"Congratulations Guild Leader! You are currently three months pregnant!" Healer Phineas, a man with a heavy resemblance to Santa Claus and nearly as ancient as Yasmina with the gift of Healing and Sight to see the dead, announced happily.
I stared blankly at his ruddy face. Both unsurprised and shocked stupid by the announcement. While my brain misfired, Yasmina's wrinkled face broke out into a broad grin. Positively beaming with excitement for me as she patted my thigh. Julienne finally showed emotion other than fear. Her mouth flopping open with surprise while her doe eyes sparkled with awe. I held up a hand to halt her oncoming congratulatory words, coming back to my senses enough to force questions past my suddenly dry throat.
"The gender?"
Phineas paused, peering thoughtfully down at my stomach before grinning brightly.
"Twelve weeks is normally too early to tell an infant's gender, but from what I'm seeing you are going to be the mother of a healthy baby boy."
"How can you tell?" I croaked, my thoughts too scrambled to figure out the how's myself.
"By it's soul aura of course, Guild Leader." Phineas answered merrily.
Due to being gifted with both Healing and Sight, Phineas could also see the living's auras. Because of his gifts, that talent came in handy to help him discern the living from the dead. Or so he told me when I first met him last year when he joined the Guild.
Before Lucien died, he had expressed to me the need for our Guild to have its own Healer. Due to the nature of our gifts and the general hatred the rest of the Clans had for us, finding our own personal Guild Healer had been a struggle. It wasn't common for an offspring of Death to have a Life power. But after a couple through months of searching, we eventually found Phineas. Living in the ass-end of nowhere drinking away his sorrows after the loss of his wife and only child during the Necromancer purge. Believe me, the old man hadn't been so fucking jolly back then as he was now.
"Of course." I whispered numbly.
Yasmina squeezed my thigh to offer me comfort. I barely felt it.
"Do you know," I paused when my voice came out hoarse and weak. I cleared my throat, shoving down my emotions. Got no fucking time for that shit.
"Do you know if it's going to have the same powers as me?" I asked.
Phineas leaned back in the armchair, stroking his thick white beard in thought while his warm brown eyes went distant. Yasmina squeezed me again, but this time I didn't even react to the pressure as I stared blankly at the Healer. Julienne was as quiet as a mouse on the other side of me, holding her breath in anticipation. A quick but discreet sniff from me also told me what else she was feeling. Dread. Whether from what my possible reaction to his answer will be or from simply sitting next to me on the couch, I didn't fucking know.
"Due to your pregnancy still being in the early stages, I cannot say for sure that he will or will not be a Necromancer. However, from his aura alone, I can tell you that he will have Death's gifts." Phineas assured me.
Ice flooded my veins. It was to be expected of course. Lucien and I both had Death's blood and the powers that came with it, but the thought of bringing another Necromancer into this world now...it turned my stomach. What parent wants their child to be hated from the moment it's born?
I was the product of such a birth and look at where I am now? Alone, depressed, and heartbroken. Fucking A.
"Great...just great." I whispered. An indescribable weight settled on my shoulders and I sunk back into the couch bonelessly as my new reality suckered punched me in the face.
I was going to be the mother of a fatherless child. Gods, how can I do this without Lucien?
He had always been the caretaker, kind, and nurturing one. I didn't know jackshit what to do with a child, much less my own. Of course Lucien and I had discussed the idea of little ones, but that had always been a future I envisioned sharing with him. Now he wasn't even here alive or dead. I was utterly alone in all of this. Adrift within a sea of darkness with endless doubts plaguing my mind. Seriously, what the fuck was I going to do?
"Thank you Healer Phineas." I said tonelessly.
Phineas's smile faltered, falling slightly in concern as he rose to his feet and bowed to me before exiting the parlor. The silence was tense, Julienne shifting awkwardly on one side and Yasmina incessantly patting my thigh on the other. By the eighth pat, I had had enough.
