Illicit

by Jordan Silver

  There was still a bit of confusion in the beginning, when they first started telling me of my family’s history, because one of those lines was thought to have ended.

  Men had spent hours, days, years, trying to decipher and recalibrate the legend. In the end they only set off a horrific sequence of events that no one could’ve foreseen.

  The greed, envy and depravity that stemmed from that one mistake, will have repercussions for generations to come, but I’m getting ahead of myself.”

  I took a deep breath to push back the anger. It bothered me still that our lives had been manipulated, that she, more than anyone, had suffered as much as she had.

  “It was your grandmother that they believed the legend had ended with, your father’s mother.”

  “My dad’s, he was adopted wasn’t he? But I don’t think he ever knew what happened to his original family, at least I’ve never heard him speak of them.”

  “I don’t think that he knows, but let me finish.” I kissed her hair and inhaled her scent; already it was getting stronger, before long it was going to be almost impossible not to mount her. I cleared my throat and prepared to go on.

  “Throughout time, some had chosen to live beneath the radar, while others had enjoyed their wealth and the benefits of their talents lavishly.

  No longer needing to hide, but instead lauded by some in high society, these families flourished and amassed great wealth over time.

  While even others sought to keep themselves hidden away from the world, and so lived as most men do.

  The Vikov family had been such as this. They had not lived in squalor, but neither did they own great wealth. Their women preferred to be midwives and healers over the centuries, though a few have been great warriors of note.

  Ekaterina Vikov, that would be your grandmother, had been the last of her line in Russia. A very secretive person, she was hardly ever seen.

  It was thought that the weight of her heritage was too much for the young girl and she had sought to escape it. That’s what was believed throughout the society as it is called anyway.

  They are the men and women who have kept the annals for generations. The watchers and keepers of this particular truth, whose fathers and grandfathers before them, had done the same.

  All in all, there were five remaining families of the thirteen or so that had been known of since about the fourteenth century.

  Of those five, two were supposed to fulfill the legend. Ekaterina had known of her heritage of course, it would’ve been passed on to her at her mother’s knee.

  In her line it was known that the gift skipped a generation and was most always found in a girl child.

  When she had been murdered, it was rumored throughout the society that it had been another one of the five families that had done the deed. No one of lesser power would’ve been able to get that close.

  But it has never been proven, which meant that the family responsible had to possess great strength and power, to keep their misdeeds so well hidden.

  It was thought that her line had died with her, and since the gift wasn’t evident in any of her cousins, and there had been no siblings, her death had sent everyone into a spiral.

  Theories were reexamined and the legend taken apart and looked at more carefully.

  It was at this time that one of the other remaining families made their bid for their place in our society, or what they saw as their right, because of some medieval slight.

  Apparently this line had once been one of the greatest, but because of fraudulent behavior and other atrocities frowned upon by the other families, they’d lost their standing.

  That family is Mina’s, the Divecki clan. She is the one you saw today.” I squeezed her hand when I felt her tense up, but carried on.

  “After Ekaterina’s death and the uproar it caused within the society, things had calmed down somewhat. Or as much as they could for a people who had believed in something for hundreds of years, only to have it disintegrate in one afternoon of bloodshed.

  Ekaterina had been poisoned before her home had been set on fire. It was thought that she must’ve been ill at the time that this happened or she would’ve sensed the danger to herself and not been taken by surprise.

  Her death set off a chain of events that almost destroyed the whole society back then.

  I wasn’t born at the time of her death of course, but the legend was set and the society knew that my father’s firstborn son would be the son of the great house that is supposed to fulfill this legend.

  So it was strange that it was my near madness in the end all those years later that brought the truth of her demise to light.

  When you first disappeared, no one said anything to me of it, but they didn’t need to. I felt your terror as if it were my own. I was ten years old and a thousand miles away.

  My rage I well remember, rage and crippling fear. One of the elders had to be brought in. I had raged and fought myself into exhaustion by the time my family thought to seek help from that quarter.

  It took them days to get me to make sense. I had become almost catatonic, or so they thought.

  In fact I was using all my strength and energy to travel over seas and lands to reach you.

  I had no idea what was going on. Up to that point, all I knew was what my father had shared with me.

  I had always believed them to be nothing more than just some fanciful stories that he made up. Tales I thought to be fiction mixed with half-truths, stories of legends and supernatural strengths!

  Because they thought me gravely ill, I had been sedated for my own good. But the medicine had the opposite affect on me, and instead my strength grew.

  I kept screaming that we needed to save you. I could see you but I could not reach you. Could hear you, but you could not hear me. It was the worst time of my young life, horrifying.

  Our connection was strong, but we had not had enough time to form the kind of bond that could withstand such a separation.

