Chapter 14: Guardian

“I am not letting you do this for me” Niovi says, struggling a little to get out of her chair as she is heavily pregnant, her mother; Kairos helps her up. They are in Niovi’s room and Kairos leads her to the bed. “We are not doing it for you, it has to be done” Kairos says “do you not understand the gravity of this situation?”  she continues “you are about to birth the most powerful aetherius to ever live, and Calix will stop at nothing till he gets her”. Niovi lays in bed and turns away from her mother, Kairos sighs and sits on the bed “the more of us he claims, the more powerful he gets. when the time comes I will send her away and hide her” Kairos gets up and heads towards the door “Where?” Niovi asks as soon as Kairos reaches the door. Kairos doesn’t answer she just looks at her daughter and then she leaves”

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Five minutes fly by with my gaze darting between Shaia, Alpha Nereus and the man I am assuming is his beta because they appear to be around the same age. “Hello” Nereus finally says putting an end to the awkward silence “Shaia” I say while keeping my eyes on the Alpha and his beta “what’s going on?” I ask then Nereus and his beta get up. Nereus really is easy on the eyes, he doesn’t look like a spectacular Greek god with incredibly chiselled facial structures but he does look like he knows the way to a gym and visits it often. He is lean, about six feet three inches tall with hazel eyes and wavy hair. His beta is taller I’m guessing  six feet five inches with short brown hair and he is really good looking, he also has glasses on but they have no lenses. “Hello Celeste” the beta says “I am Lare Beta of the Lycius pack” confirming that I was right “we are here to take you” he adds. “Take what?” is my response.

This time Alpha Nereus speaks “you will be returning with us to the Lycius pack and that is where you will be residing from now till your moon ceremony so we can take care of you” I look at Shaia and she’s is just sitting down and enjoying her tea, after all her “the less people know about you the better” warnings how is she onboard with this? “First of all” I begin “I explode things without even thinking about it”, “I am aware” Nereus says looking somewhat amused “good so you know I have no need of protection” I add, “that is untrue” Shaia says before I can even continue “show her” she’s clearly giving the instruction to Nereus who reaches into his shirt and takes out a necklace that has a crystal pendant which looks a lot like my bracelet. As soon as he shows it to me both the pendant and my bracelet begin to glow and so does Shaia’s rock, the black one with the rune carving. “Well that settles it then” Shaia says “would you prefer to wait till morning?” she adds “no we leave tonight” Nereus says, I am just standing there shocked at how eager Shaia is to get rid of me. “Shaia if this is about all the crystals I exploded, I am really sorry” I say to her, then she gets up and holds my hands in hers “domine mi” she starts “I have showed you all I know, I believe being with your guardian will help the blockage in your heart”, “you could be wrong” I respond to her “that is true, but I know that your way path forward doesn’t lie here”. 

I get my things together, Lare collects my bag then Shaia asks that we have some privacy. Nereus goes to wait outside the door then I yell “I know you can still hear us, go wait it the car” he grunts then he leaves. Shaia gives me a book and says the words “by blood and by the moon” then she kisses my forehead and bids me farewell. I leave the cottage and make my way to the car, hugging the book to my chest.

“What kind of guardian are you anyway?” I say cheekily as I step into the car “you didn’t even open the door for me” I add “I am not your bodyguard, child” Nereus responds, I roll my eyes I knew he was only playing nice in front of Shaia. “My uncle is Alpha Eques and soon enough he-” Nereus cuts me off “If you want to go around and announce to the whole world what you are, be my guest. Put yourself and your family in danger” I am shocked, this person is supposed to be my guardian? I knew leaving Shaia was a bad idea “okay you know what? Please take me back I-” I  gasp and I am unable to complete my sentence, I feel a surge like electricity within my body, as though a volcano is erupting in my brain. The world starts to go dark and the last thing I see is a crescent moon scar on my right thumb.