I jumped to my feet, whirling on Yasmina with a furious look as some pieces of the puzzle began to form in my mind.
"Is this what you meant by Lucien being lost but not truly gone?" I growled, recalling her cryptic words months ago at the Assembly.
Yasmina nodded solemnly, her grin falling away. I snarled, making Julienne flinch, and began to pace in front of them as the hamster wheel in my brain went into turbo mode.
"What the fuck am I supposed to do now? I don't have the fucking time to be raising a child while there's a war looming right on our doorstep. And don't even get me fucking started with all the skeletons in my closet with my own fucked up childhood!" I ranted, slightly breathless at all the emotions I was feeling for the first time in awhile.
"Language." Yasmina chided offhandedly. "You will make the time and those so-called skeletons will be the learning points you needed to turn you into a fantastic mother."
I shook my head in disbelief. "That sounds like a bunch of bullshit if you ask me."
"I wasn't asking you. I was telling you." Yasmina retorted, making me scowl.
"U-um, if I may interject?" Julienne said, raising her hand like a school girl waiting to be called on in class.
"What?" I snapped. Julienne shrunk and Yasmina frowned in disapproval.
"What is it child?" She asked in a much nicer tone.
"I-Is it really so bad? To be having a child I mean...isn't it a happy thing?" Julienne said in a tiny, weak voice.
My original scathing reply fizzled and died on the tip of my tongue at the look of genuine curiosity in her eyes. She was honestly confused on whether or not having a child was a cause for celebration or not. My mind couldn't help but distractedly remember why Julienne came to the Guild.
While Lucien and I had taken a much needed date away from the compound, we had found Julienne wandering on the side of the road on the way back home. Battered, alone, and bone-deep terrified, she explained that she had just escaped from her parent's home and has been running ever since. At first, my cold-hearted bitchy self had voted against bringing her to the Guild. But Lucien, the godsdamn sweetheart, roped me into agreeing to give the poor girl temporary sanctuary. When we told Julienne the plan, that was when we found out that she wasn't just an abused human. She was a supernatural and one of us. That was why her parents had been beating her for her entire life. At seventeen years old, Julienne had never once received a loving touch from anyone. She just about jumped out of her skin when Lucien had gently guided her to the car.
After a year of a shit ton of therapy, Julienne was finally able to interact like a somewhat normal person with others. That was when Yasmina roped her into being my secretary. It's pretty fucked up if you asked me. Why put a broken person who's just figuring out how to glue her pieces together with a shattered one? Fucked. Up.
"If we were living in another time and if I was a different person, then yes." I decided to answer her truthfully.
Yasmina huffed disagreeably, looking none to please with my harsh realistic outlook on life. It was the fucking truth though.
Julienne appeared saddened by my answer, her doe eyes finally looking up at me with sympathy. It grated on me, setting my nerves on edge. After all, I only kept her around out of pity. So why the fuck was she giving me that look?
"I'm sorry Mistress." She mumbled. I gritted my teeth.
"Don't fucking worry about it. It's not your problem." I hissed coldly.
Julienne wilted like a sunflower without sun, snapping her mouth shut and casting her wide eyes downward. A part of me felt a spark of guilt at her defeated posture, but the numbness swallowed it whole. Yasmina's brow was furrowed to the point where all her wrinkles seemed to be drawn to the expression. I found it kind of morbidly fascinating how all her features seemed to communicate just how unhappy she was with me. She had a white knuckled grip on her cane, looking about point two seconds away from making a swing at my head.
"Now that is just about enough out of you, Thana Lilith Kage." Yasmina snapped. I bristled at the use of my full name, but before I could open my mouth to snap back, Yasmina was powering on.
"You have been unexplainably rude to Julienne and to anyone who attempts to get close to you or offer you some sort of kindness. It is foolish, ignorant, and annoying, and I for one cannot stand by and listen to it for a moment longer!" She exclaimed heatedly.
