Now
Ashla-Ash's POV:
"I hate this,"
Rosa's words snap us all out of whatever we'd been doing before she'd spoken. Not that I knew why she'd done it, much less the reason behind her words. It had been a peaceful six months since we took out the threat that had been stalking us for years. Long before my brother met Rosa and a lot longer before I met the beautiful girl currently lying with her head on my lap with her eyes half-closed where my hands had been playing in her hair.
"Come again?" I ask with a confused tone when Rosa glares at the wall, everyone around her recoiling from the unstable energy she seemed to be projecting. Something she and Leila both seem to do at the most inopportune of times, though hopefully, it's just the pregnancy and not something else messing with the two of them. "What happened now, Rosalie?"
Rosa glares at me and I shiver when I see the black and amber eyes that I hate seeing since they always seem to come before a loss of control. "Call me that again and I don't care who's brother you are, I'll rip you apart." Her eyes flash and I feel the tension in the room increase, my eyes widening when I register what she said. Seconds later she claps a hand over her mouth and her eyes widen in fear. Fear and regret. "Ash I-I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me."
I sigh, knowing what she said was true. I'd had it enough with Leila in the past six months after she'd managed to heal from Amber's attack. "It's ok Rose, I know you don't mean it. Though I don't know what's got the two of you suddenly feeling so unstable," I muse out loud, seeing my brother share a look with me over Rosa's head. "It's like when Leila and I met for the first time and we couldn't balance each other out. Though why it's doing it now I can't understand."
Leila tips her head up then, giving me a look I can't quite understand before she looks away again. Not sure what to make of that I don't mention it but I also can't ignore the strange way she's being. "Are you ok beloved?" I ask her gently, waiting to see if she'll answer me before I start to get worried. "Beloved?"
"Not sure," Leila sounds confused but I can't tell if it's from what I asked or what Rosa said before. "I mean I feel ok but that might just all be in my head," She twists over to look up at me with a strange expression. "Hey maybe it's just all in my head and you've married a madwoman." Her eyes are alight with mischief and I can't stop the smile that comes from seeing her both safe and happy after what we went through not so long ago. "Hey none of that Ash," She hits me on the side of the head and I blink, giving her a wounded expression that has a smile on her face again. "Hey, none of that, no looking back at what happened, it's in the past and let's leave it there ok?" I watch her with half a grin and she sighs, rolling her eyes, "Ok?"
I keep watching her to see if she'll drop the subject but she just keeps her eyes on mine, her expression shifting to more unstable and angry the longer I refuse to answer her. Still not sure how far to push her, I decided to keep quiet a second longer before her eyes start to darken and I take that as a cue to reassure her that I'd heard and understood her, even if I didn't entirely agree with her logic.
"Ok, ok," I offer her a placating expression and see her body lose what little tension she'd been holding and she resumes her previous position she'd been in, her eyes on something over my shoulder where her head had ended up back under mine. "Sorry to have done something to offend you," I try to keep my voice teasing but I can tell she can hear the mockery in it when she rolls her eyes and hits me again. "Ouch babe, that hurt."
"Like you didn't deserve it," Rosa calls over where she was in my brother's arms with a similar smile. I sigh and she laughs at me again. "But I'd like to know what's got me and Leila suddenly being so volatile. Even when we're trying to control it." She looks up at Hunter and I can tell he's as confused and concerned as me when his eyes meet mine. I offer up a small shrug but I can tell he knows how I'm feeling. "I wish I knew,"
On top of me Leila sighs and I see her roll her eyes, "You and me both Rose," She sits up slightly but leans against me where I'd put my arms around her. "I hate that I keep snapping at you beloved," She turns suddenly tearful eyes to me and I pull her closer, letting her rest her head on my shoulder, "I hate doing it because I know how it makes you feel." Her voice is muffled but I can still hear her perfectly. "I hate it and I wish I could stop but I don't know how." She shivers slightly and I hold her closer, trying to reassure her that it's ok.
"Assuming there is a way," Eris mutters from where she and Phoenix had been sitting opposite us. His arms were around her and I could tell that she was just as perplexed as the rest of us. "Hey maybe it's to do with that," she points between the two and I know what she's referencing. "I mean think about it, the wolf you two spoke to-" She looks between Rosa and Hunter "-She said that the power had to be in the same generation right?" I nod and see the others following, "Well the four of you had it but I'm assuming that the two children growing inside Leila and Rosa are taking that power from you. Both parents had it and now the power of both parents is being transferred into the children." She sits up gingerly, careful to not move too much given that she too was pregnant. "Maybe that's why the power's been acting out. Because...."
