"Let me out of here." Alyssa screamed as she slammed into the door trying to bust it open. Luckily the spells they had put on the room was keeping her from getting out.

Lilith looked into the window on the door and gave Alyssa a little wave. "Sorry Bithcula, you are going to have to deal with it."

"I'm going to kill every single one of you when I get out."

"Good luck with that Malibu Barbie."

Alejandro looked over at Lilith, "Perhaps you could stop insulting the undead killer and just let her scream it out. Just some advice from a seasoned hunter."

"Seasoned hunter? Why, what else have you hunted and killed other than wayward practitioners and almost a baby?" Alejandro was about to say something when Lilith looked at him, her eyes flashing silver. "Just so we are clear, I may hate Vera Stone but if you touch any member of the knights, born or not, so help me kitty cat there isn't a place on this realm or any other that I can't find you and rip you apart."

"I'll take that for consideration but I can assure you I'm not about to bother any member of the knights. There isn't a point to it, we are all trying to accomplish the same thing. Stopping bad magic."

Jack walked down into the temple before finding the reliquary and walking in unannounced as usual. Vera was sitting in her desk never looking up as she spoke to him, "I hope you have Ms. Marand with you Mr. Morton because currently your undead girlfriend has been ripping through Norwich and throwing your werewolf friends around. I'd rather have her dealt with before she kills more people."

"Don't worry Vera, I got some help." He paused as the darker hellion twin came walking into the reliquary. She was as unsettling as ever, less playful than Renee and far more homicidal. Standing there like one of the Shining twins Vera looked up at her, great, because she was so looking forward to working with her.

"I'll have to say Vera, I'm surprised you would come looking for my help considering you are the reason my sister is dead."

"No, the werewolves are the reason your sister is dead."

The frightful dark clad twin shrugged her shoulder, "And who do they work for now?"

Vera didn't say a word, rather she stood up and started walking towards the door stepping past Ms. Marand and snapping her fingers so she could follow her to the ritual room. "Yes, well, we can talk about who's to blame for what once we get Ms. Drakes soul back."

Jack sounded a little concerned. "Alyssa soul back?"

"Yes Jack have you not been keeping up? You can bring the body back but not the soul. That's an entirely different thing." Vera reminded him.

"So what do we have to do?" Jack asked. "How do we get her soul back?"

"You have to go get it." Ms. Marand added while she continued to be uncomfortably quiet and a little like the missing sister from the Addams Family.

"That's easy, I just have to go to the collective unconscious? Been there enough to tell you it wouldn't be hard to track her down."

"No." Ms Marand continued. "When you bring people back you damn their soul to another place, a much darker place. Somewhere they suffer until the end of time." She smiled, enjoying the look of pain on his face. Nothing was better than seeing someone wallow in self pity over damning their own girlfriend after trying to bring her back to life.

"Even those people you killed?" Jack asked, a bit alarmed by her lack of any human compassion.

In a tone a little too proud she smirked back at him which looked odd since she didn't seem capable of smiles. "Yes."

"Let's get this moving, get Ms. Drake, I'll have Hamish gather the acolytes." Shew pointed at Marand. "And you, you don't leave my sight." Like hell Vera was going to trust her. She needed her to clean up Jack's mistakes but she still knew Marand wanted revenge against the order. Should anything seem suspicious she'd have Alejandro rip her apart.

As the acolytes got the ritual room ready Hamish had Vera against the metaphorical wall. After all Vera was too stressed out to let him put her against the real wall. "I may have made you Temple Magus but I'm still the Grand Magus. You can't tell me what to do Hamish."

"I'm not telling you what to do Vera, I'm just suggesting you sit this one out. It's dangerous. Alyssa is dangerous. If something goes wrong I don't want you in there, I can't put you in harm's way."

Sitting down in her chair she spun around a little, "And you need me there, I'm one of our strongest practitioners."