"Now you better clean up your act right now, young lady. Or so help me gods, I will take you out to a tree and whip your butt into shape." Yasmina demanded.
Fueled with defiance, I reacted to Yasmina's threat like the heartless bitch I was.
"Let me get something fucking straight with you. I am the Leader of this fucking Guild, not your daughter or some naive youth who you can just whip into shape as you call it," I stated coldly, making Yasmina's brow slacken in shock with how deadened my tone became.
"I. Am. Your. Guild. Leader. I made this fucking place that you hang your scarves in. Threaten me again in my house, on my land, in my fucking home, and I will remove those hangers. Permanently."
The tension was thick enough in the air that I would be able to physically cut through it with a butter knife. Julienne was as white as a sheet, her eyes flicking back and forth from Yasmina to me. I held back the urge to wrinkle my nose at the rankness her fear gave off. I've smelt much worse, and I didn't have an iota of guilt in me for scaring the near piss out of her this time. I stared at Yasmina, silently daring the ancient Seer to snap back at me like I was expecting.
Instead, Yasmina released a weary sigh, looking all of her long years as she leaned back into the couch. Her milky white gaze was exhausted, the wrinkles in her face deepening as her expression displayed her defeat.
"Understood, Guild Leader Kage." She said softly. I blinked at her in disbelief. That was it? Really?
"So you won't barge into my affairs anymore?" I asked, doubting that the old hag's meddling was truly done.
Yasmina nodded solemnly. "Yes."
"Oh come on. You can't be that fucking easy." I blurted without thinking. Damn my fucking lack of filter.
The corner of Yasmina's mouth twitched.
"As you've clearly stated, you are my Guild Leader. I have no right to interfere in your personal affairs." She replied calmly.
"That's all you've been doing for the past three months!"
"Only to assure that you are what the Guild needs. A leader. One who can move past anything to make sure we are all safe."
I stiffened, a hurt I never expected blooming to life at her dispassionate words. Was that really all I was to her? An obligation to fulfill for the greater good? Fucking old cow, I thought we had a connection. Granted, I was acting like a soulless bitch at the moment, but still...
"Well I sure as shit proved that, didn't I?" I said emotionlessly.
Yasmina didn't reply, not saying a word as I stormed out of the parlor. I was so immersed in my hurt rage that I didn't realize that Julienne had foolishly followed me till I was halfway to my room. I whirled around to face her with a scowl, and Julienne squeaked as she stumbled to a halt an inch away from me. Gods, this girl was a mess.
"The fuck are you following me for?" I growled.
"W-we still have rounds." Julienne stuttered fearfully.
I huffed, doing an about face to continue back to my room.
"Not today we do." I spat.
"But the Wilkson's have had this private meeting to discuss the transfers of their jobs since last month, and Laila Grae has-"
I twisted back around and this time Julienne managed to bump into me. She scrambled back with a terrified whimper, holding up her hands in a pleading gesture. But I was too distracted by what she just said to assure the girl that I wasn't about to bitch slap her clumsy ass.
"Did you just say Laila Grae?" I demanded abruptly.
Julienne's hands slowly lowered back to her sides, her eyes wide with confusion.
"Y-yes?"
"Laila Grae, as in, my dead fiancé's twin sister?"
Julienne's features went sickly.
"Y-y-yes."
"FUUCKK!" I roared, drawing every unfortunate soul who was on this floor of the mansion's attention as my temper fucking skyrocketed.
When Lucien has joined the Guild, he hadn't been alone. He had a fucking twin sister, the last remaining member of his family, and gods she was a fucking cunt. I used to joke with him that they were the Gemini Twins while him and I were Yin and Yang. Total polar opposites.
Like the good brother he was, Lucien had adored his sister while I fucking despised her. Something that Laila reciprocated whole-heartedly. The possessive little bitch hadn't liked the fact that she wasn't the only woman in Lucien's heart. Incestuous psycho.
Now, I had to somehow explain to that psycho that I was currently carrying the only living piece left of her beloved brother in my belly. Fun times. Fun timessss.
