Bound (Legacy Series Book 4)

by Ellendale, Max

  "Are we in your apartment?" The unfamiliar ceiling fan and shelves lined with toys and office supplies confused me. I sat up a little, gripping her arms tightly.

  "We're at Imogene's shop. I don't have an apartment." Vanessa moved with me until I sat with my back against her. "Do you remember—"

  "I remember," I cut her off as half-a-dozen sets of eyes fell on us. Before I could say anymore, Cote raced over and climbed into my lap.

  "What happened?" he asked, placing both of his hands on my cheeks. "Need magic?"

  "I'm okay, Cote." I laughed softly, my voice sounding raspy. I placed my hands on top of his and he smiled.

  "That's better," he said, and we moved our hands together, his palms pressed against mine. I could've sworn I felt a bit of heat radiating from his. The caring smile warmed me more than his pretend healing. Something tugged at my pant leg and I looked down to see Isabelle trying to climb up on the sofa with us. Cote gave her a boost with his foot and the one-year-old tumbled into my lap. Vanessa snickered and helped her up.

  "Turn," she squealed, and put her hands on my face. Cote giggled and Isabelle joined in. The rest of the kids starting laughing and the sheer volume of it reminded me just how many of Hank's offspring were in the room with us. Cote and his littlest sister took turns putting their hands all over my face and head.

  "Hey now, I think I'm all healed up." I laughed and blew on Isabelle's hand when she put it over my mouth. She giggled and repeated it over and over, enjoying the funny sound.

  Arielle broke away from her siblings and took a seat beside Vanessa, staring at her stomach. Vanessa looked at the young wolf, and tilted her head.

  "You've got two heartbeats. One for you and one for the baby," Arielle said, shoving her long brown hair off her shoulder. She had her Firsting not all that long ago and it hadn't changed her much. She still appeared as a slight, pre-pubescent girl of eleven or twelve.

  "I know," Vanessa replied.

  "Is it a boy or a girl?" Arielle asked.

  "Girl." Vanessa stared at the Arielle as if she'd never seen anyone like her.

  "What's her name? Will she be a cat like you?" Arielle continued.

  "She'll be a cat. We haven't named her yet," Vanessa answered.

  "Why not? You should. It's easier than saying baby a million times," Arielle pressed. "I like the name Stella. Will you name her that?"

  "No." Vanessa shook her head. Isabelle continued to giggle and play with me while Cote resorted to placing his hands on my arm, mimicking the way I healed his wrist almost a year ago. I messed up his pin-straight black hair and he grinned.

  "What names have you thought about then?" Arielle scooted a little closer to Vanessa. "I like your hair."

  "Um… Shawnee, or Taryn, maybe Shiloh," Vanessa stumbled over her words as if she hadn't intended to speak them.

  "Shawnee? That's her name." Arielle nodded toward me. "You want your baby to have the same name? Why? Won't it be confusing? Shawnee's a nice name though, I like it. It's a whole tribe in one name. Like Cheyenne or Sioux." Arielle sat on her knees facing Vanessa. I chuckled at the sudden discomfort that flooded Vanessa's expression. She had no idea how to deal with this overly verbal wolf cub.

  "Yes. It won't be confusing." Vanessa's eyes widened slightly. "Because I love her and her name."

  "You love her? Well that's a good reason. Is she the baby's mom, too? I have a friend with two moms. Do you have two moms?" Arielle tilted her head. "I've never been this close to a cat. What kind of cat are you?"

  "Yes, she's the baby's mom, too. Tiger." Vanessa fumbled through the questions as Isabelle pushed her brother out of the way and sat in my lap instead.

  "The baby will be a tiger then, too. My dad said it follows the mother's heritage. I like Taryn, that's a good name. Do you like Taryn?" Arielle turned her attention to me.

  "Yes I do," I told her and Vanessa.

  "See? There you go." Arielle shrugged heavily. "You can name her Taryn. What kind of name is it?"

  "Irish. You ask a lot of questions." Vanessa stared at the young wolf, occasionally twitching or blinking to which Arielle paid no mind.

  "For Gaia's sake, Arielle. Mom told you to sit quietly and not bother them while Shawnee slept," Matt, Arielle's older brother finally stepped in. He, like his brothers, resembled Hank in every way. Except for his eyes, those belonged to Imogene.

