"How many days has it been?" I question as I stood in underwear and bra in our closet. We were both in our own sections of the closet, getting dressed after our shower.

"Just one," he responds easily.

"Did your brother come?" I remembered him mentioning to me that his brother would be here sooner or later. I didn't want his arrival to have happened while I was unconscious.

"He arrives this afternoon."

It was currently one in the afternoon, so that gave me about two to three hours to prepare myself for meeting yet another one of his family members.

"So... tell me about Berny," I say.

He didn't respond right away and I figured it was his way of preparing to tell me the life that I had yet to learn about him. I felt somewhat guilty at the fact that we had gone on for so long without me knowing anything about him. Feeling him behind me as I searched for casual loungewear, I waited patiently.

"I took the Alpha position when I turned eighteen, much like ever Alpha before me. When I was given the role, I needed to prove myself worthy of the position." Maximus had told me that when I worked alongside him. The title couldn't just be given to just anyone, it needed to be earned. Heritage and lineage didn't mean anything when it came to choosing the next air.

"What was your task?" I ask, finding a thin, baggy shirt.

"At that time, we had a pretty bad vampire outbreak. Born humans were being converted left and right. It started randomly and just kept getting worse and worse under my father's reign. My task was to stop the threat. Go to the source at hand." Putting lotion on my legs, I suddenly stopped, enthralled with the story. Looking over at him, I see him staring at me but his eyes had such a faraway look, I knew he wasn't really focusing on anything. I sat down on the ottoman in front of him, waiting patiently for him to continue. "It sounds just as hard as it was. Trying to track down one of the hardest creatures to walk this earth was a task that I didn't think I could complete. A task I wasn't sure would help me become Alpha. So obviously I started to imagine a life outside of the pack because I was so sure that nothing was going to happen with me leading a pack."

"What happened?" I questioned.

"Berny," he said vaguely. I extended my arm for him to grab my hand, which he easily took in his. The tingles I felt of holding his hand traveled up my body and made my body shake softly. He sat down next to me, taking my legs in his calloused hands and moving them over his lap. He delicately ran his fingers over my legs, bringing them up and down my thighs. As I waited patiently for him to continue, I ran my fingers over this low-cut.

"Uh... sorry, I zoned out," he said softly, having come back to reality.

"Take your time," I say softly.

"The way Berny came into my life... was one he planned."

"Why do you say that?"

"He was born human but was turned to a vampire when he was five. The reasons for it is something he wouldn't tell me, regardless of us threatening to end his life when we figured out who he was. He won't open up about it and I guess I don't blame him. He was young, he couldn't have known why it happened to him."

"When did this happen?"

"1853. So he physically went from looking like a five-year-old to a twenty-year-old in a couple of weeks. Matured quicker than any child possible, never got a sense of his childhood, and has lived in his twenties for over a hundred and fifty years-"

"He's a hundred sixty-six," I easily calculated.

He chuckled, not surprised that I was able to calculate it. "Right," he says. "So the people who changed him brought him here. He grew up with them, never adopting their habits... just-"

"Coexisting," I finished.

"Yeah. I don't think he believed they were doing any harm. They didn't provide much intel with what they were doing until the outbreak here those years back. He was met firsthand with what they had been hiding from him all those years. Seeing how his 'family' was converting innocent humans to be like them. Some of them weren't even to be turned to vampires, just to be drained of their blood. Some people went missing to be held as slaves."

"He couldn't cope."

Garret shook his head in agreement. "So he purposely got captured by our warriors and instantly told us everything we wanted to know. He didn't beg for his life, I think he was willing to die with them all because he felt guilty for their crimes. He had lived long enough, seen plenty of wars and battles across the world. He fulfilled his life."

"So..."

"My dad, having known this, said that he'd remain our servant. For as long as we saw fit for him. I didn't get much say in it really. But Berny didn't fight it, didn't decline. I think he was willing to do anything to be rid of his past."

I nodded my head, knowing that he had told me everything that he could. I knew it was possibly hard and he tried to spare me of all the gruesome details. But I could already imagine it. Unintentionally. As he spoke, I could see what he meant by the crimes committed by Berny's "family". It was something that no one should ever have to experience.

I could tell it was a rough topic for him. As it could be for anyone who had to endure this, especially someone who had to search for a way to end it. That's easier said than done.

"So... I'm assuming, of him still being here, that he's remained loyal," I say eventually.

"Absolutely," he says, snapping out of his depressed state. "He hasn't done anything to show that he isn't loyal to us. In a way, I think he's glad to be rid of his dark past. I know I would be."

And I knew, I had to agree.