(A/N): Jo and Herc have a little chat. This is chapter two of the chapters where I wrote a short summary for what I wanted to happen in it, before actually writing the chapter, which is why it's also kind of long. Also it kind of turned into a pronunciation guide for some of my characters, with Herc's assistance. Lots of Spanish and Colombian slang in this one, so hopefully my internet research isn't super inaccurate.

As I'm uploading this I'm pet sitting for my sister, so hopefully I'll get a few chapters written while I'm here- I've already finished one, but I think it's a kind of short one (I wrote it in a book so I don't have a word count yet). It is, however, Jerremyah's POV, so that should be interesting. I'm in between two names for the chapter though, so I have to figure out which one I want to go with.

Jo

After the unpleasant revelations of that mornings little get together in the study- firstly, that Jerremyah had lied about not being our sire; secondly, that not only did Lisbet suspect his involvement, but so did Danniel; and thirdly, that Leo would openly admit to being willing to kill me in order to protect Jerremyah- Herc had volunteered to take me out hunting, in a rather obvious attempt to calm me down.

I admit that I mostly spaced out as Herc lead the way to the forested area a short distance from the edge of the Ellwood Estate that we had shown him, that we liked to use for hunting purposes- my head consumed with thoughts about the betrayals my fellow clan members had leveled me with.

I could understand Lisbet not wanting to tell me that Jerremyah was our sire- she was clearly completely under his spell- lord knows why. Sure, he may have been hotter than sin itself, but he was also an insufferable wanker! I would expect a woman with Lisbet's headstrong personality to have higher standards, but I guess every dog has it's day, and apparently it was always Jerremyah's day when it came to Lisbet. Even finding out that he had disrespected Leo had only doused the flame she held for him for as long as it had taken Leo to get fed up and take control, and declare that it was ultimately his choice whether Jerremyah was allowed to join the clan.

Which was as much a reminder to Lisbet as it was to Jerremyah and I.

As much as Lisbet took charge and ran most things in relation to the clan since Leo's uncle, Jonothan, had killed Nicholai, there was no doubt in any of our minds that leadership of the clan had been passed from father to son. Leo didn't often feel the need to assume the role- whether that was because he wasn't interested in the inherent power such a position would entail, or because he was just so. Young.

When Jerremyah had first turned us, I had been three months shy of my nineteenth birthday, with Danniel having already turned nineteen about two months prior. Leo had been about a month shy of his fourteenth birthday when we had met, and while he had continued to age in the time since- a year and a half, almost to the day- I had stayed, physically at least, eighteen years old. Leo was now fifteen, and even the four years difference between us turned him into a child in my eyes.

Danniel may see Leo as a younger brother, but he was an only child- I had enough siblings already that I couldn't think of taking on another one by choice, so I think the closest way to describe Leo and I's relationship was that of cousins. Don't get me wrong, I had plenty of those too, but it wasn't the same- you could never have too many cousins.

I suppose that's why his betrayal hurt the most.

Yes, Danniel and I were two halves of 'The Twins', but we had our differences. With Leo, sure, we all teased him, both in general and specifically about his romantic interests, but generally we all got along with him pretty reliably. He always tried his best to make sure everyone around him was happy and comfortable, and that he didn't push anyone's boundaries. Don't get me wrong, he teased us all just as much as we teased him, but he knew when to stop in a way that was almost uncanny. Which made it so much worse on the rare occasion where he did say or do something less than pleasant to one of us.

He was supposed to be my friend, we had known each other for a year and a half, we lived in the same house, at least for a few months out of the year, and yet he was willing to choose Jerremyah- Jerremyah- over me! And he had had the balls to just come out and say it like it was to be expected, like it was nothing, while he had his arm around my shoulders to comfort me after I had found out that Danniel had betrayed me.

"What makes your brain so busy, Vieja?" Herc inquired softly, and when I turned to look at him, I saw him already watching me with a cautious expression.

"Nothing. I'm just... thinking." I told him, rather lamely, and he tilted his head.

"Any thought in particular? It must have been pretty compelling to leave you catching flies like that." That painted a rather unflattering image in my head, but I knew Herc probably didn't mean it like that. In the short time that I had known him, he hadn't once said something that could be consider mean spirited or rude, so I figured it was a colloquialism I wasn't familiar with.

