The Bayou was a wetland region just outside of New Orleans, a refuge for the werewolves of the area. Their space had been invaded by those that heard about the miracle pregnancy between a vampire and a werewolf. The small open area had one large RV, several tents, and an open space where the obvious campfire had been the night before. There were people in front of the RV, in front of a rather large grill. It appeared like a family reunion, the ones they saw on TV. In a way, it was.

   Werewolves weren't such territorial species as the films and books made them seem, but they did mind when unannounced guests arrived and tried to fight them. There were no domineering alphas, no crazy serial killer mysteries. Although, they did exist around the world. In fact, werewolves were a giant family unit. There were even rumours about Fae straight up handing changelings to packs, no deception necessary. It was the reason why Nemiah and Agnes had so easily taken her in without so much as a third thought—there certainly was a second thought—about taking her in, since she was covered in blood when found and she refused to speak about her past.

   "There's fewer people than I expected," Nemiah muttered as he stopped and turned off the car. "What the hell happened here?"

   One of the men from the circle walked towards them, motioning them to roll down the windows. He stopped by Nemiah's side, eyes squinted from the high sun that fell from his face. "What are ya'll doing here?"

   "The same reason you're all here," Nemiah answered, quickly eyeing the wolves that stared back at him. "I thought this would have been more full..."

   The man let out a sigh and glanced back to the circle. "I'm surprised you all came with what's been happening in the past few days." His voice became softer along with his eyes. No longer did the atmosphere sizzle with the anticipation of a fight, instead, it was covered in solemness. "Vampires came by a few days ago. It was a massacre for those that don't know this area. We're taking a break from digging graves..." His voice trailed off as he stared at the bayou in front of him.

   "We'll help," Nemiah quickly said, nodding. "It's just five of us, but we'll help as much as possible."

   Roseanne's hands and face were covered in dirt and dried blood. The blood was not her own but from the bodies, she had helped move. If it were not for the broken necks or the deep gashes, she would have thought they were sleeping. There were a couple of times where she gagged, to the point where she had to drop whichever part of the body she was holding and move to the side to spit.

   The bodies allowed memories she had tried to forget to appear back in her mind. They arrived as flashes, just here and there and momentarily gone. With each body that she moved, the more she saw them. The images were vivid, the scent strong, and for a moment she almost called out their names.

   A man grabbed the body from her arms. "Let me help you," he said, giving her a smile. His dark brown hair was messy, with a hint of mud and blood on it. "Is this your first time seeing a dead body?"

   "No," she answered, too quickly for her liking. "I just don't like seeing them." It was a simple answer, the truth.

   The man sucked in a breath and nodded. "That makes a lot of sense," he hummed. "Sorry. I'm Cary, by the way."

   She stared at him for a couple of seconds, flexing her fingers to her side. "Roseanne," she finally said. Her voice combined perfectly with the heat of the bayou, the screaming cicadas and the mosquitoes that tried to bite at her exposed skin. It was rage that swarmed the bayou, the same pure rage that flowed through her blood.

   Cary became a constant nuisance to Roseanne. He followed her around, including when she sat down in front of the tent she and Reese shared and soaked in the rage of the sun. By the end of two days, her skin was sun-kissed. The heat was unbearable and the mosquitoes had created a pattern of stars on her legs.

   One of those nights, she felt her bones break over and over again as they did during the full moons. She had tried to bite down the pain, but they soon escaped her mouth. A small throng of people had accumulated outside her tent as she screamed out in pain, the cracks in her bones echoing through the night. Reese was beside her, holding her to her chest and asking what was wrong. She had no answer, no idea what was happening. The full moon had passed already, she wasn't voluntarily wanting the transformation to happen.

   "I've heard about this," she heard someone say as she gritted her teeth with the pain. "Mates can sometimes feel the pain of the other."

   When the pain stopped, she fell into a deep sleep. That was when the storms began. It began with an earthquake, just the ground trembling enough for them to notice. Animals had scurried past them The windstorms were first, followed by the rainstorms. They ravaged the bayou, causing them to go into higher ground as the waters rose and the wind brought down trees.

   "This must be the work of witches," Jacob, from the Northeast Atlantic Pack, hissed. He paced back and forth the small cabin, shaking his head in anxiousness.

