"You weren't kidding about the no green stuff." Juliette chuckled once everyone who would be participating in that night's dinner was seated around the Burns dinner table. Oliver, Carmen, and Theo retreated to the living room as the others attempted a civilized dinner.

Cal only gives a playful scoff toying with the end of her fork as under the table her hand finds her girlfriends once again. A regular occurrence in the last few minutes and much to at least her father's disapproval given the pointed clearing of his throat the second her utensil fee hand dropped to her lap.

The hunter ignores him in favor of forcing down another few bits of her meal with Juliette's fingers tracing random patterns against her skin.

'Keeping up appearances' Cal joked in her mind earning mirrored amused expressions from Theo and Juliette as she chewed. The motion alone seeming to appease the growing weight of her fangs considering what the new vampire truly wanted to be biting into the much warmer and far more satisfying source of that growing blood call coming from Juliette's other side.

Now her head was a little clearer thanks to the shower among the pair's other activities and the threat of losing her girlfriend/maker wasn't dogging her it seemed Cal's more vampiric traits were taking a far tighter hold.

"Just think of her like your bee, Cal." Her maker of suggested via her sire's bond as Juliette had shadowed Apollo around the table setting out plates for everyone who'd be needing them beside the cutlery the only human of the Burns's children set out ahead of her whilst Cal had been held back to mind cutting up the potatoes.

"You won't hurt her, she's innocent just like that bee" Juliette reminds when Cal unintentionally licked her lips in honest hunger once she realized just how strong her mother's blood call was compared to the other still human members of her family. Something about just how much of her new food source seemed to be pumping around her mother's body had the hunter's new vampiric focus almost as soon as she and Juliette had rejoined the others freshly showered and re-dressed. Juliette obviously having to borrow her hunter's clothes considering the state of her own.

All those rips showing off her girlfriend's tempting figure, all that blood…

The hunter's eyes fall back on a much closer and far more filling source as the word buzzes around in Cal's mind in time with the kicking beat of her mother's heart.

But why would her mom need all that extra blood? It wasn't like she could be preg…

Cal!?

Her brother's voice was as loud and clear as if Theo had spoken aloud drawing Cal's sideways gaze from looking much longer at her mother's pulse beating against her smooth skin when Talia turned to attempt some light conversation with Sebastian. Margot having already gotten up to take a phone call a few moments earlier. The attempt Cal was making to give some level of privacy with such sharpened hearing was proving another challenge as Cal shakes herself from the haze of the blood call.

"Cal everything alright?" Apollo questioned when Cal's fork clattered louder than needed against her hardly touched dinner plate. His own and Jack's already loaded up with a second helping. Talia seemed to be slowly working on her third as all eyes turn towards Cal at the question.

Only another following beat later will the distracted hunter-turned-vampire realize the distracting feel of her girlfriend's hand so grounding against her own had gone thanks to Juliette's departure from the dinner table to take a phone call of her own.

"Why wouldn't it be?" Cal questioned jabbing at a few unevenly cubed potatoes at the edge of her plate and then bringing the food up to her mouth all without breaking her brother's gaze. Or she tries to, but the tempting beat of his pulse does split her focus as she chews once more. Her fangs growing heavier in her gums with every breath of tempting blood in the air.

"Calliope."

Sebastian this time his tone far more understanding than Cal would have expected in the moment as her wild eyes met his across the table. "Jules tell me you're an avid reader." The vampire father begins offering the young hunter a much-needed lifeline in all the struggles she was having against her fresher monster-level instances.

"Y…yes sir." Cal stammers taking a drink she honestly didn't need but she did attempt to somehow trick her vampire mind into thinking of the bland water against her tongue then sliding down her throat as blood to cool the itching burn of hunger twisting her stomach.

"Mind giving me a few titles? I wanna what is the current phrasing these days? Stay up with the in crowd?" Sebastian offers with a shy half smile so like his youngest daughter's it makes Cal's heart warm just to see it even if it wasn't her hunter flashing that so goofy little smirk.

Even Jack laughs at the wording of the question "You sure you want the answer to that?" the Hunter's father asked before he'd remembered who or more to his mind what he was talking so easily with before the anger mask of the hunter was back in place as the father's held eye contact.

"Apollo, are you going to finish that roll?" Talia asks rolling her eyes at her husband's changing moods as she glanced from the annoyed ticking of Jack's jaw at his own slip thinking of a monster as anything other than well a monster and the loan bread loaf sitting in the middle of the table closest to her last living child.

"Don't you think you otta slow down a bit Mom?" Apollo questions as he pushes the bread over toward his mother.

"Getting into a literal drag-out fight with a blood-crazed prom queen can really work up an appetite.' Talia defends as she swipes the ripped-apart bread loaf around her emptied plate to catch any traces of that night's barbeque main course.

"Margot?"

"Jules?"

The overlapped questioning names stalls Jack's own appraising comments on his wife's sudden change in her eating habits as the mother and daughter legacies rejoin the ones seated around the dinner table.

"The council has sped up our summons for an appearance," Margot announces genuine fear radiating off her in waves so strong Cal could almost feel them on her tongue as Margot herself burrows gratefully into her husband's embrace. "It seems the Malika has gone missing and considering our family or mainly Mother was meant to be protecting it the elders now have honest proof we are unfit to be Keepers."

Juliette mirrored her mother's current hiding position now nuzzling her face deeper into Cal's collarbone as she adds an even more upsetting detail to her mother's already upsetting news. "Ben is missing." Her legacy confesses her tone muffled by the fabric of her hunter's shirt as she spoke. "Bunny said he was going to go out to look for me to make sure I was alright considering how upset I was when I texted him last….."

On the drive away from your house after…. Jules clarifies only making Cal hold onto her a little tighter as her maker cried even harder into her shoulder.

"She and a few of the others in her group they…. they found his jeep…." Juliette goes on for the others still waiting for more information around the dinner table. "it was pretty banged up like he'd been in some kind of accident but then they found his phone smashed a few feet away smeared with blood…."

"Can this day honestly get any…."

"Finish that sentence Jack and I'm driving this butter knife into your hand." Talia growled waving the butter and bread-crumb-smeared knife in his direction as Sebastian and Cal continued their best attempts to comfort the upset legacy's in their arms.