"....Because it's transferring from the four of us into them," Leila speaks slowly but I can tell it's not from a good point of view. Eris nods with a slightly hopeful expression - one that I hope stems from what we'd discovered and not what it meant - and I see Eris look at me with a strange expression. I frown at her before she subtly nods her head in my direction and I register Leila's shaking. "It's passing on the curse. From us to our children." She turns sparkling blue eyes up to me and I can see her shivering, the moonstone blue appearing and disappearing from her eyes with a changing circle. "Our time's up Ash. we....we didn't do it. We couldn't do it."
"Oh no," Rosa says next and I can see her sharing a look with Hunter who also seems to have figured out what Eris was meaning. Just as Leila had done before. "We can't do that. We can't put them in harm's way when we know what's wrong." She curls her hands around her stomach protectively and I know Leila's done the same with our daughter. "We can't let them do this, they wouldn't - shouldn't - have to deal with that amount of bloodshed. That pain and sorrow. They deserve a better life."
I see her share a look with Leila who seems to be looking down at where her hands were with that same protective look in her eyes. My hands find hers and I can tell when she can feel it since her eyes switch to look up at me with that same expression. That same determination in her eyes that showed me she would be ok. That she would survive this because of what she is, who she is. A fighter.
"So we don't." Leila's tone is firm and I find myself wondering, not for the first time, what she was thinking. What was running through her head? "I want to make a promise," She looks around at the four of us but it's me her eyes linger on. On where our hands were still holding each other around our unborn daughter. "I want to make a promise that no matter what happens they will never know the life we had. They never know the pain, the heartbreak or the horror of what the four of us had to suffer." She looks at me and I see so much love in her eyes it almost breaks me. "I want to promise that our daughter will never know what we had to go through, that we'll give her a better life than we had. One where she knows she's loved. Always."
I nod to her but don't speak, knowing that she doesn't need me to vocally agree with her. Because I do. I want that for our daughter. So she doesn't have to know what we did. The pain. The heartbreak. The cruelty. She deserves a better life and she's lucky enough to have loving parents who want to give it to her more than anything else. She's lucky that we love her enough to put our own lives before hers. Because that's what it will be when Amber realises what it means. She'll hunt us down and make us suffer for what we did to her. I just don't want to admit what it means. What it all means.
Looking around at the faces I can see I'm struck with a sense of something I hadn't felt in a long time. If ever. The sense of belonging somewhere, of having a family, and I know it's something I will treasure for as long as I have left. Because if Amber manages to heal up from what our combined magic managed to do she'll come after us and I know the other three know it from how sombre the tone suddenly became.
I can see Eris, hers and Rosa's witches. The pack that had become my family when I had no one, nothing left. At the brother, I always had, no matter how dark I became, or that I spiralled. At the girl, he married that I've come to see as a sister and who I'd do anything for. And finally.....finally at the girl who stole my heart before I even remembered I had one and who made me finally start to see past what I'd done, what I'd been. She let me see beyond the past and who I was before my parent's cruelty almost broke me beyond repair.
Before she saved me.
"They deserve a chance at a halfway normal life, Ash, even if being children of the royal family they can never be entirely free of the spotlight." Leila smiles and I can tell she's feeling a little better in the face of the vow she spoke of. But then she frowns and looks at me properly. A look that has that searching gaze I can never say no to. "Please tell me you understand me. What I'm saying."
"Of course, I do Lei, more than you know." My tone is sincere and without any of my usual mockery and I know she can sense it. "I want that for our daughter more than anything in the whole world. So she has a chance to live a halfway normal life and not know what we did." She gives another smile before she frowns, her eyes narrowing. "Oh no, what did I say now?" I groan before she tightens her hands on mine for a second. "Ouch, seriously what did I do now?"
"More than anything?" Her parroting of my words back to me has me groaning again, rolling my eyes. "Are you sure you don't want to reconsider what you just said before something happens?" Her eyes spiral through sky and moonstone blue and I realise what I'd done, luckily knowing what to say before she got any madder than she already was.
"Almost anything," I reply, giving her what was supposed to be a chaste kiss but then Leila twists in my arms and it deepens beyond what I think we should have been doing in front of the others. Not that she was showing signs of stopping. "Lei, enough." I try to speak around where she was still kissing me but it was impossible. Or almost impossible. "Lei? Beloved please." I keep trying but she doesn't release me for some time. By which time I can see Rosa's doing something that's similarly trapped, my brother. "Lei?"