"Tell her I'm not available. Ever." I nearly shouted at Julienne. I didn't owe the bitch shit even though I was the reason her twin died.
In her little petty pea-sized brain, Laila had thought that if she cut Lucien out of her life that he would ditch me for her. That had hurt Lucien soul-deep, and I would never forgive Laila for that. She made my love cry. For that, she can fucking pay for it the rest of her life. I'll be damned if she has a role in my son's life. The venomous snake would just try and turn him against me in the future, and fuck that bullshit.
"I-I-I can't." Julienne squeaked.
I glared at her. "Why the hell not?"
Wordlessly, she pointed over my shoulder with a shaking finger.
I closed my eyes in utter dismay. Fuck my fucking entire fucking, fuck, fuck, fuuuuucccckkk, arggggggh. I kept soundlessly screaming in my skull as I slowly turned around to face the evil twin herself.
My empty chest couldn't help but squeeze briefly with grief. Laila Grae was the female version of Lucien, his identical twin. Springy blond curls that rivaled Julienne's fell just past her shoulders, her sea blue gaze stormy with thinly veiled dislike. My upper lip twitched with the effort I put in to hold back my sneer of disgust at the sight of her booty shorts and skin-tight white tank top that did nothing to conceal her powder blue bra. I had heard that Laila had been grieving passionately ever since Lucien passed. Another shitty lie spun through the grapevine it seems. She looked as if she was about to head out for a strip show than deliver a bouquet to her brother's grave. Lucien would be mortified at the sight of her. What brother wouldn't be at the sight of his sister walking around like a hoe? I sure as shit would be.
"Laila." I greeted, still screaming inside.
"Ana, or should I say, Thana Kage?" Laila replied scathingly.
"Actually, it's Guild Leader Kage to you." I drawled in a dead-pan tone.
Laila glared at me, her French manicured class for nails curling into fists.
"You are not my Leader," She seethed. "You got my brother killed!"
"Lucien sacrificed himself for the Guild willingly. There wasn't anything I could do to stop him." I said, my emotionless mask reappearing and the screams going silent as the numbness once again reigned.
"You're the so-called Guild Leader! You were right there! How could you not stop him!?" Laila screamed. Accusation stamped across her heavily made up, but albeit, beautiful face.
"Lucien made his choice," I answered coldly. "Deal with it."
"I can't deal with it! I didn't even get to say good-bye! You took that from me!" Laila yelled, mascara-laced tears dripping down her cheeks.
I let her see the deadness inside of me along with the festering rage and hatred I constantly felt in the face of me new reality. Laila recoiled, those crocodile tears of hers drying up fast.
"No. You took that opportunity from yourself by being a selfish, childish, petty little bitch. Selling yourself to any man with a legit penis just to get back at your brother for wanting to just once focus on his own happiness. You have no idea how much Lucien gave up for you. Not a fucking clue." I ranted, getting right into her face as I glared at her with all the negativity I felt at her existence.
Call me a grade-A bitch for tearing into a grieving woman, but in my book, the cow deserved it. Since their parents were murdered during the Necromancer purge, Lucien had poured all of his efforts for nearly his entire life to let his sister live a good life. That included giving up his own dreams of going to college, getting a steady girlfriend, starting a family of his own, everything. All of his hopes and dreams funneled into making sure Laila could have her hopes and dreams. And she tossed it all aside for drugs, sex, and partying. She flunked out of college, slept with every good-looking guy she could get her hands on, and called her brother nearly every night to take her drunk ass home from a bar from twenty one onwards. She was a fucking train-wreck by choice, and once her caretaker tried to make her grow up, she threw a tantrum that broke his heart. It was fucking pathetic.
"Lucien was my twin, my other half." Laila whimpered weakly.
"And he was my heart and is the father of my child." I retorted bluntly. Heartless towards her pain.
Laila gasped, her bubblegum pink mouth falling open.
