Two Weeks Later
Kalliope's POV:
It's been weeks. Almost a month since Dana and I had eavesdropped on our parents talking about both the legacy we were a part of as well as the other things that entailed. But neither of us had confronted them yet. Not sure what would happen when or if we did. But Dana wanted to. She was all for exposing the lies but I held her back, trying to think with logic and not emotion. To make it a smart move and not a reckless one.
"I still think we should talk to them," Dana says, looking between me and Braeden where she was cuddled next to him. He frowns at her but I don't notice it, Kessal's hand through mine grounding me the way I'd seen my mom and dad do for one another. "I still think we should talk to them, Kalli." She tries to talk to me but my mind's elsewhere until Kessal taps my shoulder and I snuggle closer, leaning my head on his shoulder.
"You ok baby?" He sounds like he wants to ask me something else but I can see the concern in Kessal's amber eyes that makes me feel warm inside. "What's wrong babe, talk to me. Alex and I can't help if you and Lana don't talk to us." He sounds like he wants to say more on the subject but stops when I just sigh and remain silent.
"Sorry love," I replied, shuffling closer until Kessal's arms could go around me and I could rest my head on his shoulder where his head was on top of mine. "I'm sorry baby, I just don't know what to say. I want to trust them both so much. I want to trust my parents but I don't know what they were talking about that would make them so afraid. Besides the symbol that is." The words slip out of me without my consent and I see Kessal frown. The expression was mirrored by the rest of our gathered group of friends.
"Symbol?" He sounds confused and I wait to see if he'll tell me more but my mate just remains silent, his amber eyes lost in some memory of the past before he blinks and snaps out of it. "What symbol babe? Can you explain it?" He gives me a searching look that has me sighing and trying to figure out how to explain the symbol that had disturbed both me and Lana ever since we'd seen it. "Kal?"
"It looked like this," I mumbled, using the mate bond between us to show him the symbol my parents had found carved on the palace doors. Kessal continues to frown for a second before shock crosses his face and he shudders once. Something that doesn't escape my notice since both Dana and Braeden had done the same thing when Kessal had. "Are you ok?" My compassion flares up then and I see him try to offer me a small smile but it's a wasted effort since although we hadn't completed it yet I could still feel the strong Mate Bond between us. Letting me know how deep my words - and the image in my head - had managed to hit home with him. The pain in those beautiful amber eyes was all too visible to me for it to be ignored. "I'm so sorry Kess, I didn't mean to," I mumble then, hearing him give a low laugh. "Seriously," I look up to see him offering me a wider smile but like the last one, it's tinged with sadness. "So sorry Kess, I never meant to hurt you," I mumble, looking away and resting my head more securely on his shoulder where his arms were still around me. Holding me.
"It's ok Kal, I know you didn't mean it. I just didn't think I'd see that sign again since it was on my old packhouse door before we were attacked." Kessal shudders again and across the circle, we'd made up. I see Braeden do the same where the two were linked through what happened before Dana and I met them. "I didn't think I'd see the sign for war again so soon. Not after Alex and I found you and Lana." He sighs and leaves a soft kiss on the top of my head but when I look up fractionally I see that he's still looking at me but with that same sadness from before. "Don't worry about it," He gives me a quick kiss and I sigh, trying to push down the guilty feeling.
"Did you see it too?" I hear Dana ask looking at her mate where he was trapped in a similar memory of what happened before we met the two. Looking around I can see that Chloe, Willow and Autumn all look nervous but not full of that same pain that the other two did. "I didn't even think about it but suddenly I saw it." She looks into the middle distance with a contemplative expression before her dark blue eyes fixate on mine across the circle, the gold dancing. "Do you reckon it's to do with what happened to our parents before? This legacy they say we have but won't say shit about?"
I shrug but don't choose to answer my cousin, my eyes are drawn to Zanna, the only one in our budding group without a partner. Not that the blonde girl seemed to mind since she was happy looking after her little sister Cana and working hard to study and get through the academy. But since she was a faery she was also an outsider thanks to her DNA. something that doesn't matter to those of us who gathered here but that marks her as a pariah here. An outcast.
I can see her looking between me and Dana with a confused frown, something that makes me feel conflicted between asking her whatever's on her mind and remaining silent to let her think through whatever it is, trusting that she'd tell us when she was ready. Because it's not just me and my cousin she's looking at. No, Zanna's focus seems to be on me, Kessal, Dana and Braeden as if she's trying to figure out something that links the four of us. Something deeper than what can be seen with the naked eye. Perhaps to our DNA. Though I wonder what she's meaning to say since it's making her frown periodically as if she's stuck unravelling something deeper and older than her. Something that makes me nervous and worried as to what she'll find and what it means.
