Branded Wings

by S. I. Hayes

  “Yes, Father.” I receded, my eyes rolling back as he pulled the blankets up to my chin.

  chapter 68 Keegan

  “FUCK. LET ME OUT OF these chains or I swear to all that is holy, I will fuckin’ rip you apart!” I woke up in shackles, very much alone in the basement. I knew the room, my father kept enemies here, tortured them in the earlier days looking for those who opposed the integration. In its infancy, there was much bloodshed and fighting, riots over allowing Otherkind to roam freely and openly without hiding who and what we were. There are many who can cast a glamour to hide our appearance, horns, skin color abnormalities, scales the shape or color of our eyes and ears, things of that nature. Those who were most violent were part of a group known as the H.O.R.D. or Humans of Real Descendants. They thought that we were some kind of aberration on society, an abortion that man forgot to have, that had been allowed to run amok far too long. Now here I was, chained to the very walls those traitorous fiends had been shackled to. Was I ever pissed.

  “Damn it! Let me go!”

  “Easy there, boy,” Jarod spoke straightly. “You’ll do yourself no amount of good cussing up a storm and screaming. It’s no use. You’re gonna get good and dried out, just like that pretty little fiancé of yours.”

  “Ryane?” My thoughts of her still in the room where I’d left her threw me into a panic. Making me struggle harder against my bonds. I could feel the manacles digging into my wrists and forearms.

  “You’re not going anywhere, so just stop. Please.”

  “Uggh. Is she okay? At least tell me that much.”

  “She kicked your father’s ass and needed some correction, but yes, otherwise she is just fine.”

  “Define correction.” The idea that someone put their hands on my woman made my blood boil.

  “I did what was needed,” my father’s voice echoed in the room like a cannon going off. “You will deal with it, and that is how it will be. She requires a far firmer hand than you have shown.”

  “You’ll not touch her.” I gnashed my teeth so hard I ripped my lip open, spitting blood on the concrete floor.

  “I have no intentions on bedding my soon to be daughter in law. What kind of monster do you take me for?” He shook his head. “But she will be upended, bled and pumped full of synthetic until she doesn’t crave you anymore. Just as you will be. Then, once that happens you two can start fresh. I have no delusions of your bond. But she must become dependent on the synthetic or she will hunt Pureblood and Half-bloods alike. The Hunter in her will demand it and there will be no stopping her. What if H.O.R.D. were to catch wind of her? Hmm? Have you considered that, son?”

  I dropped my head, swallowing down the blood in my mouth, I was thirsty but it wasn’t satiating me. “You know the synthetic doesn’t work well for me, Father.”

  “We’ve come up with a new prototype, a fifty-fifty blend of plasma and synthetic that seems to be working in the intolerant amongst us. The Ferals are responding... Well, some are.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Chapter 69 Sig

  “HIS FATHER? THERE’S no fucking way! And Martine, how are you not a wrinkled old woman by now!” I was livid and confused as I sat in the common room at the Deviant dorm with Martine and Greisen. The red haired girl had conveniently disappeared; I would have to investigate her later. Her appearance was strange and made my head spin, but for now it had to wait. I’d texted Aella, telling her I’d swing by for her in a while, that something had come up that needed my attention and she should just make herself at home. She sent me a pic of her tits in response. Oh, I think I may be in love! Never mind, I didn’t say that! Right now I needed to figure out what the Hell was going on and why they were trying to pin the paternity of that shitbag Greisen Calder on me.

  Martine laughed as she sat back, stroking Greisen’s hair. “I wasn’t exactly honest with you that month in Cabo, sweetie. I was there as a last hurrah, before getting married to Leonas Calder. Time with the girls, and such. You were delectable. I couldn’t pass up fucking a Dragonborn, for Christ’s sake, could I? I just didn’t expect you to knock me up.”

  “How do you know I did it?”

  Greisen stood up, shaking his head, “This proof enough for ya, you fucker.” He cracked his neck and his wings unfurled. Large, black and green, with long talons and razor tips. My mouth hung open, I didn’t know what to say.

