" The what?" Malia asked, clearly oblivious to what the Assembly was. " The Assembly", i said again, " it is a gathering of the creatures of the underworld headed by the witches". " And how can this Assembly help me or Diego out?". " You guys are mated together, you feel the mating pull for each other in as much as I would not want that to be true. You guys are an exception, and the only way to prove that this exception was mandated by the Moon Goddess, that you are Diego are not out of your minds, is through any test that the Assembly would have to perform", I held her by the shoulders, " trust me, once you guys pass their test and prove to the world that you are destined for each other, no one will stand against you people being together", she squeezed her face, thinking about what I had just said, her imaginations probably running wild with the very idea of living freely with Diego. " And how can I call the Assembly?" She asked, after giving the matter a thought. " I wi
Diego's POV Something wasn't right, and even in my sleep I knew that. It was as if I was wasting my time in sleep, as if there was something I was supposed to do which I wasn't doing, and that made sleeping very uncomfortable. I lazily opened my eyes, grateful that the white light in the room wasn't so bright, and the sun that peered through the window blinds wasn't so harsh. I tried to recall what happened while looking around, trying to figure out where I was, and there she was, Patricia, staring down at me with an unreadable expression. I jerked back, not in fear or shock, but in something in-between that fear and shock. " You heal so fast, and you were just damn lucky that I didn't have a silver blade with me", she said, cold and withdrawn. Her face wasn't painted in shades with the different colors of the rainbow, and even her clothes spoke volumes of how much she had deviated from her usual flamboyant self. " Why Patricia? Did I do anything to wrong you? Yes, I betra
" The blood farm. I want to go to the blood farm". " What for?" he asked, even though sure enough I knew that he knew why I was making such a request, but I answered anyway. " I agreed to provide a solution to a problem at the blood farm, and even though my time is out, I would still like to see what I can do", I said, using my pleading voice. " Well, you said it yourself, your time is up, so go back to your confined room, and wait for the decision that will be taken at the councilors' meeting", he sounded authoritative, sure enough to let me know that his word was final. " Please Maester, I beg of you, innocent children will be subjected to pain and misery if I do not see to the end of this", I got down on my knees and begged, hoping to thaw his frozen heart. " That is more of the reason why you are not permitted, now back to wherever it is you came from". The idiotic watchman must've heard him from outside. He immediately opened the door, almost like a deja Vu, ready
Everyone was silent, and only the sound of me sniffing snut in my nose could be heard. I bet they were contemplating, obviously not reconsidering. My father was also almost teary, and from where he sat in powerlessness, he gave me a reassuring smile, clearly telling me that all was well. " We cannot be sure of that", the Maester blurted out, gaining everyone's attention, " we do not know if you have been bewitched, and for starters, there is no logical explanation for you as a vampire to be compatible with a werewolf", he said, leaving me speechless and giving the others a valid point to fall back on, " and even if you are in fact, true about your feelings; which I believe you are not, that still does not justify the fact that you killed a councilors, a senior member of our pride, together with other members of our pride, and also hindered our chance at ever defeating the Northcave pack", his anger was more evident, boiling rage as he spoke, " for one, I would have ordered your exec
Malia's POV The Uber driver kept staring at me and Hansel through his rear mirror, probably astounded at how I swiftly carried him into the vehicle. " It seems like you gym a lot, huh?" he asked, his eyes running a 200 meter race from the road to the mirror. " Pardon?" I didn't understand what he meant by the word ' gym'. " I asked if you gym a lot?" " Uh, um........ yeah, yes", I finally gave up and just answered. I could only hope that since it was a yes or no question, my answer wouldn't seem weird, and most importantly, wouldn't lead to another question. " Wow, but you don't look like it at all", he continued, his right hand swaying here and there off the wheel as he drove, " women who normally gym are usually all bones and muscles, but you're slender and super feminine". " I guess I'm not like them", I just tried to go with the flow, hoping that the drive would end soon. " Looks like he's your boyfriend?" he was talking about Hansel. " Oh no, no, he's not. J
" Thanks for the ride", I said as I hurled Hansel out of the car, tightly gripped. " No problem", he said, looking around the area like a surveyor, " but where are you gonna go from here, like, there's no house here?" I was hoping he wouldn't ask such a question, but knowing fully well how unpredictable mundanes could be, I prepared a lie. " Well, tomorrow's his birthday so I decided with a few friends to hold a camp party. He was a scout and really loved camping, so we decided to remind him of old days", I dished out the lie, fresh from the oven. " Oh, that makes a lot of sense. No problem, enjoy yourselves, and happy birthday to him". " Thank you", I said as he drove off, his backlight disappearing into the distance with a slow blur. I turned around, facing the familiar woods that I had always maneuver whenever it was time to meet Diego. The familiar crocking sounds of toads and night creatures were very much audible, and the moon was absent in the sky, giving the fores