Roseanne watched as his eyes fell to the window, anxiousness dancing at his eyes whenever lightning appeared and thunder was heard. She almost scoffed out loud, was prepared to ask him why was a werewolf afraid of a thunderstorm. For a moment, she almost said that he was more dog than wolf.

   "Is there a witch with much power?" Nemiah asked as he tapped his fingers against the table. "I've heard of the Bennett witches. Sheila Bennett—may she rest in peace—was a force to be reckoned with, but I don't think they would be in Louisiana."

   "I don't think this is the work of a Bennett witch," Conall, another member of the Northeast Atlantic, sighed. "Whoever these witches are, they must be one of those strong New Orleans witches." He made a face and shrugged his shoulders, leaning against the wall with a bored expression.

   "This is too..."

   The door opened and in walked in a tall, dark, and handsome man. He wore a black jacket, wet from the falling rain. As soon as he caught our eyes, he quickly lifted his hands as if to surrender. "I'm here to offer you all a safe place," he said, softly, eyeing each and every person in the small confinement of the cabin.

   Nemiah stood. "Who are you?" His voice was no longer the soft-spoken she had heard so many times, but strong and full of authority.

   "My name is Kieran O'Connell," the man said. "I'm a priest at St. Anne's Church in the French Quarter."

   "What are you doing here, Father Kieran?" Nemiah asked, his voice full of suspicion. He said the Father's name as if he were saying something else, like danger.

   "As I said, I'm here to offer you all a safe place from the storms at my church." He pressed his hands together as he glanced around the cabin once again. "Are you all from the Northeast Atlantic Pack?"

   "Yes," Conall quickly said, taking a stance by Nemiah. "Why do you ask?" He shot a look to Nemiah, who eyed him back and nodded.

   It was another thing of werewolves, Roseanne noticed. They were all loyal to each other, no matter from what pack they belonged to. It was an unwavering code of loyalty, to the point where the species they would not harm during the full moon was another werewolf, have it been that they triggered the curse or not.

   Father Kieran shrugged his shoulders. "No reason, I was just wondering."

   "We're the only pack left," Conall said, arms spread as his eyes moved about. "All the others were massacred by vampires." He spat that word—vampires—as if it had left a sour aftertaste.

   Roseanne eyed the Father. She noticed how he kept flexing his fingers in front of him, how his eyes darted around the cabin, how he shifted from foot to foot. He was nervous. She leaned forward on her chair and continued to stare at him. "Who sent you?" she asked. Why would a human know of werewolves, want to help them?

   Father Kieran looked at her with wide eyes. They quickly went back to normal and he regained his composure. "I won't lie to you, but I was sent by someone to come and hide the pack from other vampires," he said. "So, if you'd all like to follow me back to the church, that would be great."

   "We should go," Nemiah said to Conall. Alpha to alpha, both working together for the good of their packs.

   Conall nodded. "It would be safer there than here," he hummed. "The vampires know we're here, they wouldn't expect us to go somewhere else."

   "Would be we safe, though?" Reese asked, standing from her side and moving towards them. "I heard that werewolves weren't allowed in the Quarter."

   "You would be safe," Father Kieran spoke up. "From what I know, only a werewolf can detect another werewolf."

   Nemiah nodded. "We'll go, then." He quickly glanced at Conall, who nodded back. "Give us ten minutes to pack everything."

   Saint Anne's Catholic Church was just what Roseanne imagined a church to be. Rows of wooden pews were all set perfectly straight, and in the centre up front, a large statue of the Virgin Mary surrounded by candles. Whenever lightning hit, it would appear colourful for a moment as the light hit through the stained glass windows.

   Roseanne took a seat in one of the pews in the centre of the left side. She lifted her feet on top of the pew in front of her and accommodated herself to feel as comfortable as she could. The only sound in the church was the soft murmuring of the divided groups as if they were all too afraid to speak louder in case they woke up the saints that made their homes between the crevices.

   She glanced around, admiring every inch as she tried to remember the church she had attended a long time ago. Her father had been Catholic, had devoted himself to saints, like the little medallion of Saint Michael he wore around his neck every day. She attended church with him several times when she was small, just because she wanted to see what her father did every Sunday morning. Her mother, on the other hand, had been Buddhist. She remembered going to the only temple in her town with her mother, standing in the corner as her mother bowed and prayed over and over again, eyes focused on the grand figure on top of a wooden slab.

