by Bailey, G.
Clearing my throat, I put my spoon down. Funny enough, the idea of spending a day alone with my crazy aunt isn’t appealing. Though the thought I will be spending more time with brainwashed Bethany and my uncles isn’t all that better. God, I’ve got to get my sister alone and figure out what happened to her. Our family was everything to Bethany once...and I hope it still is. “Where?”
“I believe it’s time you learn about your history and what it means to have an ancient familiar. God knows the rubbish your uncles are going to tell you, so you must see the truth for yourself,” she replies, standing up. I follow suit as she kisses Skye and Phoebe on top of their heads, telling them the nanny will be watching them today. She pauses at the other side of the table, inches from me, and runs her eyes over my ripped jeans, black silk tee shirt and a black cardigan that stops at my waist, done up in the middle. I can’t read her expression as she speaks. “Come.”
“Are you driving?” I ask with a tad bit of humour. I doubt very much she drives herself anywhere, and she turns to give me a disapproving frown as we head out the main doors to the courtyard, where a driver stands holding a door to a limo open for us. Courtney gets in first, and I follow in after her, sitting on the heated leather seat opposite Courtney. We are silent as the driver gets in the limo and we start driving off. I don’t make a move as I watch out the window while we climb up the mountain, following the winding roads. We pass a driveway entrance with a half-burnt sign that gets my attention.
The House of George.
That must be where Alex came from, and I make a mental note to sneak out soon to explore what is left of his home. I haven’t seen Alex since the party, and I miss his snarky comments, his training with Shadow and even the grumpy attitude to the life he has.
“Have you travelled out of here much?” I ask Courtney, stumbling for anything to ask her.
“The world is beautiful but tarnished by human touch. So no.” Her curt reply makes the limo seem that much smaller. Dammit.
“I’ve always wanted to travel...to see everything the world has left,” I tell her, and I don’t know why I keep talking. “I want to help people and be a good nurse. Maybe even a doctor if I can pass the exams.”
“You are a Violeta, and you will not work,” she sourly replies. I ignore her response and look out of the window as we get to the top of the mountain, where a large glass building sits in the middle of gardens and car parks. At the edges are rows of little shops, and people walk between them with their familiars. I spot three white tigers following a group of red-haired girls, and above them, two pigeons with purple feathers fly.
“Why is the city so poor and yet all up here it is rich?”
Courtney doesn’t answer me for a second, and when she does, I guess I already knew the answer she would give. One born of no respect for life. “The world needs the poor and downtrodden. If we elevated them into our lives, they could never handle the lives we have to live. The rich, as you put it, run on power, money and manipulation. The poor have lives and freedom, which they should be thankful for.”
“How can you possibly know what they might do if they had a chance at equality?” I ask her, and she pauses just before she gets out of the limo after the door is opened. Her dark crystal blue eyes, the only thing about her that reminds me we are related, stare at me.
“And your precious humans treat us equally?” she asks with a hollow laugh. “They lock us up, drag us away from our homes and banish us to corners of the same planet we all share. Do not judge us here when where you were brought up has forced us this way.” She gets out without another word, and I follow after her, blinking at the bright sunlight shining down on us for a second before the deep, thick clouds hide it once more. I sense Shadow near me just before he runs to my side, and I turn to him, pressing my hand into his thick fur for a second.
“We can face whatever secrets she is going to show us, right?” I whisper to Shadow as we watch Courtney walk down the stone path, her high heels clicking against the rough stone. Shadow, of course, doesn’t reply, but he nudges my side, encouraging me to walk, and that’s enough. My feet seem to drag across the stone as I follow my aunt, occasionally looking around at the people near us. Most are staring but in a casual way, and others are looking at the various plants out here in the gardens. The glass building looks new, and the electric doors slide open when Courtney gets near. I notice the closed sign on the wall when we step in, and three armed guards with three brown bears crouched down at their sides greet us.
“Miss Violeta, the museum is yours, and all doors are open for you and your niece,” the guard to the left comments in a bored voice. “Please call for us if there are any issues.”
“Thank you, and tell your mother I will see her for tea later this week,” Courtney sweet talks.
“Yes, Madam,” he replies and nods his head to his friends. They all walk out, the bears bowing to Shadow as they pass, and he sits as the doors slide shut behind them. Courtney nods her head to the left, and I look around the square-shaped room and the many things in glass boxes inside of it. We pass a tree in a glass box, and I pause to read the description which claims this tree was the first tree planted by the first familiars. Everything else gets more ridiculous from that point. We pass broken pots, rusty swords, a crown with no jewels in it and even a rug which apparently an ancient familiar once sat on.
“Everything we allow the public to see is pointless. The real treasures and truth lie underground,” Courtney explains as she leads me to an elevator and presses the button which shines blue. We wait in silence as the lift comes up, and Shadow is forced to wait up here as we step into the small space. I rub the mark on my hand as the doors slam shut and start heading down.
“What is the prophecy?”
“Who exactly have you been speaking to, dear niece?” she replies with a curt smile. “I do hope Alexander hasn’t been whispering secrets.”
“Will you excuse his debt if I side with you and join the House of Violeta?” I ask her, and she smiles at me.