"Were." The look on Vera's face was that quick glare that shut you up fast because the next words you picked had to be carefully selected or else you'd end up on Vera's bad side. "What I meant to say was that your powers are gone for now and you are borrowing very unstable magic for our unborn baby. You have to admit that you've noticed it. Your spells haven't gone right since you started using them, it's a risk Vera and right now you are a liability."

"Excuse you, I'm a liability?" Now Vera was feeling a little insulted.

Hamish grabbed her half empty glass of water and handed it to her. "Alright Vera, lets see you fill up this glass then."

She narrowed her eyes at him before grabbing the glass in her hand. "Fine." Vera raised the glass. "Anaplerosi." The glass shattered instantly in her hand making Hamish rush to her side. A few drops of blood fell down onto the desk before her hand healed on its own.

"And this Vera is why I want you to stay someplace safe and far away from the temple." He looked over her hand, not even seeing a scratch there.

"Babies abilities remember. She's a werewolf now, one minor perk is sharing her healing ability, and her hunger, and her proclivity for being pissed off a little easier, and having the increased…" Vera looked up at Hamish and cleared her throat. "Everything else."

"From the sound of it you are going through what the rest of us went through when we first became wolves. Minus the whole ringing ears and turning into an actual werewolf. It's okay, it starts getting better eventually. In fact once you get your powers back you can stop being bound to the babies abilities and will never have to deal with it again." Now he wondered if the baby was ever going to have some of the problems the knights went through or would being a wolf come naturally to them? After all, the baby would only ever know and remember being a werewolf. As scary as it was to start sharing a body, a mind, and a soul with a wolf had been for them all, Hamish bet not sharing it would be alarming for them.

Hamish moved Vera's chair so he was facing her and got down on his knees. "Alejandro is a very capable practitioner as am I. It's why you put me in charge in your stead. Go relax in front of the fireplace, sit back, make one of those nice home made brick oven pizzas and then when we finish up here we can cuddle up and watch some stupid sappy Christmas movies."

"Are you trying to send me home to be a housewife?" Vera looked at him both partially joking but also being slightly suspicious of him.

"Okay then, fine, don't do the pizza, I can always pick something up."

Vera leaned forward kissing him on the lips, he was always trying to be at his best around her. It was a bit sweet but also annoying and frustrating. He didn't have to pretend to be perfectly flawless anymore. She was keen on sticking around, the whole shy courtship could go away now. "I was kidding, I'll make something I'm sure and instead of sappy movies we should watch a comedy. I need something less serious in my life right now."

"Yeah, we can watch a romcom."

Vera sat back again looking him over, "Are you trying to get me to watch a romantic movie with you so you can get me in bed?" She rocked her chair back and forth again catching onto him.

"Vera, I don't really need a movie to help me with that. Besides we normally share a bed these days so it's really more our bed."

She raised a brow and looked away from him toying with a pen on her desk. "Funny Hamish, I don't recall asking you to move in with me."

"That's because you haven't, I'd ask you to move in at the apartment but honestly your place has a yard and as nice as the spare room is at the apartment to make a nice nursery you still have the big yard. That nursery only takes you so far until you have to give the kid some extra space to run around." That was something Vera had been thinking about actually. Luckily they still had time to work out what to do as far as a housing situation and setting up a nursery. It wasn't something she wanted to do in a rush either. "Vera, when you go to take off by the way, wear a jacket and don't take your car. It's snowing outside right now. Actually you can take my coat, it's a lot thicker than yours."

Vera perked up a brow again, "Yes daddy."

Hamish shouldn't have found that slight jab at his being overly protective of her as so utterly sexy but it was. In fact Hamish felt like her tone of voice had been intentional for making him look at her slightly uncomfortable but in the way that his jeans felt slightly tighter and she looked pretty tasty right about now. "Wow." Hamish just tried to keep his cool. "It's almost like you want me to damage this desk again."

Vera set her pen back down, brushing her dark locks over her shoulder so he had a good look at her lovely slender neck. "It does take a while to set things up, so we've got time." If Hamish had any hope of reeling things back, Vera killed it with that little mischievous flicker in her eyes and glanced his way.

"Well, I can't argue with that."