Blood red love
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In the morning Vidar and Caine took Charlie out to a field next to the castle. It was surrounded by lush forest on two sides, the castle walls on the third and the lake on the fourth. They started with letting her hit different object. Wood planks, bricks, drywall, tree trunks. To Charlie’s surprise, her hand easily destroyed everything they put in front of her. The tree trunk gave her a couple of splinters, but after Vidar carefully removed them from her hand, it healed as she watched.
“Impressive, you are taking to this as if you were born to it,” Caine told her.
“Thank you,” she said. They were taking a break and talking about how Charlie needed to adjust her strength in everyday life.
“I was thinking we would try something,” Vidar sent a message to her.
“Intriguing, what sort of an experiment?” she asked.
‘Do you trust Caine?”
‘I do,‘ she told him.
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“Then try and sent a thought to him. I would like to keep your new power a secret, but it would be good for us to know how it works,‘ he told her. It made sense to her, it would be good to know if it was just Vidar she could reach out to like this.
‘Caine, can you hear me?‘ Charlie sent the thought in Caine’s direction. He froze and looked at her. It answered the question.
“Charlie, what did you just do?” he asked.
“I sent a thought to you,” she said. Caine looked to Vidar who nodded.
“Try and send one back to her,” Vidar said.
“Is this how it works?‘ Caine’s uncertain voice sounded in her mind.
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“It is.” Charlie said out loud to let Vidar know it had worked. They all ended up sitting in the middle of the field facing each other and testing how Charlie’s new abilities worked. They found that Vidar and Caine could not communicate with each other, but they could easily communicate with Charlie. Charlie could only send her thought to one at the time. She couldn’t read any thought that the men didn’t actively send to her. Next they combined teaching her about her new speed and testing how her ability worked over distance. Charlie discovered she was really fast, and that her ability worked best if she could see her target. it was harder to hold the focus on the person she wanted to send her thoughts to. Both Vidar and Caine had the same issues. As they got closer to lunch, they left the forest where they had been training and strolled over to the castle. It all seemed surreal to Charlie. “Do we tell the others?” she asked. The two men exchanged a look. they could say what they wanted, Charlie was convinced the two of them has some sort of mind link between them.
“I think we should hold off on it,” Vidar said.
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“But they are family,” Charly objected.
“Let’s just wait until the dust settles over the current situation,” Caine told her.
“Okay, I trust the two of you know what you are doing,” she told them. It earned her a k*ss.
from Vidar and a smile from Caine.
“They should be here any time now. I got a text from Adisa when they landed,” Vidar informed them. They walked into the castle and into the sitting room. Caine headed for the kitchen to bring them some water and Jun walked in, wearing a smile he tried to hide.
“The calls went okay?” Charlie asked him. He blushed and just muttered something about them being promising. Vidar and Charlie exchanged a look and smiled. Caine came back with a pitcher of water and glasses. They all relaxed and kept the conversation light. Charlie was sitting on Vidar’s lap and she saw the happy glances from the other two men.
“What’s that sound?” Charlie asked. Vidar smiled as the three men also listened.
“It’s the sounds of car tires on gravel, our friends are coming,” he told her.
“Isn’t it irritating to have these noises around you all the time?” she asked.
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Emergency calls onlyMOO
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D77% 11:12
“You can tune them out. Train your brain not to take notice of them. The brain is a marvellous thing, you can even train it to hear certain sounds and ignore others,” Jun told her. Charlie looked over her shoulder at Vidar. He nodded.
“That is for a future training session,” Caine said.
“What are we training?” Adisa asked as he walked into the room, followed by Henry and Nasir.
“Charlie’s vampire trainings.“Jun said as they all stood up to greet the newcomers.
“Charlie, I can’t tell you how happy we are to see you. And see you looking as amazing as ever,” Nasir said and held his arms out. Charlie smiled at him and didn’t hesitate to give him a hug, she hugged the other to men as well.
“Thank you. And thank you for helping to look for me,” she told them.
“There was no question about it,” Henry told her. They all ate lunch, trying to stay away from the topics they all knew they wanted to talk about.
“Let’s go to the war room,” Vidar said as they all finished eating.
“You have a war room?” Charlie asked.
“We have a war room,” he told her.
“And how often do we have use for this war room?” she asked and the others laughed.
“Nowadays it’s more of a meeting room,” he confessed.
“But it is reinforced and soundproofed, even against vampire hearing,” Caine added.
“Ah,” she said. That made sense. They needed a place to talk in private. Vidar and Caine lead the way down into the basement.
“Are yo
you okay?‘ Vidar asked her in her mind.
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‘I’m okay, I don’t have any real aversions to basements that I didn’t have before this all
happened,‘ she replied. They ended up in a small room with one other door. The door looked to be the same age as the castle. The number pad next to it, looked modern. Caine walked
up to the pad and entered a code, making sure it wasn’t visible.
“We wan
add your code later,‘ Vidar told her. Charlie was about to object, but changed her mind. She had tried before, but he was a stubborn one. The door clicked and Caine pushed it. open. The all walked into a circular room. the walls were of the same limed finish as the rest of the castle. But that was the only trace of anything historic. Half of the walls were covered in monitors and desks that looked to have been specifically made to match the curve of the room. Computers and keyboards were covering the desks. In the middle of the room there was a circular table that looked to be made out of glass with a wide wooden brim. Around the desk there were chairs placed. As they were sitting down around the table, Caine walked around, switching the equipment on. Soon Charlie could see surveillance feeds on some of the monitors from all around the castle and it’s surroundings. When he was done, Caine took a seat on a desk chair directly behind her.
“He’s not dead?” Adisa asked. They all knew he was talking about Millard.
“No. We all had a feeling something was off,” Jun said.
arlie was smart enough to record our sessions with him. We think the best way forward is to listen to it and see if we can figure out, now that we have a clearer mind, what we missed,” Vidar told them.. They all nodded.
“Are you okay with hearing it again?” Nasir asked Charlie.
“I am more than okay with it. I’m just as invested as the rest of you,” she told him, He smiled
at her and nodded.
”
“Of course, Charvi,” he said. Charlie looked at him for a second before she understood. Then
she laughed.
“No, not even close,” she told him.
“I thought I had you that time,” he said. Their little joke lightened the mood in the room. Then it was time to get serious again as Caine loaded the sound file. The table in front of
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Charlie lit up an she realised it was one big screen. Once the recording started, Charlie found she could focus more on the questions and answers this time around. It helped that it was just audio. They all sat in silence and listened to it.
“Can we pause?” Adisa asked and Caine stopped the recording. “Did he just say it was his coffered right to claim the maiden?”
“Yes, that was an odd way of saying it,” Henry agreed. Charlie saw the looks exchanged. between Adisa, Nasir and Vidar.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It sounds like him,” Nasir said. He was speaking to Vidar and Adisa.
Do you guys know what they are talking about?” Charlie asked Henry, Jun and Caine. The men shook their heads.
“A long time ago, It must be closer to eight hundred years or so ago, we ran into to a vampire called Amulius. He had a strong view of vampires being the strongest of the magical creatures and humans. He therefore thought we should rise up and take control. This was before we had the supplements and he more or less suggested humans become cattle and the other magical creatures slaves,” Nasir explained.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Charlie said.
“It wasn’t. When we came in contact with him, he was creating his own army with turned vampires,” Vidar told her.
“What happened?”