A snake’s smile full of lies if I’ve ever seen one before.
“I will set Alexander, Mason and Liam free if you join my house, but first go to your uncles. They will make you hate them without me saying a word,” she counters. “I will even let you choose one of those boys to marry and have sweet children with. Your life will be lovely, filled with riches and respect.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Did I ever tell you that your mother was engaged to the second eldest son of the House of Dawn?” she asks me, and I shake my head, even though we are both aware she never told me. “It was a marriage set up by our parents. It was arranged, and your mother never, ever had feelings for Gerald. She only had eyes for your father, so it was decided that I would marry the second eldest son,” she carries on. “But I did not want marriage, and I never loved him either. He is a cold man, as you well know from one meeting.”
“Did he accept that?” I enquire.
“He was obsessed with your mother, and one day he snuck into the house after a party, drunk, and shot who he thought was his brother, with an arrow as he danced. It was my father, and he died, and my mother all but gave up on life until she passed away from sickness and grief not long after. Your uncle was locked up for ten years due to our laws and his family’s money, and I was allowed sweet revenge,” she tells me.
Shock freezes me as I realise the dream I had was about my grandparents and how my grandad died. How could I have seen that? “What did you do?” I ask, well aware the lift is taking ages.
“I killed their parents. Fair is fair,” she answers, and the lift finally stops. Turns out my aunt is a cold-blooded, crazy killer as much as my uncle clearly is.
“Why is Bethany on their side?” I ask we step out into the massive room, and my answer is right in front of me.
“Read the prophecy,” Courtney suggests. The long room has eight table-sized aged cloths hanging in glass in a line. The aged cloth has a scene painte
d onto each section, telling me a story. The first one on the left is five people in a river. Two women, three men, and each has a large animal behind them. Two wolves stand at the women’s sides, one light and one who looks like Shadow. Behind the men is a giant dragon lizard, a polar bear and a leopard. The second picture shows dozens, if not hundreds, of people cheering at the five crowned people and their animals nearby. This time the two dark-haired girls are smiling at each other. The next one is different, and I almost jolt.
The three men are dead on the floor, their familiars gone, and the woman with the black wolf stands covered in blood, and in the distance, the light wolf runs away with a girl on her back. The last painting shows one girl with an army around her as she sits on the back of her wolf, her head held high. Several of the other paintings are random, just paintings of the mountains and sunrises but the last one isn’t.
The last painting is simple: a black painting with a rising sun above mountains in the middle and many words underneath it that I can’t read.
“What does that say?” I shakily ask.
“When Dawn arrives, she will bring freedom. Beware her shadow of a heart, for in it lies death.”
“Bethany and Dawn are some kind of saviours, and I’m the bad guy?” I ask, shaking my head and stepping back. “No, that isn’t true.”
“It is the prophecy given to us before the last Dawn left this world and the familiars behind. It will happen, just as your lives were predicted. This was painted thousands of years ago,” she tells me with a frown. “And I want you in my house because I must be on the winning side of this war. You have four large ancient familiars on your side, and Bethany has nothing with the House of Dawn.”
“What war?” I whisper.
“You will see, and you will fight. You can leave if you wish, Anastasia,” she suggests, but I’m already in the elevator, and thankfully the doors slam shut before she can see the panic in my eyes. I hardly blink as the elevator goes up, and I feel like it gets harder to breathe by the second.
I need fresh air.
I rush out the doors the second they open, and I rush out of the building. I gasp in fresh air as the sunlight shines down on me. For some reason it makes me calm down a moment and remember that I’m safe, that nothing some stupid prophecy said is going to come true.
Then I remember the first dream I ever had where there was a white wolf, and I was riding Shadow. We were in the middle of a familiar war…and it could be true.
My dreams are true…somehow.
God, I need to talk to my guys about this. I blink as I straighten up, my mind made up, and I freeze all over again as I see my hooded stranger in a crowd of people in the distance. He stares at me for a long time as people move around him like he isn’t there. They don’t see him, that much is clear.
“Only you do.” I hear his voice in my head, and then three people step in front of him, and when they walk past, he is gone.
Chapter 13
Anastasia
When dreams sneak into reality…
“They won’t stop! It will be every single child of mine!” a woman shouts as I open my eyes, well aware I’m in a dream as I stare at my mother. Her blonde hair is curly as she faces away from me, and I inch forward, reaching a hand out just in case I can touch her.
“You are being ridiculous, sister,” Courtney replies just as I get closer to my mother and see Courtney right in front of her. Courtney looks different, so much more relaxed and younger. She actually smiles at my sister, and it’s not in a condescending way at all. It’s just a look of love. “They haven’t done anything to Bethany or you.”
“They did, and I’m not lying!” my mother’s hysterical plea makes me shiver. My mother storms out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her, and Aunt Courtney breaks into tears, repeating one sentence again and again.
“What have I done? What have I done?”
