The Rýkr Duet

by M. E. Clayton

  “Amen,” Easton agreed.

  “It’s not for us to question your father-”

  “He’s not infallible, Severus,” I remarked, cutting him off. “Just because he’s a king doesn’t mean shit. I’ve been…unbalanced for eighteen fucking years and I can’t say I appreciate it.”

  Easton let out a low whistle. “What happened to not getting upset over things you can’t control?”

  I shot my brother a look. “I’m not upset,” I denied.

  Easton smirked. “Sure, you’re not.”

  “All I’m saying is that what’s done is done,” Severus said. “And since your gifts are rendered useless in this particular situation and kidnapping is a felonious crime, you might want to take care with this.”

  “We’re not kidnapping any-”

  Easton harrumphed. “Speak for yourself,” he interrupted. “Like I said, I’m not going home empty-handed.”

  I looked at my brother, and while my next words might sound judgmental, they weren’t. “Are you even sure your bond is still intact, Easton?” I shrugged. “Because empty-handed isn’t something that you’ve ever been.”

  “Fuck you, Griffin,” he fired back.

  “Now, boys-”

  “All I’m saying is that maybe you should listen to Severus,” I replied, unfazed by his bark. “Guns blazing might not be the best approach.”

  Easton stood up. “Well, I guess we’ll see tomorrow, won’t we?” Easton turned and walked out of the living room, leaving me and Severus staring at his back.

  “I can’t believe how angry he still is,” Severus remarked after a while.

  I turned to look at him. “Do you blame him? What Dad did to us was fucked-up, Severus.”

  Severus let out a deep breath. “But it worked, didn’t it?” he asked, defending my father. “Your bonds still exist. Your father’s experiment proved that the bonds were destined and are unbreakable.”

  “My bond still exists, but what about hers?”

  When we’d been told about Avalon and Neve, we’d been told that their mother had run off with them, giving them away to save them from their fate. Apparently, her husband hadn’t been a good man, and she hadn’t wanted that for her children. She had wanted her daughters to have options, so she had given her children to William and Betty Lively to hide and raise.

  Dad had always known where they were, but he had wanted to test the bonds of his people, and he had kept us separated from the girls in some fucked-up nature versus nurture experiment. And while it hadn’t affected our sense of connection to the girls, we had no idea how they’d been affected.

  “It’ll all work out,” Severus said unconvincingly. “You’ll see.”

  Yeah, right.

  Chapter 6

  Avalon~

  As much as I hated to admit it, the blood rushing throughout my body was probably a good indication that Neve might have been right.

  Something was wrong.

  “You okay?”

  Because Neve had wanted to get to school early this morning, I had texted Bonnie last night and had asked her if she could pick me up for school. We only had one car and Neve usually had it because of all her extracurricular activities, so I usually hitched a ride with Bonnie or Gale.

  I glance over as she made her way around the front of her used Toyota to stand next to me. “I’m fine,” I lied. “Just…senior year. Eek.”

  Bonnie laughed. At only five-foot-one, Bonnie Chen she was everything you’d imagine a delicate Asian beauty to be with her straight black hair, rich almond eyes, and the face of a porcelain doll. And her blue thick-framed glasses just made you want to hug the shit out of her.

  “Yeah, there’s definitely some excitement in the air,” she agreed.

  There was something in the air, alright, only I wasn’t sure if it was excitement. At least, not for me. This was something more and I needed to find my sister soon. While it was expected for Neve to be with the cheerleaders, welcoming everyone back for another year of school spirit, I was beginning to think we might need to stay close to each other. At least, until our birthday.

  “Oh, there’s Gale,” Bonnie announced.

  I turned and Gale was pulling up into a vacant parking space a couple of slots over from where Bonnie had parked. Gale usually parked his motorcycle with the other bikes, but he must have seen us waiting on him and had parked closer.

