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Hesperia was having a good summer thus far, between getting to spend a lot more time with her boyfriend, her brother favoring her more than their mother, and her grandparents being more relaxed in their restrictions regarding her freedom. In fact, she had just been out on a date with her boyfriend and he had walked her up to her door after their date. After sharing a quick kiss at the door, he had apparated away from the side yard and she opened the door to her family's house. Closing the door, she leaned against it for a moment, a wide smile on her face. It was so nice to get to spend time with Kasamir outside of school and the brunette was absolutely smitten with him. Every chance they got to spend together, she wanted to. Taking a few moments to relish their alone time, Hesperia straightened and stepped into the house. She expected to smell dinner cooking and hear her grandparents' chatter coming from the kitchen. She expected her mother to be sleeping on the couch while Niko played in his pen. Instead she was greeted by the sound of silence, no smell hanging on the air. Not even the smell of the outdoors. Glancing around the living area, all the windows were closed, which was unexpected for a summer's day. "Giagiá? Pappoús? Poú eínai óloi?"

Walking further into the house, Hesperia's hand reached into her pocket and tightened around her wand. This quiet was unlike anything she'd ever experienced in the house. As she neared the stairs leading to the first floor, her nose caught a whiff of something she was all too familiar with... blood. And not just a little, the scent was strong. Drawing her wand, she crept up the stairs, skipping a few that she knew were creaking. On the landing to the upper floor of the house, she spotted the upstairs bathroom door ajar just a little bit and that was where the smell of the blood was emanating from. She could also hear the sounds of someone whimpering, followed by someone sharply shushing them. Taking cautious steps forward, Hesperia approached the door, ready to burst in and deal with whoever was in there. The thick scent of blood was overriding her sense of smell and she couldn't tell who was in there, or how many people were there. There was another problem too; the strong scent of blood was making her heart race and driving her blood lust up. Her mind was drawn back to her incident in fourth year and the terrible memories from that moment. Reaching the bathroom door, she drew in a deep breath and pushed it open.

Inside the bathroom looked like a horror show. There was a lot of blood on the floor and walls of the bathroom. Lying in the tub, wrists bound and gagged, was her grandfather and grandmother. Both of their clothes were bloody and there was the presence of cuts on them. Their eyes looked over at Hesperia and pleaded with her to run. Standing in the corner of the room was a blond man, with red eyes and deeply pale skin. He had her mother held up against him, a silvery blade glistened in the light as he pressed it against her mother's throat. She was also cut up and bloody, her hands bound and a gag in her mouth. The deep red eyes gazed at her from behind her mother. "So you must be Hesperia," the man said, a wicked smile crossing his face and revealing fangs that matched hers. "If you don't want your mother's throat slit, I suggest you throw your wand over here now." Hesperia looked from the speaker to her mother, seeing the fear in her mother's eyes. "If you hurt her, I swear to God that I will rip you limb from limb," Hesperia snarled, her wand still raised. The man grinned and moved his knife down to Ismini's forearm, slicing through the skin there and causing her cry out in pain. "Oops, looks like I hurt her. Now toss your wand here or the next slash is her throat." He moved his knife back to her throat to show he was joking.

With much trepidation, she tossed her wand over towards the man. He caught it in the air, then snapped it in half. Grinning, he dropped the two broken halves of her wand to the floor, then pushed Ismini towards Hesperia. She caught her mother and went to pull the gag from her mouth. But before she could, her hand was caught by the man and twisted behind her back. "You, tub," he said, pushing Ismini into the tub with her parents. "And you, sweet sister, are the real reason I'm here." Wait, had he just called her sister? Her mind rushed through many possibilities, but they were quickly silenced when he wrenched her arms behind her back, causing her to cry out in pain. "I'm going to kill you, sister. But first, I'm going to make you suffer." He brought his knife up to her cheek and dug the blade in, making a small cut down from her orbital bone to her jaw. She cried out in pain, then grit her teeth. "Go on, scream for me," he whispered into her ear. With a snarl, she lashed her head backwards, connecting with his nose and sending him stumbling backwards. Blood dripping from his nose, he laughed, then forced Hesperia to the floor into the pool of blood collecting there. Stepping over her, then kneeling down onto her, he said, "Oh, this will be fun."

It had been about a couple weeks since the home invasion and her terrifying brush with death at the hands of her murderous half-vampire half-brother. Hesperia had only spent a few days at the hospital before being released and returning home. But almost immediately, the night terrors had started and thankfully for her, Kasamir had been more than willing to spend the night for a while. Csuri had volunteered to cover for Kas when he was going out of town for his tournament and his trip to Russia. Alice also volunteered to stay over with her to help her with her fears. Having friends and loved ones around to look after her while she was getting back on her feet was a big benefit. Another surprising change in the house was her mother. Ismini had been helping around the house often, cleaning and cooking, looking after Niko, and helping Giagia and Papou at the shop. She was taking a lot of weight off of Hesperia's shoulders so that the teen could relax and recuperate. Hesperia was also dealing with waves of the sads in between the nightmares.

