I planned to execute my secret plan, a plan unknown even to the Salvatores and Wulfe, yet potentially crucial for the babies if I succeeded. The babies were asleep for the night, providing the ideal opportunity. Wulfe was sleeping too, having been awake the previous night. The night shift comprised six Salvatores, four girls, and ten pack members, all tasked with caring for the babies. I wasn't sure if Mr. Dickweed was involved, and frankly, I didn't care.
Another week had passed, and the babies continued to grow. Mariella, meanwhile, was enjoying her flings and had recounted a nasty fight between herself and Number One. Number One was trying to be a martyr and force Mariella to focus solely on her babies, but Mariella had discovered the joy of multiple husbands, much to Damon's annoyance.
Despite calling him Mr. Dickweed, I understood what bothered him. However, it was his fucking problem, not mine, and while I could tell Mariella, she likely couldn't do much. It was up to Damon to realize certain truths, and knowing his stubbornness, it would take time.
He was essentially undergoing an identity crisis, stemming from the original break-off of the Salvatore hive years ago when Numbers Two, Three, Four, Nine, and Ten left. While I was secretly unwell, this problem had begun.
Then, when Mariella forcibly brought them back, things weren't the same. Their time as individuals had transformed them, making them more themselves rather than mere extensions of Number One. The integrity of the once-unified hive was now weakened.
Number One no longer dictated every decision; the others had their own thoughts and preferences, a situation amplified for Number One as he and others realized how much he had missed while they had been on the surface. He had essentially been imprisoned in his own mind, by his evil identical twin, long gone now and now, all of this.
His problem boiled down to this: he didn't know who or what he was. He was stubborn, and he'd gotten the idea that since each Salvatore had surfaced, those times weren't him. As they broke off, he'd shut down parts of himself, marking certain memories as belonging to other Salvatores.
What was left? He was scrap, the remnants after each Salvatore had taken a piece of his identity with them, leaving him bare. Typically, he didn't like what remained. However, the truth wasn't simple. Others had taught it to me, and it was wonderful to witness them discover their new life, what they called fluid identity.
This meant that no one claimed a single memory as their own, but rather it belonged to all of them. Each had slightly different perspectives, different memories that held importance.
For example, numbers nine and ten hated all things Damien, the evil twin, while six and eight hated the other females they had been with. Damien was certainly nasty, but only because he'd hurt me. Six and eight were the most emotional and loving, and love had healed them too. Two and four, much like one, but more easygoing, weren't so rigid; they hated all the times they let me down. Meanwhile, three, five, and seven hated Bran and his manipulations.
Of course, there was older trauma, but as we'd discussed the past, this was the consensus. And there was one thing they all agreed on: jealousy towards Jarod. Almost every one of them promised to hurt or kill Jarod if I ever considered being with him. Three and four even suggested turning Miss Parker immortal, so Jarod could have his wife forever.
As I walked downstairs, I was lost in thought, replaying my plan. The hidden part, where my project lay in wait, was on my mind.
Mariella's voice startled me. "Oh, hi! Where are you going? Can I come with you? I'm so sick and tired of Dickweed; he scrubbed me again while I was asleep."
Her voice was sharp, and she seemed ready to explode.
I replied, "Dickweed is having an identity crisis. He's not identity fluid like the rest of the Salvatores."
She furrowed her brow. Unwilling to explain further, I simply transmitted my theory to her via the hive.
She sighed. "Yes, of course, he's an idiot. Thank you; you're absolutely right. I can't help him yet, but maybe some gentle prodding in the right direction might help, like hooking him up with other Salvatores. Can you put them on outside work or meatcutting or something? He still doesn't want to come into the wing."
I continued walking, passing through the double doors that led to a corridor lined with storage rooms.
"Where are we going? Can I come?" She was clearly furious with the dickweed, also called as number one.
Since this concerned the babies, I asked, "Have your babies gotten vaccinations?"
I then showed her the current list of what human babies receive, along with what Colin and I had developed. Progress was slow, as some vaccines needed to be custom-made. Since we had limited materials, we hadn't accomplished much. Colin planned to continue the study with shifter cubs, and I had told him I'd try to do the same with my own babies.
She replied, "No, Damon has given his blood and my milk, and says that's enough; they're immortals, after all."
I sighed. "Immortality doesn't automatically mean invulnerability, and as you know, we still get sick. I'm studying, or trying to make, a few vaccines, but I need to study my system and the babies' systems as well. I have a hidden place for that. Why don't I tell the Salvatores? First, Colin and I started this project together, and I told him I was doing the same with my kids. I need to do this on my own. Maybe when I have something concrete, I can show them. But for now, they've found their set of balls, but they lack the necessary knowledge, and they'd mess it up. I studied this during those seven years, and after that time, too."
"Can I help or be part of this?" she asked, looking at me like lost puppy. "I'm not going to tell Dickweed about this; I see your point. Let's make this ours, shall we? Show me what we're going to do."
I nodded. We walked to the end of the corridor, where I had installed a small hatch. I placed my fingerprint on it, then punched in the code.
As my fingerprint was accepted, I turned to Mariella. "Fine, I'll put you in too. Now, for the six-digit passcode, let's use something nasty. You might not remember your designation from that asshole who made you crawl, but I do. So, your pass number is 826810. Remember that."
She nodded. "I recall that, and it's a good catch, as the Salvatore's might assume it's something important."
I told her, "Put your right index finger in there."
I got her into the system, and soon the door slid open silently. We stepped into my lab. There was a small antechamber where I kept a few pairs of slippers. Mariella took off her heels and put on a pair as I opened the lab door.
