Zekaj opened the door to the lab and Hunter stepped in.
The room was the same as any other, besides the vials of strange liquids and crystals that glowed dimly in the light of the hellfire. Other artifacts that seemed to have been thousands of years old laid around on the various tables with papers filled with notes on them.
One stuck out though, a metallic collar that had been destroyed. It had scratch marks all over it and if Hunter hadn't seen it before, he would have no idea what it was.
It was the collar that separated Zekaj and Him.
Suddenly, it was swallowed up by the void and no longer sitting on the table as the void dissipated.
"I forgot that it was here," Zekaj said. "Sorry for making you relive the memories..."
Zekaj squeezed Hunter closer but was pushed back as Hunter pressed his lips against him.
"It's all fine now," Hunter whispered to Zekaj, enjoying the feel of Zekaj's beard against his face.
Pulling Hunter closer, the two stood hugging each other before someone cleared their throat.
Volveth and Jaxon were standing at the door. It was still weird to see his son embrace another man. Not that Zekaj was a man, just that it was weird, he couldn't explain it. He just needed to get used to it.
The Minotaur just stood there smiling like usual, still hoping for the day he could embrace Jaxon like that. He had been sneakily touching the human a lot to try and get him used to it, and to satisfy his inner bull.
Though neither were the ones to clear their throat. At a table were Aegon, Caroline, and Zekai waiting for the two to stop making out in the middle of the room. Zekai had cleared his throat because frankly he just wanted to get out of there. And it was awkward to just have to sit and watch.
"Everyone take a seat!" Caroline gestured to the surrounding chairs.
Next to Caroline sat Aegon and Zekai. Then next to Zekai was Zekaj then Hunter, Jaxon, and finally Volveth.
Volveth was a bit squeamish for having to sit close to his king but Jaxon was close enough that his scent calmed him down. Luckily his emotions were too strong that his Minotaur form would rip out from inside him.
"So let's begin, Volveth, you're up first." Volveth took one black needle out from her container filled with one and brought out a small glass Petri dish-looking thing.
"Me?" The Minotaur's eyes went wide and suddenly out of his control, the minotaur inside him ripped out.
"Yep, just one small prick and your wound will heal with your demon strength," Caroline motioned for Volveth to extend his hand.
Volveth set his palm facing up. Minding the claws, Caroline gently pricked Volveth's ring finger and the black needle sucked up some of his silver blood.
The once black needle now had what looked like silver veins up it.
Volveth sucked on the finger as it healed and just watched Caroline with the needle as she carefully pressed it into the middle of the glass dish.
Slowly, the nail drained the silver blood and slowly filled it into the petri dish. One layer of silver blood was inside of it.
"Now give it a couple of seconds," Caroline said, as everyone watched the blood slowly begin to move around in the dish until it formed an almost web-like structure.
"This is a web of Volveth's blood. We can see how he's a common void demon, with little to no touch of the primal void in him. We can see the touch of the void in him moving along the web, this is his Minotaur form. When we get to Zekaj we will see how much the void corrupts him compared to Volveth. The more corruption the stronger the enraged form." Caroline explained. "For a commoner, Volveth has been corrupted a lot more but this is most likely due to the Minotaur spirit inside of him, given to him by the Primordial Void."
"Cool," Volveth said, picking it up and watching the black corruption move along his blood. "Can I keep this?"
"Sure Honey, after we're done. Now place it back down so we can move on."
Volveth excitedly pressed it down and whispered to Jaxon how cool this was.
"Zekaj, you're up." Caroline held the needle and Zekaj took it from his hand and quickly pricked it, letting it fill with the pale gold blood before handing it back.
Doing the same as before, Caroline and the table slowly watched the blood web form out, only this time it was pale gold like Zekaj's eyes and horns instead of silver.
As the web formed, it quickly became overtaken by void corruption flowing through the whole thing. Some pale gold still pushed through as the blood continued to move throughout the whole thing.
"This is the blood of a royal demon, comparing the two we can see how much the Primordial Void has corrupted Zekaj. If we were to look at Aegon's and Zekai's we would see exactly the same as it part of their DNA."