  At six-foot-even, Gale Broussard was what you’d call perfect. Blonde hair, blue eyes, muscular, and intelligent, Gale was just absolutely perfect. If he weren’t such a book nerd, he could easily be one of the most popular kids in school. However, he’d rather hang out in science class than the football field, so that dimmed his chances at popularity, not that he cared.

  We had become a unit when we’d been paired up for a history assignment, and we had meshed so well together that we had become instant friends. I also thought Bonnie had a little crush on him, but because we were all such good friends, I was pretty sure she was keeping it to herself because she didn’t want to rock the boat. Personally, I felt like they’d make the cutest couple ever.

  We watched Gale get off his bike, pull off his helmet, then walk towards us. Bonnie let out a quiet sigh and I tried not to snicker, but it was hard.

  He walked up, and knowing I didn’t like to be touched, he threw his arm around Bonnie’s shoulders only. “You ladies ready to make senior year our bitch?”

  “Uhm, I’m pretty sure only cool kids have that superpower,” Bonnie chuckled.

  “We’re cool where it counts,” he replied smoothly.

  My brows shot up. “Oh, yeah? And where’s that?”

  “Our minds.”

  I laughed. “You’re a dork.”

  Gale grinned, showing off perfectly straight teeth. “But I’m your favorite dork and knowing that is what gets me through life, sweet pea.” I rolled my eyes and headed towards the school’s front doors.

  Clearwater High was an indoor high school, and everyone had to enter through one of the six doors that led into the building. And since Seaport was such a small town, we only need the one high school to get us through. Sure, there was a private high school on the other side of town but that was relatively small since a lot of people in Seaport couldn’t afford to send their kids there.

  “So are we still doing the threesome for your birthday or are we making it a foursome,” Gale asked with his arm still around Bonnie’s shoulders.

  Making our way through the second set of doors, I replied, “Still a threesome. I’m pretty sure Neve is hoping for something more exciting for her eighteenth birthday than hanging around us.”

  “Hey, we’re exciting,” Bonnie insisted as we made our way down the hallway, random hellos given out to those who said hi to us.

  “I agree,” Gale remarked casually. “We’re super exciting.”

  “Yeah, we’re all the rage,” I joked.

  “You’re offending me.”

  I snorted. “Nothing offends you, Gale.”

  “You don’t know me,” he lied.

  “Oh, great,” I said, ignoring his ridiculousness. “Your locker.”

  Last week was senior orientation week, so we already knew where our lockers were, and our books had already been distributed. Gale’s locker was near the math classes, while Bonnie’s was located near the science classes, and mine was located all the way towards the back of the school, near the gyms. The only good thing about it was that Neve’s locker was near mine. Only three lockers down, actually.

  “You would be lost without me,” Gale said. “Admit it.”

  I turned and smiled at him. “I’d be totally lost without you, Gale Broussard.” I fluttered my lashes for good measure.

  “You’re ruining everything that is good between us,” he remarked haughtily, then turned and wrapped Bonnie up in his arms. “Luckily, all I need is Bonnie.”

  Bonnie laughed. “I’m sure that’s exactly what it is.”

  I watched Gale hold her just a little bit tighter and
just a little bit longer, and it had me wondering. If I wanted to be an asshole, I’d have Neve peek inside his mind, but I’d never violate Gale like that. I’d never violate anyone like that. Curiosity wasn’t enough to make me betray one of my two closest friends.

  We left Gale at his locker and made our way to Bonnie’s. Once I’d dropped Bonnie off at her locker, I made my way to the back of the school and hoped it wasn’t going to be a pain in the ass being so close to the gyms. I had nothing against jocks, but they could be just…too much sometimes.

  I had just opened my locker to pull out my American History book when I felt my sister practically crash into me. I shut my locker door, and when I looked over at her, she looked worried.

  “I know, I know,” I muttered.

  “We need to talk to Mom and Dad,” she insisted in a whisper. “This isn’t…this isn’t like all the other stuff.”

  I hugged my book to my chest. “No. No, it’s not,” I agreed.

  “I feel…cornered,” Neve said.

