by Celeste Raye
“Since you are asking about Abe Phoenix, then I assume you know what is attached to his name. The curse?”
“Yes, I have learned about his curse. But I'm still not really sure what that has to do with anything.”
“It has a lot to do with it. I couldn't let my kids have the same curse.”
“I am no expert on magic, but I would imagine that knowing about it and changing their name was not going to change the curse itself. You can’t get away from a curse like that.”
“Of course not. But a lot of times the curse is more mental than anything else. Good and bad things happen, but if a person has it in their head that they are cursed, it never ends well. They will just let it drive them mad, knowing that something is always coming around the corner, and looking into everything. Freya and Lachlan, never had to worry about it.”
“And that is what I don't understand the most. Are you willing to sacrifice your daughter's happiness for the rest of your family’s comforts? Or for the power that you get through the lie? I just don't know what your angle to this all is, and that is the only thing that keeps me up at night. None of the rest of it does because I’m going to have Freya in my life, and when this is all over, you will not be able to say the same thing.”
“It was more to save Lachlan from being killed. He had murdered lots of his own and it would not be forgotten by some people. I knew that if it were found out what he’d done to Abe, his own father, then everything would be found out. My son would have been labeled a murderer and cursed. How could I let him walk through life that way?”
“And you are so willing to sacrifice Freya for him?”
Jillian was starting to get upset because she understood what it looked like. It didn't mean that what Nik said was true. He kept saying comfort like that was all she was worried about.
“You just have no idea that you have only scraped the surface You have no understanding, and you are talking to me like you know the full picture.”
“I came to you because I want to see the full picture. I have to. I have to understand why this happened so that I can go tell Freya something.”
“That isn’t going to work.”
“You can't let it end like this, Jillian. You will regret it.”
“I have to, Nik, and I already regret so much.”
She could tell by the way he was speaking that the tea was starting to work its magic. His words were slurring at the end of his sentences, and his eyelids were looking rather heavy.
“What did you do to me?”
“What I had to. I can’t have you going around spreading gossip. Just know that I did this because I love my daughter. I love her enough to take away the one man she ever loved. I have to live with that daily and I can’t tell you how much I hate it. I did it because of the prophecy.”
“What prophecy?”
“The one that ends our world, dear.”
Jillian watched his eyes finally close, and she let out a scared breath. A big part of her was trying her best to hold it together, while everything inside of her was drifting apart.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Freya was awaiting Nik’s arrival when she was confronted by her brother and several of his bodyguards. He told her that she had to go with him, and even though she had no intention of going, she knew she would have to. There was no one there to stop them, and even though she was supposed to be this strong witch, Freya knew that there was a lot that she still had to learn.
“I don't want to go with you, Lachlan. I never want to speak to any of you again.”
“I am your Alpha and you are going to listen to me. You have been rebellious for far too long. I will not look away like everyone else has. You will fall in line, just like everyone else.”
She gave a little bit of resistance, but Freya knew that she was going to have to go with him. She asked where Nik was after she told him that he would save her. Lachlan told her that it was impossible.
“Your boyfriend isn’t going to be saving anyone. You should have just left well enough alone. We walked away from all of this, but Nik just had to start up trouble. You should have let it go.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Apparently, he came to the house. He had a lot of questions and accusations to throw around. You knew that it would not turn out well.”
Her heart seized up in her chest. “I didn't know that he had gone anywhere. I thought that he was taking care of business with the pack. He didn't tell me that he was going to my family.”
“Good. You probably didn't want to know anyway.”
He dragged her out of the house, and before they took off, Freya already knew where they were going to go. There was only one place to go. He was taking her back to the one place that she didn't want to be.
Freya transitioned to her dragon form and followed her brother home. She wanted to believe that he was wrong, that the man she loved was okay, but she wasn't sure. Freya had learned that just because she wanted something to happen, it didn't mean that it was necessarily going to.
Freya tried to ask questions about what was going on, but her brother just ignored her. Lachlan had never really cared for his sister. There had always been something between them that didn't make sense.
“Just tell me why you are doing this, Lachlan. That's all I want to know.”
“I had to come get you. It is a matter of honor, and Mother said so.”
“Then you will do anything she asks of you?”
“Within reason, of course. She is almost always right, and she takes care of things, Freya. One day, you may need her just as badly as I did. You better hope that she will be there for you after all of this.”
Freya knew that there was nothing that she could say. She had been fighting an on-going battle with her family for all this time. They wanted her to listen and to do what she was told without ever making her own decisions.
Who would have thought that it would bring about such drama just to have a little free will?