  “I’m half Dragon, half Vampire, turned in utero apparently...” Greisen snarled. “It’s not ideal. I’m illegitimate and it’s going to come out when they test me for my seat in the Senate. Unless there is no other choice but me, I will not get it.”

  “He needs this place; politics is the only thing he can do,” Martine purred. “Sig, you must help him. He is, after all, your flesh and blood. I know we should have told you sooner, but the truth is we didn’t know until his wings popped over the summer.”

  “This only just happened?”

  “I chose to come across to Vampire at eighteen, so it killed my metabolism. We think that’s why it took so long to manifest.”

  I nodded, it made sense, wings came with maturity. I got mine in my late teens, when my body was strong enough to withstand them. The Vampire body slows to a crawl upon the turn, so he would not have matured like she should have, and what should have come in just a few years took decades instead.

  “Does Leonas know?”

  “Oh my God, of course not!” Martine answered, horrified. “I’d be dead if he found out I had been with someone besides him. Truly, he would end me. Sig, he must never find out.”

  I nodded. “I won’t let anything happen to either of you. I promise.”

  “You foreswear?” Greisen asked, raising his eyebrow. “No matter what may come, that you won’t let anyone harm either of us?”

  “I foreswear that so long as I am fit to fight, no harm will come to either of you.” I had no idea that with those words I had sealed my fate and the fate of those I loved most.

  Chapter 70 Aella

  “I’M SORRY I TOOK SO long baby.” Sig kissed me as soon as I got in the truck, hugging me tightly, like he needed it.

  “What’s wrong honey?” I searched his distressed eyes. “You’ve been gone all day, what happened.” I noticed he had Gage in the back seat.

  “Apparently he’s a father.” Gage half snickered. “And to a grown half-Vampire.”

  “What?” I turned in my seat to see if Gage was drunk again, but his face was stone sober. “I don’t understand?”

  “Greisen Calder is my son. I had a bit of a fling with his mother back in the summer of ninety-four and it would seem that I didn’t pull out fast enough at some point.”

  “Greisen? Is your son?” I drew out the words, taking them in. I knew about his Dragon side. He’d shown it to me, but he hadn’t told me about Sig being his father, I wondered why. “What does that even mean?”

  “Hell if I know. I know it means my life is a fuckload more complicated now.” He ran his hand through his honey blonde hair, messing it about, blowing a large puff of stressed smoke.

  “Wanna go easy on the smoke, papa, some of us like breathing.” Gage coughed, waving his hands around the space of the truck.

  I reached out, taking Sig’s hand in mine. “What are we gonna do now?”

  “I’m taking the pup here up to the Pepper Pot to meet Tawny for a meeting with Kendall, then you and me are going on a little expedition. I saw a woman today at your job that I want to try and track down. I’m hoping you may be able to help me ferret her out.”

  I nodded, giving his hand a squeeze. “Alright honey, I’ll do what I can.”

  WE DROPPED GAGE OFF at the Pepper Pot for his meeting, and then headed into town to the Groove Brew. When we arrived, something was odd. I hopped out of the car and was hit with a scent I shouldn’t have. “Mary?” I whispered. “There’s no way, she’s supposed to be with the Leanan Sidhe.”

  “Who, with th
e who?”

  “Mary, my little sister... Her scent is all over this place. She’s supposed to be training with the Unseelie Court though.”

  “Is she about yay high with ultra-pop red hair and bird blue eyes?”

  “That’s her!” I chirped. “I don’t understand what she’s doing here.”

  “She was spouting her mouth off is what she was doing.”

  “I was telling truths actually.” Mary stepped out of the darkness, wearing black leather pants and what looked like a Kevlar lined corset top. Her hair was pulled up into a high ponytail and braided. She looked like she was ready for a fight as she fingered the sais on her hips. In the darkness beyond her, several inches above her head, were a pair of glowing yellow orbs with vertical slits, that I realized were someone’s eyes. She wasn’t alone.

  “Who do you have with you?”

