“I’m sorry, but he is,” Lia said softly, trying to hide her concern about his loyalty. “He wants revenge for losing his family and he believes that it is my mother’s fault and I can’t blame him. He will get the hunters inside if my mother isn’t informed about his betrayal. I know you don’t want to believe me, but why should I of all people say that he’s a traitor when I wanted him to be my mate?”
The half-breed shifter standing behind Kiana stayed silent, obviously thinking about Liala’s words.
“I don’t know you,” he flat out admitted, but it was also an argument against her accusation.
“You don’t know me either,” Kiana said, looking up at the young man who was about a foot taller than her. “But I know Lia. She’s the most honest and sincere person I know.”
They looked at each other for the blink of an eye too long, but Lia chose to ignore it and bring her attention back to her little brother who had cried himself to sleep in her arms.
“I will inform the alpha,” the twin said and raced off.
Liala tried to stand up and lift her little brother with her, surprised that she really did manage to do that, but she was still wobbly on her legs.
“Let me help,” Rick offered, his arms opened, ready to take Benjy in his arms.
Lia forced herself to not stare at his bare chest for too long, or rather at the six-pack, he was sporting. So, she inhaled sharply and nodded, allowing him to take her little brother from her, which only made her take in his scent deeply. It made her dizzy and annoyed her in just the same way. How could her body react like she was a horny teen after what had happened to her and was still going on?
She had been thrown right into the middle of a century old feud of humans and supernatural creatures, had been raped and abused in the process, forced to watch people get murdered in the most gruesome ways, and still, her mind reminded her how it had felt having Rick inside her.
A growl escaped her as she rolled her eyes.
Rick turned around to give her an asking glance but she just shook her head, making him return to his task as he followed Kiana inside.
Her body and emotions going into overdrive had to be a result of her lifelong abstinence from her true nature and living among humans. Now being exposed to her true nature and family it felt as if her body wanted to make up leeway at an impossible moment.
Standing in front of the mansion, a part of her wanted to follow Benjy, Kiana, and Rick inside, while the other was pulling her back to the wall. She couldn’t just crawl into bed and ignore the war that was supposed to crash against the fortification of this sanctuary like a tsunami. It would never be a fair fight. Not anymore. The hunters had weapons that could kill shifters easily, no matter their heritage. Liala knew that she had to find a way to stop any more bloodshed from happening.
This entire war had been nothing but a cold war until she decided that she wanted to celebrate her 21st birthday at the camping side they visited when her mother was still with them. Without her wish, no one would have been killed and nothing would have escalated. Liala knew that this wasn’t her fault, but she had triggered the events of the past two days and nights. Because of that, she couldn’t hide and because of her being the heir and her mother’s successor as alpha she had to find a way to keep the balance. Lia was well aware that she was using Rick’s choice of words, and repeating this fact to herself made her realize what she had to do, to make it all stop.
I just don’t have any clue if it is going to work.
Although he had been able to hear her minutes earlier, Lia didn’t know if Rick could hear her thoughts right now. So, she decided to follow them into the mansion to tell him about her plan. Remembering where her room was, Lia took the stairs, hoping to find all three. What she didn’t expect was for Kiana to hold Rick’s sword to his throat, who had his hands lifted in return.
Benjy was cowering in the corner of the room right next to hers.
“What the hell?” Lia shouted louder than planned. “Kiana, give me the sword.”
“That’s not necessary,” Rick intervened calmly.
“Shut your mouth!” Kiana cried. “My brother and father are dead because of you.”
“You don’t make any sense,” Lia tried to speak with the same calmness than Rick but failed.
“He knew what was going to happen and did nothing!” Kiana explained, not taking her eyes off Rick, but Liala knew that he could disarm her in less than a second, and was simply allowing her to vent; or so, she thought.
“Yes, that is true,” he nodded instead, lowering his hands a little. “I knew that the werewolves would attack to take Liala and probably the other girls, too.”
Lia wasn’t sure if he was really talking to her cousin or her, until she realized that he was looking at her, because he was blatantly lying, or had lied to her earlier at the crossroad where he had given her a choice to leave this life behind, or take the responsibility she had been born into.
Suddenly, she felt sick.
What is the actual truth, Rick? Did you lie to me? Or are you lying now?
“You know the truth,” he answered to her as if he had heard her in his head, or read her thought, but it was him looking surprised, as he realized that he hadn’t said a word, that she knew he had heard her in his head.
“You said, you didn’t expect the clan to attack,” Liala spoke. “Because you didn’t know how important I really was, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t know who you were and that is my fault,” Rick seemingly ignored Kiana, who was confused now. “If I had known, if I hadn’t so blatantly ignored my duties, no one would have died. But I was tired of it all, for once I wanted a normal life. Because of my selfishness,” he turned towards Kiana again. “Your father and brother were killed. I had to decide whom to save, and I chose the boy.”
Everyone was looking at Benjy now, who was still cowering in the corner of the room, trembling. Noticing the attention focusing on him, he just nodded.
