A Forbidden Love (edited)

Revealing My Backstory

Kai was filled with confusion once more. "I literally just told you who you are, crazy crazy."
A soft smile fell on my lips and an old accent I had once carried in my birth home came out without my meaning to, "Do you wish to hear my story? Or is the answer no? I feel as if you already believe you know it all."
His smile gleamed in response though his eyes grew cold as those of a shark's do analyzing prey without emotion.
"No interruptions Kai. I know you love to hear yourself talk, but this is my turn." He mimed zipping his mouth and throwing the key to me.

My voice was soft as I spoke and it carried as the lullabies my mother once sang me did. Melodic and sad.
"It began with my mother wanting a child. She was still in the old country and could not give her husband, Mikael, a child. She was a witch then but wasn't as strong as her sister. She was not committed to witchcraft as her sister whom she had left behind was.

When she visited her sister, there were still harsh feelings between the two for my mother leaving to marry. My aunt, her sister, agreed. For a price that is. My mother promised her, she promised her first child. My aunt listened and brewed her a tonic. What was one child out of many?

My mother did not let Mikael know. She went home and they had their first of many children. When she grew round with her third, my aunt returned to collect her due while Mikael was away. The witch killed my sister as a sacrifice to the gods and left letting her sister know in time we'd all die. When Mikael returned she lied. She said the child grew sick and ill. They fled to the new world. A world where the men were faster and stronger. They did not have disease as the others did.  In truth my mother believed her sister could not kill us here.

The child who witnessed her lie was Finn. Finn was a mama's boy, he would never betray her secret. Even when his sibling was stolen from our family. Finn was so honorably good, obsessed with being our mother's little foot soldier. It was disgusting to be honest. Elijah, who was in my mother's stomach during her travel to the new world was born exuding honor and loyalty.
My mother's first children were... well to put it nicely I'll just say horribly good.
My mother, I am not sure why, in search of stability? To spite Mikael for his coldness?
Well, she decided to have an affair with the head of the people who shifted beneath the moon. A people Mikael hated. I suppose we, my family that is, became truly interesting at this point.

She grew pregnant with twins stemming from her illicit dalliance. We may have become more interesting, but our family also had become filled with a certain hell. My mother was in labor for two days until her friend, a witch, helped her out. They thought we were both doomed to die. We weren't permitted to and thrashed our way to life. Nik was born first, a day before I was. Then, came me.
My childhood I suppose was normal. I mean my so called father hated me for no apparent reason. I appeared weak to him, I was quiet, considered silent, by my third birthday Nik and I were the most athletic. We had no interest in fighting though. This earned us even more scorn.
Poor Nik. He was picked on more than me. Perhaps it was because he was the male, he was supposed to yearn for a fight. I wasn't interested in fighting or house chores. It earned me being spat at by my father. Perhaps a weekly backhand when I didn't mind my tongue. My hair was often yanked if I didn't get to my chores. Nik's treatment was worse. When he did pick up a sword, Mikael would beat him down. Make a spectacle of it for the whole village to see him beat down my brother. Let the people know we would amount to nothing. For no known reason Mikael hated us.
When Mikael felt like he was in a foul mood he would beat and whip him until he was bloody. Crying for one of us to help him. He was innocent, my father did not care. Every time he would cry out, I'd intervene. Every time I'd be thrown into the cold and refused food. I learned every path through the tunnels and caves beneath our village.
That was our life. Our life until I ventured out with Nik and Henrik to see the men turn during the full moon. Nik had obsessed over it feeling as if he were pulled to them. Perhaps he was. Perhaps we both were. Why else would I join him on what I knew to be a perilous journey?