When she woke, she felt like she had slept for days. Panic shot through her. How long had she been out? Glancing at her watch, she exhaled a sigh of relief to see that it was still only slightly after 7:00am. And she was still alone in the bed. That was good...wasn't it?

Was last night real, or a dream? Either way, the wetness she felt between her legs was pretty real. Peering around the room, she confirmed that she was alone there too. She hoped she hadn't made things too awkward between them.

Celia swung her body over the side of the bed and made her way to her bag. Underneath sat the satchel from the Duke. That's right! She had forgotten all about it. Retrieving her knife, she sliced through the jute wrapping, and was pleasantly surprised to see various plain black cotton shirts, thick pants, undergarments and socks. He remembered her request for a change of clothing!

Slipping into the bathroom, she removed the shirt Karl had lent her and, folding it neatly, placed it back on the bathroom sink where she had found it. Peering down at herself, she was not surprised to see her thighs, chest and arms mottled with dark, swollen bruises. Celia turned her head to inspect her shoulder. It was healing unbelievably well; only a dull line where there had been a cavernous slash. Hopefully the bruises followed suit.

After layering on the new clothes provided by the Duke, she studied herself in the mirror on the wall behind the door. Black really was her color, and not a half-bad fit either. Thankfully, they hid the bruising well. Pulling up her hair, she found herself wondering what Karl would think, but quickly shook it away. Pulling her hair down, she told herself it was because she preferred it that way. Last night was an accident...and thank god he thought she was sleeping. It didn't have to get weird.

Her stomach growled. She hadn't eaten since she purchased the meal from the Duke before venturing into the house of horrors. She was desperate for food. Maybe he had some?

No longer able to put it off, she decided to venture out in search of her host. She didn't need to go far. Only a few steps away from the room; a voice boomed around her. "Go straight until you can't anymore make a left down the stairs. Third door on the right." Celia followed the instructions, walking carefully along the path, trying not to let herself get distracted by the movement of machinery and sounds that reverberated around her.

Entering the room, she saw him standing by a desk covered in monitors. A microphone sat in the center. This must have been where he was broadcasting from. Though he was facing the monitors, she was excited to see the plate of what appeared to be eggs and bread on a small table in the center of the room. Next to it was a cup of water and coffee in a small black mug. It had the word "Metallica" on it. She tried not to laugh. Another find from the Duke?

"Hi." She didn't want to make it weird. She had to act natural. He didn't know she was awake after all. Or at least, she hoped he didn't. She waited for him to respond.

"Well look who finally got out of bed!" His tone was jovial. He laughed and set his coffee on the table across from her, dropping into his seat.

Well, I guess I really was just getting into my own head.

She wanted to make sure. "Sorry I took your bed last night. No wonder you're up so early sleeping in a chair."

"I'm used to it. Besides, like I told you I don't do much sleeping these days."

She tried to maintain decorum, but she was so ravenous the only thing that made sense to her was to scoop her eggs onto the bread and jam it into her mouth. And water! She didn't realize how thirsty she was. Hoping that it would ease her headache, she drained the thing before going back to finish off the eggs. She tried to ignore the way he was staring at her, steely grey eyes boring into her.

"Well, thank you again. And for the food. I didn't realize you could cook."

He shrugged. "I've had to fend for myself for a while. Learned a few things. Plus the Duke has a great cooking class..." At that, the corners of his mouth picked up. She followed suit.

"I guess I should thank you for the ride, too. And the clothing."

He just nodded. Swallowing the last of the bread, she asked him, "What did you do with the flask from Alcina?"

"Don't worry about that just yet, sweetheart. If you're caught and tortured; it's better if you don't know." He winked at her.

He's joking...right? She decided to change the subject just in case.

"So, what happened here? I mean, in the village?"

"Miranda wants Rose as a vessel. It was what we were supposed to be. The other lords and I. A way for Miranda to bring back her daughter. We didn't exactly know it at the time. The bitch is insane. After a hundred years you think she would move on. Get a hobby. But she's too far gone. She's going to use Rose to revive Eve."