“When Nate had your brother by the throat, Lia told me to bring her father and her brother to safety,” Rick continued to explain. “I didn’t think. I just did as she told me to.”
“Why?” Kiana shook the sword once, which obviously was becoming increasingly heavier for her. “If you knew you could save at least my brother, why didn’t you?”
“Because I was sure that I would be able to exchange his life for mine,” Liala stepped towards her cousin, who dropped the sword. “But Nate killed him anyway.”
That’s when I should have known he was the enemy. Despite everything else, despite the undeniable attraction I pretended like it didn’t happen. He killed my cousin, just like that.
“Nate killed your brother.”
“What?!” Kiana turned around, taking the sword with her, swinging it in a lowering circle, cutting through the air, ignorantly moving it right towards Liala’s throat, and realizing too late what she was doing, just like her best friend.
Lia was never injured. Rick grabbed Kiana’s wrist mid-movement, and yanked it into the opposite direction, turning his body around and into the crook of her arm, so that the blade missed him. But there was too much momentum and Kiana didn’t let go of the blade that now was heading towards her own chest, leaving Rick no choice but to twist her wrist. Liala could hear the bones snapping, but what she saw was worse, as Rick was directing the sword into his own chest to save Kiana.
“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Liala raced towards her brother, who was shielding his face from what he saw and kneeled in front of him, pulling him against her chest.
Liala turned around to see if she was lying or not, but all she could see was Kiana’s back, on her knees with him, while she was rambling on, and on about how sorry she was. Rick was saying something that Lia couldn’t distinguish if it wasn’t for his voice in her head: “It hurts even more than I remember.”
Whatever he said next, she couldn’t hear, but it was something that freaked out Kiana even more, as she jumped to her feet and re
treated.
“Kiana!” Liala ordered and her friend turned towards her. “Take Benjy, bring him into my room and stay there. Do not leave, unless you must go to the bathroom.”
Getting up, she lifted her little brother onto his feet.
“It looked worse like it was, it’s just a cut, okay?” She told him, speaking softly and calmly. “You know we are all different here, right?”
“Even me?” Benjy sobbed and looked at her with large eyes, tears drying.
“Even you,” Liala nodded and smiled at him slightly. “But only when you’ve become a little bigger. Until then you will stay with Kiana and listen to her, okay? I will try and stop the bad things from happening.”
Benjy threw his arms around her neck starting to sob again as he buried his face in her shoulder: “I don’t want you to go!”
“I’ve always come back, haven’t I?” Lia asked and she could feel her little brother nod against her body. “Why should that change now?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“See?” She planted a kiss on his head and lifted him up, to carry him towards Kiana, who was waiting at the door. “I will always come back for you, always.”
“Promise?” Benjy asked, looking at his big sister, who was shielding his view of what was happening in the middle of the room.
“Promise.”
As Kiana and Benjy left, Lia turned around, watching how Rick’s blood was creating a pool around him.
“You need to pull it out or the bleeding won’t stop,” Rick explained, huffing, and she noticed that he seemed to be too weak to pull out the weapon himself.
Why is that?
“Because this is a special sword,” Rick answered to her as if he wasn’t aware that Liala hadn’t really said anything. “It negates mythical powers.”
“So, it can actually kill you,” Liala figured and Rick nodded.
“In a way, it can,” he responded. “If you push it into my heart and leave it there long enough.”
She walked around him, grabbed the hilt, and pulled it out without a warning, and Rick fell backward.
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
Liala looked at the shiny blade of the sword, watching Rick’s blood run down in thick droplets as if the metal was repelling it.
“Is that Excalibur?” She asked out aloud, remembering the first time she had seen it; when it’s tip stuck out of Brenna’s dad.
Rick laughed briefly and then hissed, as the wound hurt from the movement.
“Beleza,” He answered. “That’s her name.”
Liala didn’t know what to ask first. What that meant, why the sword was a she, or how it worked.
“Slowly, Lia,” Rick breathed out, continuing to lie on the ground, recovering. “I can’t keep up with you.”
“I didn’t say anything.” – “Oh.”
Then something strange happened. As the last drop of blood left the blade, it moved back towards the gash in his side, slowly, but visibly.
“It means beauty,” he answered as if she didn’t witness something unbelievable. “And she is my sister.” Rick sat up and looked at Liala holding the sword in disbelief. “The blade was forged from a very rare metal and her soul. I told you I am an original hunter. I didn’t say that it was my choice. It was hers. When she was dying, she begged me to find a way for her to continue her task. This was the only way it was possible.”
Rick got onto his feet and Liala could watch how his wound was closing itself and healed in a matter of seconds.
“I know, it’s hard to believe,” he said and held out his hand, palm up.
She really likes her. Liala could hear him think.
“Okay, by now you should know that we can hear each other’s thoughts, so you might just explain to me what you mean by that she likes me,” Liala tried to stay calm and not pinch herself to check if all of this was just a crazy dream because someone had mixed drugs in their drinks.