  “Me, too,” I admitted, thinking her description apt.

  “Then let’s go home.”

  My head jerked in surprise. “You want to ditch the first day of school?”

  “No,” she replied, shaking her head. “We’ll go to the nurse and play like we have the flu. Since we’re sisters and live together, it’s not going to sound too far-fetched that we’d both be sick with the flu.”

  “If this has anything to do with our birthday, we can’t skip the first two weeks of school, Neve,” I pointed out as the first warning bell for class rang overhead.

  “I know,” she rushed out. “But as long as Mom and Dad can reassure us that we’re not going to die a horrible death on our birthday, then I’ll be able to freakin’ relax a little.”

  “I’m pretty sure if we were going to die a horrible death Mom and Dad would have told us,” I replied dryly.

  “Maybe not,” Neve argued. “Maybe they didn’t want to burden us with that knowledge.”

  Okay.

  She had a point.

  “And you think they’d tell us now?”

  Neve shrugged. “Going crazy for two weeks isn’t the same as going crazy for eighteen years.”

  I was just about to take a deep breath and do some mental reevaluating just to make sure we weren’t overreacting when I was suddenly hit with a sensation that almost knocked me on my ass.

  “Oh, God…” I breathed as my body trembled.

  Neve automatically reached for me when she saw me wavering. “Av, are you okay?” Her words were laced with a little bit of panic. “What happened.?”

  I waited until I was steady on my feet before I asked, “You didn’t feel that?”

  Neve shook her head. “No. Feel what?”

  I didn’t know how to explain it, exactly. It felt as if all these missing parts started working together inside my chest all of a sudden. “I…I think we need to go.”

  “Amen,” she muttered, and after sticking my book back in my locker and getting my stuff, we headed towards the nurse’s office where one look at my pale face had her sending us both home.

  So much for making senior year my bitch.

  Chapter 7

  Griffin~

  She was gone.

  The energy around me was different and it was because she was no longer so nearby. The compression in my chest was back, only this time, feeling a bit stronger than before. This time, I felt constricted rather than uncomfortable.

  When our parents had transferred us to Clearwater, it had been bullshit. Both Easton and I had already graduated last year from our high school back in Rýkr, so because we didn’t need the education or the credits, we’d been able to structure our schedules to have a lot of the same classes as the girls. There were only a couple that we didn’t have together. The plan was to repeat our senior year because the girls still needed to graduate, but I had a feeling my brother would prefer them to finish school in Rýkr.

  I sat in my seat in American History and listened to the teacher drone on about how exciting this year was going to be. Ignoring the curious stares and whispers of a few of the girls in my glass, I was pretending to be enthralled when my phone vibrated in my pocket.

  Now, normally, I wasn’t a disrespectful asshole, but I needed to answer it in case it was Easton. Glancing around, a lot of kids had their phones out, and so I assumed there was leeway today with it being the first day of school. So, armed with that assumption, I pulled my phone out.

  Easton: Have u seen them?

  That gave me pause.

  Like me, Easton should be able to feel that they were gone. When we had gotten to school this morning, that undercurrent of intensity had shot up a notch or two, and we’d both known it was because we were near the girls. We’d known it and he should feel that same-

  Except, he hasn’t actually seen them.

  After that fateful day when we were fourteen and had been told about Avalon and Neve, we’d been told the most ridiculous story. Our father had sat us down and had told us how we’d been bonded since we’d been in the womb. Now, we’d known about the bonds because we’d been educated about our people along with everything else that we’d been taught in school, but since we hadn’t known that we were connected to anyone yet, we had both assumed we had been the exception.

  We hadn’t.

  Our father had explained how his best friend’s wife had absconded with her twin girls when they’d only been a couple of months old because there’d been allegations of abuse and infidelity. Though rare, apparently, they hadn’t been bonded, so it had been nothing to be unfaithful. Father had explained how not all of us were destined to be bonded to someone else. A lot of us just were.

