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Nella, Hope and I were currently downstairs in the library. Pulling out books that had dust as thick as a centimetre covered on the tops of the hardbacks. Personally it didn't really bother me but Hope kept wiping her hands onto her joggers and pulling funny faces when dust exploded into the air.
There was a lot of information on spells and possible ways to break them but I knew how strong my mother was, her magic must have mutated in some way and these books might not hold the truth.
If these books would help anyone it would be Nella, she understood the spells and the meanings behind them. I watch her from across the room as she rests a book onto her legs and props them up onto the table, her brows frowning into the pages.
"You found something?" I question as I shut the book that was currently between my fingers.
Nella hums for a brief moment and Hope turns to me. "What is it?" She questions.
"Your mother is a hybrid right?" She asks as she turns to me.
"Yeah she's a wolf and a witch." I nod as Nella's eyes flick over the words on the page.
"Did you ever know your grandparents?" She carries on.
I ponder for a moment as I think. "Yeah when I was little but they died before I got old enough to properly remember them."
"Were they powerful?" She questions as she cranks her neck towards me.
My shoulders shrug. "I dunno, I guess so considering my mothers strength."
"Why?" Hope asks as she pushes herself up from the chair and stands behind Nella.
"Well I found something about this 'superkind'," Nella explains as she points to the book, Hope follows her fingers. "A superior being, an evolved kind that can manipulate the werewolf and witch world."
My eyebrows narrow towards her. "How so?" I question.
"Your mother cursed you right? She made it so only she can break the curse..." Nella's wereful eyes find mine as she takes in a deep breath.
"Yeah, that's what she said." I nod towards her.
"Well it's saying that if you kill the curse maker, it'll kill the cursed as well." She breathes out before the room turns silent.
Hope's eyes flick between mine and the book, too in shock to speak. "Wait," she shakes her head as she holds up her hands. "So if we kill Pandora then it'll kill Cleo too?"
Nella's mouth swishes. "That's what it's saying," she rubs her eyes. "But can we trust a book, we don't know the conditions of the curse or the boundaries she set. It might not be true."
"I don't care," I sigh out before resting my elbows onto the chair and looking up at the ceiling.
"What the hell do you mean that you don't care?!" Nella snaps at me.
My neck removes itself from the back of the chair as I level my eyes with the both of them. "My mother has made it so that I can't even kill myself, if by killing her means that it kills me. Then I don't care, my work has been completed."
Hope's mouth hangs open. "You don't mean that Cleo, there has to be another way."
"Even if there is," I shrug again. "I want her gone, if that means me too then so be it."
"That's just stupid and selfish," Nella rasps out at me, her eyes narrowing in the process.
"You guys don't even fucking know me!" I snap as I push myself up from the chair.
Nella's jaw clicks. "We've been here trying to save your ass and now you want us to help you guide your way back to your mother just so you can get killed as well?!"
"Guys," Hope says as she tries to calm down the air.
"I never asked you to help me," I growl out at her.
"Without us you would have been torn piece by piece, tortured or worse. We did this because we wanted to help, to get your life back. For you and Hope." Her eyes narrow to me as she throws her arms over her chest.
"I don't think you understand that I cannot live like this Nella, with this pain and this coldness. It hurts, every fucking day and it is making me into a shitty ass person." I say as my fists tighten at my side.
"You are not a shitty person Cleo, you are better than what the curse is trying to make you. We've both seen a different side to you since the first time we came down to the cellar," she speaks strongly. "You are not that nasty, vicious person. That is the curse, you cannot believe that it is you."
For a moment her words leave me breathless, attacking something inside me that was forcing me not to feel any positive emotions.
"It is," I grumble out.
Nella sighs and drops her hands from her chest to her thighs, slapping them down onto her jeans. "I give up," she shakes her head in disbelief before turning around. "Let me know when she's done with being an ass." She mumbles to Hope.
My eyes burn into the back of her skull as she walks up the stairs, leaving Hope and I alone. Her timid eyes find mine as she clasps her hands together in front of her. "I think you need to think about this Cleo," she says gently. "If there is a way that we can do this without losing you, then we will be willing to try it. We don't want this to be all for nothing."
She smiles before taking one step backwards and following Nella up the stairs.
Her words sting me, 'we don't want this to be all for nothing'.
I groan and fall back into the chair, gripping onto a piece of my hair and twirling it between my fingers viciously. Looking around at the books scattered around that no one had bothered to place back onto the shelves.