"You're pregnant?!"
I nodded sharply.
"And it's Lucien's...?" I snarled in irritation at the doubt in her voice.
"Who the fuck else would it be's?" I snapped.
Laila raised her hands innocently.
"It was just a question." She mumbled defensively and I scowled.
I blinked when she leaned towards me, a bright grin on her lips as her make up smeared face beamed ecstatically. She looked like a demented clown on crack. What the fuck??
"That's amazing! Lucien would be so excited!" Laila squealed, clapping her hands together.
Double what the fuck? Lost at her 180 in personality, Laila started chattering excitedly about baby shit. Something about a shower, a reveal party, and shopping? Lots and lots of shopping. Together. Oh fuck to the no.
"Did you manage to do a line of coke or something in the time I took to blink? Or have you finally lost your marbles?" I asked sarcastically.
Laila giggled, making me seriously consider for a moment that she indeed did lose those marbles.
"No silly! You're having Lucien's baby. That's amazing! We have to plan for it!" Laila announced with a sickening amount of joy.
"Uhhh, there is no we in this." I said, taking a step back when she reached for my hands in her excitement.
Laila's smile wavered, her dislike for me still shimmering under the surface as her eyes darkened briefly.
"What are you saying? We were going to be sisters at one point, and this is my little niece or nephew we're talking about here. Of course we're in this together." She grinned like a psychopath.
"Again. There is no we. There's only me, myself, and I. And I sure as hell am not going to let you be involved." I snapped, my temper once again making an appearance. At this rate I'll never obtain the zen that most people have as they get on in the years. Whatever.
Laila's smile was gone in a flash, her mouth twisting as if she tasted something bitter. Her own crazy perhaps?
"Why not?" She whined in a high-pitched tone that grated on my sensitive eardrums.
"Because you're a psychopathic hoe-bag that is practically panting in glee at the thought of somehow turning my son against me. That's why." I growled.
Laila's expression was properly affronted but her sea-green eyes flashed with fury at my outing of her master plan.
"I would never! You're my sister!" She gasped, patting her chest daintily as if she were some kind of noble lady or something. What a fucking joke.
"Do you smell cow shit in here Julienne, or is it just me?" I quipped caustically.
Laila's cheeks colored with outrage and Julienne simply became a chameleon.
"Who's the psycho here now? That baby is the only thing left of my brother!" Laila shrieked.
"Join the club." I answered tonelessly, trying to reign in my temper before I give into my baser instincts and throat punch the bitch.
"He's my nephew! You have no right to keep me out of his life!" Laila shouted, not even bothering to keep her composure.
"I'm his mother and the one who's shredding up her vagina to give birth to him. I think I have every right." I retorted coolly.
Laila spluttered, looking absolutely ridiculous. All red-faced, hoe-ified, and dumbstruck. It was hilarious honestly, but I was too numb again to laugh right in her face.
It took a few moments for Laila's pea-sized brain to find something to say, but she managed. Straightening, she brushed aside some of her blonde curls and readjusted her tank top that did absolutely nothing to hide her shamelessness. Normally my opinion would be to each their own, but she was Laila the Skank. There was no good opinion in me in regards to her.
When she opened her mouth to flap her gums, I had reached the point of being beyond done with this entire fucking day. I held up a hand, cutting her off before she got started.
"Swallow anything you're about to say and choke on it. The matter is closed. You're not to going to have anything to do with my son. Period." I stated with a note of finality.
Laila gaped at me, her eyes widened into the size of saucers. Not bothering with goodbyes, I pivoted on my heel and swiftly restarted my progress to my room. Julienne scampered after me, pale-faced and mute, glancing warily back at Laila a couple times. We both paused when Laila's venomous voice filtered down the hallway loud enough for us to hear.
"One day your heartless tyranny will come to an end, and it will be a joy to dance upon your ashes with your son in my arms."
