by Jana Leigh
Vincent was smiling as he saw her take off and run to him. He didn’t know how, and didn’t know why, but he did know this was his sister. As she drew near, he heard her sob loudly and when she flung herself into his arms and buried her head in the crook of his neck, it felt like he was finally coming home. Everything he had been searching for was there, right there. Belonging, acceptance, and as he looked over his sister’s head and saw Nian and Reese both standing there watching them intently, he frowned and then growled.
Tara’s head rose up and she looked at her brother. Tears pooled in her eyes, stopping her from fully seeing his face and she said, “Vincent?”
“Are you kidding me? Those two bastards are your mates, Tara?” Vincent growled as he stared both men down.
“How? Why? Um, I don’t know?” Tara said confused, she really had never thought about what she would say to a brother for the first time, as Trina, she hadn’t remembered having one at all. Who would, but still, somehow on the walk out here, it really seemed to go very differently in her head. Like, he would hug her and tell her how much he missed her or something along that line.
Vincent held her close and began to walk. Tara wrapped her arms around his neck tighter and looked over her shoulder at Nian and Reese as they crossed their arms and waited for them to arrive. She had enough time to look and Anthony was doing the same thing with Lexie, although she was riding piggyback.
“What, um, what are you doing?” Tara whispered into her brother’s ear.
“Hell no,” Vincent growled and stopped right in front of the two men and then gently put her down on the ground and pushed her behind him gently, not letting her go, one of his hands held onto her hand behind his back. “You? You two think you are my sister’s mates?”
Nian laughed and said, “Vin, we seriously haven’t seen her since she was like five, how in the hell were we supposed to know we were mates?”
Vincent growled. “I don’t know, you fuckers, but you should have, dammit. When I caught you with Trac…”
“Nope,” Reese said shaking his head. “We don’t say that name.”
“Why? ‘Cause she was bat shit crazy and made your lives hell when we were what? Ten?” Vincent snapped and shook his head. “Playing doctor in Aunt Cloe’s offices was so not…”
“Really? Are we really going to hash out everything we did when we were ten? Come on, we didn’t even know what the hell we were doing.” Nian laughed loudly.
“Oh really?” Vincent growled. “Because I also remember you and him used to throw mud at my sister.”
Tara’s mouth dropped open and she leaned around Vincent and glared. “That is rude!”
Nian grinned. “Come on, we were kids.”
They heard a roar and all of them stopped and turned to watch Anthony moving toward Simon and Phillip. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Phillip said, holding up his hands.
“MY BABY SISTER? YOU GOT MY BABY SISTER PREGNANT?” Anthony yelled and Lexie was bouncing around to the side of him.
“Wait!” she yelled.
Anthony paused and looked at her and said, “Lex, no, let me…” he started.
Lexie shook her head and said, “Wait, it’s not what you think, well it is what you think but it isn’t what you think. See it was like this. Calli, Cherri, I mean, Cassandra, Brinn, and I well, we worked for the Drekinn Agency. I was in IT; you know, technology ‘cause let’s face it, I am brilliant when it comes to computers. Remember when I hacked Dad’s phone and he was sending random messages to the Enforcers about underwear?” Lexie said and Anthony growled at her. “Fine, okay, on with it. So anyways, the Prentiss attacked the Drekinn Agency, and we became outlaws, which was pretty cool ‘cause I had a ‘Wanted’ poster with my pic on it. But we went to the Drekinn compound, you know the one you came to. Well see, Simon, he was undercover for the Drekinn, he was Mr. Twisted, which Cassandra gave him the nickname because all of the freaky shit we watched him do when he killed people and plus the sex. And oh my gods, you would not believe the stuff we witnessed on the cameras we installed.”
Anthony lurched forward toward Simon and Phillip stepped between them and said, “Lexie, get on with it so your brother stops trying to rip off your mate’s head.”
Lexie shrugged and then said, “Fine, gosh, so pushy. Okay, so we found out Simon wasn’t really Mr. Twisted because Mr. Twisted was like a few people who killed for the Bondi King and everything. But we didn’t know that until he showed up at the Drekinn compound and freaked us all out. I mean, I still question the whole thing, because I am pretty sure they have blocked me from sites so I won’t discover that Simon was really a serial killer and has a string of cold cases in his past. Which I would find because I am amazing and so they don’t want me to focus on his signature.”
“Lexie,” Simon snapped. “Now is not the time for you to ramble.”
“DO NOT SPEAK TO MY SISTER LIKE THAT, CRIMINAL!” Anthony bellowed.
“I know right; he has that look, doesn’t he?” Lexie said and then smiled. “But then he is cuddly too so I really can’t decide.”
“Your first impressions are usually spot on,” Anthony said and Lexie nodded.
“I know right, ‘cause I just have this sense, you know? Like the aliens, I know they’re coming, but no one believes me. Remember when we watched that classic oldie ET when we were kids.”
Anthony laughed and ignored the guys and stepped back and nodded. “Yeah, we made that record player like he did and tried to send a signal.”
Lexie clapped her hands. “Yes, and then we colored our fingertips and walked around saying.”