"Just..." I paused for a second, trying to gather my thoughts. "Reevaluating my relationship with certain people and my place in the clan." Herc seemed to consider me this for a second, before he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Quit going through the branches, Vieja." The meaning of this was clear, even if the phrasing was off- he thought I was avoiding the subject.

I glared at him, but it had no bite to it- He wasn't who I was actually mad at.

"Fine. I'm angry. I'm angry that Jerremyah lied to me, I'm angry that Danniel lied to me, I'm angry that Lisbet lied to me, and I'm angry that Leo-" I cut myself off. How was I even supposed to convey how what Leo had done had pissed me off? And how was I supposed to come to terms with the fact that I wasn't actually pissed off, but hurt?

"Mmhm, furiosa." Clearly that word translated well enough. "You are very angry." He said it so matter-of-factly that it confused me.

"Of course I am! I just found out my entire existence since I was turned has been based on lies, perpetuated by some of the people closest to me! How else would I be feeling?" Herc eyed me in a way that made me feel like he thought he was watching a barely contained zoo animal- an angry predator pacing back and forth in it's cage, waiting for its next meal to be dropped in.

"I think maybe you don't want me to answer that." I barely heard his answer before I started talking again.

"I can't believe that Jerremyah told us he found us- Worse, I can't believe I thought he was telling the truth! Though I guess considering what he did I shouldn't be shocked that he would be awful enough to lie about it... And Lisbet! Jerremyah must have a magic cock or something, because she's completely lost her mind!" I threw my hands up in the air, barely noticing Herc watching me now. It was a good thing that the look on his face was only vaguely amused, because if it were any stronger I would have smacked it off of him.

"Más tragada que los calzoncillos de torero." I ignored the rapid fire Spanish Herc spouted off- if he had wanted me to understand it, he would have said it in English.

"Then again, if he always has this effect on her, maybe I can't fault her for lying to me. Danniel, however, has no such excuse." I practically growled this, and Herc shrugged.

"I can understand why he misled you." Excuse me?

"Excuse me?" He shrugged again.

"If you made it clear to him that you were determined to kill your sire, and Jerremyah made it clear that he would kill you for trying, of course Danniel would try to keep it from you." He pronounced Danniel's name weird. Instead of Dan-yul, he said Dan-nee-ul, probably because of his accent.

"His decision being understandable, doesn't mean it's forgivable." He waved a hand at me.

"The way I see it, you have two choices. You try to fight Jerremyah-" He said Jerremyah like ZHEH-ra-MY-uh instead of JAIR-uh-MY-ah. "and you die-" Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence, Herc. "Or you accept that Jerremyah is going to be part of your clan, whether you like it or not." And I very decidedly did not like it.

"But if I-" Herc cut me off, which he usually didn't do.

"You will die." I snapped my jaw shut, grinding my teeth a little out of frustration. "You can't even beat Lisbet in a fight, and Jerremyah is a lot older and stronger than she is." He had a point. An annoying point, that made me want to punch him, but a point nonetheless. "Not to mention that even if you didn't leave the clan to do it, the rest of the clan would be forced to come to his aid against you, as the attacking party, so you wouldn't just be facing Jerremyah, but Shari, Danniel, Lisbet and Leo as well."

There was a reason Leo was last on that list, and Shari was first.

Not only was Leo the clan member I liked the best, but he was also scary strong. Single handedly killing four vampires, and popping the head off a guy like a stress toy aside, Leo was way stronger than he had any right to be. Not just for a fifteen year old half-vampire, but in general. Back before Nicholai had died, and Shari had been at her full strength, he had been able to beat her in a fight nine times out of ten.

I didn't know whether it was to do with his veela side, or just a 'Leo' thing, but it certainly wasn't a half-vampire thing, because after seeing Herc run some drills a few days earlier, I would hazard a guess to say he would have been about the same strength as Shari when she was at her best- which was a hell of a disparity between the two half brothers, considering that Leo was something like seventy five years younger.

Then again, from what Herc had told us, he hadn't tasted human blood until a year before the change- at fifteen years old- and Leo had been drinking a little bit of it on a regular basis ever since he had moved in with Nicholai. Whether that would have make sort of tangible difference to Leo's abilities, I didn't know, but either way, even if I didn't like Leo as much as I did, I really didn't want to go up against him. The only thing that might save me if I had to go up against Leo was the fact that he didn't like hurting people. During training, as long as he wasn't at risk of actually hurting someone, he was pretty much unbeatable. The second he thought he might legitimately cause someone harm? Boom, he allowed himself to be turned into a punching bag. There was a reason I knew what Leo's ribs felt like breaking beneath my fist, after all.