You ok Kalli? Kessal's voice inside my head has me smiling since although we had yet to Mark each other or complete the Mating process it seems that whatever connects the two of us goes beyond that. As if we didn't need the outward marks to show the world we were each other's other half. Kalli? Are you sure you're ok? Kessal seems to be more and more worried the longer I remain sitting silently with my eyes fixed on Zanna's near me but I can't break the spell her eyes seemed to cast over me where she was watching those of us gathered there with a contemplative expression. As if she's pulling me there.
I'm ok, just wondering what's got Zanna so occupied over there, I reply to his question, seeing how he watches her the way I do with that frown. She seems so far away. What do you reckon she's thinking about that's got her so occupied that she's shut us out? I try to push down the lingering feeling of unease that's spreading through me but I can't manage it since the longer I try the harder it gets to push down until I can feel he's concerned. Something I was trying to avoid without a proper reason. I'm sure it's nothing babe, I'm probably just making an issue out of something that isn't a problem.
But what if it is? Is it to do with what you and Dana have been obsessing over for the last month or so? Kessal's tone is one of confusion but I can hear a reserved edge to it that has me feeling unsure around him for the first time since the day we met. What if what Zanna's thinking about is to do with what you and Dana said you'd heard your parents talking about the other day when you eavesdropped on their conversation and saw the symbol cut onto the door of the palace?
And if it isn't? I hate arguing with him since it's so hard but I can't manage to let go of what he's saying entirely in the hope that it goes away. Or that the problem solves itself. Because what we're dealing with feels like it's to do with something bigger than me or Dana. Then those, we're Bound to or are friends with. Bigger even than our parents who had been a part of whatever this fucked up legacy was long before we were born. If it isn't to do with it Kess, then what am I supposed to do? Ignore it? Hope it solves itself? Or do I have to fight? And if so against who? My parents? Someone I don't even know and have never seen? My aunt?
I don't know, Kessal sighs and when I tip my head up to look into his bewitching amber eyes I can see the resignation there. Because he doesn't have the answer either. Neither of us does. But your parents might. Yours and Dana's since they seem to know something that they're protecting the two of you from being involved in. He sounds like he's unsure of what to say next but doesn't say anything else. Choose, like me, to watch Zanna where she's still regarding the four of us with a puzzled expression. Me and Dana especially as if she knew something we didn't but wasn't sure if she should confirm what she's found.
Wonder what it is, Kalli? What did our friend find about me, you, Dana and Midnight? What happened to her to make her look like that? Lana sounds confused but my wolf's tone isn't anger or fear but rather confusion. The type that has me wondering what's going on with her since she won't tell me herself. Reckon Kessal and Alex are right in saying that it could be about our Luna Legacy that we share with Dana and the others? Lana's tone is still confused but I can also notice the analytical edge to it that makes me feel nervous. What had she found that made her so nervous?
Are you ok Lana? I asked my wolf who seemed to regard me with a dubious frown that has that same sour, curdling, feeling as before from when I saw the symbol etched and charred on the palace door return. Only this time stronger since if my wolf knew something then why didn't she say? Lana? What's wrong with you today? I asked my wolf who burrows her head under Alex's snout where, like Kessal and I, the two were close. Lana? I try to reach my wolf one last time but she remains silent. Annoying wolf, some help she is.
"What's wrong Zan?" I ask, using the nickname we'd created for our friend who was still watching the four of us with confused looks and gestures that only she seems to be able to understand. "Zanna?" I try again to see her green eyes flash to mine and she sighs, trying to stall whatever interrogation I'd been launching her way. "Zan, whatever it is can you please tell us before we do something stupid and end up figuring whatever it is out for ourselves." I sigh and try to appeal to our mutual friend but she just sighs.
"Zan?" Now Dana's taken up my role of interrogator I see that she's looking more in her element since her fighting spirit was showing through. Something she has in spades. "Zan, whatever you've found about it, can you please just tell us before something happens that we can't take back."
"Before something that can't be undone happens," Zanna replies in an oddly steady tone, even with the words resonating in the silence between our little gathered group where we were sitting under a grove of trees near the edge of the academy. All in our pairs and listening with attentive expressions. "I see what you mean Dana, Kalli, but I'm not refusing you answers out of pride or anger but simply because I don't understand what it means. For both of you. The four of you."