Patricia's POV " They called for what?" Valkyrie asked, his mouth wide open, his eyes almost tearing up in shock. No one spoke. No one could actually. If the witches had called for an Assembly, it only meant one thing - they have become aware of Diego and his abnormal mate. " Who summoned the coven?" he asked no one in particular, placing his two hands on his head as if the head was about to fall off. " Who the hell called the coven?" he banged his fist on the table in fury, as if it was the poor table that had summoned the coven. It was that witch girl, Ariel or whatever it is they called her. I was so certain about that. " Take him out", the Maester said as Diego was still mopping at everyone in surprise. I escorted him outside to the guard who was to take him to his captive chambers. " Patricia?" he called as I was about to leave. " What is it?" I turned to face him, anger building up in me just with the sight of him. He just kept quiet, as if he wanted to
Dad stood in the middle of the cave, a fire torch in his hand, illuminating the pitch black space with yellow light. I was trembling, almost crying and almost freezing to death. Mom was tied to the side, her hands wounded behind her and tied to her feet, her mouth gagged as she continued crying, pleading consistently. She was saying " please, don't make her do this, please don't" but everything sounded like grunts, how I was able to get what she was saying was all intuition. Dad wasn't listening to her, I bet he wasn't even hearing her. His ears were clogged with rage and fury and his eyes were hot blood red as he stared at me in disdain. " Patricia", he calmly called, his voice more cold than ice, sending shivers to my already shivering body. " Yes dad", I answered still crying my eyes out, hoping that he would retrieve his order, that he would tell me that it was all a joke, that everything was a prank he and mom had planned. But it wasn't, I knew my dad too well to know t
Diego's POV Some people say that love is blind, and I'm quite sure that I can agree with them. Love really is blind. I had pleaded with Malia to leave before I would hurt her just like I had done in my dream, or vision, or whatever it is that was. But she was a blockhead. The type that would do just exactly that which you tell her not to do. I had thought that it was only kids that were that stubborn, but Malia was proof that the petty stubbornness can also be found in adults. After I had uncontrollably bit and sucked her blood, I came back to my normal self only when I had sucked enough and she fainted to the floor, probably because she had lost too much blood. I picked her up, almost crying, trying so hard not to think of the possibility of her dying, praying for that intention, and luckily, she began to heal. There was no doubt that the Moon Goddess was on our side. " How are you?" she asked as she opened her eyes so well, probably still healing. " That isn't what m
I must've had an ear problem. Yeah, that must have been the case. Or rather he didn't literally mean what he was saying, like he was using an idiom. That must be it. Those damn idiomatic expressions can be as misleading as hell, imagine someone walking up to you and telling you that they saw a white elephant, only for you to later figure out that there wasn't an actual white elephant, just that the person had witnessed something unimaginable. Yeah, it was always unnerving, just like when you find out for the first time that Santa Claus doesn't actually exist, it's just mom that has been placing those gifts under the tree all those years. I even knew a girl that cried for several days when she found out that the tooth fairy doesn't really exist, the poor fellow would've probably been a grandmother by then, or would have even met her demise. " Excuse me sir, you mean that she had a vampire turn you into one, right?" I asked, just to be clear. " No. She turned me into one by hers
" What? You do what?" I asked him, my eyes widened in surprise. " I said I know who you are. Now come on in or if what you want to say is very brief, you can say it here right now", he said, keeping me on my toes with his husky voice. " Okay", I said. He proceeded to go into the house while I followed after him. His footsteps were tired, as if he was finding it hard to carry his own weight. He led me into the sitting room; a fairly spacious one with cloth covered sofas, all giving off the aura of a warm home. " Have a sit", he said, pointing at the sofa right opposite the television. The sofas were four in total; a three in one, a two in one, and two singles, all set to fill up the space allocated to the sitting room. He sat on the one next to the television, with a sofa dividing us both, giving a considerable amount of distance. " So, what do I owe this August visit?" he asked, relaxing carefully on the sofa, preparing himself to listen to any rubbish that I had to spill