  It was my screaming for my Jasmine and my parents explaining to the elders about my strange attachment to you since birth that got them to thinking and questioning.

  It was then I learned that my family was one of the two greats the legend spoke of. And like I’ve said, it had been believed that Ekaterina’s had been the other.

  At her death, the Divecki family, because they were next in line, made their bid. But such things aren’t so easily or hastily decided, so even at the time of your abduction and your family’s...slaughter some twenty-one years later, the issue had not yet been resolved.

  Upon hearing of my strange attachment, coupled with the fact that I was fast losing my mind, men had been sent out to uncover the truth, but first they had to save you, even though they had no idea who you really were at that time.

  To them you were just the daughter of a teenage American mother and father, so could have no bearing on the legend. But my reaction gave them pause, and so they stepped in.

  I was able to lead them to you and the madman who’d taken you. I wasn’t told then if it was a random act, or deliberate. At the time I was still as yet unaware of the legend in its entirety.

  After you were saved when the monster who’d taken you was killed by the cop who’d been hunting him for years, you were given over to your mother, and promptly disappeared again.”

  “Who was he?” her voice was soft and scared as she gripped my chest with her nails.

  “He was a known serial killer, someone they’d been hunting for years.” I broke off telling her about him when she started to shake.

  “It was only then that they had dug and dug until they unearthed the truth. Because of her reclusiveness, no one knew of the affair Ekaterina was having with the young man in the next town over.

  He had no idea of who she was and wasn’t a part of the society. In fact, he was the descendant of another great house, but one great not so much for its supernatural ability as for its royalty.

  He was a direct descendant of the great Catherine, no
w living way beneath their means, but not destitute by any stretch of the imagination.

  The two young lovers had met in secret for months, until she became pregnant and delivered a son; a son that no one knew of, until twenty-one years later.

  It took a lot of doing, but the society was soon able, through intense investigations, to put all the pieces together.

  On the day of her death Ekaterina had not been well and so she’d asked an elderly lady to keep the child. After her death, the woman, fearing being named, had taken the little boy who was just a few weeks old at the time to an orphanage.

  Here it is thought that a Russian family now living in America had adopted him. Since the gift skipped a generation, there had been none in the boy, now known as Peter, and no reason for anyone to think that the child left on the doorsteps of the old monastery was the offspring of a great house.

  My family was drawn to the states the year before you were to be conceived and born, though they couldn’t have known it at the time.

  For whatever reason my family used an old derivative of our ancestral name the first time we’d come here.

  Whether because whatever led us here knew of the things to come and was safeguarding us, or just an over cautious move on my father’s part, I’m not sure.

  The long and short of it is this; somehow, someone learned of my attachment to you during the time we were here.

  Someone who knew of the legend and the fact that it was I who was supposed to have this new child of the ages. I’m afraid it was that attachment that caused the deaths of your grandparents.”

  “No, it’s the people who did this that are responsible. Do you know who?”

  “Mina’s family is my first choice, but we’re still unable to prove that they were the ones behind Ekaterina’s murder, and the attempted murder of you, her granddaughter all those years later.

  It hadn’t been hard for them to find the breech, not when one of the household servants had been found with her neck broken and more money than she should have, squired away among her things.

  While they were trying to piece the mystery together all those years later, I was trying to find you again in my head, to no avail. The bond had been cut.

  The society came to the conclusion that with all the new uncovered evidence, that you were my intended.

  The Divecki family contested the new findings, proving their guilt even more firmly, in my head at least. But without hard evidence, everyone’s hands were tied and they still needed you to make sure of the lineage.

  Mina’s family denied that Ekaterina could’ve hidden a child so well with her being under careful watch of the society.

  I guess it was a testament to her abilities that she was able to outsmart those learned men and women for so long. Her power was rumored to be greater than most.

  Your father was never approached about his true identity it was too risky, in case they were wrong, mistaken.

  First they needed to find his daughter, my future, before they set off the mayhem that would ensue if any of this got out.

  It took me a few years to find you again. By then I had gone through a change. Though some might have wavered and doubted, I always knew in my heart that I would find you, legend or no.

  So while they combed the annals looking for clues to the future, I built my strength up, learned all that there was to know, and did that other thing that is now de rigueur for men like me, with my talents. Joined the Special Forces.

  Joined makes it seem like I had a choice, but I didn’t. It is just a natural part of who we are, we are expected to defend and protect our country with our special gifts.

  Now here we are, and we have come full circle. But I promise you I won’t let anything happen to you ever again.”

  “I felt something today, when she was at the school, I felt like I could tear her apart with my bare hands, but I’m not a fighter so what’s that about?”

  “Just your natural reaction to uh...another female being that close to me. I hate to tell you but it will only get worse.”