It hadn't escaped our notice that the only time Leo had actually intentionally hurt someone had been in a fit of grief, or when someone he loved was on the line- like Mia, or Elaine. And Leo had said that he much preferred me over Jerremyah, so that probably meant he wouldn't be able to bring himself to hurt me, right?

Still, even if Leo couldn't make himself hurt me, as a member of the clan he would be forced to defend Jerremyah, and it would be me or him- and I wasn't sure I could bring myself to hurt Leo either. Even if he wasn't my friend, he was a fifteen year old boy, and I didn't think I had it in me to kill someone who wasn't actively a threat to my life.

So I guess killing Jerremyah was out- at least until he did something terrible enough to warrant being kicked out of the clan, which I had no doubt was inevitable.

"Ponte las pilas." His tone was lightly chiding, and while I didn't know quite what he was saying, it brought my attention back to the conversation, rather than circling the drain in my own head.

"Sorry, I'm just..." I trailed off, and the corner of Herc's mouth quirked up.

"Catching flies again?" I huffed out a laugh, and the other side of Herc's mouth lifted to join the other in a full smile now.

"I suppose." I looked around at where we had stopped to have our conversation. "We came out here to hunt, didn't we?" He shrugged, before rubbing his stomach.

"Me pica el bagre. I suppose we should hunt."

We tracked down a small herd of deer, and drank our fill from them. Both of our deer stumbled away, probably a little light headed from loss of blood, but alive. Leo had been trying to teach me from day one how to not kill a deer when drinking from it, and I was glad this was one of the rare occasions where I managed to do so without help. Not only did I not want to kill the deer in general, but Herc didn't seem to have a problem sparing the deer, so I would have hated appearing any more obviously the inexperienced young vampire, not to mention the deeper implications being unable not to kill deer in the long run would hold.

Today it was deer, tomorrow- or, well, eventually- it was humans.

Danniel and I had drank human blood before- not only had the older vampires supplied us with a little bit of it once a week for the first year, and once a fortnight for the six months since- but Jerremyah had had to give us some in the first couple of days after we had first turned, in order to complete the transition, and up until he had dropped us off with the Ellwood Clan.

Vampires had evolved to be obligate blood feeders, like leeches and vampire bats- don't get me started- and since vampires could only be made of human subjects, they required human blood to fully transform from living to undead. A turned human could survive maybe a day without drinking blood of any kind, and two or three without drinking human blood, but after that they would wither and die. Most turned humans didn't make it to that point though, because the hunger was so strong after they woke up that they attacked every blood filled creature they saw, human or otherwise.

It was only if the turned human wasn't allowed access to blood, that they would get to that point- which is where vampire hunters came in. Jerremyah had warned us about Hunters pretty much as soon as we had woken up, and Nicholai, Shari and Lisbet had elaborated further once we had joined up with them. Past that, we didn't hear much more about them until Leo had written to us to tell us that Elaine's father, Tarea Hugar, was one.

No one had seemed surprised, least of all Nicholai, so I figured it wasn't a super rare profession in the magical world I had been thrust into upon becoming a vampire. Which was still weird, by the way, and probably always would be. I could get used to drinking blood and super speed, but broomsticks and cauldrons would forever be a mystery to me.

It was a sires job to train any vampires they created not to draw the attention of the Hunters, and while Jerremyah had warned us about their existence and what might set them off, he clearly had decided to shirk the rest of his sire responsibilities- and judging by what Lisbet had said, this wasn't the first time he had done so.

I guess that was the truth though, wasn't it? I wasn't just mad at Jerremyah for lying about not being our sire, I was mad at him for abandoning us.

...

But, I wasn't going to touch those feelings with a ten foot pole, so I redirected to what I was feeling towards Leo.

"What about Leo?" Herc looked up at me, from where he had been drawing in the dirt with a stick. Shit, clearly I had zoned out and left him waiting again, I had to get better about that. Sometimes, as a vampire, having super speed and being immortal with very few physical needs, it was a little hard to tell how much time was passing, which made us much more susceptible to hyper focusing on something.

"Hermanito? What about him?" Hermanito, I guessed, probably meant something like little brother. At least, I hoped it did. Herc had referred to Leo as a lot of things over the past couple of days- Parcero, parce, mono, llave, sardino- he never seemed to run out of things to call him.