  "Shawnee isn't sleeping anymore, Matt," Arielle spat. Embarrassed, she rejoined her siblings but not before punching Matt in the shoulder.

  "Okay now, all of you calm yourselves down." I plucked Isabelle off my head and set her back on the floor. She crawled over to Matt and made him do the funny hand noise thing. Cote returned to his seat in my lap while I stroked his hair. He didn't seem to mind. "Where's everyone?" I turned to Vanessa.

  "In the store." Vanessa bit her lip and glanced over my shoulder at the door.

  "What are they saying?" I kissed Cote's cheek then set him on the floor as I stood. He rejoined his siblings as well, though he watched me cautiously as I moved toward the exit. Vanessa shot up beside me, blocking me with her arm.

  "Are you sure you remember?" her words sounded breathless.

  "Yes, baby." I looked up at her. Worry smoothed her features, pulsing through our bonds. Mal's bond sat heavy beside hers, informing me that he was torn between whatever was happening in the shop and tending to me.

  "Oooh, baby." Arielle giggled along with her sister then Matt bopped her with a pillow.

  "Stop that," he said.

  I smiled at the teasing but Vanessa's worry didn't subside. "I want you to stay here," she said.

  "I know. But I can't do that. I need to see my mom," I told her.

  "I'll get her for you," she offered.

  "Ness…"

  "If you get upset again, I'm taking you from here straightaway," she warned.

  In the storefront stood Hank, Imogene, their eldest son Henry, the rest of the pack, my mother, Adia, Hank's brother, and the strange man who sounded like my father. He and my mother were off to the side facing away from us while talking heatedly in Cherokee. I'd never seen my mother act so ungraceful, so irrational, or so human. She gestured wildly, tossing her hands in the air, wagging a finger at him and rotated between tears and anger.

  "We had a deal, Dakota. We feel, and we stay away," she spat, my mind translating with ease.

  "This was different, Anadaya. Lives were at stake," the man said, his tone gentler than my mother's. When he spoke Cherokee, he did not sound like my father.

  "More lives are at stake now!" She froze and glanced in my direction.

  "Twenty-five years, Ana, without even the slightest movement—" he began, but she held her hand up to him.

  Xany moved to my side and touched my cheek. Her complexion gray and sunken. Caden and Mal surrounded me in a gesture of support. Mal hugged me from behind, burying his face against my shoulder, his voice popping into my head a moment later.

  I love you, he said.

  I love you, too. Ileana did this, whatever it is, she did it.

  I know. Are you okay?

  Yeah, I think so.

  "All right there, Miss Shawnee?" Hank stepped forward.

  "Everyone is always asking me that. I'm okay, thanks, Hank," I said.

  "Shawnee?" The man turned around to face us. His eyes, soft and brown, set deeply in his rounded face. A face that resembled my father’s except with added health and weight. His smile crinkled the corner of his eyes, deepening the gentility of him. I stared at him, holding tightly onto Mal's arms. "No wonder I mistook her for you, Ana."

  I stumbled against Mal when he spoke. He sounded like him, just like him, just like the echoes in my head. My breathing picked up as the panic threatened havoc again. Mal cupped his hands over my ears.

  "Xany's right," he said, muffled. "His voice."

  "She heard him a moment ago," Gene said as Mal let up on me.

  "He was speaking Cherokee then," Caden added.

  "Mom," I said, ig
noring the others chattering around me. "Who is he?"

  "Dakota is my mate," her answer was simple. "E-he-na, Dodi." She waved me to her. I looked up at Mal, his reluctance to release me written all over his face. Eventually, he let go of me and I walked to my mother, making a wide circle around the man named Dakota. I scuttled into her arms like the terrified child that I was in that moment. She hugged me, pressing my head to her shoulder.

  "The leech did this. Just like she found the others and made me kill Robbie," I whispered.

  "I know, Dodi. I am sorry for your pain." She squeezed me, and I returned the gesture. My mates soothed me, and my pack saved me, but my mother comforted me differently. It satisfied something deep in my heart, the same way she had when she rescued me from the desert.

  "I'm sorry for yours," I whispered.