As much as her brother wanted to boast about something happening to Nik, Freya was sure that if it were true, she would have felt it. She would know immediately that something had happened to the man she loved. How could she not?
Which meant that he was fine and he would help Freya as soon as he found out. Freya felt like it was a trap. She tried to get more information, but Lachlan wasn't giving anything away. She was just going to have to wait and see.
Nik woke up drowning. He had to rise to the surface, breaking free from the water and taking a deep breath of air.
The last thing he remembered was drinking tea with Freya's mother. He should have known that Jillian was going to put something in his drink. He had tried his best to come as non-threatening as he possibly could. He came with reasoning and the willingness to create peace. But neither of those things were warranted or needed when he got there.
He was becoming awake when he’d been thrown into some water. There were a few moments of feeling like he was falling beforehand, and that told him that he had come from high up. Most likely they just carried him over a lake or an ocean and dropped him in. Jillian must have been convinced that she had given Nik enough herbs to keep him out while under the water’s surface.
Nik figured that Jillian regretted not killing him before, but now she wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake either. He wasn’t going to walk away and try peace next time. After trying to drown him, there is pretty much nothing that isn’t justified now.
That was a liberating feeling, considering he wasn't sure how far he was going to have to go yet. Nik knew that the war that was coming and was going to end unexpectedly.
Nik looked around from left to right, and there was no one around. Nik even looked to the skies for whoever had dropped him, but he could see nothing. They had been sure that he’d be dead. He had to be glad that he wasn’t.
It was like he was dropped from the heavens, and he wasn’t sure how he felt abou
t it. He knew who had done it, and then he remembered the words that were said to him by Jillian.
What if he lost Freya? Her mother had certainly made it clear that her secrets were far more important than her daughter's happiness. How could he let it go on? Would Freya forgive him for what he had to do to her family to keep her safe?
After swimming to a close shore, Nik still was not sure where he was. He dried off and shifted into his dragon form. It was starting to get dark outside, and he was hopeful that the darkness would give the cover that he needed to get back. Nik had no idea what he was going to do next, but he knew that it was going to include revenge and finding his wife. Again.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Freya arrived home just when it was getting dark. She looked around at the place she had left not even a couple of months before and she didn't even recognize it. It was a house that she had looked at almost every single day for over one hundred years and Freya felt nothing. She had no connection to the house. She barely had a connection to the people that she had shared it with for so long. Everything had changed, and Freya knew that it wasn't the four walls and the roof that had changed. It was her.
“Mom will be out in a minute.”
“What about Father?”
Her brother’s brow went up sharply, and Freya wasn't sure why. She just wanted to know if they were both going to be available. Freya had tried to work things out with her mother, but apparently that wasn't going to work. Maybe if she got both of them together, her father would have some more say. He had more sense than his wife did.
“She will be up soon, sister.”
His voice was distant and cold, and Freya was finding his act the hardest of all. Usually, he yelled at her and told her she was stupid. All those sorts of things that she had heard growing up, but now he was looking at her with cold detachment. That made Freya’s insides shake, and she did not want to admit it, but it may have been the first time that Freya was actually afraid of her family.
Freya was left to wait for quite a while, and it was most likely done to make her nerves go crazy. They were, by the time Jillian came into the dining room. She was not allowed to go up to her room because she had to speak to her first. Freya could only imagine what she wanted to talk about.
“I told you that you would be back, Freya.”
“You did, Mother. I didn't realize that it would be like this. Lachlan is saying some horrible things. Tell me that it is not true what I've heard about my mate?”
“What is it that you speak of?”
“You know what I'm talking about. What have you done with Nik?”
“I did what I had to do, Freya. This is what I have always had to do. Nik should have just left it alone. You should have just left it alone, but you didn't. I can't have this coming out, and you can’t be with him.”
“What? What is the big deal? So, you lied to keep us apart. That's it. Why does it have to be any more of a big deal than that?”
“You have no idea what you’re in the middle of, child. You need to just leave it alone.”
“And Nik?”
“You need to forget about him.”
Freya scoffed. There was no way that she was going to be able to forget about Nik. She didn't want to. She wasn’t going to let anyone take her memories again. Nik wasn't going anywhere.
“I will never forget about Nik. Not again. I just want to be happy with him. Why can't you just leave it be?”
Jillian moved towards her daughter and tried to take her hand, but Freya pulled away. She wanted to have nothing to do with her in that way.
“Just tell me. I don't want to say anything else to you until you tell me what happened to Nik.”
“Nik's gone, Freya.”
“So, this time, you have decided that it was easier to get rid of him altogether? Is that it?”
“Yes, you know that I don’t like to interfere in this way, but I have to.”