Ariel's POV I immediately got zapped up into the familiar tunnel unconsciously, but instead of traveling down the tunnel, I started swirling around like that was inside a tornado. Drops of water appeared out of thin air, forming little screens that were showing different things, but all were of Calipsu, as if I was watching short videos of her with different screens, all passing by and rummaging with the storm inside the tunnel, giving little time for me to make out sense of what any of them were showing. The wind was picking up, blowing my hair into my face and my clothes almost away from my body. I tried to focus on the screens, but they were too much for me to focus on anyone. One screen was depicting Calipsu at another date with Diego's father, another was the familiar picnic scene, another was of both of them in bed, making love, another showed where she was casting a spell on a sleeping Diego's father, lying in the center of a witch's circle, but the one that grabbed my
Death. It has always been a mystery, a journey whose end no one knows. No one has ever trailed down that road and returned, and so there was no answer to any questions one might have regarding the phenomenon. But one thing was certain; that everyone, every living creature must die. For humans, their time was shorter. They mostly died at seventy, eighty, ninety, hundred, or sometimes a hundred and a few more years, but it never exceeded a hundred and fifty. For werewolves it was a bit longer - three hundred, three hundred and fifty, four hundred, and so on, but they normally did not exceed five hundred. Witches normally exceed five hundred, even reaching up to seven hundred if they do take proper care of themselves, while vampires were topping the list, being able to live for a thousand years, but normally not exceeding a thousand and two hundred. It was also believed that one goes on to another part of the world after death. The Abrahamic religions - the Christians, Muslims, and
Patricia's POV I drove off immediately as soon as we locked up Diego in the room. I couldn't tell why dad would choose to have him locked up in that house, of all the places that he could possibly be locked up in. The house held memories that I wasn't so fond of, memories that I had buried deep inside me, sent straight to the back of my mind, and seeing the house again almost got me overwhelmed with the emotions that I had tried so hard to bury over all these years. But yet again that was predictable of my father. It was literally in his nature to torture me, to bruise me, both physically and mentally, all for the goal of making me stronger and wiser, and it was working. The fact that I walked into that house and came out without having cried myself to stupor was evidence of my father's toughening syndrome being active in me. I drove off immediately before the wall I had put up would crash to pieces, dropping the two guards at the Maester's quarters and leaving immediately t
" No, please, stop", Diego said, likely talking to himself as he struggled to let go of my neck. Trembling, he got his hands off, tears running down his cheeks as he tried to control himself. His head moved with the intention of burying his teeth into my neck, but instead he bit into his arm, shouting in-between as he kept biting his arm. I was too astounded to even move and I just laid there, watching him try to tame the monster in him. " Tie me up now!" he said as he continued biting, somewhat making it hard to discern what he was saying but thankfully, I was quick-witted and realized what his grumbling meant. I pushed him off my body, slamming him into the wall as the urge in him tried to have him attack me, but instead he bit deeper into his arm as the dripping blood increased. I quickly got the bed sheet and immediately tackled him to the floor, tying the sheet behind his back and letting him gawk for some time. I got off him and moved to the other side of the room, trying
Malia's POV I kept worrying. About Diego, about Hansel, about alpha Jace. These three men whose lives have become much harder just because of me, and I couldn't help crying myself to sleep sometimes. I felt that Hansel was getting better, even though I wasn't pretty sure if he had woken up, but alpha Jace was definitely getting worse. Hans' constant visit to the dungeon and his beatings and threats confirmed all that; he was dying. The physicians at the clinic couldn't figure out what was happening to him and couldn't find a remedy, something to treat him with. I wondered what could have gone wrong with me. He wasn't supposed to suffer from my bite, certainly not, not even when the bite was deep enough let alone when the bite wasn't so deep. There had to be an answer somewhere, a solution, an explanation as to why that was happening. The door slammed open and one of the guards walked in, with another following right behind him. Without saying a word, they both held me, ty
Was it Diego? Hell no, it was his father, but he damn looked exactly like his son. If Diego had been the one staring at him, it would feel like looking at a mirror; just that the mirror would have a moustache and curly hair that was even better than his bland face and plain boy haircut. It absolutely felt like deja Vu. " Um, yeah, yeah, I'm faaaaaaaine", she was about to let go of hid grip, forgetting that her legs were still stunted and her back was still angled perpendicularly. Yeah, I was inside her, muted, shut out, somewhere inside, but still very much able to know what was going on even though I had no control whatsoever of her actions or whatever was going on - just like old times, back at the picnic memory. She was about to fall even harder as she threw her handbag upwards in a reflex action, her right leg moving up to form an angle of 95% while her left one stayed put to the ground, and for whatever reason it may be, her mouth was terribly wide open. He surg