When Akari woke, it was to find Gabriel reading next to her and Nico deep in thought across the room. A few words passed between them before she found herself bundled up into the back of Nico's car and zooming towards Belem. Mother Marcia pushed a glass container into her hands when she left. The liquid inside sloshed around and reminded her of olive oil.

'Three spoonfuls a day for two weeks. Help you regain your strength,' she demanded, before sharing a few words with Nico and Gabriel in Portuguese.

From the back of the car, Akari watched the two vampires riding in the front. There was an edge of tension between them, a secret that only they seemed to know. It made her feel oddly left out.

She found the effort of staying awake too difficult. Whatever the witch - Pedro - had given her had really wiped out her energy, and she dozed on and off, whilst the scenery slipped by.

'Akari, we need to check in.'

She flinched at the cold hand on her shoulder, and her eyes flashed open to see Nico's concerned face hovering above her.

Nico's hand withdrew quickly. 'We're in Belem,' he said by way of an apology.

Her legs wobbled after a few steps, and Nico was quick to take her arm and Gabriel the other as they helped her into the lobby of a small hotel.

Gabriel waited with her whilst Nico went to reception. She took the time to have a look around, as moving her head seemed to be the only movement she could achieve without tiring herself out.

Nico hesitated when they reached the stairs, but Akari gladly went to him. Just standing was enough to make her feel tired, three flights of stairs would have pushed her over the edge. Even moving at human speed, they rapidly reached their room. She blinked in confusion when she saw a few pieces of luggage already waiting for them.

'Gabriel arranged some clothes. We won't be staying more than a day, but he thought you'd appreciate being able to have something of yours to wear.'

Tears pricked in her eyes as she took in her own clothes. After what had happened, she'd borrowed a loose dress from another witch, and whilst it was pretty, she felt exposed in something that wasn't hers. Gabriel's thoughtfulness touched her, but when she went to thank him, she realised he'd already disappeared onto the small balcony.

'Thank you, Gabriel,' she said, knowing he'd be able to hear her despite the busy street below.

He popped his head back at her words, a soft smile gracing his face.

'It'll help to be around things you know,' he replied.

The breadth of understanding in his eyes took her aback. His eyes didn't hold pity but empathy.

'Andrés has arranged a meeting with a police officer familiar with vampires. He's willing to give up the girl's phone and anything else he knows. But I'm leaving now. Gabriel is going to stay here.'

There was much not said in Nico's admission, but Akari wasn't too tired to understand what was happening. Gabriel was to be her guard, her keeper, should anyone else attempt to take her whilst Nico investigated.

Akari's mouth meshed together, but she held her tongue. In truth, she was nervous at someone else trying to kidnap her, but she was more worried about being so easily tricked. Her previous forays into the human world had convinced her that she was prepared, that she could handle the job of finding her parents. She didn't want to admit how really shaken up she was.

For the first time, she doubted her reason for being there. Never before had she felt more the foolish princess, felt so inadequate in her task. She felt adrift, with no Ajax or Emyr, no Lenah or Ryan, to provide their guidance. She was alone in her task, as she'd requested, but she hadn't realised how lonely that would be.

Nico watched her carefully, he knew she was putting on a brave face. And Gabriel would be the best one to be around her now.

He glanced at Gabriel, noticing the slight incline of his head, before having one last look at Akari. She was shaken up, still jumpy, but she was made of stronger stuff. If she really was his mate, then she was going to need to be.

Akari watched Nico leave.

'How about a bath?'

She turned to Gabriel. After everything, a bath sounded great, but she hesitated long enough for him to notice.

His smile was sad as he picked up the small bag placed on the side. 'I'll sit with you if you don't want to be alone.'

'I'd like that.'

The warm water helped wash away the dirt from the van but did nothing to help with the memories. Gabriel sat with his back against the bathtub and, true to his word, he hadn't taken a single peek at her body. Something she was relieved about and disappointed by.

She sniffed the jasmine scented bubble bath. 'The witch, the one from the coven, he said that you wouldn't be able to track my scent. So how did you find me? How did you know I was in trouble?'

Gabriel risked a glance at her face. Her white hair was piled on top of her head, and her face a mask of calm. But that's all it was; a mask. He knew the signs. The slight downward twist to her mouth, the flutter of her eyelashes as she resisted the urge to check the room, the tick that she couldn't control at the corner of her eye. It was all there.

He contemplated lying, but the thought turned his stomach.

'I saw you.'

'And you waited until after I got kidnapped to save me?' She opened her eyes to his tense face, not believing a word.

'No, not in the way you're thinking.'

She snorted. 'What other way is there?'

'I'm a seer.'

Akari's eyes trained on him, though he didn't look at her.

'My mother was a well known seer in Belem. Pretty too. Too pretty.' He paused, shaking away the bad memories. 'An image came to me of you eating the berry. I didn't think anything of it. But it kept coming to me, again and again. Something wasn't right. I'm sorry it took me so long to realise what was wrong.' He hung his head. If he'd understood sooner, Akari would never have gone through what she did.

'Not all seers control what they see. It wasn't your fault.'

'But I saw it. And I did nothing, and now you...now you have to carry those memories.'

A warm, wet hand softly touched his cheek, but he couldn't look up.

'You still found me.'

'Not soon enough.'

'My sister was raised by a seer. She had control over her abilities, had spent a lifetime mastering them, but neither was she infallible. Nobody is. People expect seers to know everything, see everything, but gifts have limitations. We all do.'