She looks between us with a contemplative expression but I can't work out what she's asking. What she's saying. Because all I can see in Zanna's eyes is confusion. Confusion and a little apprehension as if she's afraid of whatever she's found out. Because her eyes aren't only on me now. Nor Kessal, Braeden or Dana. She's looking at us all now. Me. Kessal. Dana. Braeden. Vina and Cassian. Keri and Blaze. Autumn and Ace. Willow and Lex. Chloe and Hale. Livy and Russel. Bella and Daven. All of us as if we're bound into something bigger than all of us. Like we're involved in something long-standing that we are trapped in but that didn't start with us.
Nor did it start with our parents. Or their parents. Whatever Zanna can see using her gift for looking through time from her heritage - whether it's the mermaid, faery or other part - the one I think is angel but I'm not sure - has her confused. Confused and a little spooked since I can see the blue and purplish-pink flecks in her eyes that she shares with her sister Cana. I try to figure out what my friend - sorry our friend - had found but she keeps frowning and twisting her thick, long, hair around her fingers before it coils slightly when she drops it. But she still looks around at us with a contemplative expression that has me feeling nervous again, even more so since Lana's conspicuously absent.
"I see something in the two of you. A change." Zanna's tone is thoughtful but I can sense fear underneath the analytical tone that's worrying me. "It's not like the moonstone power that I can see fragments of inside you - like the ones inside your parents - but something deeper. Something your parents didn't know about."
"Regarding questions about what exactly? Our questions of ancestry or heritage?" Dana's tone is sharp but I can tell she's not the only one. Livy's now looking around with a dark expression. One that seems the rest of our little group mirror given how they all pulled their pairs closer and tried to figure out how to make it right.
Russel seems to notice her frown and tries to make her feel better but Livy's anger is racing red hot and it makes me feel nervous since she's just like her mother - Eris - when she loses control. That and that she's set to be the next leader of both the Ebony Hex and partial leader of the Phoenix coven as I would be when my mom and hers step down. When all our parents step down and force us to take up roles in something bigger than all of us. Some game that's so large we can't see the true extent of the ripples that a single action can cause.
"Your DNA is and isn't like that of your parents." Zanna's reply is brief but her eyes seem to show another story. Like she's torn between saying more and letting us figure it out alone. Assuming we had the luxury that is the amount of time we'd need to do that. And not that we're running out of it. A feeling that both Dana and I have whispered to each other of having on too many times to count over the last few weeks. "You both contain the DNA of your parents as is expected but also I sense something different in the two of you. Extra DNA that isn't present strongly in your parents but must have been passed down from an ancestor."
I look at her with a confused expression that I know the others have to be mirroring since we're looking for answers but all roads keep leading back to the people we were avoiding. Our parents. All because they kept secrets from us our whole lives, and all in the name of protecting us. Even if we're not sure what from or why. Or maybe it's not a what but a who? My subconscious chips in, wondering if my psychotic aunt on my mom's side had anything to do with this. Either that or the figures we saw before but that your parents wouldn't talk about.
Glaring into the middle distance Kessal sighs and pulls me even closer so I can rest my head back on his shoulder, feeling his hands playing in my hair the way that's comforting and helps to balance whatever's come loose inside me and Dana since that first day when we nearly allowed the Jardis twins to make us lose control, a part of me still unable to shake the belief that's exactly what they wanted from us. To see us lose control. To see us lose it and deal with whatever happens next. Something that a part of me hidden inside warns me not to go near. Not to trip it, even as a joke.
Are you ok Kals? Kessal's tone is worried but I can sense the other emotions behind it. The affection under the fear. Under the pain of the memories, I know still eats at him, even if he won't tell me. Kalli? Are you ok? You're worrying me with the silence up here. He taps the side of my head and I twist mine until his hand rests on my cheek, the sparks that alerted us to our connection jump to life and cause me to give a low sigh, not speaking but also not ignoring his question by showing him what was going on inside my head. The confusion that had been stacking up in my mind since before he'd arrived but now seemed to be almost eating me alive. Kessal sighs and holds me closer until my head tips under his and his scent wraps around me in a comforting embrace. It will get better. It has to, they won't keep it from you forever Kals, just give them time. They'll explain when they're ready and when they think you are.
If you say so, I grumble, hearing the logic in Kessal's words but being unable to see it. At least for now. Instead, I just try to remain grounded and in control, drawing on how he made me feel, and address our friend who was still looking around our small group with a contemplative frown on her face that has me feeling nervous all over again. Something that's not helped with Lana's continual silence in my head since it was uncharacteristic of my wolf to be this silent both around our mate and also for an extended length of time.