Both of them grinned and held out their pointer fingers and said in a weirdly raspy voice, which honestly kinda creeped them all out. “Phone Home.”
“Oh my gods, there are two of them,” Simon whispered and Anthony’s head whipped back around and he frowned and pointed at Simon.
“Shut up, criminal. I am not sure you don’t need to be killed. Lex is strong enough to suffer the break in the bonds.”
Phillip shook his head. “Anthony, come on, you know…”
Anthony pulled his sister into his arms and held her close and said, “I know Lexie, if she says there is something wrong with him, then there is.”
“Really?” Simon yelled and threw up his hands.
Anthony nodded and then he focused on Marcus and pointed. “And you, why are you not taking care of this. You said you were the Alpha, you said you would always make sure we stayed together, that we were making our own pack. You lied, Marcus.”
Marcus’s mouth dropped open. “Dude, I am Alpha, duh, and as for the rest, um, I did help start the Drekinn, and I have been trying to get us all together again, but seriously that has been a little hard when our parents were wiping our minds to keep us from discovering the truth.”
Anthony frowned and looked at Lexie and said, “Lex?”
“Yeah, well, I hadn’t gotten that far yet. I mean, the whole story is gonna take us a while and I am a little hungry so can we just go back to the kitchens and make a snack and talk about, well, all of this.”
“Excuse me?” Nian said and everyone turned to look at him. “Uh, well, Reese and I still kinda have this collar on our necks and while I know we discussed maybe waiting to figure out if we can get them off, about a minute ago they started making clicking noises and well, I think maybe we should get them off now.”
Brooks frowned and walked to where the twins were standing and leaned forward and listened. “Huh, that is weird, I wonder why it is suddenly making that noise.”
Pilar and Phillip moved but Calix grabbed Pilar and held tight. “Not yet, baby.”
“Oh yeah,” Lexie said and reached into her pocket and pulled out a small black box. “I forgot about this, Mak gave me it when he came back, I was supposed to see if I could short out the frequency. I spaced that off with all of the hubbub. I must have hit something when I jumped.”
Everyone turned and looked at her as she stared down at the box and then she loo
ked up and shrugged. “What?”
“Honey,” Simon said with a deep voice. “I think they want to know if there is something you can do since their heads are gonna explode and they would really not like to have that happen.”
“Hush, criminal,” Anthony said and Simon flipped him off.
“Opps, sorry, yeah, I was gonna tell Mak that it was simple, see you only need to do a reverse current with the codes it has programmed into it. I mean, they push buttons to lock it in place, and then another sequence to detonate, but if they wanted to remove it, all they would do was the reverse of the first sequence to get it to unlock. These are standard issue to the Prentiss. Hey, Marcus, remember when you had me hack the Prentiss Agency’s stuff, yeah, this is one of the blueprints. I need to find them again and check them out. You know, we could use something like this if we captured someone and wanted to fuck with their minds and stuff.”
Anthony laughed and nodded. “Man, that would be funny, pushing the sequence and making them pee their pants.”
“I know, right?” Lexie laughed and then Cassandra snapped.
“Oh my gods, come on, it is like talking to AD and HD if they were a spilt personality. Punch the fucking buttons so we all don’t blow the fuck up.”
Lexie shook her head and leaned in and whispered to Anthony, “Cassandra is preggers too, but she is like a grumpy pregnant while Brinn is more of a calm serene pregnant. It is nuts trying to talk to them sometimes.”
Reese cleared his throat and said, “Uh, the clicks are coming faster now.”
“Yeah, they would, until they get to the last of the sequence they would begin to move faster and faster,” Lexie said and then Tara finally snapped.
“Hey, welcome to earth, bitch. Put in the code.”
“She’s not pregnant, why is she so testy?” Anthony whispered.
“Well you see…” Lexie started and then everyone yelled loudly.
“Lexie!”
“Fine,” she said and pushed in a sequence of numbers as she mumbled about that part of her youth she remembered, they were always yelling her name. When she was done they heard the click and the collars fell open and she grinned. “Cool, huh.”
Nian took the collar off and laid it on the ground and then Reese did the same thing and they all slowly backed away from the collars.
“I need a fucking drink,” Reese muttered and Nian nodded.
“Ditto.”
The two guys felt a hand grip both of their shoulders and when they turned they saw it was Vincent gripping them and he said, “Why don’t I buy the first round and you can explain to me when in the fuck I would ever let you near my sister.”
Tara grinned and laughed as her newfound mates’ eyes grew large.
Chapter Five
Cami opened the door of the diner with so much force it almost took it off its hinges. Everyone who was in the diner waiting for the group to return immediately got to their feet and looked at her in confusion.
“In the back,” she snapped and Quin followed sighing loudly.
“Come on then, we will tell you what happened.”
The others moved hesitantly and when they reached the backroom where they usually held their meetings and gathered, Cami was pacing toward the back of the room, muttering to herself. Not a good sign most of them thought and once the last one was in, Quin reached out and closed the door. Right when she heard the click of the lock, Cami turned and snapped.