“What?” I shout in a daze as I sit right up in bed, and only silence greets me as I suck in air. Dammit. How am I seeing these things in my dreams that I know are real? I shake my head and swing my legs out the quilt that is all but stuck to me. I head straight to the bathroom, quickly using the shower and throwing on some skinny jeans and an oversized black hoodie. I brush my hair as I open my laptop, seeing it’s two in the morning and wondering if Raine might be awake for a call. I press the call button before I think about it a second longer, and I’m surprised when she answers a few rings later. Dressed in bright yellow pyjamas, her hair a fuzzy mess, and a big smile, Raine is who I needed to see right at this moment.
“You had sex!” Raine shouts instead of hello, and I shake my head. How the hell did she know? “Which one of the lucky guys was it?”
“Mason,” I answer, and she squeals, jumping in her spot on her bed.
“Damn, I bet he was good!” she replies with a dreamy sigh. Any other girl I might be jealous and condescending, and I know it, but not with Raine. Raine is loyal, and I completely trust her, which makes being away from her hard at the moment. If anything, I’m jealous that she gets to live back at our home while I’m stuck here. “Tell me everything!” For the next half an hour, I tell Raine everything that’s happened recently, from Mason to the dance with Alex and missing Liam. I tell her about the prophecy and my sister, and in the end, I feel tired again.
“Holy shit, Ana. You have had a rough time of it,” she says with a sympathetic smile. “And you could never be the bad guy in any story. You’re too good.”
“Thanks,” I whisper, not having a clue if she is right. “I’m going to my uncles’ in the morning and staying there for a week. Being here made me realise a week is a long time when you hate where you are.”
“Stay there and you will live forever then,” she jokes, but we are both too worried to really laugh and mess around. “It will be okay. If not, you have the sexy three to get your ass out of trouble.”
“How are your dad and boyfriends?” I ask, and she smiles.
“They asked me to marry them, and I’ve not decided on my answer yet, but guess what?” she pauses as that sinks in. Raine, married? “The bastards somehow got my father’s permission to marry me. His blessing actually.”
“Jesus, what drugs did they spike his tea with?”
“I asked the same thing, but apparently nothing,” she laughs but looks down at something I can’t see in the screen. “I do love them both, and I can’t imagine my life without them. I know my answer, and I know I want my best friend there as my maid of honour, so you need to escape.”
“I would never miss out on your wedding, and I would be honoured,” I tell her, and she grins around a yawn.
“I’m going to love you and leave, I’m afraid. I have to get some sleep, Ana,” she says.
“Same,” I lie, and she nods. We say our goodbyes before she goes, and I leave the bed, slipping on my shoes. I wander around the house aimlessly for a long time until I find myself at the door for the attic once again. I open the door and head up the small stairs to another door at the top. I have to turn the key in the lock to open this one, and then I push the door open. The usual smell of cobwebs and dust attacks me right away, just as beams of light push through the cracks in the roof. Oddly, it’s beautiful up here. I walk over to the tiny window at the back of the room and sit down, wrapping my arms around my legs as I watch the trees and the city in the distance. I feel Shadow in the forest, and I know he is as worried as I am.
In a few hours, everything is going to change.
* * *
A white limo is parked out the front of the house as I step out with my backpack in my one hand and everything I want to keep inside. My life fits into a backpack right now, and that’s a scary thought.
Almost as scary as the dagger hidden well in my bag.
“I will see you in a week,” Courtney comments, her hands resting on Phoebe’s shoulders, and the way they stand reminds me of Grandma Pops holding onto Phoebe when I got on the train to go to university.
That see
ms like years ago now, but in reality, it’s not been that long.
“Bye, sis! Come back!” Phoebe cheerily says, but I see the pain in her eyes. Bethany went and didn’t come back for her, and now she thinks I will do the same.
“I will see you soon,” I reply, making sure to lock my eyes with hers before I walk to the limo. The driver offers to take my bag, but I decline and get into the back seat. He shuts the door, and I look through the glass, staring at the old mansion. Skye waves from a high up window, and I wave back until I realise she can’t see me through the tinted glass.
But she waved anyway, just in case I saw her. Alex has the best sister. The limo doesn’t take more than a few minutes to arrive at the House of Dawn, and I guess I should have known they would be close together. The mansion here is very similar to Courtney’s home, the same light stone walls, glass extensions to the sides and large roofs. I’m willing to bet all of the houses up here look like this, look old and rich from just one glance.
One of my uncles waits at the entrance of the house, and I struggle to remember his name for a moment.
Stewart Dawn.
“Anastasia, welcome to our home. I’m afraid it’s simply me today, as my brothers are at work,” he says.
“And what exactly do rich men need to work for?” I sweetly ask, and he smiles at me.
“Our work is of no concern to you, young girl,” he replies and waves a hand into his home. “Now follow me, and I will give you a brief tour. I’m afraid the house is far too large for a long extended tour.”
I don’t reply to him, and he doesn’t wait for one as he turns around, placing his linked hands behind his back and walks into the entrance hall. Right in the centre of the room is an enormous white statue of a wolf, howling up, and spiral stairs wrap around the wolf, going to at least three floors that I can see. Light blasts down from the large glass windows at the back of the room, and two corridors lead off in different directions. Steward shows me the kitchen, living areas, game rooms, and the private meeting rooms before we get back to the staircase.