The weight of silence that followed Verity’s seated acceptance didn’t feel oppressive.

  It felt… natural.

  Hazel poured her a cup of tea, sliding it across the table without ceremony. Lena had sprawled further into the couch, her legs tucked up beneath her, arms draped zily over a cushion.

  Mariah sat in reverse in her chair now, legs spread around the backrest, chin resting on her arms, watching Verity with narrowed—but not unfriendly—eyes.

  Celine had found her pce again on the rug, spine straight and fingers ced neatly in her p, while Alex remained near the window, golden-silver gaze steady but thoughtful.

  The room had softened, but it hadn’t lost its edge. Verity, for her part, held herself with remarkable calm.

  It was Alex who broke the quiet first.

  “Why?” she asked, casually, though her voice was tinged with honest curiosity. “Why are you so willing to help us?”

  Verity blinked once. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re human,” Alex said. “We’re not. You know what we are. You have an idea of what we can do. Why help?”

  The question lingered in the air like smoke. Not accusatory. Just sincere.

  Verity leaned back in her seat and picked up her cup, letting the steam curl past her face before she answered.

  “I became a doctor,” she said slowly, “because I thought I’d make a discovery. Something groundbreaking. Something that would change the world.”

  None of them interrupted.

  “But after I became one,” she continued, “I realized most of my time wasn’t spent discovering anything. It was spent holding people’s hands. Reassuring them. Expining things they were too scared to ask. Watching them cry when I gave them answers they didn’t want.”

  Celine’s expression softened.

  Verity took a sip, then lowered the cup. “And somewhere in all of that, I stopped wanting to make a discovery. I just wanted to help the people who depended on me.”

  Hazel’s eyes glowed faintly. She smiled.

  Alex’s expression twitched—just the smallest lift of her brow, her lips parting like she might say something, but didn’t.

  Celine smiled too. Quiet and small.

  Mariah’s posture loosened slightly.

  Lena blinked.

  Her gaze drifted, slowly, across the room. First to Hazel. Then to Alex. Then to Celine and Mariah. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

  “So you really want to help?” she asked Verity, voice uncharacteristically even.

  Verity met her gaze. “Yes.”

  Lena’s fingers drummed against her thighs once. Then stilled. “Then you should know something we’ve never told anyone.”

  Hazel straightened slightly.

  Celine’s fingers curled tighter in her p.

  Mariah didn’t move, but her brow furrowed slightly.

  Alex pushed off from the wall and took a step closer.

  Verity’s eyes narrowed—but not in suspicion. In readiness.

  Lena gave a slow exhale. “The virus—Hemotropis luxura—has two strains. Passive and active.”

  Verity’s face didn’t change. But her posture shifted—attention heightened.

  “All of us,” Lena said, gesturing vaguely to the group, “were infected by the passive strain. It’s what your researchers have seen. What the public knows. It’s rare. It spreads through unknown vectors. It causes our... transformation. Slowly. Internally.”

  “Symptoms take days to show,” Celine added softly. “Maybe a week. Sometimes longer.”

  Verity set her cup down gently. “And the active strain?”

  Lena’s smile was faint. Wry. “It’s deliberate.”

  Hazel’s voice joined in, steady as stone. “It requires intent. A direct infusion.”

  “Bite marks,” Alex added. “Not just teeth. Not just wounds. The virus is secreted through specialized gnds during the act. A transfer of blood isn’t enough. The host has to will it.”

  “It’s extremely controlled,” Hazel continued. “We suspect it evolved that way. A means of replication that requires decision—commitment.”

  Lena leaned back slightly, her eyes gleaming. “Want to see?”

  Verity didn’t flinch. “Yes.”

  Lena opened her mouth—and let her smile grow just enough to part her lips fully.

  Her canines extended with eerie ease. Smooth. Elegant. Not grotesque or animalistic—just sharp. Refined. Evolution’s scalpel, honed for purpose.

  Two gleaming points that glinted in the morning light.

  Verity studied them with clinical fascination. “They retract?”

  Lena nodded, drawing them back just as easily.

  “It’s painless,” Hazel said. “Natural. It only activates when necessary.”

  “And only then,” Mariah added. “You can’t fake the transmission. You can’t slip it into food. Or blood bags. It’s tied to us.”

  Verity slowly sat back, gaze drifting across all five of them. “So the passive strain... happens randomly.”

  “We think so,” Hazel said. “No clear pattern yet. Age, sex, lifestyle—none of it predicts infection. But the active strain... is chosen.”

  Verity leaned forward again. “Has anyone used the active strain?”

  “No,” Hazel said. “Not that we know of.”

  “But the possibility exists,” Verity whispered.

  “It always has,” Alex said, voice like wind over gss.

  Verity rubbed her temple, then dropped her hand and stared at them all again.

  “And you’re telling me this. Why?”

  Hazel smiled, the same faint, elegant smile she always wore. “Because you asked why we trust you.”

  Verity was quiet. Processing. “You’ve given me something massive. A cssified truth. The very edge of transmission theory.”

  “You said you wanted to help,” Hazel said. “Now you can.”

  Verity ughed once. It was quiet, but real. “I came looking for a discovery.”

  “You found one,” Hazel said.

  “I wanted to help people.”

  “You still can,” Hazel replied gently.

  Verity let her gaze drift over them one more time. Five women. All impossibly composed. All undeniably altered. But undeniably alive.

  She nodded once, slowly.

  “I’ll keep your secret,” she said. “And I’ll do what I can to protect it.”

  Hazel reached forward again—another quiet gesture. Another invitation.

  This time, Verity took her hand without hesitation.

  “Then we’re ready,” Hazel said.

