'You're giving me the deeds to the Budapest fortress?' Ever asked, her tone dubious. What did they mean when they said that it needed to be protected? She wanted to ask, but felt that she would not be told.

'Of course, you are eighteen years old Ever, you are the most powerful of both my children,' her mother spoke, and as she did, what she left unsaid was still heard by Ever. Ashlyn Lord, wife of Maddox, knew that Ever had inherited the power that now lay dormant within the mother. A power that could never be left dormant within the daughter.

And not only was that gift the reason that their parents believed her the stronger of the twins, no she had inherited her father's strength exactly, in the same way she had her mother's hearing. And now she had a gift from Josephina, a gift that she placed upon her own right hand. Were these the gifts that encouraged her parents to offer her the fortress? A fortress her parents, her family had not set foot in, in years, eighteen to be exact.

'Danika?' It was all she had to say before the woman stepped forth, her birthday gift, a vision of the future painted upon a beautiful canvas framed in gold. And as Ever stood there, she felt as though she were Aurora, sleeping beauty, being offered gifts from every one of her relatives. Well as long as the painting did not depict her sleeping in a coma then she felt that she would be okay. She did not know any males outside of her family, in fact she had been rather closed off from anyone not in this fortress.

'I will speak to you about this painting later for I do not think it is something you would want your parents to over hear right now,' Danika said and when Ever's brows furrowed Danika lead her to a corner of the room and she heard exactly what it was that her parents would not want to hear, and yet she felt that there was still more.

'Of course, Auntie,' she replied, wondering why she would be in danger at the fortress, she'd been trained by the strongest of the Lords, and thankfully hope and selfishness was not there to help.

'My dear Ever, I am entrusting with you the most important thing to all of your family, something we have been searching for our entire possession and what we have managed to find. We are sending you to Earth and the Budapest fortress because that is where it is. I will not give you the exact location within the fortress but know we placed it there because our enemies the Hunters would expect us to have it on us at all times,' Maddox spoke and Ever's brows furrows.

The Hunters? Who were the hunters? Did they have enemies? If so why had her parents never told her about them?

'The hunters?' Urban asked the question that had been on her mind and she breathed a sigh of relief that he had been the one to speak it instead of her. In actual fact Ever had always thought Urban the favourite child of her parents, and so for them to give her the entire Budapest fortress all to herself was very odd. How many children did they expect her to have in the future? A lot of girls got many an expensive thing for their eighteenth, a birthday party, a car, they didn't get an entire fortress, that had always seemed to her to be a castle.

'Urban, Ever, the hunters are our family's greatest enemy. They believe that we are the evil embodiments, regardless of the fact that it is our demon within that is the evil one. They wrongly believe that killing us is the best way to rid the world of evil.' When Ever smiled and opened her mouth to comment that surely the hunters were good her father continued. 'They killed your uncle Baden, keeper of distrust and now his demon is crazed and infecting people will more distrust. We had heard many years ago that one of the hunters was infected with distrust and so we killed them, we would rather have him loose than the remainders of your uncle living within a hunter for distrust was as much a part of Baden as his heart or his lungs.'

'Do not think lightly of them dearest niece,' Uncle Kane voiced and she turned to him so fast that she could have given herself whip lash. 'I was captured by them once, they took me to hell where I was...' he trailed off and she realised that the memory was too traumatising for him.

And then there came tales from all the rest of her family of which had been captured by the hunters. Paris had been sexually deprived and tortured, and then seen his beloved Siena killed before him by one of her own, yes she had once been a hunter. Torin had nearly been killed by one of them, had had his throat sliced, but thankfully his demon, Disease had saved him from death, but had infected almost every mortal in the town, even their mother Ashlyn had been infected and Aunty Anya had saved her, given her and Maddox the same life, if one died so did the other.

'My gods,' Ever said and Urban shuddered beside her. 'But Uncle Aeron...' she trailed off when Aunt Olivia spoke up, she was a bonafide angel.

'Your uncle's demon was taken from him because he committed a selfless act. The demon was taken from him and placed back inside the box that released it. He saved my wings, my life by giving up his own and because of that he was returned to the state he had been before his possession. He is one of the lucky ones,' Olivia finished and Ever smiled at that, smiled at the way Olivia stroked her bump. Yes both her and Josephina were expecting children and Ever couldn't wait to meet her cousins, but it seemed that now she would be partnered with the fortress and would not be able to see these cousins unless she left the fortress and that what needed to be protected.

'Now, now enough of this depressing talk,' Kaia spoke up and her husband Strider beside her tightened his hold on her, so protective. 'Me and the girls are going to go get a make-over because Ever is looking so rough this morning, I think I even see the beginnings of a mono-brow and moustache, can't have that can we now girls?' She asked of her twin Bianka and her sister Taliyah and their youngest sister Gwen, and before Ever had known what had hit her she was ambushed and dragged away by four very strong harpies and White who was just as strong as they were, if not stronger, intending on making her over. Great...