The drive up to the Silvervine Manor felt shorter than normal for Diamond and she was toying with a small braid in her hair. She had chosen to keep her hair down and wear far more casual clothing. A dark blue tight turtleneck, black slit skirt that reached her ankles and brown leather moccasins. 

Diamond didn’t move when Alex parked the truck in front Silvervine Manor, which had a neo-palladian style to it, and Diamond stopped playing with her braid when Alex got out. Diamond watched Alex going around to her side and opened the door while holding out hand to her.

In any other moment Diamond would have just got out of truck herself as big bad cleaner but she didn’t have played that role today and knew Alex loved treating her as their queen. She took their hand and carefully got out of the truck with smooth grace. “Thank you,” Diamond said as she shifted her arm to wrap around their arm and rest her head on Alex’s shoulder.

“Your welcome,” Alex kissed the top of Diamond’s head and closed the door. They walked up the steps, only to stop to give one of the butlers the keys to the truck and once inside the manor they were greeted by Brutes Crane.

Brutes Crane is the head butler of Silvervine Manor and he was a vampire. He looked like your typical Englishman butler with well groomed black hair and black butler suit. He adjusted his fake glasses and smiled at Diamond, “Welcome home, Madam Silvervine.”

“Good to be back home,” Diamond slid off her moccasins and pushed them to a pile of shoes by the door. She paused as noted the pile was bigger than normal and there were a bunch of tiny winter boots. “So the munchkins are here too.”

Brutes let out a small chuckle, “Yes but it's nap time and your mother and sisters are in the north wing living room.” He said and Alex gave Diamond a kiss on top of her head again. 

“I’m going to see if my brothers need help with putting the munchkins to sleep.” Alex kissed the top of Diamond’s head again, “While you met with the council of women.”

Diamond let out a small snort before waving both Alex and Brutes away and she walked towards the north wing. The walk to the living room in the north wing was up a set of stairs and down the hallway to a pair of heavy carved wooden doors. The carving in the doors was a winter night scene in the forest with a full moon in the sky and a large female lion perched on a large stone looking up to the moon.

She opened the doors easily and before Diamond could step in a blur tackled her. Diamond had spun with the momentum while holding the blur to prevent herself from falling down and hugged the blur, who smelt like her youngest sister, Tullia Silvervine.

Tullia was a foot shorter than Diamond and had the same icy cyan eyes that were a marker of being from the Luna clan. Her skin had more vibrant dark skin than Diamond’s, and that was due to having a different sperm donor, who was of Korean descent. Tullia’s hair would have been pitch black if not for blonde tips of her hair and it was not dyed, instead it is part of Tullia’s condition of being berserker touched.

She was wearing one light grey shoulder long sleeve top and it showed her right shoulder and black sports bra. The wash out blue jeans were wide leg cut and knees were most worn out. Diamond felt more happy when she saw Tullia was still wearing the necklace Diamond made for her, which was like her own magical necklace. 

“Now now, Tullia, don’t monopolize your eldest sister’s attention.” Their mother’s voice said and Diamond looked into the room to see her mother and the triplets waiting for them. The triplets, Daisy, Danna, and Danica, were relaxed on the sofa and their mother, Amaris, was relaxed in a recliner chair like she was the queen or large cat.

Amaris looked pure Native American but she was something much older, a being from the Late Pleistocene, and only sat in her seat because of being frozen in an iceberg created by backlash of her druidic magic. She was fifty-five and gave birth to nine children but yet she still looked young due to her being a werebeast. Her eyes were the same sharp bright cyan blue eyes as Diamond and her hair was wild brown mane, which gave her a lion like appearance. Beside her eyes the most noticeable thing was the scar that ran across her face and the small scar on her lip, similar to Diamond’s own lip scar.