“Means that she is not fighting you holding her,” Rick explained, still holding out his hand. “You don’t feel any pain or that she’s weakening you, right?”
“No,” Liala shook her head and looked at the blade. “But when the blade controls whom she weakens, why would it hurt you in the first place.”
“She lives off life force, so I have to feed her,” Rick scratched the back of his head. “And she can’t withstand the urge to feed.”
“So, she’d kill you even though you’re her brother?” Lia tried to wrap her head around that.
“When someone sticks her into my body, yes.”
“You’re not being entirely honest with me.” Somehow, Liala knew that, as if someone was whispering it in her inner ear.
Realizing that it was the sword, her eyes widened.
“Take her,” she handed over the blade immediately. “Is she always talking to you?”
“You heard her?” Rick frowned. “That’s new.”
“Okay, enough of this, okay? Liala shook her head again, trying to focus on the task at hand. “Everything is already weird enough for me, even without your sister forged into a sword kind of stuff, feeding off people’s life forces and being able to negate mythical powers. That’s something for another day.”
Lia buried her face in her hands and inhaled deeply, once, twice, three times.
“People, being trained and abandoned by a comrade of yours are about to try and break through the wall securing this place since who knows when. We have to stop this from happening,” she pointed towards the direction she believed the gate was located.
“I agree.” Rick nodded. “So, what’s your plan?”
16 – War
When Rick and Lia ran towards the gate, the fighting had begun. Gun shots were being fired and they weren’t just any guns, but machine guns. Snarling and howling reached their hearing as shifters were jumping from the walls, to get in reach for their claws.
The hunters had come prepared, and it dawned Lia that Brenna’s dad had planned for this fight to happen, right from the beginning. He must have waited for Lia to return to Crescent Valley because he had known that her mother wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to take her home. Brenna’s father had built a trap and Liala’s mother had run right into it, giving him the reason for this attack. He had been the more patient one, he had outsmarted her mother, even after death. If her mother had stayed within the walls of the sanctuary, if she had chosen to leave her daughter alone, nothing of this would have happened.
The more Lia learned about her mother, the further down the woman, who had given birth to her, fell from the pedestal Lia had put her on.
The hunters came prepared, but the shifters obviously had expected them to bring modern weapons. They were wearing bulletproof vests and helmets, some even to fit them while being in their werewolf form.
Still, how could shifters fight against hunters, who were firing a machine gun at them? They were being injured on their way down and towards them, slowly getting poisoned by the bullets that entered their body, spreading the pure metal with the blood stream.
Approaching, Lia could see that her mother was staying behind on the ground, not even on the top of the wall, along with her mate and a few others who weren’t leaving the scene to evacuate others. The alpha was sending the half-breeds into battle.
So much for being progressive and good by allowing the half-breeds to stay here. Why am I not surprised?
Liala gritted her teeth and clenched her fists, focusing on her mother.
Don’t, Lia. She could hear Rick in her head. You still want to go through with your plan, right?
It was getting increasingly difficult to not hear him and she knew that soon she would have to concentrate on shutting him out instead of letting him in, and she knew it was just the same the other way around.
Lia stopped in her tracks with now her entire body tensing, and Rick fell in line with her, calm and patient. She felt how her anger ignited to a burning flame, just like a glint getting in contact with gasoline.
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br /> It’s all her fault.
Nate being on the wrong side of the wall, was also her mother’s fault, just like the death of her father, the death of so many people. How did the clan still accept her as their leader? It didn’t make sense, unless they didn’t have a choice, because of this divine-blooded crap.
“I didn’t ask you about how important it really is,” Lia said, not turning towards Rick, but continuing to glare at the back of her mother, who wasn’t moving an inch, but barking orders to others, sending the twins off along the wall and out of her daughter’s sight.
What is she doing?
“What do you want me to answer?” Rick responded.
“What you can answer,” Lia gave back.
“The stronger the human part becomes, the weaker becomes the shifter,” he did as she told him. “That is true. Also, that the power is inherited through the mother, which makes females rarer but, all the stronger.”
“How much part human are you?” Lia turned her head to look at him and was greeted with silence; Rick looked even a bit awkward.
“I told you I can’t tell you more about me,” he said, staring back at the wall. “And apart from that, there is no time for a lesson in mythical lore.”
“Who knows if I will ever get the chance to ask you again?” Liala frowned.
“I’m as much human as you are, Liala,” Rick answered.
“That is really helpful,” she shook her head and added. “See you on the other side, Cedric.” With that, she started running, leaving a puzzled original hunter behind, who quickly snapped out of it and followed her.
How do you know my name? He asked Lia through his thoughts.
You’re kidding, right?
Liala had no idea what he was talking about, and Rick felt that she hadn’t consciously used his real name.
It wasn’t that her mother didn’t get involved in the fighting, but that she also was sparing those she regarded as more valuable. Maybe they all had agreed that the half-breeds would be the protectors, sacrificing their lives if necessary but that didn’t make it less wrong, did it?
HOWL and HUNT the HEIR: HOWL 1-3 (Dark World) Page 23