"So because the Primordial Void made void demons, he can corrupt any of you?" Hunter asked.
"He could, but he wouldn't go out of his way with commoners like you can see with royals," Caroline answered. "It makes them more powerful, more control over the void, and stronger enraged forms. I assume you haven't seen Zekaj's enraged form, Hunter?"
"I've seen it a little bit but, I don't think the whole thing."
"Zekaj will have to show you sometime, it's very impressive the size and strength they can have." Caroline smiled.
"How big?" Hunter whispered to Zekaj as Caroline started talking more to Volveth about the blood webs.
"Uh, the biggest I've gotten is probably the size of like 2-3 houses stacked on top of each other but, I haven't really tried to get bigger than that and it was probably like... fifty years ago?" Zekaj said.
"Old man," Hunter poked fun at Zekaj.
"Ok DILF lover," Zekaj winked at Hunter, knowing he'd get the hidden meaning.
Which Zekaj was right about as Hunter blushed profoundly and tried to hide it.
"Moving on, Jaxon your turn."
Reluctantly, Jaxon extended his hand and winced as the needle pricked him and was filled with red blood.
Before he could even react, Volveth grabbed his wrist and licked the wound away. Tapping his lips at the sweet taste of Jaxon's blood.
"You taste good," Volveth smiled.
"Get a room," Zekai said, laid back in his seat. Zekaj burst out laughing and Caroline told them all to be quiet.
The dish filled up with the red blood and quickly formed the normal red blood web of a human.
"I've never analyzed the blood of a human but I assume this is normal."
Jaxon picked it up and looked at the red blood-filled inside.
"I'd assume so, nothing out of the ordinary."
The 3 dishes were laid out together, only one was missing that being Hunter's. The room grew quiet as Caroline handed the needle to Zekaj who was already holding Hunter's hand, ready to prick it.
"Ready for some answers?" Zekaj asked, lowering the needle before it was right against Hunter's skin.
"It's all I want at the moment," Hunter chuckled.
"From the deep thoughts in your mind I can tell that's a lie," Zekaj smiled as the needle broke the skin and filled with the red blood.
Doing the same as Volveth, Zekaj healed the wound and handed the needle to Caroline.
Everyone in the room held in their breath as the petri dish filled with red blood and slowly the blood spread out into a web. Sitting up in their seats and leaning forward to peer into the dish, everyone watched on.
It was scary for Hunter, what if something was strange with him? Or what if nothing was? They'd be back at square one and have no more leads.
The blood sat in the dish as nothing happened, normal red blood sat in the web, just like Jaxon's.
"Well, that blows," Zekai sat back in his chair.
Until part of the blood darkened, not as much as Zekaj but a bit more than Volveth's. But that wasn't all, the red of the corrupted part of Hunter's blood slowly turned pale gold.
"Holy shit," Caroline said. "Excuse my language."
The Primordial Void had corrupted Hunter. And Hunter was part demon.
"How, this isn't. Hunter is my son!" Jaxon stood up. "He can't be a demon."
"What the fuck," Hunter sat wide-eyed looking at his blood.
But that wasn't all. Another part of it slowly became corrupted by a diamond color corruption, the same amount as the void. Though the blood remained red.
"I- What the fuck is happening," Jaxon sat back down.
"Mom, what is that?" Zekaj asked. "What's happening to Hunter's blood?"
"Olivia is Human too! Hunter can't be a demon, there had to have been cross-contamination."
"Jaxon, all of the other needles have been destroyed," Caroline said. "There was no cross-contamination."
"Whatever, do another prick him again. This isn't, Hunter can't be..."
Volveth consoled Jaxon as they pricked Hunter again and another blood web formed. Again the same thing happened.
Zekaj stared at Hunter who hadn't said anything for a while. The human was biting his nails and staring at the dishes laid out in front of him.
"Maybe we're missing something with Jaxon's blood," Caroline said holding the dish up and slowly cast a spell and ethereal blood web expanded throughout the whole room, and her and Aegon walked around trying to spot anything out of the ordinary.