She makes a contented sound and I hear Eris sigh once, my eyes finding my redheaded friend where she's looking between where Leila has me trapped and Rosa similarly has Hunter. "Oh bloody hell," She sighs and rolls her eyes, throwing up her hands in a defeated gesture, "Remind me never again to willingly trap myself in enclosed quarters with two horny and pregnant wolves." She keeps trying to fight the smile I can see on her face but even if she can keep most of her face in that faintly disapproving mask I can see how her eyes are smiling.
"I'll try to remember that for next time," I eventually manage to say when Leila releases me and see Eris's eyes widen. "Don't worry Eri, I wasn't being entirely serious. I think we'll have to see what happens this time before we think about having any more children." I hear Leila snort at that comment and sigh, using my semi-free hand to rub soothing circles on her back in an attempt to keep her calm.
Silence settles over the group we'd managed to amalgamate inside the walls of the palace. The safest place for Leila and Rosa to be during however long it takes before the children growing inside of them would be born. Safest too for anyone who had stood with us against amber and the others with her since although it had been a quiet six months none of us was naive enough to think that it would last. This fragile peace we brokered when we had nothing left that night at the abandoned industrial warehouse where we'd been held hostage, tortured and were still trying to heal from. She would come, one day at some point, and when she did.....when she did.....we would all be in danger. Including....
That thought spiral stops me from being able to be calm. It stops me from being able to think either as an even stronger protective instinct than the one I had to save Leila that's towards mine and Leila's unborn daughter threatens to overwhelm me. Trying to push back the thought I can tell when Leila registers something's wrong when she focuses on me with a frown, a concerned look on her face. What's wrong? That's what her eyes seem to be asking me but I'm stuck. How do I tell her what I've found now when I've just managed to promise that our daughter would never know the horrors of the brutal world we live in? How can I tell her the one thing that will break her heart more than anything I'd ever known?
"Ash?" Eris breaks the silence when I realise that by now Leila's not the only one who's watching me. By now the wolves making up mine, Leila's and Rosa's pack are also looking up where they'd remained in their true forms, huddled close. The witches sat around were also looking up from where they'd been looking through spellbooks to see what they could dig up on the witch jewels and keys that Amber was supposedly after. The ones that could do lucifer knows what. "Ash, what is it? What did you find? Remember?" Eris keeps talking to me but it's as if I can't hear her. Like I'm separated behind a wall that lets me see her, that her mouth is moving, but doesn't let me hear her words. Understand them.
"Ash?" Leila tries next but I can't not hear her. I can't refuse her since to do so would be refusing myself on some subconscious level that I can't reach but can feel. I can't do this to her. "Beloved," I struggle to find words for her to understand why I'm suddenly so afraid. Only not for us four - as well as those who stood by us when they had no cause to - but for the two children Rosa and Leila were carrying. For the child, Eris was carrying. "Are you sure?" I looked around and saw that the others were all watching me with concerned expressions.
Rosa looks the most concerned next to Leila who keeps watching me with that same expression as before. That concerned look has me feeling even worse when I know what her reaction will be to what I have to say. What I found out. I hate knowing what I'm about to say has the power to do that but I know I have to say it before it consumes me whole. Before it's too late and someone else tells them. Taking as deep a breath as the sudden constricting pain in my chest will allow me to, I look around at the faces of those dearest to me, knowing the damage the next words I speak will cause but being unable to stay silent.
"They're in danger, that's what I realised Eri," I look to my golden-eyed friend to try and find the strength to vocalise the words that are already tearing me apart, even before my daughter's born. A daughter who because of who her family is, is already in danger. Just as Hunter and Rosa's child is in danger. "Both of them are in danger - your child as well so long as you continue to remain fighting in this war. Playing this game."
Eris's POV:
I can see how distressed Ash is in the way his eyes keep trying to look away, no matter how much he tries to hide it. No matter how much he tries to keep his eyes on mine. I can tell that whatever he's found out is tearing him apart. Almost as bad as when Amber tried to use him to torment and kill Leila by tearing her apart in that dark, disused warehouse that they'd been trapped in.
"Ash, what is it hon?" I ask slowly, trying to see if I could ease my friend's suffering. His eyes look like someone had taken everything from him and in one go. "Ash whatever it is I have a feeling we need to know now. Before whatever it is goes any further than it already has, causes any more damage." I try to reassure him but my sixth sense that seems to stem from my witch heritage seems to be telling me that whatever's off with him is deeper than that. Deeper than a secret that could make a small ripple in our lives. It's deeper and stronger than that. "Ash please, talk to us. Whatever it is I can tell it'll be better out than in."