  Anyway, stuck in a marriage of misery, Lesedi Stallard had handed her children off to the Livelys and had suffered for her bravery. Eamon Stallard had been incensed at her audacity, and he had poisoned her to death. The only reason he hadn’t gone to prison was because Rýkr didn’t have a police force, per se. To the outside world, it had a police department along with a Mayor (our father) and all that other governing bullshit that a town needed, but that’s not how the town was run. Dad was king of our people and Mom was queen, and everyone fell in line or else.

  The story goes that Eamon had every intention of going and getting his daughters back, but then our father had gotten it into his egotistical head that it had been the perfect opportunity to test our committed bonds to one another. He had wanted to see if our bonds would be just as powerful and strong without them being nurtured. He had wanted to see if the bonds were real.

  And they were.

  I had never set eyes on Avalon Stallard Lively before today, but I’ve felt her all my life. The bond I had with her had been felt every minute of every day of my eighteen years on this planet. And while we’d been shown pictures of the girls, I hadn’t known I was connected specifically to Avalon until today. They’d been under surveillance their entire lives, so Father had plenty of pictures of them, and he’d shown them to us when he had dropped his little experimental bomb on us.

  I hadn’t known that I was connected to Avalon until I had seen the girls this morning by the lockers and Avalon had been the one who had reacted physically to me being so nearby. Neve hadn’t shown any reaction to my proximity, so what I was feeling centered around Avalon.

  The girl with the white hair.

  As I looked at my phone, I wondered if that was why I could feel they weren’t here anymore. Or, rather, why she wasn’t here anymore, and Easton couldn’t.

  Me: I did

  Easton: And?

  Me: Avalon’s mine

  I knew Easton wouldn’t care one way or the other. When we’d been shown their pictures, neither of us had gotten a sense of which one we’d been destined for, but there’d been no denying that both girls were extraordinarily beautiful.

  Avalon had white hair that ran down to the middle of her back in a silky curtain of pureness. Her brows matched, and they sat over a pair of brig
ht, blue eyes. Though to be fair, most of Rýkr descendants possessed those same blue eyes. Those of us who had the most powerful gifts had the same eye color and they turned white whenever we were using those gifts. That telltale sign went a long way to keeping us from using our gifts in public.

  There was also just the girl’s face. Long lashes, a pert nose, rosy cheeks, and full lips, Avalon Stallard was a truly beautiful girl and that was not even counting her hot, little body. With perfect handful-sized tits, a trimmed waist, wide hips, and round ass, I couldn’t wait to unleash five years of pent-up puberty on her delectable frame.

  And where Avalon was all light and pureness, her sister was dark and sinful. Unlike me and Easton who were fraternal twins, Avalon and Neve were true twins, except their coloring was the complete opposite. Neve had the same blue eyes we all had, but she had ink-black hair and matching brows. It was quite a thing to see them together.

  Easton: Then I guess Neve is mine

  Me: They left

  Easton: What?

  Me: They went home sick. You can’t feel it?

  Easton: No

  Me: We’ll talk more at break

  Easton: Okay

  I put my phone away and was really hoping that Easton’s lack of connection was due to having not been near the girls yet. I wanted to believe that actually seeing Avalon for the first time had strengthened our connection more. I wanted to believe that we’d been close enough that our souls had recognized each other. Kind of like magnets finally being close enough to act on their magnetic pull.

  As pissed off as I had been at our parents for the stunt they had pulled, I had respected the traditions and myths of the Rýkr. Knowing the reason behind why I couldn’t stand for a girl to touch me, I hadn’t gambled with what it had all meant. I had honored the way things were, even if I’d been pissed as fuck about it. Easton on the other hand…

  He’d been pissed to the point of recklessness. He’s been pissed enough to spit in the face of our traditions, and he’d been determined to lash out at our father. And while I’ve never asked for details and I’ve never pressed him with disapproval, I knew Easton has sought out a few girls in our lifetime to help with his rebellious crusade and it had me wondering if he damaged his connection to Neve in doing so.