  "He knows nothing. Nothing," her whisper was a warning that I understood.

  "Ana, I'll take my leave if you—" Dakota began but my internal reaction to his words had my mate and pack bonds shuddering. My mother gripped me tightly, pressing my head to her shoulder again.

  "Cherokee, damn it," she spat. I'd never heard her so much as utter a curse word in my life.

  "I'm sorry. I don't understand any of this," he said, this time in our native tongue. I looked at him again. In the dim lighting of the shop, he seemed less offensive only because I couldn't make out the features that resembled my father.

  "Is he related to him?" I asked my mother, continuing to stare at Dakota.

  "Yes, Dodi. He's your father's brother."

  "And your mate?"

  "Yes. We were mated before I was to marry Viktor." I listened to my mother’s careful choice of words.

  "That's why he sounds like him," I said.

  "Yes, Dodi. That's why. You're safe with me," she whispered the latter in my ear.

  "Are they alike?" I continued to stare at Dakota who remained still, stoic even as he listened to the two of us.

  "Viktor is a foul creature," Dakota said, in Cherokee.

  "He's dead," I told him. Dakota looked from me to my mother who nodded in affirmation. He sat down on the stool beside the counter and dropped his head in his hands. "Don't you dare mourn for him. Not after a statement like that." I broke away from my mother. She held my hand while I rounded on him.

  "Relief is not mourning, Shawnee a-ge-yu-tsa," he spoke in mixed tongue, lifting his gaze to me.

  "Don't call me that, don't call me anything." I let go of my mother to run my hands roughly through my hair. "None of this matters." I turned toward my mates. "We have to go to Ireland. There's something in Coaghan's office that I need to see."

  "Right now?" Xany asked, her mouth hanging open a bit.

  "Yes. Right now."

  "Shawnee, we've got a lot going on here—" Caden began but I cut him off.

  "I know where her heart is."

  "What? How?" Adia spoke up. I forgot she was even here.

  "I have to be sure first. But I think I'm right." I hurried over to my mates, taking both their hands. "Meet us at the cabin."

  "Dodi." My mother stepped toward us.

  "Stopping Ileana is our main concern. Clearly, she knows more about me than she should. And about you, Mom. It's only a matter of time before this gets worse," I said. She seemed to understand my warning.

  "I'm going with you," Xany said.

  "It'll just be a few minutes, Xee—"

  "I'm going." Xany gripped her brother's arm. Of course, Caden wrapped his arm around her waist.

  "We'll meet at the cabin," Caden said as Vanessa stepped through the doorframe, dragging us back through the inbetween.

  Nighttime darkened Katherine's normally bright house. Vanessa led us to the kitchen but I hurried on toward Coaghan's office in the back of the house.

  "We should probably let your mom know we're here, Ness," said Caden.

  "What's going on?" Gavin's voice sounded from behind me. I let the others answer him.

  "She coming down," Vanessa said, continuing after me along with Mal.

  The books I left on his desk were still there. I grabbed the one that reported on the siege of Constantinople and read through it, flipping pages quickly.

  "Are you reading that? You're not really reading that fast." Mal stared at me.

  "I am."

  "Talk to us, Shawnee. Tell us what you're thinking. Maybe we can help." Mal's concern pressed through in his posture as well as his voice.

  "She's upset," Vanessa said.

  "I know. But she's right. We need to focus on Ileana for now." Mal looked over my shoulder as I paused on one of the drawings.

  "Kat was right about Ileana already telling, or showing, us everything we needed to know. If she removed her heart the way she had Oliver's using voodoo magic, she would keep it in a place of meaning. Coaghan agreed with that as well," I said, as I continued thumbing through the pages. "Here, listen to this. ‘The Sultan, Mehmed the Second, ordered a final siege on the city of Constantinople. On May 29th, 1453 an Ottoman army stormed the city and the Sultan entered the Hagia Sophia where the Emperor, Constantine the Eleventh, died in battle.' But that's only part of it." I closed the book and picked up a smaller one. "This one has a myths and legends thing about the Byzantine Empire. It says that on the day of the siege, Constantine the Eleventh, his son, and daughter were taken into the Hagia Sophia. The invading army violated his daughter while the Emperor and his son were forced to watch. After that, the Sultan ordered the family dismembered and the Byzantine Empire fell. History books contradict that he had kids but the importance of the Hagia Sophia remains."

