by D. Levesque
Looking at Roger, who had not moved throughout all of this, I lift my hand and say, “Roger, dagger please.”
Suddenly a dagger is flying at me, but with my newer reflexes I catch it easily. At least I think it’s my reflexes that make it easier than the last time, or is Roger just getting better at throwing it at me? I am hoping for reflexes, personally. Once I have the dagger, I look over at Lily and she is now looking at the dagger in fear. She looks up at me and smiles sickly.
“You don’t need to try this Lily,” I tell her softly.
Shaking her head she says, “No, I need to. This is something that can save our races so much pain, and while I might not be the first,” and here she looks at Lina, Johanne and Sylvana, “I will be the first who is not mated to you to try this.” She takes a deep breath and walks forward slowly until she is about four feet away from me. Just as Lina did, she closes her eyes and continues forward, one hesitant step at a time.
Finally, when she is about a foot away from me, I say, “Lily, open your eyes.”
She opens her eyes in shock and with some fear. She looks down quickly at the dagger that I was holding against the side of my leg. I see her swallow hard, and she lifts her left hand towards the dagger.
“You are sure?” I ask her softly. She doesn’t answer, but only nods her head vigorously.
Lifting my hand, I take the dagger and flip it so that I am holding the blade, before passing it to her. She grabs the wooden handle shakily. Once she is holding it, she stares at it like it’s a viper about to bite. Slowly, her other hand reaches up to touch the blade. Once her fingers are just about to touch it, she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. Then her fingers touch the blade, and her eyes open in shock.
“It doesn’t hurt!” she says in disbelief and joy. Suddenly she brings the blade up and cuts her hand before I can stop her.
“Lily! What are you doing,” I scream in panic.
“We need to find out for sure!” she shouts. “I need to make sure that it’s not just touching it that works, but even getting cut by it,” she blurts. “It’s silver inside us that hurts us the most and stops us from healing. I need to test it out,” she says breathlessly.
Looking at her hand, Isee it slowly start to heal. I know that Elves can regenerate, just not as fast as Werewolves, or even Vampires, who regen the fastest of all three races. We all look on, and we watch as her cut finishes healing.
She sighs loudly and says, “Thank the Gods. It worked!”
“Brandon, put the dagger away,” my mother says crossly. Without thinking, I throw the dagger at Roger, who catches it. Once it’s away, my mother walks towards Lily and turns her around, and slaps her across the face, hard. I am about to interject but her next words catch me off guard.
“You shall never do that again daughter,” she chides, but I can see there are tears in her eyes.
“Wait, did you just say daughter?” I ask my mother in shock.
“Yes, hmm. About that,” my mother says, now the one acting awkward. “Brandon, meet your half-sister, Lily.”
I look at her, stunned. “Wait, I have a half-sister?” I say in astonishment. I look over at Lily, who still has a handprint on her face from my mother’s slap, but as I watch it starts to fade.
“Hi brother,” she says awkwardly, waving her hand at me like we just met.
“You knew?” I ask in disbelief.
“Well, yeah. I am much older than you,” she says with a laugh.
“Wait, did you cheat on Dad?” I turn to my mother in anger.
“What?” She looks at me, confused, but then her face clears. “Right. We raised you with the values they have on Earth, or really the values the humans have. Where we are from Brandon, it’s not unheard of to have multiple partners. I am married to your father, but I am, or was married to Lily’s father at the same time, until he passed away years ago. Your sister is roughly 300 years older than you.”
I look at Lily in surprise. She is my older sister? I have an older sister? When I was growing up, I always wished for a sibling. I didn’t care if it was a brother or a sister, I just wanted someone, but whenever I brought it up with my mother she always said she wasn’t ready for another child. I always envied my schoolmates and friends who had siblings. Well, except when they fought. But here I am now, at the age of 32, finding out I have an older sister. Who apparently is over the age of 300. Then it hits me. I turn to my mother, accusingly.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you? You didn’t tell me she was my sister because you knew I wouldn’t try it with her if she was?”