Freya didn’t want to hear her excuses. Anything would have been better than that. All that she could think about was Nik and what had happened to him.
“Where is he?”
She started to get a surge of energy inside of her, and when she yelled out, it came out like a tidal wave of magic, pushing her mother down. Jillian was stunned but righted herself quickly.
“I will teach you how to control your power, Freya.”
“I wouldn’t suggest it. You have no idea what I want to do to you right now. Just tell me where he is and I will leave. I will not play this charade as I did before. There is just no way.”
“He is at the bottom of a lake, never to be seen again.”
Freya’s heart clenched in her chest, and she didn’t want to believe that what her mother said was real. Nothing had fazed her before, but the words that Jillian spoke were the final straw as far as Freya was concerned.
Power started to fill her up inside and she could actually feel it crackling in the air around her. Freya had never felt so powerful in her life, and though she had no actual training, she tried her best to push it out towards Jillian. She wanted it to come out in one big wave like her anger and her words. Freya watched it hit Jillian and saw her fly back.
Jillian flew back hard enough that her head hit the wall and she was sent to the ground. Freya should have felt something when she saw it happen, but she didn’t. She should have run to her mother, but something kept her feet still. Maybe because she didn’t feel like she even knew her own mother anymore. She had raised her, and she had known her for over a century, but that did not mean that her feelings were going to go any further. Freya wasn’t going to let them control her a moment more.
The door behind her burst open and Lachlan started running towards her. His eyes were on his mother on the ground, passed out with blood around her head, but he turned towards his sister. Lachlan was screaming at her, asking her what it was that she had done. Telling her over and over again that she had no idea what she was doing. At some point, Freya believed him. What has she done?
Her brother grabbed her and she could do nothing but look at the rage in his eyes. He had her over his head and was about to throw her when Nik smashed through the other door. He did not ask what was going on, instead moved to hurt her brother. The look on his face was one of anger and hatred. This was the showdown that had been brewing between the two of them since the party at the Dynasty Club. Now it was finally going to play out, like it was supposed to be the beginning.
“Let go of her!”
One-minute, Freya was being jerked up and about to be thrown by her brother, and the next, she was falling to the ground a few feet below. Her brother was no longer on his feet, and the man she loved was on top of him, beating his face in. He was saying things to the man that Freya did not understand. Something had happened, something more that she was privy to.
Freya should have pulled Nik off of her brother. Lachlan was her brother after all. There was supposed to be some sort of bonded inclination that way, but Freya felt nothing. After what they’d all done to her and everyone else, there was no way that Freya was going to get involved. It had to play out without her.
She watched with detached interest as her brother was killed. Freya felt a moment of sadness, but it was quickly taken over by relief. It was all she could think about. Relief. Finally, she was going to be rid of her family. She had forgotten about her father, though. Only when he burst through the door did Franklin leap into their minds.
He made an anguished cry when he saw Jillian on the floor.
“Freya what have you done?”
Her father started to rage out as well, and again, Nik was the one that came between her and the family that she had enraged. Moreover, the family that had turned their back on her.
“Tell her the truth, Franklin!”
Freya listened for the truth, but it was hard to hear anything with Nik’s hands wrapped around her father's neck.
“I won't do it.”
“You are going to do it, or I'm going to snap you
r neck and then I'm going to tell her anyway. Either way, she's going to find out. Your pride cannot stand in the way any longer. She deserves to know the truth from somebody besides me. From someone that she has thought of as her family for all these years. It’s time to finally step up.”
“Just let me go to her and make sure she's okay.”
“You are not in the position to be making demands. Tell your daughter the truth.”
Freya noted the way he said ‘your daughter’ and it made her look at him a little bit harder. What was going on right now? What was this drama that was playing out in front of her? What more had been learned?
“Tell me what?”
He had to be prompted several times by Nik, but finally, Franklin had arrived with words that changed her life forever. Just when she thought that everything she believed in was real, it all came crashing down again.
“I am not your father, Freya. I wasn’t your brother’s father either.”
Freya looked over at the lifeless body of her brother and she felt nothing. It did not matter if they had come from the same place; she was never going to feel anything for what happened.
But Franklin was different. While Freya knew that he was a puppet with strings being held by her mother, at the same time, he had been the one that at times, showed her the most kindness. It was hard for Freya to come to grips with everything. It was just one more time that Franklin had done what he was told.
“Let him go, Nik.”
“What do you want me to do with him, Freya?”
“You're going to let him go, and he's going to run away with his tail between his legs. He has lost his pack and everything that comes with it. He does not deserve it. None of them do.”
Freya looked towards the man that she had known as her father her whole life and told him to pick up his wife and take her with him.