Diamond wasn’t surprised to see her mother wearing a black pants with tattered hems and a simple deep red tank top shirt. She had dark and thick leather straps wrapped around her forearms and thinner straps on her bicep. Even with her five foot and five inches strong body frame she looked larger than she really was and around her neck was a necklace made out of bone and turquoise stones.

“Hello, mom,” Diamond greeted softly and patted Tullia’s head before Tullia let go. Tullia led Diamond to the love seat that was positioned across from the sofa and the two sat down. Tullia relaxed against Diamond’s shoulder and Diamond moved her hand to ruffle Tullia’s hair while her eyes glanced at the triplets.

When they were younger Diamond could tell them apart from their scent but now she could tell the difference just by their body types due to their lifestyles and jobs. They were all the same height of five feet and six inches tall and had slightly darker skin tone as Diamond’s skin. Around their neck were necklaces that Diamond made but she used turquoise stones instead of bone.

Daisy had a well toned body from her being a ranch hand on her own farm and made her keep her hair in a tight single braid. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans that hugged her muscular legs, a sun bleached shirt, and rough looking blue flannel shirt.

Danica hadn’t lost the baby fat from her pregnancy and even gained more pounds due to her baker of a husband feeding her all the sweets she would want. Her hair was in a looser braid and had it resting over her shoulder. She was wearing a pair of black mom jeans, and a dark green baggy wool sweater with colorful embroidered flowers on it.

While Danna was happy medium between the two as she had time to workout at home between being a high school teacher and mother. She had her hair tied up in a tight bun normally held up with carved bone hair sticks but right now she had it loose like Diamond had hers. She was wearing black pencil shirt that reached her knees, and white loose blouse.

“I thought you and Alex needed more time together?” Daisy teased with a coy smile but it faded when Diamond locked eyes with them. Daisy leaned forward with Danica and Danna followed her lead and worry and concern formed on their face and scent. Tullia caught the scent and sat up straight to look at Diamond in full. 

Diamond started to feel she was being cornered and pressured to talk until Amaris clapped her hands together and got everyone’s eyes on her. “Now Now, you girls know better than to gang up on your eldest sister…unless you want her to lock us out.” 

Diamond felt the pressure from her sister lowered and Tullia gently touched Diamond’s hand, which Diamond noticed now that had tightened into fists and gripping her skirt. She took in a deep breath and relaxed her body letting out her breath. Diamond closed her eyes to sort out what she could tell and once she was ready she told her sisters and mother what happened.

She left out victims' names as they deserved their privacy and Diamond could feel her sisters hold back growling at the name of Victor King. Diamond finished with returning home and Tullia hugged her sister, which Diamond gently patted her youngest siblings back. “Thank you, Tullia.” Diamond whispered softly.

Diamond’s eyes locked on their mother and could see her thinking of something before standing up from her seat. “Daisy and Danna go get sweat lodge blankets from storage. Danica go see if you younger brothers wish to join in a sweat.” The triplets listened to their mother and left the room as Amaris walked over to Diamond. 

She cupped Diamond’s face and nuzzled Diamond while making small chuffing and purring sounds. Diamond made a happy rumbling sound back to her mother and nuzzled her mother back. 

Diamond knew at this moment, she should have come home earlier when Alex was away on mission and how touch starved she had become. Werebeasts like humans were very social creatures and known to be a lot more touchy within their families and friend groups.

“Tullia, do you want to join us this time?” Amaris asked and Diamond side eyed her sister. Tullia didn’t join sweat lodge sessions the past few times and Diamond figured it was her being a teenager girl.

“Yes,” Tullia let go of Diamond and stood up from the loveseat. “I’ll go help with the covering then.” She slipped past the two and was gone in seconds, leaving Diamond alone with their mother.

Amaris kept her eyes on the door before returning to look into Diamond’s eyes, “Have you seen ‘her’ lately?” Diamond was confused at first thinking her mother was talking about Tullia but she realized she was talking about Eve’s ghost.