My eyes float to the grand clock on the wall and realising that it was late and we had been reading for hours.
A book crashes to the floor behind me and I turn my head to the sound, listening to a pair of feet that scurry across the floor to pick it up.
"I know that's you Ripley," I call out before sighing back into the chair.
Eventually Ripley plucks himself from behind the bookshelf and slowly places the book back onto the shelf. "Sorry," he mumbles quietly.
"Have you been here the whole time?" I ask with a raised eyebrow.
He stares back at me with a blank expression for a few moments, unsure of what to say in case I rip him a new one. "Yeah, I've just been in my usual spot." He admits.
"It's okay," I shake my head towards him. "You'd make a good spy, minus the dropping objects part."
To my surprise Ripley drags his feet and sits down at the same table as me, placing a book down onto the wood. He picks at the edge of the cover and lowers his head to the book.
"Do you ever worry about not finding your mate?" Ripley's voice surprises me.
My lips purse and I shrug. "Maybe," I say. "I don't know."
"Do you think that you've already met them?"
His question sparks something inside me, remembering when Kassian and I pressed chests together and for a moment I felt everything.
Shaking these thoughts from my head, our wolves were built with adrenaline and pumping hormones. I couldn't trust anything that happened that afternoon, probably droozy from the fighting and the running.
And besides, there is no way in hell Kassian could be my mate. We would never work, his ego was big enough to suffocate someone and I'd end up killing him before anything even got anywhere.
"No," I say instantly.
"Really?" His dark eyebrow quirks towards me.
"Yeah," my voice comes out sharp.
"How do you know?"
"I just do."
Ripley's mouth slaps together at my tone and he flicks open the book, his eyes looking down to the words.
I sigh out, remembering why everyone cowers away from me and thinks I'm a bitch. Because I cannot seem to control the way I come across, even if I'm trying my hardest to be nice.
"Are there any books here on mates and that?" I ask him after a few moments.
His pale blue eyes slowly slip up to mine. "Yeah, loads." He nods towards me.
"Well can you find me one so I can at least have some night time reading?" I breathe out and watch as Ripley stares back at me.
"Okay," he says as he steps off the chair and walks around the table, straight up to a set of stairs and climbing up to the top step. Plucking a hardback book from the highest shelf and walking back down to the floor. "Here."
He drops the book down onto the table and I glance over the cover. "Thanks kid," I say quickly, the feeling of splinters covering my tongue at the thought of being kind.
I clench my eyes shut before I roll them at my own actions.
Before my body can express any more rude actions I excuse myself from the table and walk back up the stairs, shutting the library door behind me.
After a few moments I press my back to the door and let out a deep breath, clutching the book tightly to my chest.
My feet carry me to the end of the hall, watching as Nella walks back up the stairs with baby Arlo in arms and a fresh bottle of milk. Her eyes clock with mine and we both stop at the landing. She huffs out a breath before looking back down to Arlo.
"I just wish you were grateful," Nella whispers across to me.
My fingernails dig into the book and I clench my throat. "I.. am," I struggle out before taking a deep breath.
"Then at least act like it," she expresses quietly. "We don't want to go through all of this just to see you die at the end of it. There has to be another way, just please stop going all turbo on us and acting like you want a death wish."
Clenching my teeth down into my jaw as I look away for a brief moment. "Don't even try and lie to me, I know you want a normal life. To find your mate, live in happiness. Be free of your mother and this curse." She says sternly.
Arlo stirs in her arms but quickly settles again. "Don't just give your life up for the woman that destroyed you, help us to find some alternative. A way that we could find out what is really happening with the curse, what the foundations are. If we can break it another way without letting you die with her."
My teeth bite down on my bottom lip. "Fine," I say suddenly. "But let's work this out on our own. No one else needs to know before they think that this is some set up. I could almost imagine how Kassian would react, believing that I'm walking you guys straight into some death trap."
Nella's lips purse towards me and she nods. "Okay," she says. "As long as you give us time to figure something out."
"Okay," I respond.
"Good," she tells me. "Goodnight Cleo."
My eyes watch as she turns down the other end of the hall and takes the baby into their room. I huff out a breath and take slow steps back to my own, dropping the book down onto my dressing table and climbing into bed.
Switching on the bedside table and peeling open the first page of the book.
Guess I had to start somewhere with this mate shit.
. . .
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