I woke up I had slept for 24 hours and went to the bathroom. I opened the bandage on my stomach and as said it was intact. Still sore from the actual stabbing session, but intact. I put the bandage in the trash and took a shower. Mimosa was still asleep, apparently, Damon's anesthetic worked on her too. I went to eat and in the kitchen was an irritated Adam " Morning Adam. " I said. Adam just grunted in reply. He finished his paper while I put my coffee and breakfast in place. " Why on earth did Salvatore, apparently it was Salvatore who decided that I had to sleep 3 days straight?" Adam asked abruptly. I was quiet as I didn't know if I should say what he did to me. Adam asked " Obviously he did something to you? What?" I replied quietly " He drugged and stabbed me until I was unconscious, then delivered me to my own bed with my stomach tied up and his blood on it to make it better and then he put me under for 24 hours with anesthetic too. He doesn't like his wife, said the whore gets what she deserves exactly whether it's at your hands or his, so obviously he knows about the Elder's assassination attempt." Adam looked at me for a moment, stood up, and lifted my shirt. Then he pressed and I gasped. " It's still incredibly sore, it's really like someone beat the crap out of it. but as you can see, otherwise fine."

Neither of us understood the whole episode, then neither did the beginning, I continued to do gigs and fight clubs, Bran had given Adam permission to destroy Brianna and Adam had woken up to find a copy of Brianna's calendar on his pillow, apparently Salvatore wanted to be a widower. A week after the episode I called Jarod and told him the whole thing again. Jarod said to me " I guess now Salvatore is such a special case that I can't get into his head yet, I can't see." I had the same problem. We, pretenders, could anticipate how someone would act in a situation when we had enough to observe. But Damon, at no point did I have that feeling. Adam. To some extent Adam was understandable and I could anticipate what Adam would or wouldn't do. Adam started planning an assassination and we decided that I would get as far away from that job as possible. I would go to Europe.

I had built up a hell of a reputation in fight clubs and was making really good money, I had seen the ad this morning and showed it to Adam. " Look, I'm going to buy that. Castle, I know the pack doesn't have any castles but they will soon." Adam looked at the ad and smiled. "That's right. Go buy a castle, fix it up. and I'll come when I'm done, and Mimi, keep the castle in your name for now. I don't want Bran to find out yet, he might try to claim the castle for himself. Even if the castle is in my name, you saw how he took over the Pennsylvania mansion" I nodded. this was going to be a wonderful trip. First the flight to Italy, then buying the car and driving to the castle. and decorating it. wondering to myself if there are many secret passageways.

I was in the house for three more days then packed my bags and went to my car. Three huge scarlet roses had been left in the driver's seat and I smelled the faint scent of passionfruit as I bent down to take them. I smiled and started driving to the airport. I didn't understand Damon at the beginning and that's what made him so irresistible. He always or quite often had his own little hook in something and I had never noticed it.

I got on the plane, it was a private plane for the pack, so no need to worry about fellow passengers. I was told I had flown on this plane before when I had silver madness but I didn't remember anything about that trip. Anyway, my last memories were of the ship and then only when I woke up properly, apparently the nitrogen silver messed with my head and badly. I was getting ready to buy a car. It would be a Lexus, a pink convertible brand new and just for me. Damon and Adam favored SUVs. Men wanted sure-footed, powerful SUVs that could fit everything, not me. I wanted a strong, fast, gorgeous car that was fucking great to drive and good-looking, my kind of car. I ordered everything online to a castle address I had already bought and paid for my castle.

Another dream I thought I would one day fulfill was to become a doctor. Now in America, there was a system for supernaturals to do this because some of the creatures were very old and experienced so it involved six months of intensive training, six months of working on a continuous screen of what shows what you can do and after that six months you were assessed to become a Medical Officer, a Family Nurse Practitioner, a Nurse Practitioner, a Specialist Nurse, a General Practitioner, a Ward Doctor, a Surgeon. There were qualifications for that and really according to Adam, the benefit of that was that you got a title. And you get an accurate report of what you're good at and what you're not good at so you can then take the next six months to see if you can get a new profession. I was pretty damn well-read in medicine and I was already pretty dexterous with my hands when I would occasionally sew fruit together for fun, surgeon, trauma surgeon, that was my goal one day I would be a trauma surgeon.