He offers a weak smile in my direction but I can tell it's Leila's presence that's steadying him more than any of us. The way Rosa does for Hunter. Are you sure? That's what his eyes seem to be asking but I can tell that what's eating at him concerns more than him. More than Leila and more than Hunter and Rosa. It's something that concerns all of us. He looks at me like he's afraid I'll ask him again but I know I don't need to. And I know that because I know he knows that what I'm saying is right. We do need to know.
"Ok," He sounds as if he'd rather be anywhere other than here having to do what we're asking but I also know him well enough to know that he'll be honest. No matter what. "It's about - well the two of you." He looks between Rosa and Leila and I know instantly what he's meaning. The children. As if he's heard my thoughts, Ash spares me a tortured look I know all too well and I feel something inside me tighten as if expecting impact. "You know what I'm meaning, don't you. Because of what happened to the four of us. What it means for them and whoever they end up being paired with. In more ways than one."
Eyes on me I can tell when the others realise what he had done. Leila pales but says nothing, hiding her head in his shoulder where he'd held her close as she cried silently. Rosa pales and does something similar with Hunter, the two brothers sharing identical tortured looks over their partner's shoulders. Everyone knows what he's meaning but no one wants to be the one to say it out loud. To be the one to shatter the fragile hope we were all holding onto. But someone had to. Someone had to say it and I knew none of the four it concerned would want to as it was about their children.
Someone had to say it. "They've been pulled into this haven't they?" The words come out of my mouth before I can summon up the tact to either phrase it differently or not speak at all. Ash lets out a shaky breath and pales ever so slightly but nods once, his eyes showing more emotion than I'd seen in a long time of this calibre. Fear. Worry. Pain. All seem to be present and strong in his eyes. "They'd be replacing the four of you since the power transferred into them as it did the four of you when you were born. Meaning the people they'd be linked to would be....like you? Bound like you lot are to each other?"
Ash pales even more and nods once, Leila moaning into his neck where she'd buried her head before when he'd let her rest it when he'd mentioned something about having a secret. Leila continues to make small whimpering sounds that seem to reach him given how his arms go around her gently, minding where she was carrying another child doomed to take up their parent's role in this game. Doomed to be bound into a game that can't be stopped until one side is vanquished.
"Yea," Ash sounds shaky and I can tell that Rosa's past talking since, like Leila, she was now crying silently where Hunter still held her gently, his eyes on the conversation still happening. "Whoever Lunae chooses for their wolf parts would be Bound and Mated to them as I was to Leila and Hunter was to Rosa. Only it's worse for them." His golden eyes seem to darken with more pain than I'd seen before and that worries me. "It would be worse because they'd have the power of two of us in one of them. Mine and Leila's in Edana and Hunter and Rosa's in Kalliope,"
"Worse how?" Rosa's tone is haunted by hollow grief and I know it tears at the four of them equally given how they're all invested in the current survival of their children once they're born. "Ash, how could it be worse than what we went through? What our parents did before us? How could it be worse Ash?! Answer me!"
"It's worse because it's stronger," Ash replies, his tone sounding as though he'd rather be anywhere answering any other question than one that may harm his daughter. or her cousin. "It's stronger because it was diluted in the four of us. Spread more thinly across four where it's been - sorry will be - combined. Strengthened by being transferred from two into four. Making it stronger, and harder to resist and control. Making them easier and more satisfying targets for Amber and the others."
Silence spreads following his words and I can tell it's because the others are worried about the implications of what Ash had thought but hadn't been willing to say. One full of worry and torment given the fact that it doesn't just concern Ash, Rosa, Leila and Hunter. It doesn't just concern the four of them because they were players in a game that extended beyond them. Started before them. Because if Ash's words were right then not only were they in trouble but also any child who was born from those of us who had stood together would be in danger. Any child from any of us who stood together not only when we took down Laurel the first time but also when we faced off against Amber and the others, leaving them running with their tails between their legs and a burning desire for retribution that they'd had before when they'd tried to get the four to kill one another. One that no doubt was just getting stronger the longer they remained out of sight but never, ever out of mind.
"I hate this," Rosa repeats the words the conversation had opened with and when I look over at the four of them they all seem to be reeling from Ash's discovery - mine as well - "I hate this Eri because we don't know when they're coming. When it's all over." Again the feeling of being out of time ticked closer and closer. Dawning on us like a low tide but one that draws stronger with every passing day. Tick tock, tick-tock. Nothing but the sounds of our fear and the endless ticking of a clock that seems to forever act as a reminder of not only what we've lost but what else we can and will lose when Amber no doubt returns and everything we build up is over.
When it's all over.