   Roseanne thought that the different religions of her parents weren't so different when it came to praying, just the names.

   "We should have stayed home," Reese muttered as he took a seat beside her. He pushed a blanket towards her as he stared around. "New Orleans has always been a terrible place."

   "Nemiah wanted to see a miracle," Theo sighed. "So much for his miracle, huh?"

   The doors to the church opened and closed, two figures emerging from them with boxes of canned goods in their hands. The man had a cocky strut to him, while the woman glanced around with a bit of nervousness and curiosity.

   Father Kieran walked up to them. "We still haven't gone through all that you've already provided, Klaus."

Roseanne perked up as she heard the name. She quickly let her eyes fall on the man, took him in. He was fairly attractive, with his curled dirty blond hair and dark blue eyes that were full of a frozen rage. He stood straight, an ever-growing smile on his plump lips. She felt his very being singing to her blood.

   The man, Klaus, smiled and turned to the woman beside him. "Well, this newest bit isn't from me." Even though his words were soft, she felt the anger behind them. They weren't meant to be angry, but that man sported an eternal rage that was too big to smother.

   Father Kieran turned to the woman as well. "That's very kind of you..."

   "Hayley," the woman answered. She stood straighter and began to glance around, her eyes landing on hers. For a moment, they stared at each other. "And these people are?" She looked away.

   A triumphant smile made its way up Roseanne's lips, but it soon fell.

   "I asked Father Kieran to give them shelter," Klaus announced with a proud smile. "He suffers from an incessant desire to do good." He turned to the priest, the smile fading into that calm rage she knew too well. "But now, I need you to be useful. Marcel and Davina have disappeared. I assume from the stupefied look in your face they haven't found refuge in your attic."

   "Those days are gone." Father Kieran stood tall, wanting to show that he was unafraid. She saw through him, saw how his fingers flexed to his side and his jaw clenched.

   "Then energise your resources," Klaus spat at him. "I don't need to remind you how important it is they be found." He stared down at the priest for only a moment, a sense of triumph arising from him when the priest left to make a call.

   "These people, they're werewolves..." Hayley muttered, eyes full of disbelief. "And the priest, he said that you donated the food. You're helping them?"

   Klaus' lips quirked up to a smile. "They're not your werewolves. They're my clan. From very far back. They've fallen upon hard times, and their plight has brought out the philanthropist in me. What can I say? Must be Elijah's influence."

   His clan? Roseanne glanced around at the wolves that were part of the other pack, at Cary in the front pew starring at the statue of a saint, then to Conall at the other side of the church as he softly spoke to Nemiah and Agnes with a woman at his side. 

   "That's him," Reese ushered next to her ear. "That's the famous hybrid. He looks more normal than I expected."

   "What did you expect?" Theo chuckled, smacking him in the arm.

   Reese shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know..." He trailed off and looked back at the tall man. "I was expecting him to look more like a vampire. Remember those stories Nemiah told us? I guess I was expecting him to look like a monster."

   Klaus' head whipped towards them as soon as those words left Reese's mouth. The boys beside her quickly turned their heads, but Rosemarie kept her eyes on him. The frozen Arctic sea that moved in his eyes, the frozen rage that was the coldest blue she had ever seen. He stared back at her, jaw clenched.

   Roseanne kept her eyes on the hybrid and said, "Some monsters are best at playing human."

   Klaus arched a brow, the rage calming into a wave of small anger. "That's true," he said as he closed the distance. He stood by the pew, leaning his hand against it and watching each person carefully. His eyes landed on hers and he stopped, stared. "I've seen you before."

   "That's impossible," she said, staring back at him. It was a competition, whoever looked away first lost. "This is my first time down here."

   "I've seen you before," he repeated. Lightning hit close by, the thunder shaking the walls. Klaus tilted his head to the side then he went rigid. His eyes locked on hers, wide and wild, and his nostrils flared a bit. Shock—it was a pure shock that the hybrid held in his features, at whatever he saw in her face. He stumbled back.

   Roseanne furrowed her brows. "Is there something on my—"

   He disappeared from the church.

   "What the hell?" the girl—Hayley—yelled. "Klaus!" She ran out of the church, following him.

   "What did you tell him?" Reese asked, pulling at her hand.

   Roseanne stared at the entrance and shrugged her shoulders. "I didn't say anything."