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a hooded figure makes its way into the cottage, Shaia has her blindfold on and she smiles. “Give me what I have come for” the figure says “I can not give what has already been given” Shaia responds. The figure moves in swift motion and stabs Shaia in the heart in a crystal dagger. Shaia falls to the ground and the figure sees there is a cut on her right palm and her crescent moon scar is gone. The black rock crumbles to dust and the figure lets out a frustrated shriek

Chapter 12: I Don’t Know Where To Go From Here

Parenting is a tricky thing; one must always know how to care for and protect their offspring and the care and protection must always be in the right quantity. However, in between their daughter’s grief and the words of the shaman echoing in their heads Leah and Malcoy are at a loss of what to do. They arrived home three days ago having to leave the Aegaeon territory immediately they got the news of Gerald’s death because Celeste came really close to exposing herself as her screams in grief shook the very foundation of the palace. Leah and Malcoy couldn’t deny it any longer but she had just been separated from her first love, hadn’t left her room since they returned and also wasn’t eating. How could they bring themselves to tell her she had to be separated from her family also?

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“I feel bad for you, kinda” I say, Gerald raises an eyebrow “pray tell, why?” he says “well” I continue “you could have fallen in love with any other person in the world but you chose a she-wolf with three overprotective brothers” he walks up to me and hugs me from behind “you’re forgetting Mr and Mrs Eques” he whispers in my ear. I giggle then turn around to face him, Gerald plants a kiss on my forehead “I wouldn’t have it any other way” he says. 

I open my eyes and I am back in my room. In my bed, my lunch tray is untouched and tears begin to fill in my eyes again. It’s been six days since the incidence at Aegaeon pack’s territory, I have screamed, I have broken things and now I just stare at my ceiling wishing it would cave in and bury me, I’m numb. I have been living inside my memories, mostly my memories with Gerald, I don’t know what hurts more; knowing that he was torn apart limb from limb or knowing that I maybe could have stopped it. I had heard Greg tell Anthony they couldn’t even find his entire body. I don’t know if it’s possible to move on from here.

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“If what you’re saying is true, you have to find that girl” Alpha Zander says to his son; Nereus. “Eques isn’t just going to let me walk into his territory and take away the most valuable werewolf asset ever” Nereus responds “don’t talk about her like that Nereus, she is not a thing. She is a person this family is sworn to protect” Zander scolds his son and Nereus Apologizes. There is a long pause then finally Zander asks “you’re certain it glowed?” Nereus nods “and you’re certain she had the bracelet on?” Nereus sighed “it really looked like it”. “You can’t make a decision based on it looked like it son, you have to be sure” Nereus sits and looks at his father “so what do you suggest I do?” he asks, Zander grabs a glass and pours some wine in it then he responds to his son “send someone we trust to make sure it is really her”.

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I can hear my parents arguing again, they have been going at it for days and it is something about sending me off to some mysterious place to protect me. They’ve tried to avoid me hearing them but they are doing a really terrible job, I sit up from my bed and for the first time since we got home I leave my room. There is silence as I make my way down to the living room; Anthony is with my parents and they are all looking at me like I am going to break any second. I sit on one of the kitchen stools and pop a grape into my mouth “what’s going on?” I ask. 

There’s a long pause then finally my mother speaks up “sweetheart, your father and I, we saw someone and-” she pauses and looks at my father who nods for her to go on, “we think you might be an aetherius”. I look at Anthony almost like I am silently asking “did I just hear what I just heard?” I chuckle a little “I’m sorry what?” I ask. “It’s a lot to take in, we know” my father says, I let out another dry laughter and shake my head “we are still struggling with it ourselves” he adds “you think that I might be a mythical creature with the ability to channel the powers of the moon goddess” I respond “If the aetherius legend is even true, the last one died like a thousand years ago” I continue “actually like 500 years ago and she supposedly had time powers” Anthony chimes in, I look at him in shock; he believes this too?

My parents go on to tell me that there are so many things they haven’t been able to explain

“Honey your dreams and your sleepwalking” my mother says 

“You said it was a normal werewolf symptom for the full moon ceremony” I respond “well, you’ve had the dreams since you were a child” Anthony adds

“Your crescent moon scar” my dad points out 

“That happened after I bumped my head sleepwalking” I respond “no it didn’t, it disappears and reappears on a different part of your body” my mother says “that’s ridiculous” I respond and Anthony immediately hands me a mirror, I check my head and the scar is gone. I am still struggling with that information while my mother recounts a few other things, she mentions the incidents at the palace, the day Plankton exploded and how she had found me asleep outside with a wolf cub when I was four years old.