"This is wild," Zekai smiled for the first time in a long time.
Hunter felt like his chest caved in and became hollow as the tears began to form as he felt more and more overwhelmed.
"Hey Hey, it's okay," Zekaj hugged the human(?) and let him press his face into his chest and let the tears fall on his skin. "Talk to me."
Choking back tears, Hunter cried "I just wanted answers, not more questions."
In the background, Zekaj could hear his parents confirm that Jaxon did have two human parents and one was definitely a mage, all but confirming that Olivia and Jaxon were his parents. How could this be possible? How could someone be seemingly 1/5th demon but still have human parents that showed no sign of being demons?
Zekai looked around before his eyes connected to his brother holding his crying mate in his arms. Jaxon put his hand on Hunter's back and Zekai just watched on as the Minotaur turned back to a demon and consoled Jaxon more.
Two demons and two humans. Two humans who have been involved in demonic activity.
He had just told Hunter the story of how they came to be, but was it possible that..."
"Dad, Mom, is it possible that another demon could corrupt a human into a demon?"
"Theoretically but it already takes a long time for a demon to corrupt another demon, who knows how long it would take for a human to be corrupted," Aegon answered.
"But what if the DNA to do the corrupting was already enough to start the process?" Zekai asked.
"What are you getting at?" Zekaj said, the Human(??) looking up from Zekaj's chest his eyes red and puffy.
"What if when Jaxon and Volveth were together, that all of the times Volveth possessed Jaxon, he was corrupting his DNA, the amount corrupted is so small we can't even see it." Zekai motioned to the blood web that was surrounding them. He waved his arms and the ethereal blood web returned to its dish. "Starting the process of turning Jaxon into a demon?"
"Oh," Caroline began to realize.
"Enough that when Hunter's spirit was being created, the correct DNA passed down was larger and was just enough to jumpstart the process in Hunter. That when..."
"Another demon came into his life..." Caroline cut Zekai off.
"It could restart the process making it enough to," Zekai expanded Hunter's blood web as it filled the room.
"Turn Hunter into a hybrid."
"Mostly Human, but partially demon. But why?" Caroline asked.
"I don't know but it has to do with all of that spirit world bullshit right?" Zekai said. "That blue shit has to be another primordial."
"The Primordial Spirit," Hunter wiped away the tears. "They choose who the next king and great wizard are, it makes sense that he had to do something with my spirit to give me these runes."
"But is all of this possible?" Jaxon asked.
"Theoretically? Most likely, but the chance of it happening?" Aegon said.
"A one in a billion chance," A familiar voice to Hunter and Jaxon said, yet shocked the others. No one else was in the room though. Not even the person whose voice they thought they had heard.
Aegon blasted the direction the voice came with the power of the void but the edge of a sword came from nowhere dispersing the blast into nothing.
Protecting their humans, Zekaj and Volveth stood in front of Hunter and Zekaj as the invisible forms of people began to fade away.
A demon, with blue skin and dark blue horns glowing just like the other demons, appeared from nowhere. At the same time, a blond sheathed a sword with the brightest blue eyes stood next to him.
"Hi, my name is Merlin. This is my mate King Arthur of Camelot," Emrys/Merlin smiled excitedly. "I'm so happy you guys finally figured it out."
A/N:
4 Chapters Remain...
Book 2 up now on Patreon.com/Mek_14 for 5 dollars a month! Check it out if you'd like :)
Big reveal, honestly was worried people would figure it out cause there is a lot of little hints spread throughout to what is up with Hunter, if you had managed to figure it out let me know! I'm always curious and love comments!
Merlin/Emrys and Arthur are here finally and we got a cover update! This is the final color change (though some spoilers are covered until next chapter ;) hhehe) but it will revert back to a set in stone (arthurian joke? hahaha) cover sometime after HTTAD is over :)
Why are Merlin and Arthur here?
What do they have in store for the Voidborne's and friends?
Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!
-MEK <3