly, the vampire hadn't told Vincent that a certain demon was around as well. "He seemed excited to eat pancakes."

The waiter placed a plate in front of Adeem, murmuring, 'These are not pancakes. Crêpes." Someone was easily affronted.

* * * *

Vincent arrived when the third round of beers arrived, appearing quite troubled for once. The fae usually had smiles for everyone, and their absence spoke louder than words. Brushing his long, impossibly straight hair out of his face, he took a seat next to Nev on the bench that ran along the apricot colored wall.

No one spoke for a while, sharing a silence that seemed to speak for itself. Vincent placed his slender fingers on the wooden table, almost as if he wanted to hold on to something steady. "My friends are turning on each other," Vincent said at last. "I don't know what to do."

Nev pushed his untouched beer in front of the fae. "It's been a rough day."

Carefully, Vincent clasped the bottle and eyed him with apparent fear swirling in those hazel eyes. "Some say you killed the boy, but...I don't think." Vincent paused. "I can't imagine you killing anyone."

The words should have soothed him, but as much as he wanted to believe that Vincent's view of him was correct, he couldn't erase his past. He had killed more people than he wanted to remember. It didn't matter that it was hundreds of years ago, the memories remained fresh.

Nev intervened, "Adeem was with me last night." With a questioning glance, the vampire implied that he wanted to say more. When Nev received the nod, he continued, "And he went with the Guardian to the morgue to investigate the bodies."

Vincent gasped, fluttering his eyelids. "You saw them?"

"Yes."

"Is it true?" Vincent leaned forward to whisper, "A vampire and a werewolf?"

"Yes, and a third."

"This is horrible. Why would someone attack humans? And the poor Guardian. He's just been here since Christmas, and he already has this to deal with. At least you were there to help him." In his usual fashion, Vincent didn't even question why Adeem had been there to help to begin with. The fae's concern for Kyung rang with truth as well.

Vincent drank several gulps straight from the bottle, almost folding into himself as he placed it back on the table. Shoulders hunched, the fae more or less hid behind the curtain of silvery hair. "I just heard that the covens are tightening up, and the packs as well. They don't want to mingle with each other. It's the same with my family. Soon, we won't speak to each other across these groups."

Adeem feared that the fae had a point. If the vampires decided to retreat within their covens, and the other groups did the same, they would halt or even revert progress that had been decades in the making. Their rather open society was relatively young, and he would hate to see paranormals retreat into their self-proclaimed nations. They'd had more than enough conflict between these 'nations' in the past. Vampires fighting werewolves, werewolves fighting sorcerers, the rest fleeing for their lives escape the line of fire.

"I've already been asked to check in," Nev said, revealing the tension in his voice. "I've not been summoned like that in years."

He'd almost forgotten that Nev belonged to a coven in Stockholm. Nev spoke of them sparingly and only visited on occasion. The vampire had a painfully obvious aversion to others of his kind, possibly because Nev didn't have much in common with them. He'd never met a vampire as gentle as Nev. The rest he'd had the misfortune to meet were unpleasant in comparison.

"Are you going?" Vincent asked, a concerned frown marring his features.

"I don't have a choice."

He shook his head at Nev's answer. "There's always a choice. But perhaps this is a bad time to reject them."

The restaurant had gone quieter around them, some had left while others leaned back to relax with their stomachs full. The atmosphere allowed a certain kind of dread to build in his chest. There had to be a way out of this situation that didn't involve the council, and they had to find it fast before relations between groups were severed. The notion that Nev would run back to his coven didn't sit well with him either. Anything could happen to Nev in a place like that, and he wouldn't be able to help his friend.

His thoughts were interrupted by vibrations in his pocket. He ignored the phone at first, hoping that it wasn't important. When it didn't stop, however, he pried it from his pants and answered, knowing his night was likely to get worse.

Kyung's voice held none of the amenity from last night. "I need you at the Archive."

"Right now?"

"Yes. We have a suspect." The call closed, leaving him with a sense of both dread and hope. They needed to catch these paranormals, but another night in Kyung's company wasn't what he'd signed up for. The dragon drove him insane, and that was never good for his tentative control over his rather unpleasant powers.

to be continued...

A/N I hope you didn't miss the short story about Nev out on a Valentine's date ;) You'll find a link to it if you search through the messages on my profile.

I'm aware some of these chapters aren't very exciting, but I promise that the next one will have more than enough to compensate...

Also, some questions for you:

What do you think Kyung wants from Adeem this time?

Do you think something will happen if Nev returns to the coven?

Can you describe Nev in five words?

Don't forget to vote <3