S
itting down, I try to do as Andrei asks with his deep, focused breathing, but it is hard to stifle my giggles when I can hear him breathing deeply. I am waiting for him to break out in a shaman dance. Cracking an eye open, I find his eyes closed as he takes this very seriously. He looks hilarious, especially for someone his size, sitting cross-legged with his back straight. Meditation was never my thing, so I found it pointless. Still, I try to be a good sport and close my eyes.
I lose track of time as we sit there. The sun makes me sweat profusely while he tells me to search for my mind’s eye or some whacked voodoo crap. Fur brushes my arm, and I open my eyes to find Maddox sitting beside me with his head cocked to the side as he watches Andrei.
Maddox’s deep voice flits through my head. “What is he doing?”
“No idea,” I answer, glancing to my side. Mateo is lying on his side on the grass with his head propped on his hand. I try not to laugh. He cleans his apple on his shorts before biting into it loudly. Although the crunch of his crisp green apple might have just sounded crazy loud compared to Andrei’s deep breathing. Andrei slowly opens his eyes before glaring at Mateo.
“What? Just watching you do your weird panting, just pretend I’m not here,” Mateo suggests, sending him a wink.
“It’s called meditation.”
“You call it meditation. I call it panting like a heifer, but please continue. The ladies love you panting over the top of them like that.” Mateo nods to himself, and Andrei growls at him. However, Mateo is unfazed by him and continues eating his apple.
Andrei turns and glances over at Maddox. He chuckles, shaking his head, “Seriously, Ezra, I mean her no harm. You can shift back. I am not going to attack my sister.”
“That’s Maddox, not Ezra. Maddox hasn’t given him control back, not after Kat turned demonic. I tried to ring you, but you never answered your damn phone,” Mateo lectures.
“What do you mean, Kat turned demonic?” Andrei questions, brows furrowing, and I also turn to stare at him, wondering what Mateo is talking about.
“Kat, she…” Mateo looks at me worriedly while I wait for him to explain. “She lost it, became angry, and she almost seemed insane.”
I jerked to attention at what he said. He sounded insane! I have no memory of anything happening after we left the meeting.
“Ezra had to mark her again to subdue her, and then Maddox took over and came home last night drenched in blood after he killed some shit and one of our patrollers.”
“What? You killed someone? Maddox, please give Ezra back control,” I plead, looking at Maddox, but he gets up and walks away with a huff. He doesn’t seem angry, in fact, I can’t feel anything emotion-wise coming from him at all.
“So it’s already happening,” Andrei muses. I twist around, eyes studying him. He looks past me into the trees, deep in thought.
“What’s happening?” Both Mateo and I ask at the same time.
“Jinx,” Mateo chuckles, and I roll my eyes at him.
Andrei sighs before turning his attention back to us. “The madness comes with being a Gemini. You need to get her to shift. It might help. Any time she heals someone, it will get worse. The last Gemini wolf killed his mates by accident, then killed himself.”
“The journals said they died, never said anything about him killing them,” I whisper, my thoughts swirling like a painful whirlwind.
“Yeah, well, I have Josiah’s actual journal, plus another that belonged to one of his mates. Every time he healed someone, his behavior became erratic, but even before he first shifted after becoming what he was, his mates spoke of him sleepwalking and his anger being explosive, his behavior erratic. After he killed his mates, his journal was nearly unreadable, his thoughts manic as he went completely insane. Some of the things I found said that a Gemini wolf’s mates could take the darkness that comes with being a Gemini. Share it if you will. That must be why Maddox took over when Ezra marked you, the madness that was in you transferred to him.”
“So I will go insane?” I ask horrified. I’d thought I was free of the curse, that Kora’s sacrifice had broken it. Not that I was given a new one.
“Not necessarily, as long as you don’t bring back the dead, it should be manageable, plus we have all different medications that can help these days. Back then, they didn’t have mood stabilizers or know what to call schizophrenia or different mental illnesses. We have resources to help these things in today’s day and age. But yes, every time you heal someone, it takes a piece of you, taking the death from them. That would be enough to send anyone mad, Kat, so stay away from dead people. But for you to heal someone, or bring them back from the dead, you have to kill someone to harbor that level of healing ability, life for life essentially. Small things are fine like a wound or whatever, but to heal someone dead or critically injured that will always mean killing someone else.”
“Well, I don’t plan on bringing someone back from the dead or killing anyone,” I snap.
“Then you should be fine with your mate’s help, but you need to shift. It helps because once you do, you can recharge off the moon, kind of like you did when you were a lunar healer. It’ll keep you strong, and your mind strong too.
“I don’t get it, how do you know so much?” I question.
“Anthony, you should meet him some time. That’s why your father came to my territory. He thought Anthony had something to do with your mother’s death, but in fact, it was me. I needed those scrolls from Jackson to put the final pieces together,” Andrei adds nonchalantly. I get up at his words, but he puts his hands up, pointing to the grass. “Please let me explain before you turn homicidal.”
I sit back down, deciding to hear him out, he has given us more information than anyone so far. But it doesn’t mean I trust him, not yet.