“You know when you lie, you rub your thumb in the middle of your palm?” my dad finally says as he takes my hand and places it in his, I nod in response to his question already knowing where he is going with it. “When Alyssa asked about the blast at the palace the day the rogues attacked, you lied” he adds and I feel tears in my eyes again “please don’t send me away” I say to my parents as I begin to sob. After I calm down, my parents and Anthony explain how important it is that nobody finds out about me and in order for me to have a full understanding of what is going on, I have to go to the moon shaman. I have to be with her until at least after my full moon ceremony. There are more tears and finally I get up and head into my room to pack a bag; I leave in the morning.

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Calix hurries into the cave, he takes out from his pocket a shard of the theca that Athanasios had broken earlier which his right hand had retrieved for him. He looks down at his clothes still covered in Niovi’s blood and lets out a wail. then he calls out and a young boy walks up to him “you have to find the child” Calix says to the boy “this will help” he points to the theca, and when you find her you will be able to resurrect me. do you understand boy?” the boy nods and Calix presses the shard into his heart.

Chapter 10: Rabid

This is the one subject I did not pay full attention to when my mother was narrating it but I think it goes something like this. About 400 years ago a group of werewolves hunted down the last aetherius she is said to have possessed the power of time. This group included wolves from all seven packs and they were led by a Beta from the Lycius pack who was convinced that he was the rightful Alpha and he wanted to create new werewolves so he’d have his own pack. An aetherius has to give her blessing willingly; well she has to recite a chant in the old tongue bestowing her blessing on whomever she chooses, over time the aetheria were kidnapped and tortured into doing the chant and that’s how many of them died. This last one however, when she was caught by the Bastard (that’s not me insulting the man, that’s the name my mum called him when she was telling the story) she recited a chant in the ancient tongue that reversed Selene’s blessing and put the wolves in the original state of Zeus’ curse. They all went mad and killed their families. 

I know you’ve heard stories of werewolves attacking humans and eating their flesh, well that’s not completely accurate. Trust me, we like our meals cooked just as much as you do, only a rabid wolf would attack a person or another werewolf and eat them; we refer to them as rogues. I don’t know how it spreads and I don’t know how many rogues there are, what I do know in this moment as I run down the palace steps and make my way to the armoury pushing past a lot of pack warriors who are too focused on gearing up to face the imminent threat to notice me and I begin to load a vehicle with as many guns and bullets as I can find is that two of my brothers and the love of my life is in danger. “You’re insane if you think I am going to let you go out there” I hear Greg growl behind me “you can’t stop me Greg, Anthony, Gerald and Noah-” he grabs a gun out of my hand as I am speaking “putting yourself in danger is not how we save them” Greg starts to walk away from me towards the other warriors preparing to go out into the woods “Greg!” I scream “look at me Greg” he turns around and looks at me “I don’t know how, but I know you can feel it too, you need me”. Greg walks back to me and leans his forehead against mine “I will bring them back I promise, but you need to stay here for Mum and Dad” and with that he leaves with the team of pack warriors going into the woods and I stay back with the warriors guarding the palace.

All the guests are led into the palace and the gates are closed as soon as Greg and his team leaves. I am standing outside the west gate with a group of warriors and there is an eerie silence. There is no scent or sound and we can’t see anything. I feel a shiver down my spine, they are here and I can sense it “Aim” I say,  the soldiers look at me confused “do it now” one of the soldiers at the front responds “at what? There’s nothin-” he is immediately cut short by his throat being slit and then we see the rogue, They were cloaked. 

Soon rogues come charging at us from all directions, there’s hundreds of them. They are swarming the palace and I watch the soldiers around me fight for their lives, I find that I am frozen in fear and unable to move, my arms are trembling and I drop my gun. “Do something, Do something, move” I am saying to myself in my head then I look up and I see a rogue charging towards me,and in that moment it feels like something unlocks from inside my stomach building up into my heart like electricity. The energy explodes inside of me “prohibere!” I scream and a blast of energy shoots out of me and spreads throughout the entire palace every rogue is flung so high into the air that most of them don’t survive the landing and the one that was charging towards me is sliced in half.

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Nereus is running towards the west gate of the palace, everyone felt that quake that reverberated throughout the entire palace and thankfully it was in their favour because it seems to have affected only the rogues. However that is an issue for later, right now his focus is getting to his gamma at the west gate. He is thinking all these when she runs into him, “I’m so sorry” she says and takes off without another word. Nereus watches her leave then notices his necklace is glowing again