I got to Italy, my Italian language skills were not yet the best, but I got my business done and bought a car. Oh fuck it was great to drive. I drove to my castle in peace. it was huge. it had a courtyard. The lawn hadn't been tended, the bushes needed work but I saw a lovely project here. The castle was 24 stories high. There was an old swing set and stone seats in the courtyard. This had once been stunning and this is going to be stunning. I went inside after getting the keys from the realtor. He told me that these castles can be found all over the country as families die and maintenance costs and the castle gets a bit run down, so no one wants it right away. The interiors were lovely. Curved marble staircases, gold-colored metal railings, gorgeous ceilings, some of the rugs had already been brought in that I had ordered and when I looked at how huge this place was, I felt like my rugs were going to fall short.

I started to put the castle in order when I called Adam and told him and praised my castle as much as I could. Adam was amused though he said he'd never lived in a castle or really even visited one so he didn't know what to expect. I promised to put up a few bedrooms for him to choose from. There were some lovely old canopy beds with curtains in the castle. I didn't even know where I was going with my decorating yet as I tried to make nice rooms and lovely bedrooms. bathrooms, marble, thick towels, and lovely bathrobes, they were nice to put in place when you opened the package. I couldn't even remember what I had always ordered but it all sunk in and it felt like nowhere could you tell that I had been decorating here for almost two weeks.

Then I found an ad for local farms. You know, direct sales farms where you can buy eggs, milk, meat, birds, everything farmed. I had a big fridge where I walked to and a freezer too. So they would need supplies. I had the GPS addresses ready. I'd go to them in a couple of days. I hadn't heard anything from Adam, so I thought he'd let me know when he was coming. I decorated for a couple more days and then put on a lovely cool, light white silk dress with a bell sleeve, it was hot in Italy. I was going to visit three farms, birds, meat, and fruit. I didn't know what to expect so I went for a drive. I drove along many different country roads and finally arrived in the yard of a big farmhouse. It said "direct sales farm". I parked my car and grabbed my bag when I got out of the car.

The man walked up to me, wow young Don Johnson, like a spitting image. " Hey what brings the young lady here? I think it's your first time shopping, don't worry I'll help you on your way. " his voice was just as husky. I followed the man and got hold of a scanner, where I could scan either individual packages or entire boxes. So there was a barcode or QR code on the product and from that, I could just scan my own order. Each package was individualized so I would get just that particular package. There were lots of birds, chicken, turkey, quail, pigeon, wood pigeon, wigeon, teal, grouse, guinea fowl, ostrich, emu, partridge, pheasant, wren, woodcock, duck, wild duck, goose, swan. just to name a few. and I had never even eaten all of them.

I knew it wasn't about the money so I let it go. I took chopped and whole, boneless, skinless, boneless, skinned, I even took Mimosa un-gutted. and offal. The salesman came up to me and asked " Are those gentlemen with you?" I was in my thoughts and I turned around. Ah. Adam and Damon were walking like tigers toward me. " Yeah, members of my pack. " I muttered as I was concentrating on studying the birds. " Do you want some eggs next? We have lots of different ones." I nodded and the man led me to the eggs. I started looking through them when Adam came up behind me and said " What on earth have you found now, isn't the usual shop enough anymore. ?" I smiled and said " Look Hauptmann you wouldn't believe the size of the fridge and freezer I have, so I thought I'd get some stuffing in there. "

Damon came over to my other side " Did you know, dar... Baby I am now a widower. My wife was murdered, but the Marrok paid the compensation so it's even now, did you know, Mimi that I'm now free, single." That's interesting, again Damon was about to slip away darling, if he was in the mood this could be interesting. I said casually " That's too bad you're alone now, but don't worry, you'll always find someone." I thought, "I wonder if I went too far. Damon pressed himself against me and placed his palm on my stomach and rubbed my liver for a moment as if to remind me. Then he released his grip as curiosity about my scanner got the better of him. but I didn't give up. I kept taking eggs, there were eggs of almost every kind of species there was and I took a fair amount of everything.

I was about to start a test kitchen. The castle kitchen was wonderfully large. I could make all sorts of creations there all day long. I walked around the farm and looked at what else was there. The farmer would walk beside me and we would chat, about food and cooking. I told him about some of my food restrictions and he praised how good their ducks were. They were good-looking, but I had never eaten duck eggs very much, so they would go on trial. Similarly, they had half-grown ducks as well. They could be tasty, also I was interested in any viscera as my recovery food is viscera puree. I was beginning to wonder if there was an analyzer on the subject. The more independent I could make my eating the better. I didn't want to be dependent on anyone. I had already started to learn to do things the way I wanted to do them, not with someone telling me what to do at any given time.