  “Oh, a Guardian... But he likes to remain hidden unless he is needed. Is he needed, sister? Are you a danger to me with that Dragon beside you? The one whom I cannot bend?”

  “I’m no puppet to be mastered by a woman such as you,” Sig spat, lunging forward, but I grabbed him, holding him back. The figure in the dark didn’t move, didn’t speak, Hell, it didn’t blink!

  “Why are you here, Mary?”

  “To spread the Unseelie message, of course. The Vampires are on their way out, it’s time for the Courts to rule. The Underdark will rise and then those who wish for it shall have a place in this world that is to come.”

  “At what price, Faery Witch?” Sig growled, pulling his weapon. A single edged Katana with a bone handle manifested in his hand from his spine. He pulled from me, launching toward her.

  “No!” I screamed as the figure broke its place in the darkness. I had been sure it was my brother Adrien, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  chapter 71 Sig

  MY KATANA CONNECTED with the steel of a broadsword. The sparks and the sound lit up the darkness and I was staring into emerald green eyes that were a mirror image of my own. The face, though now carrying a few more scars was also unmistakably one I would never forget, as I saw a version of it every day.

  I tried to pull back, but he came for me again. I parried and he rushed me, I countered and our swords connected again. I raised my scales to protect myself, my black sails blocking his blade’s teeth with a crisp clang.

  “Ferdinand! It’s me, Siegfried! Don’t you know your own flesh and blood?”

  “I have no family, and that is not my name. They call me Alewar.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what they call you, I know you as my blood. Please, I don’t want to fight you!”

  I spun, unsheathing my wings to further defend myself, catching him unaware. His face unprotected, he growled as I made the connection.

  “So much for stopping.” He unfurled his wings but they were not the wings I remembered as children. His colors were corals, he was a Dragon of rivers and seas. Now his wings seemed to be burned and scorched, each feathered tip kissed by flames.

  “What happened to you? You have feathers?”

  “Oh, me? They say that I died.” He rushed me, throwing his weight into me and we tumbled as Aella screamed.

  I threw my weapon as he had and we went to blows. He was testing my resolve, as I was testing his. His brutality was impressive as he ploughed his fists into my abs, going for my kidneys, my spleen. I’d probably piss blood in the morning and have some internal damage, but he would too if we kept this up. I landed a clean hit on his chin and he went down.

  I rolled over, “Some things never change, you always had a glass jaw.” I coughed. Yup, blood. Aella ran to me, helping me up. I stood, walking to him and putting out my hand. “Come on, no hard feelings then, brother.”

  “I’m not your brother.” He smacked my hand away, getting up on his own.

  “I don’t know Alewar, the resemblance is uncanny. You were a Dragon once upon a time,” Mary, as Aella called her, quipped.

  “What is she jabbering on about?”

  He sighed, blowing out painfully. “I’m not a Dragonborn. I’m a Phoenix.”

  “That’s a myth told to hatchlings to put them to sleep. They don’t exist.” Aella laughed. “The transmutation doesn’t actually happen, it’s impossible. It’s a metaphor for the afterlife.”

  “And yet, here my brother stands, Aella. I burned the body, I scattered the ashes myself.” I was beginning to lose my cool, my voice was quaking. I didn’t know if I was going to scream or cry. I began to pace. “First a son, now a brother, and a crazy Fey trying to usurp the Vampire’s hold on the college, all while Keegan is off trying to get a hold on Ryane and her issues. What a day I’m having. How the Hell am I supposed to solve all of this? I’m just one Dragon. One Dragon! I tell ya. I’m so ready to just pop my wings and disappear. Let you all solve it yourselves, but then what kind of man would that make me? A fucking coward, that’s what! Fuck me, damn it all to Hell. Shit, fuck!” I stood there with my chest heaving as the three of them stared at me in abject horror. “What are you staring at? This is all your guys’ fault! Wait, no, I take that back! It’s all Keegan’s fault! Excuse me! I have someone’s ass to go and kick! I’ll be back in a few hours!” I unfurled my wings and took off, leaving them there wondering if I’d lost my mind.