My lab wasn't very large; it was long and narrow, running almost the entire east side of the building, but it was less than seven feet wide. It was long, though, with counters, tables, and cabinets all the way down. In the back, I had huge freezer tanks where I kept a few samples that Colin had given me: my blood, some of my tissues, my immune cells, and spleens, too, bits of thymus and load of pathogens too, some of them really nasty ones. I opened one of the cabinets and took out a large vat.
"Come in the Hive," I said to Mariella, "I'll show you where to find my knowledge about all of this so I don't dump it all at once."
She replied, "I don't mind; dump it. I can take it. What's in there?"
I opened the lid and, at the same time, focused and sent a huge load of knowledge via the Hive, about things that not even Dickweed or the other Salvatores knew.
She said, "Phew! Fine, it takes a bit of time for me to organize, but I'm fine. And yeah, good name for number one: Dickweed. I just try to remember not to call him that to his face, or else he might..."
"Do you want to learn something really ancient and cool?" I asked, a new thought popping into my head. "I've never done it myself, but maybe someday I will."
Mariella looked at me, intrigued. "What do you mean? Sure, tell me," she said.
"Well, do you know about the vampire language?" I began. "I know an oath, or plea, that is very old. I have no idea if Damon knows it. Wulfe, he definitely knows this stuff. It's a giving, from weaker to stronger, where the weaker gives their life into the stronger's hands, voluntarily. It's an admission of trust. For me, it would be a tough spot, but I know it."
"Please teach me," Mariella said. "I don't have those issues; I'm not that alpha. And it might be fun to do sometimes."
I rolled my eyes. "Well, do you know your vampire name?"
She shook her head.
Rolling my eyes again, I said, "It's Mariella Doh'gwyn Re'de Dam'ois, meaning Mariella Heavenly, Damon's one true love."
She smiled and repeated it, trying to get the pronunciation right.
Then, she asked, "How did you know?"
I replied, a little sadly, "I was once Mimi, who has been chosen, Damon's one true love, but not anymore. My name changed when you came along. Now, I am Mimi, the chosen, daughter of fire and wind, true love of Wulfe."
"So our names can change, cool," she said. "So, what is this oath? Teach me."
"Fine," I said. "It's said like this: 'Gredahl, Kynn'brach, Mimi Wyn'gust Am'ged Gwyn Wauf'boh.' Wulfe is pronounced very differently in the vampire language. The first two words are the oath. So, you say, 'Gredahl, Kynn'brach, Mariella Doh'Gwyn Re'de Dam'ois' and you're basically saying, 'I yield to you, with my life and my soul. Mariella Heavenly, Damon's one true love.'"
She nodded. "Thank you. You're truly the best teacher around here. Now, back to our microbiology project, what do you have there?"
Calmly, I replied, "My placentas and umbilical cords. I've put numbers on them, but I know who is whose, so we should get something done with these."
Mariella said, "Well, I don't want to say what happened to my placentas, but I can tell you they're not that tasty, at least not for me. I'm not sure if Damon enjoyed his drink, but I didn't."
I smirked, recalling that even humans sometimes drink or eat part of the placenta. In our animal forms, I certainly would have eaten them, but not now. I had planned this, we had planned this, ever since I knew I was pregnant. I had lots of instructions from Colin, so I had some idea of what to look for and what needed to be done.
I said to Mariella, "Colin gave me instructions, a kind of crude roadmap. But since this is me and my body, and also my babies, things might not be so easy. Has Damon ever told you what I was when he first met me, medically?"
She shook her head. I continued, "Well, I was incomplete, so to speak. Samuel was always worried about me because I had no self-preservation left. When I learned I was unkillable, nothing really fazed me. And since he lectured me about my weight, what I ate, and being more careful, and it was all medical, I was kind of bored with it and didn't really care that much. I used to walk outside, touch everything and anything, poke my finger in thorns or old nails, and I healed pretty instantly. Of course, germs got in, but since I had very few white cells, and they were kind of inert, my body just healed so fast that those germs starved. Samuel saw this as one more useless waste of energy."
Mariella smiled and said, "This is new to me. You should really share this sometimes; your stories are so freaking funny."
I rolled my eyes and said, "Well, since Damon got on board, Samuel, of course, studied him too. He found how similar we were in a few ways. Damon had a functioning immune system and he was most compatible with me, so he took some bone marrow from him and transplanted it into me, and my immune system woke up."
She smiled and shook her head, lost in thought for a moment before asking, "And do you suspect your babies might have similar issues?"
I shrugged, replying, "I have no idea yet. I've taken blood samples from them, but I haven't had time to study them. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and if we make a breakthrough, we can include your kids too."
Mariella nodded, then said, "And the best part is, Mister Scrubber Dickweed doesn't interfere. This is just us."
It was actually fun having her here, and even funnier to witness her frustration with Damon and his antics. He would surely win her over again someday, but for now, we were two ladies plotting against men, and oh my god, how my feline alpha side was having a blast.
It took Mariella a little while to get familiar with all my machines. First, we had to map out our initial steps, which meant isolating immune cells for each baby. I would start with the placentas and umbilical cords, while Mariella would focus on their blood samples.
Then, we could check if those cells had already changed. That would lead to the next step: I had germ samples, and we needed to expose those immune cells to them to see if they would attack or be as inert as my cells were at the start, before Damon's marrow.
If that were the case, my best bet would be Wulfe, as he was the babies' protector, and I had his blood reserved too. I wasn't sure if he had any stem cells or suitable cells in his blood, and getting a marrow sample from him would be tough.
However, this process would take time before we even reached the point where we would need to experiment with those germs. They were basically the same bugs we were trying to create vaccines for, so nothing too nasty, but still, when it came to me, I tended to get infections a little too roughly.
But there would be nothing to worry about. I had protection, and besides, Mariella could put up an energy shield or something around us when the time came.