Diamond knew her mother didn’t like speaking the dead’s name as she feared her druidic power would draw them from the other side. Diamond respected her mother’s fear and shared similar worry, so she would always be careful not to speak the dead’s name. Normally it would have been hard with her job as Cleaner but having a partner like Chris made it a lot easier, she found he liked to talk.

“No, I have not,” Diamond answered and kept her eyes locked on her mother’s eyes. There was no sign of disrespect or challenge to her mother and she could feel the magic power of mother examining Diamond’s own magic.

Amaris’s magic stopped searching and she made a happy sigh, “Good, let’s go help your sisters.” She let go of Diamond and Diamond stood up as flatten out her skirt.

Setting up the sweat lodge was easy enough with a wooden frame that was a permitted structure in the large backyard behind the mansion. Diamond knew their mother kept the structure well maintained and had used a simple wind and water magic to clear the dome structures’ floor.

“Gil would have joined but he says he has a hot date,” Danica reported as came out to the backyard. “Max and Jax are working on college papers that they've been putting off, again.” Danna let out a huff of annoyance and everyone couldn’t help themselves to smirk from the huff.

“I need to tan their butts for doing such…” Danna muttered and side-eyed Tullia. “I hope you don’t follow their example, ankle biter.”

Tullia jutted out her chin, “I would never, I’m no fool.” Tullia playfully snipped back. “Thanks to my good grades, I don’t have to write mid-term exams.” Diamond raised a brow as she felt there was more to that and Tullia smirked.

“Good, keep it that way,” Daisy said as grabbed another piece of covering. “Danna help me with this one, it's one roof coverings.” Danna nodded and everyone kept working on the sweat lodge. It didn’t take that long and once complete all of them entered the large dome structure. It could easily hold their whole family with extra room comfortably if needed but this evening there were only six of them in there.

Tullia was last one in and she closed the entrance flap tightly as the rest started to strip. Compared to Diamond, the triplets barely have any scars on their body, Daisy has one or two scars from handling bulls, Danna’s scars were on her arms from rowdy werebeast pre-teens, and Danica was only missing the tip of her left index finger from a kitchen accident.

Amaris had scarring similar to Diamond but at the same time different. The larger scars on her arms and back from fighting other werebeasts of her time but the bite marks and smaller claw marks were from raising nine werebeast children. Amaris wore these scars with pride and didn’t shy in explaining them if asked.

Diamond sat down crossed legged in front of the fire pit and Tullia sat beside her sister, with her legs pressed up around her chest. Tullia wasn’t proud of her scars and Diamond understood her sister’s feelings. Her scars on her wrists were from an unstable period for Tullia and others were from a scared police officer shooting at berserk transformed Tullia.

The memories of Tullia being dragged into a police station by some corrupted cops flooded Diamond's mind that second. They were trying to get Diamond under their thumb, and back fire when Tullia freaked out before Diamond could get to her. In the confusion Tullia was shot six times with silver bullets and Diamond took shotgun blast to gut to save Tullia.

Diamond reached over to pet Tullia’s head and Tullia leaned into the petting. Everyone in the family knew Diamond favored Tullia the most in the family and they couldn’t blame her as they all love to baby her themselves. 

Once all the siblings there were seated, Amaris went to the fire pit and blew a kiss to the pit, which magically lit it up in fire. Once the fire was big enough she started to sing, it was some form of native american song, which could be the root of most modern native songs but Diamond never asked or curiosity enough to research it. She only closed her eyes to lose herself in the song and started to silently chant along. The triplets started to drum rhythmically with their mother and Diamond heard Tullia chant quietly with their mother like she did.

She allowed herself to do this as she knew she was safe among her family. There was no one here to hurt her and they were there to help her heal from woes. She wasn’t Diamond the Cleaner here, she was Diamond the tired eldest daughter, adored wife, and loved older sister. She let the earth’s magic rush over her that purified and strengthened her mind and body.