  Chapter 72 Aella

  SIG WAS GONE AND I was left staring at my little sister, who didn’t look so little anymore. It hadn’t been more than a month since I’d last laid eyes on her and yet she looked so different to me. Then I saw it, the insecurity that she harbored as she dropped her head and looked up at me from the distance between us.

  “Did the anesthetic help at all?” she whispered. “I tried to help as best I could.” She wiped at her nose, a sure sign she was about to cry.

  Alewar pulled her in under his arm and she clung on to him, burying her face into his abdomen, as this was the height difference between them. He was probably six feet two, like Sig, whereas Mary was just barely five feet tall.

  “It did, Mary, thank you.” I took a step toward her and he lifted his hand.

  “You are a banished, she should not even be speaking with you.”

  My blood began to boil, and I could feel my scales begin to rise along my eyes and down my arms. “Who do you think you are to keep her from me?”

  “I guard her, you are unclean, unkempt and deemed dangerous. I see no reason to allow you near my charge.”

  “She’s my fucking sister and unless you want my foot in your ass, I suggest you back the fuck off!” I lowered my body, my back warming as I fingered my weapon. I had only ever drawn it on whims, never to actually fight. I knew how to use it, but until that day in the Great Hall, none knew I even had the thing, and they still didn’t really know what it was. Not for certain anyways.

  “You? Best me?” He chuckled as he set Mary to rights and pulled his broadsword from his own body. Like him, it was long and lean and took two hands to handle. A disadvantage, my lance was balanced enough to wield singlehanded, leaving me able to use my left hand to punch and defend with my scales and razor sails.

  I smirked as I pulled my weapon, watching as his eyes widened and his arm suddenly dropped.

  “You are bearer of the Lance of the Sidhe? The- the promised one?” His eyes roved over me as though he only just saw me for the woman I was. Frankly, it made me uncomfortable. I wanted to cover up more, even though I was moderately dressed in jeans, boots and a T-shirt. It just felt as though he could assess all of my assets anyhow.

  “That’s the second time someone has said that to me without an explanation. Only you seem a wee bit more in awe, wanna tell me why?” I pointed my lance at him and Mary got in the way. “Mary, this really isn’t the time for you to grow a pair.”

  “He’s my Guardian Aella. I’m as responsible for him as he is for me,” she pleaded. “He’ll tell you what we know. I’ve found out much since I’ve been with the Unseelie. They keep so much in the Underdark records. It’s unreal what we get access to as acolyte
s.”

  “Lady Marigold, you must not share our secrets.” Alewar looked down at my sister sternly. She reached up, cupping his face in her hands, drawing him down to her level.

  “I do as I wish,” she whispered, “and so shall you.”

  He nodded, a puff of smoke billowing from between his teeth. “Can we adjourn to someplace less open to speak?”

  He had a point, we were standing in the middle of a parking lot.

  I HADN’T BEEN IN THE Deviant dorms yet. I had been integrated, sharing the regular dorms with the rest of the freshman class. Their house was huge, holding fifty rooms and a common area, a communal kitchen and laundry. There were even extra bathrooms! The vibe in the common room was totally Vampire. Dark curtains during the day, black leather furniture, paneling, old paintings. The place was in dire need of an update.

  “Why did we come here?” I asked, feeling out of place and not sure why we were there.

  “Because I-err, we live here now. We enrolled this week. Mabegone, leader of the Leanan Sidhe, insisted that I spread the good work and the word. We heard what happened to you. Your being attacked in the open. We in the Winter Court will not stand by idly while our own are put to the whip.” Mary flopped down on one of the couches, like she owned the place.

  “I’m fine, though,” I insisted.

  “You’re not. You’ve not been to your classes yet, have you? Haven’t been told that they wanted to see you? They’ve rules about fights, and the Otherkind was already on thin ice after last semester’s infractions.” Greisen stepped into the room, filing his nails in an uncaring fashion. “They were already talking expulsions, but I got Collette in the room to convince them otherwise.”