  “Is that why you got so testy whenever Mark got too close?”

  “Huh, you don’t need to be doing that again anytime soon, it might not turn out so great for him or anyone else next time.”

  She got quiet as if taking it all in, so I let my mind drift again. She’d heard enough truths for today, I hated the thought of having to share even more, but there was still a lot I had to tell her.

  “It was me on my own that had been able to find you. Your mother, without any skill, had kept you well hidden from those who sought you all those years.

  Though sometimes I wonder if there wasn’t something else at play there. Like maybe your grandmother lending a helping hand.

  It was only through our bond, one that contains some elements of which the society knows very little, that I was able to find you.

  I kept that knowledge well hidden for quite some time, all these years in fact. To protect you, I lied to them by omission. Why should I trust you to their care after all? They knew nothing of who you really were, I did.

  Now my hand is being forced. I hadn’t wanted to take you before your time.”

  “What exactly does that mean, before my time?” She looked down at me with that light shining brighter in her eyes. Something was accelerating the change in her, which meant we were running out of time.

  “Nothing sinister, just that you are still so young. I’d wanted to give you the last few weeks, until your eighteenth birthday at least.

  So you could enjoy your life as it is now. Because after I take you, after we’re bonded completely, everything will change.

  It was written in the annals long before either of us had been born into this world.

  Forces beyond our control lead our lives. The path has been chosen for us and by our very nature we are bound to it.”

  “All of this sounds so farfetched, like something out of a novel. If I have these powers as you say, why did I never experience anything other than those dreams?”

  “I have no answer for that, maybe the trauma that you endured blocked it out or something. What I do know is that after I take you to my bed, your eyes will be opened.

  I’ve had time to get use to my destiny, years of training to prepare me for the life ahead of me, of us.

  You won’t have the same. If I had made them aware that I had found you all those years ago they would’ve taken you, hidden you away and trained you.

  I did not want that for my beautiful little butterfly.” I traced my finger down her cheek and kissed her brow.

  Outside the winds were howling and beating against the window. Soon I will have to go out there and take care of that, but for now it was more important that she was okay with the things that she’d learned.

  “I felt that I could endure what they did to me, it was my duty. But I would spare you that, and give you the childhood of which you would be robbed if I didn’t keep my silence.

  Granted the one you did have left much to be desired, at least you were free, and with me on your scent, I could keep you safe enough if it came to that.

  Even with the power you will one day have, I will always be your strength and you, my nurture.

  So I’d bide my time, and done everything I could to shield and protect, while I watched over you from a distance.

  I watched you mature and become more beautiful, more irresistible ‘til I thought I would go mad. As you were growing, I was being taught how to use my strengths to serve my country.”

  I hesitated at telling her this next part but I knew there could be no secrets between us, especially one of such magnitude.

  “I’ve been used and in some cases abused by my government. I say abused because, in any other capacity, it would be illegal to train a preteen male in the ways of sexual gratification, both for oneself and for others.

  By the time I was seventeen I knew how to please a number of women at once, or one woman for a prolonged period of time.

  I was taught
how to control my body so that it gave the greatest pleasure, or so that it gave none.

  And while this was going on, Mina and her family were fighting hard for their place at the head table. They were fighting hard to refute the possibility of Ekaterina having had a child, or of that child having grown to be a man and producing the next heir to the family’s gifts.

  I staved them off the best I could, for one because there was no denying the relationship between you and I, and two, because I found Mina repulsive.

  It was no one thing that she had done to bring this about; it was her very existence that I despised. I saw her only as a threat to you. I knew that with her family vying for her place at my side, that it was dangerous for you.

  I rebuffed her at every turn and refused to have anything to do with her. Through cunning and no doubt some witchery, she and her family had convinced some of the elders of the society to call a conclave and have her designated as the one that had been meant for me.

  They could’ve had twenty meetings it would have gained them nothing, since at the very first one I showed them a side of me that had been kept well hidden before then.

  Arriving in the middle of their secret appointment, I showed them what could happen if they forced the issue, or tried to.

  They would need my full cooperation for this child of theirs to be conceived, and thanks to my earlier teachings, it would be a cold day in hell before I let that happen. Not to mention I threatened to strangle her if we were ever alone.

  So they backed off with a contingency. I had until your eighteenth birthday to find and bed you, or I will be tied to that viper for life.

  I wasn’t too worried, since I knew where you were by then and had all intentions on coming after you when the time was right.”

  She hadn’t said anything else in all this time, just listening to me go on and on. It must be a lot to take in, but she held her own.

  Had I known that this day would come, I would’ve done things differently. I should’ve killed Mina years ago and be done with it, but I thought I had it all worked out.