'I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't found you in time,' he admitted.

'Mates are funny like that.'

His head shot to her, his mouth hanging open. 'You know?'

Akari lifted herself up, revealing the swell of her breasts. Gabriel knew that he should look away, but he couldn't. Her skin was beautiful and fascinating to him.

Her hand rested on the rune over her heart.

'Walkers, light and shadow, have a rune right here when they touch their mate. I felt it when I met Nico, and then again when I touched you. But I know things are different for vampires.'

'Is having two mates common for your kind?'

She sighed and slipped back into the water, enjoying and craving the warmth.

'No. Before my sister, I thought we could only mate with our own kind. There appears to be much that we don't know.'

'What does it mean? The flickering?'

'I wish I knew.'

His head hung. 'What if it means you have to choose? Me or Nico?'

Akari was already shaking her head. 'I couldn't. The thought of choosing, of being without one of you...' Her heart thudded painfully. It was unthinkable.

'I don't understand,' Gabriel said.

'Even now, I couldn't live without either of you. And I've only known you for a few days.'

'It won't be easy.' He wanted to be truthful but also hated the idea of hurting her.

Akari sank back into the water with a thoughtful expression. 'I'm prepared to fight for it.'

***

Nico strolled into the station as if he owned the place, the officers watching him with wide eyes. The woman at reception gazed at him adoringly, and he rolled his eyes behind his shades. He knew his tall frame and lean physique got him noticed, something he'd used to entice many a man or woman to his bed, but with his mates sat back at the hotel, he found the attention more irritating than usual.

'I'm here to see Officer Ferreira.'

The woman's hands fluttered around the desk at his question.

'And you are?' she asked breathlessly.

'Mr Guidice.'

She buzzed through to the officer in question, speaking in Portuguese. Nico found that if he spoke confidently in English, people assumed he was incapable of speaking any other language. It had come in handy more than once.

'He'll be with you soon. Can I get you anything?' She batted her eyelashes.

'I'll survive,' he said drily. If she really knew what he drank, she'd run away from him faster than the hounds of hell.

A smartly dressed human came through the door, barely glancing at the human at the front desk.

'Mr Guidice? I'm officer Ferreira.' They shook hands. The human hardly flinched at his cool skin. 'Please follow me.'

Nico followed silently. He'd assumed his contact would be another one of his kind. But instead he now found himself in a blank room with a human, apparently fully under Andrés' control. He couldn't help but wonder what the man's story was. Whenever a human knew about vampires, it was never a happy story. Maybe he'd lost a loved one? Unintentionally seen a feeding? Or maybe someone he loved had been reborn?

Either way, Nico watched him closely. There were humans involved in whatever was happening in Belem. He could never be too careful.

'Andrés said you needed to see a phone.' He slid it across the desk. 'Took IT a few hours to crack it, and I can tell you not many here know what to make of it.'

'And you?' Nico asked, picking up the device but not turning it on.

The man pulled a cheap packet of cigarettes out and lit one, inhaling the bitter smoke before blowing it out again.

'I seen a lot. But not like this. Most vampires are messy. Bodies, blood, always the same. But it's localised. This was big, dramatic, witnesses screaming about monsters.' The man's hand shook where it held the cigarette.

'But you've concealed it,' stated Nico.

The man wiped his brow. 'Concealed it? If you call bare face lying to the people about what they saw, then yes. It's concealed.'

'And the other officers?'

Another drag on the cigarette, another puff of smoke that was no doubt blackening the human's lungs from the inside. 'What do you want me to say? They have eyes, they see strange things, but they know if they say something, they'll be thrown out. PTSD, mental breakdown, workplace stress. Either way, their careers are over. They know better than that.'

Nico conceded this truth. There weren't many jobs that paid well. There would be many who wouldn't give up what they had here, just because of a few unexplained things.

He pressed a few things on the phone, scrolling until he found the video he was after.

Graciane's smiling face beamed at him, her midnight hair flapped around her face and her white teeth glinted against her black skin. The video jumped as they talked, zooming in on everything and anything the group found interesting.

His eyes narrowed at the shapes shifting in the background. The girls had been too preoccupied to notice that they were surrounded to begin with.

The phone shook, the angle shifting 90 degrees. A figure passed across the screen. Not human, but like nothing he'd ever seen. There was a flash of elongated fangs, their claw tipped hands, and rounded, hunched shoulders. It's wrong. All wrong. Just as Graciane said.

'Gave some of us more than a few nightmares,' admitted Officer Ferreira, pointedly looking everywhere but at the phone screen.

Nico ignored him, continuing to watch. There wasn't much else to see, but the sound was what he was interested in. The struggle between kidnappers and kidnappers raged on, and then the sound of a car. His eyes lit up when he heard it. The unmistakable sound of voices. It's faint, barely picked up by the phone's microphone, but it's there.

'I'll be taking this,' he commanded.

'Andrés said you would. It's already been logged as misplaced. Something as simple as that wouldn't be missed, especially when officially no one was reported as missing or injured.'

Nico nodded, slipping the phone into his blazer. He'd get an expert to take away the background noise, enhance the speech and maybe, just maybe, they'd have something.

'Thank you for your time,' he said formally. He was already itching to get back to his mates. After the coven, he hadn't wanted to leave them alone, but he'd had no choice.

'Andrés has done a lot for us and for me. Anything he needs.'

Nico didn't ask what Andrés had done for the human, and Officer Ferreira didn't volunteer any further information. Some things were better left unknown.