"You told me you understood why Danniel lied to me. What's your opinion on Leo, telling me he would side with Jerremyah over me, even if he likes me more?" Herc tilted his head.

"So, you are mad that Danniel lied, and you are mad Leo told you the truth?" Well when you put it like that, I sound like I'm being ridiculous.

"I don't understand why Leo would want to choose Jerremyah over me." Herc paused his stick drawing- was it a lion? A crocodile? I couldn't tell- in order to stare me down.

"He told you." Seeing my confusion, he elaborated. "He told you, he didn't want to choose Jerremyah over you, that he liked you more, but if Jerremyah became part of the clan, he would be forced to take the side of whoever was being attacked." Leo had in fact said that, but telling me that he liked me more than Jerremyah hadn't exactly softened the blow when in the very next breath he told me he would kill me anyway if it came down to it.

"You're not making me feel any better about this." Herc quirked his head at me quizzically.

"Was I supposed to?" I rolled my eyes at him, and he smiled.

"I thought that was the whole point of bringing me out here." Herc dropped his stick and stood up, brushing his hands off on the leg of his dark wash jeans, leaving a dusty mark there.

"You want me to make you feel better?" I eyed him warily, realising that I was alone with someone not from the clan, for the first time since I was turned. I trusted Herc- for the most part- but there was something deep in my bones that told me being alone, with someone who could overpower me as easily as Herc probably could, was not the best idea.

"That depends how you plan on going about it." He looked at me for a second, before something in his eyes changed- softened- and he took a rather deliberate step back. He could tell where my head had gone, and he had tried to make himself appear less of a threat. It hadn't entirely worked- I had the memory of his power in the back of my mind and the image of his broad shoulders in front of me, but I felt a little less flighty.

Herc was definitely leaner than Leo was, and I definitely saw more of a resemblance to Nicholai's body type in him, with the relatively broad shoulders, narrow waist and strong legs. Leo was still young, but it was clear that he had inherited his frame elsewhere. I had seen a photograph of him from a Christmas party with his friends from when he was twelve, and I almost hadn't recognised him- obviously training pretty much all day everyday every summer, and for at least hours a day every Christmas, not to mention the training he did at school, had helped him pack on the muscle. The picture had looked to me like Leo's head, on someone elses body.

Leo, however, would never be threatening to me. He was just... Leo. He would never raise a hand against me- unless I gave him no choice.

"I was going to say you should ask Leo why he decided to tell you all of that, when he would have to know how much it would hurt you to hear it." The point of asking Herc was that I didn't want to ask Leo, ugh.

"As Lisbet said, Leo isn't the best at using his words." Herc tilted his head at me- hm, he did that a lot.

"He seemed like he was doing just fine to me." Ugh. He wasn't even offering me an inch.

"Who's to say we won't just end up fighting?" Herc lips drew into a thin line, but I could see the amusement sparkling in his eyes, like he was trying not to smile.

"At least if you're fighting, you've given him a chance to tell his side, instead of just being bitter with him for his choice without knowing the feelings behind it." I paused for a second, digesting his words.

"I think he's told me all I need to know. He doesn't care about me the way I thought he did- the way I care about him." Herc frowned, the amusement immediately disappearing from his eyes.

"Nothing about what he said tells me that he doesn't care about you, Joane." It was the first time he had said my full name, and I jolted as I realised he pronounced it like my avó did, ZHWAH-nee- the rest of my family and I pronounced it Jo-AH-nee, and it was nice to hear it said that way again, for the first time since I had seen my avozinha last, before I was turned.

"He told me he'd kill me if I he had to, that doesn't exactly imply that he cares." Herc sighed, leaning back to shake his head at the sky, like god was doing him a great disservice for sticking him with me.

"It doesn't matter whether Leo cares about you or not." Okay, ouch. I know my problems probably don't seem all that big to you, Herc, but- "He's trying to do what's best for the clan. He's a leader. Leaders sometimes have to do what is best for everyone, rather than just one person, even when they would much rather help that one person. Doing what's best for everyone, doesn't mean he doesn't care about you, Jo." Oh. That... I guess that makes sense.

"Any other advice?" He shrugged.

"Leo is... tricky." No duh. "He hasn't had the most... stable life so far," That's an understatement to say the least, but where was Herc going with this? "He probably doesn't feel the same way about this situation as you do, because he's never been able to trust someone the way that you all trust him."

Oh, fuck. Herc was right, wasn't he?