“Well that sucked big fucking donkey balls.”
Jo, Cloe, and Casey nodded and the rest of them saw their tear stained faces and finally Teagan asked, “Okay, it sucked, but what happened?”
Cami paused and then huffed loudly. “What happened was that they found the family trees we left for them. They put two and two together, and came up with the right number but instead of thinking things through, they reacted. They are pissed, they don’t want to see us right now. They need some time to sort through this in their heads.”
Lagon chuckled and said, “Did you really think they were going to fall into your open arms and say thank you for any of this. They are young, they don’t understand, and most importantly, I am certain they think we abandoned them.”
“Oh they do think that,” Cloe snapped and continued, “They think we purposefully kept them from their siblings, they think we just gave them up to go do gods know what. They want to know why they were chosen.”
“And did you tell them?” Trace said smoothly.
“Uh no,” Casey said and shrugged. “They didn’t give us a chance.”
“Well we knew this was going to be hard, we knew it was going to be a battle. We just need to ride this out, because if everything works the way we planned, they will see,” Orfeo said and Cat leaned against him.
“Did you at least tell them we didn’t completely abandon them?” Shea said softly and Cami nodded.
“Cloe tried, I’m not sure if they were actually listening at that point. I hope someone was. I don’t understand how they could think that though?” Cami said and she turned to look at her mate. “The worst thing is. I know I would have reacted the same way. But we didn’t just abandon them, we watched over them every single day. I think about how we would wake up, check the chart, see who was going where. Dalton and Cyra would start moving people around to places, and then at the end of the day, they would come back and get us. The next day the same thing. We have lived for them since all this shit started, all of us, there was not a day that went by that I wasn’t aware, if even in a small way, of everything they did. We went to graduations, we went to parties, we went to hearings.”
“Just because Chase got one ticket for excessive speeding you never let me live that down,” Jax snapped. “I wasn’t the one who taught him to drive remember, that would have been Dante, so not my fault.”
“Whatever,” Cami said and then sat down in a chair and leaned her head against the table. “Shit is spiraling again. Sabrina, our kids, the Prentiss, it is never ending. Can any of you honestly say when we started this it was going to be worth it in the end. Because I may have thought that at one time, but right now, I am not so sure the price we paid wasn’t too high. Maybe we should have just left well enough alone, maybe the world was meant to be the way it is now. Hell, I don’t know; I am just so fucking tired of the whole thing. I wanted to see my children. I wanted to actually talk to them, find out how they are doing. I mean, we are going to be grandparents, and right now, Cassandra and Marcus will never let us close to that babe.”
Quin moved and put his hand on Cami’s shoulder and whispered into her ear for a second before stopping and waiting for Cami to nod, then he stood and looked at his friends, his family, everyone who had been together for the last five centuries and he sighed loudly.
They had made the decision to come back to Drake after they had heard the Prentiss were closing in on their children. Up until then, they had lived on a small man-made island in the middle of the ocean cloaked with magical powers. It had been strategically placed so it was a midpoint to all of the children who were scattered across the world. Sure, they had to mess with their memories a little bit. However, there was no way in hell they would ever have allowed anything severe to happen to them. They would have interfered.
“We need to get a grip on things. They are going to need to do what they need to do, and we will watch over them like always. They are at the point though where we cannot interfere. If we do, the consequences could be dire. We are just going to need to do what they asked and back off,” Quin said and then he continued, “however, once this shit is over, my daughter and I will be having a nice long chat about her attitude. My gods, she can be scary.”
Cami smiled and nodded. “I taught her well.”
“What else did they say?” Bama asked and Cami and the others told them exactly what happened. Yes, it sucked, and they were going to need to do a little bit of fancy footwork, but they would do it. They will never accept a breach in their relationship with their children, never.
“Oh my gods, how many times do I have to tell you. I can use the spell only as it was intended to be used. We had to keep them on track, so even though they could discover and know things for a day, when they fell asleep things would right themselves to the spell. I can zap them any more than the man in the moon can. Our spells are extremely specific. It was intended to allow them to move forward as they discovered each other. They would remember what information they discovered but not each other or us. That is it,” Lacy snapped and Cami rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, yeah, well we should have put a clause in there. I mean come on, they are all pissed and shit, and really, I get it, I do, but we have been unable to actually figure out who we are searching for. When the wars started and we discovered what we needed to know, then Slay and Kira both had the same vision, which we had to stop,” Cami argued. “If I had my way, they would all be comatose, hidden from the world until we could figure this all out. But nooooo, the gods spoke once again and said if we did that, it would be irreversible. Can we please get someone to cut us some slack here? This whole thing is fucked up, we have waited for a long time to reach this point and even at that, we still have no clue who the one main player is that can make all of this go away. I mean really, in like five hundred years we couldn’t find one fucking person? How is that even possible?”
Slay laughed and said, “You know I explained all of this, there were certain things that had to be in place for this to all unfold. We thought it was back when we were all getting together, but it wasn’t. This is so much more than just being about one person, or the Chosen and the Senate. When you look—”