“Gods, you know Brandon, there are times I hated teaching you the human’s morals on Earth,” my mother says with a twist of her lip. “Yes, I kept it from you for that reason. Now, Lily. How do you feel? Do you feel the need to mate with your half brother?”
“Mother!” both Lily and I say in shock.
“Well, I will take that as a no,” she says, nodding her head. “Next, now that we know that, do you feel the urge to transform? Do you have stronger magic now? Can you feel a wellspring of power that wasn’t there before?” she asks Lily.
“Hmm,” Lily says, closing her eyes. She nods her head. “Yes, but it feels different somehow. I’m not sure how. I can feel it’s larger than what I had before. But I might need to figure out how to bring the were out in me if it’s there now,” she says.
Turning to me, my mother says, “Next test is with me.” I begin to shake my head, but her next words stop me. “Lina, I want you to bite me to test something out.”
“What?” Lina asks her in surprise.
“Since you have his blood in you at a much larger scale, I am hoping that you three girls will have the same ability as Brandon. But it needs to be tested,” she says clinically.
“You want me to bite you and connect you through a Thread of Faith to me?” Lina asks her slowly.
“Yes, is that a problem for you? I want the full amount, not just what Brandon gave Lily,” my mother tells her with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh fuck no, I don’t have hangs up about that like Brandon,” she says with a grin.
“Good, that is what I was hoping to hear,” my mother answers her, with the same intense grin.
“Wait, you want her to give you the ability to do magic on top of being safe from harm with silver?” I ask her in surprise.
“Brandon, for the coming fight we need as many powerful people as possible. Right now, the only thing I can do is transform into a Were. We need soldiers for this battle to come, and the best way to win is for us also to have the ability to do magic. Mind you, I have a feeling that because it’s not you biting me, I will not be as powerful as these girls are after what you did for them,” she says, waving to the girls in question. “But I need to be more powerful for the council back home.”
“Why do you need to be more powerful? I thought you were already powerful?” I say in surprise. I thought my mother was like some Queen or something, with the way folks act towards her.
“Brandon, my father, your grandfather, was King, but now we are ruled by a council as I am a female. I am only a member, and while I am strong, I am still a female. This would allow me to have a small edge on everyone and cement my power back home,” she says with a sigh.
“Wait, my grandfather was a King?” I tell her in shock. What the hell, just who is my mom?
7
“Brandon, you can ask Johanne for more information on it, but basically the Were society is based on strength. And it’s mostly males. I am a Werelioness, the last of my kind. My father, the King, because he was a Werelion, was powerful. I was his only child, but I am still a female, and trust me, Were society is very much a male-dominated society still,” she says, with anger in her voice.
“So, wait. Because you are a female, you weren’t made Queen?” I ask her, stunned.
“After your grandfather died, there was no male heir. As such, I had to battle for the right. But I wasn’t powerful enough to fight some of the m
ales, even though I am a Werelion. But if Lina is able to give me this power, I will be much more powerful than any male and I can fight for the right to be Queen, to help in the battle that is coming.”
“Fucking hell,” I say with passion. “So you are saying that the more powerful you are, the stronger your chances will be against these males,” I tell her in anger.
What she just said pisses me off. I always hated it when my male co-workers would get promotions over other amazing females in my workplace just because they were male, and the managers were all male. I hated how women were treated because they didn’t have a dick. They were treated as second-class citizens.
“So the more powerful you are, the more you can kick their asses,” I tell her, deciding on something.
“Yes, which is why I want Lina to hopefully give me the power to do so,” she says, nodding at me.
“Then fuck it, I am giving it to you,” I tell her heatedly. “You want to kick those fuckers' asses? You will have the power to do so.”
My mother looks at me in surprise.
“Yeah, I know. I am not thrilled with it, but you know what? No one treats my mother like that,” I tell her.
