trinity ceased her assault and smiled wide. "very, very nice. at least you have the defense part of combat down. now, follow me."

logan did as instructed when trinity turned and headed for the doors leading to the main hall. "where are we going?"

"to the enchanting nelek library. i have one last morsel of information to feed you before i release you back into the wild."

logan stopped and stared at trinity's lace covered back. the vampiress had better not be messing with her. "you're sending me back to new york? today? or is this a morsel that takes three days to explain?"

she didn't turn around. "yes, today, but you'll only get there slower if you don't move your feet." she snapped her fingers over her shoulder. "chop, chop, my little servant."

logan couldn't help but smile. the excitement coursing through every cell in her body made it easy to catch up with trinity's long strides. "you're not playing a joke on me, are you?"

"no," she snapped, sounding almost offended. "i know how hard you've been working and i know exactly why. i'm not about to dangle kerestyan in front of you like a carrot. see number four on the rules of nelek decorum."

logan rolled her eyes. "i care about him. i'm not ready to start tossing around the l-word."

"you call the warm feeling in your chest right now whatever makes you comfortable and i'll call it what it really is. in the meantime, i need your brain focused on what i'm about to show you, got it?"

she ignored trinity's reference to knowing how she felt, which she didn't, and nodded. she'd pay attention to whatever the dominatrix wanted as long as it put her on a train back to new york. "got it."

she smiled as the clicking of claws against stone filled the air as they passed stefan's chamber. only a few seconds passed before she felt a cold nose and warm tongue nuzzle into her hand.

unless she was in combat training, syn had maintained his position at her side, day and night. he'd even found it necessary to sleep next to her in kerestyan's bed and snuggle up against her as if he were trying to fill his master's shoes.

she reached out and scratched the top of his head. he also snored like a banshee and had a bad habit of rolling over on her, which she hoped weren't traits he and kerestyan shared.

well, at least the snoring part. if kerestyan wanted to roll over on top of her, she wasn't sure she'd put up much of a fight.

while she couldn't claim to love the man, over the last week she'd come to accept she cared about him. and for her, the realization had been rather difficult considering she hadn't cared about anyone but herself for a long, long time.

"here we go!" trinity exclaimed as she pushed open two heavy wooden doors. "this is the most complete library of information about supernatural creatures, our societies, and true history that the world has ever known. or not known, depending on who you are."

as logan stepped into the room, her mouth gaped open. she'd expected a lot of books when trinity said library, but nothing like this. twice the size of a football field and easily three stories tall, the room was wall to wall books. and for what didn't fit on the walls, free standing shelves created a maze at either end of the huge room, breaking only for the dozen tables and chairs positioned in the center.

she followed trinity through the twists and turns leading to the far right wall where the bookshelves in the center separated to allow space for a mural. a dozen panels roughly six feet by two feet hung in a row, and while each was painted with a different scene, together they created what appeared to be a timeline.

trinity stopped in front of the first panel on the left then spun on her heel. "personally, i don't think you need to know this, but dad holds strong to the notion you have to know your past before you can find your future. so, keeping in mind i'm only doing this because he insisted, pay attention. i'm gonna move fast, okay?"

logan nodded. fast worked for her. she was certain there was a lot to learn from the paintings, but the tingles still racing inside her wanted to get back to new york as quickly as possible. "okay."

trinity pointed to the blurry, golden image of what appeared to be a man. "this is aligon, the being most humans worship as god, allah, buddha or whatever name each religion uses. much as they believe, he created the earth. he's a celestial, which is a heavenly body comprised of the purest magics in the universe."

she splayed her index and middle fingers between two figures, a young man and a young woman, who both stood in front of aligon. long hair flowed past the woman's shoulders, painted in every earth tone logan had ever seen. she wore a blue robe as bright as the sky, and her strikingly beautiful face was drawn in a smile.

the man's hair was long as well, but was pitch black and framed a glowing white face. dressed in black robes, his eyes were an odd silvery color and his lips formed an angry line.

"this is semeliel, aligon's daughter, and levanael, his son. they're twins. the opposite kind as you can probably see, and they're very important to this story."

trinity stepped over to the next panel, which depicted aligon setting the earth in his children's outstretched hands. "aligon gave the world to his kids as a gift then told them to use their magics to make it reflect the best of themselves. semeliel gave the world the sun and flowers and trees and all the good stuff. levanael gave the world the moon and created mountains and fire and ice and all the not so good stuff. when the kids were finished messing with things, aligon was so happy, he created humans to inhabit the earth his brats had done so well with." she stared over at the next panel then huffed out an irritated breath. "screw it."

logan didn't have much choice but to follow when the obviously peeved vampiress snatched up her arm and dragged her back so they could see the entire mural. "i take it you don't like giving this lesson?"

trinity shook her head and released logan's elbow. "no," she grumbled. "this story pisses me off every time someone brings it up." she clapped her hands. "so for the rest of it, we're gonna rock the cliff note's version. agreed?"

when logan nodded, trinity crossed her arms over her chest and gave the mural a disgusted glare. "once humans got dropped into the mix, the twins couldn't leave well enough alone. they kept adding little perks here and there. like sem, who gave the humans animals to live with. but lev didn't like the way the humans loved his sister's animals, so he gave man the desire to kill animals for food, clothing and whatever else they could do with the pieces. at that point, sem got ultra pissed and banished her brother from the world when her sun was in the sky, to which lev responded by casting her out when his moon was in the sky.

"everything was fine until a group of human farmers got mad when bad weather ruined their crops. so," she rolled her eyes then stared up at the ceiling, "they looked up at the sky and said, 'why the hell do you hate us?' lev heard their cries and, lo and behold, six farmers ended up at his feet. they promised to worship him if he gave them some of his magic, so he accepted the deal, named his new followers the children of shadow, and then sent them back to their human tribe where they wreaked havoc on their hunter rivals.

"six hunters turned around a little later and committed the same stupid action the farmers did. they stared up at the sky and said, 'what the fuck?' only this time sem heard them, then did the same thing her brother had done. she packed their little bodies full of magic, named her followers the children of dawn," she finally stopped looking at the ceiling and shook one of her fists, "and then sent her hunters back to unite the tribe. can you guess what happened?"

logan laughed out loud. it didn't take a rocket scientist to see where this was leading. "um, they stared a war?"

trinity nodded rather emphatically. "fuck yes, they did. the tribe split into three factions. children of dawn, children of shadow, and all the humans who refused to take sides were called innocents. now," she ran over to the fifth panel, which depicted semeliel standing with her six chosen on one side and levanael standing with his six on the other, then pointed to one follower on each side, "these two, who picked opposite sides...were married!" she flicked the follower standing on semeliel's side. "and this chick was pregnant!" she returned to logan and smiled. "remember that little tidbit. it'll be important at the end of my rant."

logan nodded at her. "i got it. carry on."

"okay. so, where were we?" trinity sucked in a deep breath. "oh, yeah, the tribe is at war. basically, there are conflicting reports on which twin acted first, but i was taught it was levanael who struck the first blow. he was so livid his followers hadn't conquered the whole of the tribe that he cursed the children of dawn to become half-kin to the beasts they loved so much. semeliel turned around and cursed her brother's followers to be forever denied the sun. lev responded by cursing sem's kids to always fight with each other the way animals do, and then sem removed lev's kids ability to subsist off of anything the land provided, including animals."