  "What does it mean?" Vanessa asked, her voice rather timid.

  "Ileana said it on the day that she sent all those cases to the emergency room. After she thralled Xany, Ileana said to me 'Haven't you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, you're the abomination, Doctor Twofeathers? That Gaia intended to make vampires and dark ones? That you and yours are the mess up? That maybe you came from something else? You've been worshiping the wrong god, Doctor. It's time you figured that out,'" I recalled every word that Ileana spoke that day. "Do you remember what she said as you showed up, Ness?"

  "Not really." Vanessa shook her head. "Something about an army."

  "'My army is much stronger than yours, Doctor Twofeathers. I will see you at the fall.' At the fall, that's what she said. Don't you see? That day she, somewhat, brought a siege to the hospital. Her last words have meaning. She invaded my territory. My Hagia Sophia. The same way the Ottomans took the Emperor and his family." This had to be it. This theory fell together like a perfectly carved jigsaw puzzle.

  "What the hell is a Hagia Sophia?" Mal asked.

  "Like a gathering hall, cathedral. It became a mosque, or a church of some sort. It was in ruins for a long time until it was turned into a museum in 1935."

  "Where is it?" Vanessa asked.

  "In Istanbul, Turkey. That's where Constantinople used to be. Ileana must have some sort of connection to the fall of the Byzantine Empire. The direct fall. Maybe she's a descendant of Constantine the Eleventh or something. It doesn't matter. Her heart, it has to be there somewhere. I'm sure of it." I closed the book and looked between my mates.

  "You remembered all of that?" Mal gawked at me.

  "Well, yeah. It's important. We should get back to the others," I pressed.

  "Shawnee, it's not like we can all bend to Istanbul and begin digging up a museum. A thousand years have passed. She could've buried it centuries ago," Vanessa said, she appeared more distressed with the new information than she had without it.

  "I know, but it's the best we've got."

  Chapter Thirty

  "Istanbul?" Caden looked between us, his eyes a fraction wider than usual. In the middle of Kat's kitchen, with both Kat and Gavin in their pajamas, I tried feverishly to explain my position.

  "It's right. All the riddles Ileana gave point there," I said.

  "Nee—" Xany began but I cut her off.

  "The siege, the fal
l, telling me she's Byzantinian. It works. We have to go there now," I pressed.

  "Nee," Xany said, stepping in front of me. I ignored her.

  "Shawnee, none of us can bend to Istanbul. It's not on my frequent bending list," Caden joked, though his flattened expression hinted at his seriousness. "We need to go back home and talk with the Sept first."

  "It can't wait that long, Caden. You've seen what she's capable of," I said, my voice cracked once as I tried to keep a hold of myself. Vanessa paced beside Mal which only amped me up more. Mal placed his hand on the small of my back. "We'll book a damn flight then."

  "Shawnee!" Xany shouted in my face, grabbing my shoulders at the same time.

  "What?" I spat, snapping my attention to Xany.

  "Slow down and—"

  "I don't need to slow down, Xany." I gripped her arms, fingertips digging into her skin.

  "Stop it." She shook me a little.

  "No, Xee, we've got to…" The words caught in my throat. "We've got…" Looking at Xany had my world crumbling around me. Her eyes, greenish and mirroring Mal's, reminded me that I couldn't hide behind facts and logic. Hot tears pressed against my eyes, threatening to fall.

  "Come with me," she said, dragging me by the shirt into the parlor beside the kitchen. She closed the door behind us, blocking everyone else out. By the time we made it in there, tears streaked down my face. Xany continued to hold on to me, keeping me in front of her. "Slow down."

  "I can't. I can't." I sobbed as my knees began to weaken.

  "Yes you can," Xany's gentle words brought me to the floor. She melted with me as I crumbled in her arms. "It's okay, NeeNee," she said and I cried. What else could I do? This wasn't how I wanted things to be. Solving riddles from vampires, watching my friends die, hearing my dead father's voice from another man's mouth. This isn't how it's supposed to be. Comforting me this way was usually reserved for my mates, and mother. With Xany, it was different. She had no expectations of me.