I was all up in Laila's grill in a blink, slamming her body against the wall with my forearm pinning her throat. She choked underneath the pressure, her eyes bugging with terror as she reached up to claw my arm. I didn't feel a thing, my wild magic simmering beneath my skin and adding an extra layer to my inherent strength. I leaned my face close, my nose just shy of brushing against hers as I made sure she could see just how happy I was to hear her threat. Hint, I was not fucking happy.
"The only reason I didn't kick your ass to the fucking curb when I met you was because of Lucien. When I held him while he cried over your betrayal, I didn't fucking stomp you into that curb because of Lucien. Why I'm not strangling the life out of you right now is because of Lucien. But here's where it all gets fucked for you." I leaned closer, my lips brushing against her ear in a sadistic caress that had her shivering in fear. The darkness in me chuckled.
"Lucien's dead. There's no one left to protect you now."
Instead of melting into a blubbering mess on the floor like I expected, Laila began to fight me in earnest. Though her efforts produced nothing except for me leaning my head back and raising a sardonic eyebrow. I kept my movements purposely lazy, like keeping her pinned to the Wall was nothing-which it was-to piss her off. To my amusement, I succeeded.
"You evil, soul-sucking bitch!" Laila screamed.
"I've been called worse." I drawled back.
Laila's face reddened with exertion, more of her makeup smeared by sweat as she huffed and puffed and failed to blow the house down.
"May Death smite you and make your soul into his cloak!"
Both of my brows raised. Now that was more creative than I thought was possible for her.
"At least I'll be able to witness first hand when he feeds yours to the Hound."
Laila blanched at my nonchalance. Being fed to Cerberus was one of the worst tortures for any soul.
"I have done nothing to deserve that!" She whimpered dramatically.
"You practically admitted to planning my assassination." I scoffed.
"I never said it would be me who would kill you!" She stammered, finally becoming a mess like I originally expected.
"Nah, you would just fuck whoever you pussy-whip into trying to kill me. That makes you an accessory to murder. Still a death sentence in my book." I replied tonelessly, keeping my expression blank as she began to weep. Though I did curl my lip in disgust when her mascara polluted tears touched my forearm.
I pressed a smidge harder against her throat, shutting her up. Her cries were giving me a fucking migraine and I so do not need that shit.
"Pack your bags and get the fuck off my land tonight." I ordered. When Laila merely gasped in horrified shock, I pressed harder and bared my teeth. I didn't suppress my wild magic when it transformed my canine teeth into deadly fangs.
"I-I don't have anywhere to go!" She cried. She reeked of desperation and fear, stinking up the hallway. Gods, I wish I could turn off my nose.
"I'm sure you can figure something out. Cockroaches have a high survival rate." I said unsympathetically.
When Laila just kept crying like a wimp, I released my hold around her throat. She crumpled to her knees immediately, wailing dramatically into her hands as if I really did suck out her soul. Though that's possible for me, it's really not worth the effort for someone like Laila Grae.
I walked away from her, ignoring her pleading cries as I strode calmly to my room. The silence was eery, my wild magic calming now that the conflict was over. Julienne was a trembling, petrified mess behind me but she managed to keep up. When I at last reached my door, I glanced at her over my shoulder, somewhat surprised she was still there.
"The Wilkson's have a good rep as human Healers. The transfer should be seamless into the local hospital here. Gather up the paperwork for them to sign to ensure that and I'll forward it to the hospital tomorrow morning." I said suddenly, making her jump out of her skin. She even yelped for Goddess sake. How the fuck would I be able to teach her strength when every time I said a godsdamn word she flinched?
"O-of course. I'll have it ready tonight." Julienne whispered.
I nodded sharply, pushing open my door and stepping inside. When she spoke again, I paused from shutting the door in her face. I was in no mood for company.
"A-are you alright?" She murmured with her head down and a nervous shuffle of her feet.
"No." I replied immediately then promptly slammed the door.
No. I was not fucking okay in the slightest, and I have a sickening feeling I never would be again.