Kessal sighs then but I know it's not out of anger or any other negative emotion other than worry since he can see what's bothering me since I won't say it out loud. Just as I can tell Dana won't vocalise what's bothering her, even though she knows Braeden can tell something's wrong with her. Sighing again I looked to Zanna in the hopes that she would explain what had been puzzling her, making her wonder what was different yet also unusual about me and Dana. "Zan? Can you tell us what's wrong? Or explain what you were saying before." Livy's voice snaps my concentration and I see when Zanna notices since she sighs and lets go of the hair she'd been twisting around her hands and gives me a dubious look as if to ask do you want to know? Are you sure? From the imploring look lodged in her eyes, I can tell she's hoping that me and Dana will say we don't want to know but both of us remain looking at her with an impassive expression until she cracks.
"I saw your DNA matched that of your parents - making you a hybris Kalli and Dana you a hybrid of wolf, vampire and angel - but in both of you I also sense a new type of DNA. A new strain if you will - that was always there but that seemed to be hidden from you your whole lives. Until now."
"Like the moonstone power that tried to tear them apart from the inside the day we met you," Russel comments, speaking for the first time when Livy had gone silent and was looking between the two of us and Zanna with a confused frown on her face that only deepens the longer she keeps looking. "You see it too don't you? The change in the two of them and the ones they're linked to?"
"Linked to?" Braeden sounds confused and a look up confirms that Kessal's giving her the same blank look of utter amazement. "Zan how does what you found out about Dana and Kalli link to me and Kessal? I don't understand?" He pauses with a thoughtful tone and then looks at her with a different expression in his silver eyes, eyes he shared with his sister who was sitting with Hale, her eyes closed off in thought as she tried to figure out what has her brother and my mate so spooked. "Zan? Care to explain?"
Now Zanna looks distressed and I get the sense that she's not hiding something from us out of maliciousness but rather because she doesn't know what to say. Not because, unlike my aunt and the people I'd seen the day Dana and I blacked out, she was a naturally duplicitous person but because she was at a loss as to what to say. Sighing I see that the others in our group all look similarly concerned. Something that ties in with what she'd said before about it being bigger than the two of us - meaning me and Dana - or even the four of us if the boys were to be included as well. That it was something that encompassed our whole group and made us special, marking us somehow. For something we didn't know we were a part of but are irrevocably bound into like our parents seem to be.....
That thought process stops me cold then, causing me to find Dana where she's sat across the circle from me. Was it true? Was the reason we were feeling so trapped, so out of our depths linked to our parents? To our parents and the game, they seemed to be stuck playing long before Dana and I came into the picture? One they may be afraid we'd been pulled into if their crazy behaviour was to be given a label. An excuse if you will. Reckon it's true? That this could be why we're feeling like this? I ask her, not missing how my cousin's eyes seem to spark with life when I do so. Nor how they darken with anger before the touch of her mate brings her back from the edge, and just in time too since I'd seen a flash of moonstone blue and shivered. Glad that she'd been pulled back from the edge before something that can't be undone happened and then all bets would be off. Because her temper was both unstable and volatile. Something that made a lethal combination.
Hoping to stall that from happening I appeal once again to our mutual friend, seeing how her green eyes light up with her power. "Zan please," I tried pleading with her next when I saw that her resolve had cracked ever so slightly under the pressure of our continual asking. "Please, whatever it is you have to say, please just say it. We can't have secrets. Not if we're going to stay alive." Because we could sugar coat it all we wanted but that was what we were doing. What we were involved in. It was a fight. A fight to the death elaborately and deceptively staged to look like nothing more than a game. An extended game of chess if you will, but without the rules. The safeguards.
Zanna sighs, defeated, and explains. "In you Kalli I see strains of both faery and mermaid DNA that I know neither of your parents has, despite your mother being a hybris. Though I have yet to find outward signs since I've never seen you in water to see if you grow a tail as mermaids do. Nor have I seen any trademark faery signs but the DNA is still there and as strong as the rest of your hybris DNA. Making you stronger and rarer than even your mother who was believed to be the rarest creature alive." She looks at Kessal and frons. "And in you, I see something that makes you other than a wolf yet I can't tell what since it's always been there but you can't see it and I can't tell what it is."
Reeling I lean back and see that both me and Kessal are wearing frowns but it's Dana that speaks next. "And me? Me and Braeden? What did you see?"
"I saw you have the same strains of mermaid and faery DNA that Kalli does Dana but to a lesser extent. Making them weaker. And for Braeden, it's like I saw with Kessal. He is something else yet I know not what and that scares me. Whatever it is, it's put you all in danger. And more danger than I fear you can handle." She whispers, her words followed by silence. Deafening silence seems to fill the space and makes it hard to breathe as we try to figure out what to say both in light of what Zanna had revealed and how to reconcile it with what we thought we knew. If that was even possible.