She nodded. "We knew she was after Rose for that...but what happened to the people in the village. And..." Celia trailed off.

"Miranda needed biomass. She called for the slaughter of the entire village. She set the Lycan's on them. Told us to kill the villagers on sight. A few of them evaded their fate...but only temporarily. In fact, when I saw Ethan I thought he was someone from the group that survived the slaughter. Imagine my surprise."

"I thought you killed him."

He bellowed a laugh, "Shit, me too! Now I realize I probably should have. I almost dragged him back to the factory to see if I couldn't improve on Sturm's design!"

Celia listened to him go on about the history of Sturm; how he got the idea and the many failures before his current version. His eyes took on a glow as he went on, and she couldn't help but notice what a nice smile he had. She could barely concentrate on his words, her mind returning to the feeling of his hand gripping her hip.

"...and then the fucker goes and chops his arms off!" He shook his head as she scrambled to clear hers. "Anyway. I don't know exactly what she has planned; but I know it's not good for us. She doesn't need us anymore. And Miranda isn't in the habit of keeping around useless things."

At his mention of "us", Celia knew, he wasn't referring to the two of them. He seemed to know what she was thinking. The silence lingered for several minutes, before he finally broke it.

"You wanted to know about my siblings."

"Hm?"

"You asked me last night, about the others." He reclined back in his chair, stretching his legs out under the table, lightly grazing hers. He didn't seem to notice, and she pretended not to either. "The other Lords."

"Yeah." Celia looked up from her coffee. "If you want to talk about it, that is."

Pouring too much sugar into his coffee from a small bowl on the table, he gave her a look of indifference before sliding on his glasses. "You already met the supersized bitch. And yours truly. There are two others. Donna Beneviento and Salvatore Moreau. Our families all go back to the founding of the village. It's why we were ever of any interest to her at all. And, we were all lucky. Most of Miranda's little experiments didn't work out so hot. Those lycan's running around outside? Those are the ones she screwed up. And not everyone survives the process. Like Donna's sister."

He raised his gloved hand and a clang from the corner of the room startled Celia to attention. In a blur, a spoon flew into his hand. It moved so quickly; she didn't even see it fly across the room. She knew better than to comment on how exciting she thought it was.

"Are they like you?" Not wanting to anger him like she did yesterday, she quickly continued. "I mean...when I saw what you did to...Ethan...I just assumed that Alcina had the same power. When she didn't use it, I just assumed she didn't have any. Is she like her daughters?"

At that, he chuckled. "No. Those harpies are just a bunch of scraped together creepy-crawlies mixed with a little mold and cadou. And she has power alright. That bitch is damn-near indestructible. Didn't she pull out her claws on you?"

"No."

He looked surprised. "She must be going soft in her old age. No wonder you're still alive."

Celia knew about the mold, that was to be sure. But the other term was new to her. "What's a cadou."

He stayed quiet for a moment, then pulled open his shirt. She tried to keep a straight face while she stared at the unbelievably attractive shirtless man in front of her, tried to ignore the sensations of that same chest against her back only hours prior.

"That's what Miranda jammed inside of me, of us, as an experiment. We all have side effects. Mine is the art with the metal. Donna can control her dolls and make people see wacky shit. Hallucinations. Moreau is just a mess. His got screwed up worse than any of us. It messed up his brain pretty bad, and turned him basically into a fish. Only thing worse than the way he looks is the way he smells. Alcina can manifest these wicked claws and is pretty hard to kill. She has an Achilles heel though..."he trailed off.

"A specific type of poison. It was laced into a knife. There was an attempt to kill her with it. She fucked the guy up pretty bad and buried him with it on her property." He shrugged. "Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if whatever was in that poison was the kryptonite to us all."

"How do you know about kryptonite?" Celia eyed the Metallica mug in her hands.

"I'm a man of culture." He responded.

She chuckled.

Straightening, he grabbed his coffee and stared into the cup. "So...Donna was..."