  And something unspoken passed between them—something deeper than agreement. Not just trust. Not just shared responsibility.

  Purpose.

  Together, they would shape what came next.

  The house felt warmer when Verity stood to leave.

  Not physically—it was still shaded in soft morning tones and faint echoes of the breakfast that had long since been cleaned away—but in atmosphere. In purpose.

  She gathered her satchel from the corner of the coffee table, her fingers brushing the leather strap thoughtfully.

  Hazel walked with her to the door in comfortable silence, the faint echo of five other golden-gazed women following in the soft hush of the living room.

  “You’ve done more than enough,” Hazel said quietly, stopping just before the threshold. “We don’t take it for granted.”

  Verity looked back once at the living room—at Celine’s quiet poise, at Mariah’s watchful gaze, at Lena’s amused half-smile, at Alex’s effortless calm—and gave a small, knowing nod.

  “I don’t think anything in the world could’ve prepared me for you,” she said.

  Hazel smiled faintly. “That’s because we’re not part of the world anymore. But we haven’t left it either.”

  Verity stepped through the doorway. The morning sun was stronger now, casting gold across the front walk.

  She paused there, her profile catching the light as she adjusted her bag.

  “I’ll call you,” she said without turning back. “Soon.”

  “We’ll be ready.”

  Then she was gone.

  The door closed with a gentle click.

  ***

  Elsewhere – Washington, D.C. – East Wing of the Presidential Residence

  The meeting had run long.

  President Lend Everson sat alone now in his private study, the weight of the test intel briefing pressing against the bridge of his nose.

  He pinched it with thumb and forefinger, his other hand draped across a leather armrest, where a slim mani file remained unopened.

  Hemotropis luxura.

  The name alone was enough to sour his coffee. Public interest was rising again. Rumors were exploding online—beauty cults, “vampire sightings,” whispered cims of glowing eyes and girls who would never age.

  They were calling for answers. Some were calling for crackdowns.

  He wasn’t sure which disturbed him more.

  The door opened without a knock.

  He didn’t look up.

  “You’re te,” he said ftly.

  “Wasn’t aware I was expected,” a soft voice replied.

  He gnced up.

  His daughter stood in the doorway, poised and perfect, a silhouette framed by the marble trim of the east hallway.

  Arielle Everson.

  Eighteen. Brilliant. Impossible.

  She wore a flowing blouse of pale wine, tucked neatly into cream scks. Her hair was a shade darker than her father’s own greying brown, pulled back into a neat twist. But it wasn’t her clothing that drew the eye.

  It was the gold.

  Her eyes shimmered like molten metal in the morning light—pure gold, with soft copper flecks that seemed to glow with each motion she made.

  He sighed and gestured to the chair opposite his desk. “Sit.”

  Arielle obeyed with slow grace, folding into the seat like the air itself bent to accommodate her.

  “Let me guess,” she said. “Another internal security debate? Dismantling privacy rights? Decring vampires a national threat?”

  “You shouldn’t call them that,” her father muttered.

  “But it’s what you’re thinking.”

  He looked up. “I’m thinking about safety.”

  “You’re thinking about power,” Arielle said. Not cruelly. Not even sharply. Just with that softly amused voice that wrapped itself around everything like velvet.

  He hated when she used it.

  And he hated that it worked.

  Her fingers rested atop her knees, nails glossy and clean, not a wrinkle in sight. Her posture was impeccable.

  And still, beneath all that poise, she was subtly exuding pressure.

  He could feel it.

  His pulse slowed. His thoughts sharpened but softened. Her presence didn’t just suggest calm—it enforced it. Like perfume for the mind, slipping into the corners of rationality and making everything sound reasonable.

  “You’re not the only one,” he said at st. “There are reports out of Fairhaven. Chicago. Tokyo.”

  “I’m aware,” she said simply.

  “You think I should do nothing?”

  “I think you should do the right thing,” Arielle replied. “Support. Monitor. Understand. Don’t threaten. Because if you threaten us, we will vanish. And you’ll never find us again.”

  “You make it sound like you’re organizing.”

  Arielle didn’t blink. “No one has to organize. That’s what you don’t get. We’re already united.”

  “Because you’re all infected?”

  “No,” she said, leaning forward slightly. “Because we were all reborn with the same instinct. To live quietly. Elegantly. Without your fear. Your politics.”

  Lend sat back. His hand hovered near the unopened file again.

  “You used your pheromones on me just now,” he said, voice cool.

  Arielle tilted her head. “I softened your fear. Not your mind.”

  He stared at her. “That’s a distinction with very little difference.”

  “You still made your own decisions,” she said. “I just removed the static.”

  A pause. Then:

  “Dad.”

  He looked up.

  Arielle’s voice dropped, her expression shifting from detached to achingly sincere.

  “You’re afraid for me. I get it. But this isn’t a threat. It’s a change. And you’re either going to be part of the world that accepts it, or the man remembered for trying to crush something too beautiful to kill.”

  Lend closed his eyes. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “I’m still your daughter.”

  He opened his eyes again—and there she was. Not just golden-eyed and unearthly, but herself. The girl who still ughed at old cartoons. Who still called the kitchen staff by name. Who still braided her hair when she was nervous.

  But also something else.

  Something more.

  He let out a long, tired breath.

  “What do I tell them?” he asked quietly.

  Arielle stood.

  She smoothed her blouse, stepped around the desk, and leaned down. Her lips brushed his cheek—not cold, but not warm either.

  “Tell them we’re not dangerous,” she whispered. “Unless we’re forced to be.”

  Then she turned and left the room, the door clicking shut behind her with the finality of a closing chapter.