On the night, Kasamir was sleeping over on the couch, and as she had done every single night that he was over, Hesperia had come downstairs and climbed onto the couch with him. She had been cuddling against him under the blanket when she had a nightmare and snapped awake. The windows were open but they were latched so that they couldn't be pulled open any further. An unfamiliar smell was carried on the wind, through the windows, and into the living room. Hesperia sniffed the air and immediately her heart started to race. She grabbed her new wand off the table beside the couch and slipped off the furniture. Creeping to the window, Hesperia looked out it carefully, spotting the figure standing by the road almost instantly. The new moon made it dark on the street and he would be imperceptible if not for her enhanced senses. The figure turned towards the house and then started to make its way towards the house. Hesperia gripped her wand tightly and ducked under the window. Glancing across the room at Kas sleeping on the couch, her heart hammered. She could cross the room and wake him, but she'd be visible to the figure that had made its way to the door.

She crawled against the wall over to the front door, leaning against the wall by the door. Her heart was hammering so loudly in her ears that she almost couldn't hear the figure shifting outside. She sat there and listened to the figure shifting outside for several long minutes wondering what was going on. Carefully, she moved to her feet and peeked through the peephole. Standing on the porch was a cloaked figure, currently facing away from her. Then he turned and Hesperia flashed back to the night she was tortured and almost died. She knew this face. There were some similarities between him and her half-brother, but more than that... he was the man she'd seen outside the window of the bathroom. He was the man that had killed her torturer. Tugging open the door, she pointed her wand at him, grit her teeth and said, "Identify yourself right now or I swear to God I'll kill you." The figure raised his hands, knocking his hood off of his head. He was a young blond male who was very handsome aside from the blood red eyes and the pale nature of his skin.

The figure grinned, revealing a pair of fangs, long canines that made her fangs look like normal teeth. "Would you mind lowering your wand and not threatening your savior?" When Hesperia didn't budge, he sighed and kept his hands raised up over his head. "I'm Lucien Bloodraven, and you are my daughter." He introduced himself and commented that she was his daughter, which made Hes raise her eyebrow. She didn't lower her wand, but she did examine the man claiming to be her father. There were some similarities between him and her. Hesperia didn't exactly look like her mother, after all. "Say I believe you, why are you here?" Brown eyes examined the man, looking for any attempt at movement, any chance that he might attack her. Lucien kept his hands raised since his daughter still had her wand pointed at him. "Well, I could say I wanted to connect with my daughter and get to know her. Or maybe I wanted to see the person I killed my son to save. There are lots of reasons I could say I'm here for."

Hesperia's lip quivered when he mentioned killing his son to save her, his daughter. She remembered the look on the man's face when their father had grabbed his head through the broken window and twisted it. She remembered watching the life disappear from his eyes just before his body was tugged out the window. "Why? Why did you do that?" she asked, her voice getting shaky. Hesperia gripped her wand tightly, gritting her teeth and trying her best not to cry. Lucien reached his hand out slowly until it hovered over her wand, then he gently pushed it downward. Hesperia didn't stop him as he lowered her wand, but he didn't attempt to grab it away from her. "Jean was sick in his head. After his mother passed away last year, he got this idea in his head that he was going to punish me for it. His plan was to kill all of my children around the world, then me to inherit my fortune. It took me a while to figure out what was going on. By then, he'd killed seven half-vampires in Germany and France. I tracked him back to the UK, but missed him at his first two attacks. I managed to catch him here." Hesperia listened as he explained that the man who'd tortured her had killed nine people across three countries. He explained that he'd done what he had to stop someone who was crazy from killing again. "But why me?" she said, her voice breaking and tears streaking down her cheeks.

Lucien shrugged and took a step towards Hesperia, but the girl quickly took several steps back before raising her wand again. Lucien stopped, then raised his hands again. "I don't know. I don't even know how he found out you were my child. Like I said, he was sick." Hesperia sank to her knees and sobbed. It was random. She was randomly selected to be tortured and murdered by a psychopath simply because of who her father was. And he'd just been lucky to catch her half-brother here before he'd killed her. She was targeted by random happenstance and she'd survived by sheer luck as well. "I don't even know your name. I know you're my daughter by your smell. And you have my fiery temper," he added with a grin. Hesperia looked up at him again, then said, "How can you be so nonchalant about all this? You killed your son. He tortured me. Stabbed me. I... I almost died." Lucien shrugged and responded, "I've been alive almost three hundred years. I've fathered many children over the years. You develop a certain nonchalance over the years." Hesperia didn't like his answer and pushed herself up to her feet, pointing her wand at him again. This time he didn't raise his hands, but instead let out a tired sigh. "I don't accept that. And I don't want or need anything from you. I'm not giving you my name. I'm not talking to you any longer. Go away. Leave me alone!" She reached out and slammed the door in his face, then leaned against the door and slid to the floor, sobbing and clutching at her head.