I didn't have time to dwell on it though, because in the next minute, we heard running footsteps heading our way- running, not racing, so clearly it wasn't an emergency.

"Just... Speak to him." I nodded dumbly, and after a few seconds, Herc huffed out a laugh, which startled me.

"Hablando del rey de Roma." I didn't know what he meant by that, but about twenty seconds later, Leo appeared through the trees at walking speed, with Shari of all people beside him.

I tried to hide my shock at this, but clearly failed, because Leo shook his head at me like he didn't want to risk my mentioning it.

"Hey." It was a simple greeting, but that's about what I expected from Leo at this point.

"Hey." I replied, just as simply, before Herc pulled a Herc and said something no one else understood.

"¿Quiubo, quiubo?" Like that.

(A/N): Jo: *elevator music* 'Please hold. Your call is important to us.'

Herc: *idly trying to draw El Hombre Caimán* 'You've said that 62 times!'

Translations:

Vieja: Woman. (Technically it means 'old woman', but Colombian use it to mean any woman between about 15 and 50)

Catching Flies: Daydreaming, not paying attention, lost in thought. ('So completely lost in thought, the flies have started to land on her. But she doesn't even notice!' The Spanish term is 'Papando moscas', but I had Herc say it in English, because he knew Jo wouldn't understand the Spanish, and I wasn't sure how to phrase it.)

Going through the branches: Beating around the bush. (I can't find where I originally learnt this one, but I think the Spanish term is 'Irse por los ramas', which does translate to 'go around the bush')

Furiosa: Furious. (This ones obvious.)

Más tragada que los calzoncillos de torero: More swallowed than a bullfighter's underwear. (When someone is so deeply in love, they can't even see their way around.)

Ponte las pilas: Put in your batteries. (It's like telling someone to 'look alive', 'snap out of it', or 'wake up'. You say it to a person who's daydreaming.)

Me pica el bagre: The catfish is biting me. (The catfish being your stomach, and the biting being the painful ache of hunger. In other words, 'I'm starved!' I did read ONE translation where it meant 'my dick is itchy', but that was one translation out of like twenty, and it wasn't Colombian based anyway, so I've decided to ignore it)

Hermanito: Little brother.

Parcero: Friend. (male)

Parce: Friend, buddy, mate, dude, bro. (I've used this one before)

Mono: Blonde. (means monkey in regular Spanish, but not in Colombia, I've used this one too)

Llave: Close friend. (literally means Key, something you don't want to lose).

Sardino: Kid (specifically a teenager. Female version is Sardina)

Avó: Grandmother (In Portuguese. The most common thing people call their grandmother in Brazil, which is where Jo's grandmother is from. Avó is grandmother, Avô is grandfather. Apparently in Avó the o is pronounced more like like shot, pot, nothing and law, whereas in Avô it's pronounced more like cold, old, go and no.)

Hablando del rey de Roma: Speak of the devil (literally translates to 'Speaking of the King of Rome', and you say this when someone you were just talking about appears).

¿Quiubo, quiubo?: What's up, what's up? (literally ¿Quiubo? translates to 'What has happened?', but Colombians apparently use it as a greeting, like 'what's up?' I didn't just double it for fun, apparently they use it like that too.

El Hombre Caimán (The Alligator Man) is a Colombian legend, where a man named Montenegro gets a witch to give him potions to turn him into an alligator, and back into a human again. Why does he do this? Well, to spy on the women bathing in the river of course! One day he uses the potion to turn himself into an alligator, but the guy he usually brings with him to use the other potion to turn him back can't be there, and he gets someone else to do it, but when he sees Montenegro turn into the alligator he gets scared, and drops the potion. It splashes on Montenegro, and turns his head back to his human form, but the rest of him stays in alligator form. All of the women are way too scared to go to the river again, except for Montenegro's mother, who comforts him and brings him all his favorite food and drink. Eventually, she dies of sadness, because she can't find the witch that made the potions, and Montenegro lets the river drag him out to sea, where the fisherman in the area still hunt for him to this day.

I pretty much only had Herc draw El Hombre Caimán because I already had Jo say his drawing looked like an alligator, and when I looked up Colombian folklore, I came across The Alligator Man, and decided it worked.

Please let me know if I'm wrong on any of these translations or usages, I don't speak Spanish or Portuguese, and I've never been to Colombia, Spain or Brazil. All my language research is done via the internet, which is notoriously unreliable.