She looks at me and without saying a word, she slowly walks over and wraps her arms around me. “Your father would be very proud of you, Brandon. Are you sure? I will not make you do something that you feel uncomfortable with,” she says, peering into my face.
“Will you being more powerful allow you to take back the throne, or whatever you call it?” I ask her.
“Yes, but Brandon, with some maneuvering I can still do that with the power that Lina can give me,” she says quietly, putting a hand on my face.
“But, if you had the same power as the girls?” I ask her.
“Then there’s no question that I would be able to take back the throne that my father and our ancestors held for thousands of years,” she says passionately.
My decision made,and not wanting to back out, I quickly bite my mother’s neck and push a Thread of Faith through my canines. I let go and suddenly Lina and Sylvana are both holding my mother up, as it looks like she is about to collapse.
“I want to test how far I can be for this. I am going to, hmm, go into the cabin,” I say, pointing to the cabin which is roughly 100 feet from where we are.
“All right. We’ve got your mother, Brandon,” Lina says with a soft smile of reassurance.
I look at my mother, who has a glazed look in her eyes.“I am sorry mother, for what I soon will be putting you through,” I tell her, blushing. I head to the cabin and once inside, I sit down and compose myself. Shit, I might want my mother to have more power, but it doesn’t mean I want to see her go through what the girls did. That’s like hearing your parents have sex. No thanks.
I look inside myself and look for the Thread of Faith that is not as thick as the girls’, and somehow I can tell which one goes to who, almost on an unconscious level. I find the one that is thinner than the other three, and I know that one is going to my mother. So, as I had with the girls, I slowly push a pint of my blood through the link.
I can feel my mother's emotions, so I cut that off quickly and focus on pushing the blood through. Once it’s done, I sit there and wait,not even bothering to go out. After about ten minutes the door opens, and Lina comes in carrying my mother. She is in her half hybrid form since my mother is so tall, the diminutive Vampire wouldn’t have been able to carry her otherwise. Following behind her are Sylvana, Johanne, Lily, and Trent. Trent looks at me and blushes. Shit, sorry dude. I should have had you come with me.
“She needs to sleep it off as we did. I am going to put her in my bed for now, Brandon. Lily, you will need to be here when she wakes in case she needs heals or whatever,” Lina says.
“Sounds good,” Lily says, following Lina into her room with Trent in tow.
Sylvana comes to me and hugs me hard. “Probably a good thing that you left,” she whispers with a chuckle. “I think Trent might be scarred for life.”
“Yeah,” Johanne says with a quiet laugh, “he looked like a caged animal, not knowing if he should run away or stay. But Brandon, let’s hope this works for your mother. If she can have the same power as the girls and me? She will be a force to be reckoned with, and no one will push her around anymore,” she says heatedly.
“It was that bad for her there?” I ask her.
“Brandon, we all love your mother, even those of us here on Earth, but yes. They pushed her out of her throne because of men stronger than her, who aren’t as nice as my father if you ask me. My father might be strict and brutal in some ways, but he would never undermine someone who sits on a throne because she was female,” she says angrily.
“What do you mean?” I ask her.
“There are those who feel that since we are stronger than humans then we should control Earth. Not many, but some who feel they are powerful enough that they let it go to their heads.”
“Isn’t my father strong enough to fight for my mother?”
“Brandon, you need to understand that in Werefolk culture, lineage is everything. Your father, while powerful, doesn’t have that lineage. That is one of the other reasons she was pushed away from the throne. Also, your father is a gentle soul, and he hates fighting.”
“Yeah, that is my dad,” I tell Lina with a laugh. He would rather talk his way out of a fight, and he was good with his words. He used to get out of so many arguments with my mother just by talking.
Looking at the door to Lina’s room, I say, “Well, I guess we’ll let her sleep it off. We have a mission to get to anyhow, so hopefully she will be awake when we get back. Sylvana, why did you tell me not to say anything about casting without words earlier?”
