After traveling to various places around the savannah and learning about different types of animals, always accompanied by Amalia, she would tell me about the different kinds of animals and which type was most appetizing for vampires.

"Predatory animals are always more appetizing than prey animals. There are exceptions, like Tomás or Gonzalo, who had preferences according to their respective personalities, but the general rule is, the higher up the food chain, the better," she explained.

It made sense. As Amalia told me, Tomás and water were one, since he was little he preferred spending time there, that's why he always craved hunting aquatic or subaquatic species. I noticed it when he went back to look for animals in the lake after trying the lion.

She also told me about Gonzalo, she found it peculiar that he preferred animals considered in the "pest" category. Seagulls, pigeons, and rats were what he took most.

"I've been doing this for quite some time, I don't need lessons," I would retort to her.

"Your transition was driven by fear of Gonzalo, by the hope that he would eventually show you mercy. What I mean is that your motivation has been due to external forces, not yourself, which makes it easy for you to fall again. If there is no real and honest reason, when you no longer feel the pressure, you will go back to the same thing and not get out of your misery loop."

There was a lot of sincerity in her words, she didn't hesitate to get straight to the point. With both of them, I could truly feel free, comfortable and on par with them, neither Amalia nor Tomás looked at me as an object or tool, I could understand now that what happened with Gonzalo was a family thing, and Tomás had found the perfect woman who was perfectly in tune with that aura he and his cousins had.

After a good couple of months I could compare my relationship between being in Amalia's coven, and mine, the environment was very, very different.

After the events that complicated us in 1986, we met up again with Arthur at the exact coordinates Od had told him.

"At least something he listened to," I thought with a sigh.

Od confronted him and gave him a sharp blow to the nose, and then removed one of his ears, Od wanted to assert his dominant position, or so I interpreted it perhaps, in my opinion, a really stupid attitude.

Arthur stood up and after yelling, looked at me and then at Od, he laughed a little and apologized while looking at me, now having it clear who the real leader of our coven was, he seemed very happy realizing this supposed revelation. Up until then, Arthur had always thought Od was the leader, maybe knowing not even Od was aware of it amused him even more. Od gave him his ear back so he could reattach it and we had peace again, for twenty more years.

During the following years Arthur continued having his fighting training with Od, while me and Arthur shared moments together in front of Od, I got already used to his disturbing gaze, I only asked him to at least move away a bit more and leave our field of vision.

I loved the times when we would travel further north to witness the beautiful northern lights, it was a great spectacle, and one of the things I could appreciate with Arthur. Unfortunately, Arthur had two facets that seemed like two completely different people, the sensitive, tender and chivalrous Arthur who was always by my side and cared for me, versus the hunter Arthur, relentless, bloody and brutal when he had to feed, that's when he would turn into a berserker every time we went hunting and I never knew how to change that attitude.

I imagined it might be because of what he had seen or done in the war as a human, or possibly his chivalry was trying to hide his true self, his sadism often impressed even me and Od, we needed to get rid of him, but I was too emotionally attached to this man. "How will I fill the void? Will I meet someone better?" I needed to know if there would be a man with whom I could finally share the rest of my eternity, it had been centuries and centuries of the same thing. Is eternal love non-existent?

Entering the 2000s, it seemed that finally, after great training on Od's part, things had been improving for Arthur. Under supervision and using physical punishment, it seemed that Od managed to make Arthur more careful in his hunts, and he was showing more control, Arthur had to earn our trust, even so Arthur wanted to hunt on his own, and this put the camaraderie between him and Od under a lot of stress, I finally begged Od to let him hunt by himself.

"Let's go back to Himmelsburg, it's been twenty years," Od told me that time.

"After what happened last time? The humans almost exposed us," I replied.

"Arthur almost exposed us," Od corrected me, and then added. "I think it would be a good test of the training he's been having. You know he's been trying to change for you right?"

I looked away. I wasn't sure at all and I was bothered by Od's obsession with always doing the same thing over and over again. He respected his routine with absurd obsession, and I knew he simply wanted to go back because we did it every twenty years, if there was one thing that drove him crazy it was change, even though Arthur had changed, it was possible that the humans in that place, especially Klein and Bauer, hadn't forgotten us, the risk was too high. When Arthur returned, they both voted to go back, Od to maintain his routine, and Arthur to prove himself, so during January 2004, we set off to Himmelsburg, once again.

After going around different European countries, avoiding Romania and Hungary so as not to have problems with the old Romanian coven, we arrived in northern Germany.

"Guys, I'll go ahead to check out the situation there and you join me later," I told them.

Od advised me to go first and, in his words, "do reconnaissance." The town seemed to have been remodeled a bit and tourists had returned to the place. The castle was partially remodeled and there were many more houses on the hills. I didn't find anything about Bauer where the rangers were and I didn't dare get close to humans, then I found out, sneaking into the cabin and going through parchments, what they call "papers" these days, that he had retired and was admitted to a kind of hospital.

When I got to the city of Munich and found the place, I could see him through the window. He was already old, disoriented, staring blankly into the air and wearing a green robe. There he was in the rocking chair, rocking to the rhythm of the clock that ticked in a corner of his room. According to the paperwork, he had fallen into depression over the disappearance of his daughter, and the obsession with wanting to catch us permanently damaged his mind.

Back then I remember feeling happy not to have him on our backs, but now, being with Amalia and Tomás, remembering those dark circles, that sad gaze, his mind and heart broken in pain and frustration, makes me bite my lips in remorse for what I did to him, his daughter and his family.

Then I visited the police station, looking for news about that Klein guy, back then he had been promoted to police chief some time ago.

"Bad news," I told myself, swallowing some venom. Now he has more power and resources, we'll have to be extra cautious, I hope Arthur is really up to the new situation in town.

I refrained from human blood for a while so as not to leave major traces before Arthur and Od arrived, so I went back to deer and small native animals in the area. I spent the remaining months wandering through the forest and revisiting places.

The cave entrance had been sealed with a metal hatch, from what I could read, it had become unstable and entering was prohibited. "How annoying," I thought. "We'll have to create another place or open another way back into the cave." I remember wandering around for a couple of months, killing time before Arthur and Od arrived.

After almost a month before Arthur and Od's arrival, I remember sitting on one of the hills to appreciate the majesty of the town, the thick fog that sailed between the dense pines and how the valley turned gray, I lay back on the cool grass watching the slow dancing of the trees and listening to the blowing wind.

Suddenly, for a moment, I could smell something I had never sensed in all my centuries of existence. It was a smell, sweet like honey, and it called to me, it sang to me. "What is this?!" I thought, as I desperately tried to find the origin of the smell, I was sure it was human, it was someone's blood, but this was different, new.

I ran in one direction, then another, pulling at my hair and head. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate, but I finally lost the scent and fell to my knees. "Maybe I need to feed again, I'll go find some human out there before things get more uncomfortable." So I ended my animal hunt and finally set out to find a human to forget about that strange scent I felt, I'll worry about that later.