“Because, that is something that will make you so powerful that I want it kept a secret. If the rest of us are able to do it,, we will need to keep it a secret as well. This is a weapon we need to keep close to our vests,” she says.
“And my mother, if she has the same power now as the three of you?” I ask her.
She hesitates but then nods. “She needs to be made aware of it as well, but needs to be told that it must be kept a secret. Honestly, if she can cast without words like you can, that will make her doubly powerful back in her realm.”
“True, it would. I mean, imagine being able to cast a spell on someone without them knowing. Or hell, without them knowing you can even cast magic?” I say out loud.
“All right, let’s keep this quiet as much as possible. When are you going to give this power to your sister, Lily?” Sylvana asks me.
I groan at the thought of having to do that to Lily, but then I remember that I already bit her. Looking at Sylvana, I say, “Hmm, go tell Trent that he might want to leave the room, and tell Lily that she might want to go lie down in your room, Sylvana.”
She looks at me oddly for a second and then gets a big grin on her face. “Yes! Be right back,” Sylvana says and rushes into the room.
Suddenly Trent comes out of the room quickly and looks at me, blushing, before saying, “I think I am going to go for some food.”
“Probably a good idea,” I tell him with a smile.
Lily comes into the room with a confused look on her face. She sees me and says, “Brandon, Sylvana says you wanted to try something but said I might want to lie down in her bed? And for some reason, she whispered something to Trent, and he ran off,” she says, pointing to the man in question just as he opens the door to the cabin and exits.
“Yeah, trust me. This is for your own safety, all right? So just go lie down in her bed. Take a nap. My mother is fine for now,” I tell her in a calming voice.
“I think I should be with Mother,” she begins, but I cut her off.
“Go lie down in Sylvana’s bed and try to take a nap,” I tell her, using the Voice.
“Yeah, I think I will go lie down and take a nap in Sylvana’s bed,” she says, doing exactly that and heading to Sylvana’s room.
“She is going to kill yo
u later for doing that,” Lina says with a chuckle.
“Let’s hope the gift she is about to get will make up for it,” I say with a nervous laugh. “Now, Sylvana, can you go close the door, please?” I ask her, going back to the table and sitting down.
Once the door is closed, I close my eyes and I do the same thing I did to my mother. I push a pint of my blood through the connection and block out the emotions coming from Lily. Once I am done, I get up shakily. “Done,” I say.
“You all right?” Johanne asks me nervously.
“Yeah, just pushed out two pints of blood too fast. I will grab food before we go. Meet you all at the Humvee?” Once I get affirmatives from the girls, I head out of the cabin towards the second cabin and the smell of food.
Leaning against the Humvee eating an apple, I wait for the girls. Miguel wasn’t there today, but his brother was. He still makes decent food. I was able to get a couple of grilled cheeses out of him and an apple. I also have a bag with snacks and some water bottles for everyone. I hear the girls talking just before I see them coming around the bushes. First are Lina and Sylvana, who are chatting, followed by Johanne, who is carrying a huge green duffle bag like it weighs nothing, even though I know better since I helped her pack it. The thing weighs over 200 pounds.
“Got them both settled?” I ask the girls.
“Yep, and let's just say your sister was alternating between being livid with you and grateful that you did that for her. That compulsion was the only thing keeping her down until sleep took her,” Sylvana says with a musical laugh.
Johanne goes to the Humvee's back and opens her up, throwing the bag into the back with a loud metallic sounding thud. She closes it up and walks over, joining us next to the truck. She looks at me and says, “Pass over the keys, we already talked about this. I am the driver,” she growls.
Sighing for dramatics, I pass them overs. “Just don’t kill anyone,” I tell her with a grin.
“Sure, sure,” she says, taking the keys quickly and walking around to the driver’s side. She kisses them as she walks, and I hear her whisper, “Finally, a real vehicle.”
