Kyan bangs on the door with his tiny fists, screaming for his father as he hears banging inside the room and his feral growls and snarls, and the woman’s taunting voice.
“Kaif, stop her, stop her!” Kyan cries out while Kaif tries to reassure him his father would be okay, only when Kaif hears the woman laugh and the loud gasping breath, he shoves forward just as Kyan’s hands hit the door, smashing it inward with a blast of magic.
Dominic is suspended in the air, clawing at his throat, his legs kick frantically and a growl so menacing tears out of Kyan when he suddenly shifts. A boy so tiny should not be able to grow so large, but he did take on the full body of Kaif.
I know he shifted young, but I expected him to match his human counterpart. Not morph into a full-grown Lycan. He whips his hands, blasting the woman. Recognition hits her face a few seconds before, and her eyes widen to saucers as she is slammed back against the tiny stairs. Dominic hits the floor with a hard thud, and Kaif stalks past him over to the woman and grabs either side of her head. She laughs in his face.
Kaif lifts her off the ground with his hands and holds her in the air, her feet dangle when her laughter is cut off. Kaif murmurs something and she starts screaming and thrashing. Yet he doesn’t let go, not even when blood starts pouring from her eyes, mouth, and beneath his hands covering her ears, her eyes melt out of her head when he suddenly slams her on the ground, and her body falls and writhes on the ground and her face starts melting off.
I can hear Kyan crying, begging Kaif to stop, trying to pull back control when Kaif’s foot comes down on her face. He crushes her face inward. Dominic gasps and Kaif looks over his shoulder at him while Dominic stares in horror at what became of his mother. Her blood smears his floor along with her brain matter when Kaif suddenly shifts back.
Kyan peers down at his grandmother in horror when hands are suddenly over his eyes and he is ripped from the room, only able to hear the soft murmurings of his father.
“It’s okay, son. You did nothing wrong.” Dominic tries to soothe as he sets Kyan on a sink basin. He grabs a washcloth and starts cleaning the blood from his feet and hands. Dominic then turns the taps on for the bath. I notice toy boats and ducks littered the bathtub.
“He killed her,” Kyan hiccupped a sob while peering down at his hands. Dominic turns around, clutching Kyan’s hands and kissing them.
“He was trying to protect you, protect me,” Dominic tells him.
“I killed her. I’m a monster.”
“No, son. She was the monster. You’re not a monster, Kye. You’re perfect the way you are.”
Marabella
The room ripples and warps, and I am suddenly back in the room. My stomach lurches forward and bile rises up my throat before I swallow it down. I don’t know what sickened me most, what I saw, or the fact it reminds me of what I did in the city to those men.
Kaif is back over at the table, holding the knife between his fingers and looking at it.
“The stone?” I ask him, shakily. His eyes lift to mine.
“Buried with Dominic, it was a talisman,” he answers.
“For what?”
“To kill me.” Kaif shrugs, and I look at Jonah over my shoulder. “It is part of the curse. It is the same Talisman that was in the dagger, used to kill Luna,” Kaif says.
“Why did Hades curse you though if it was your son that killed her?” I raise an eyebrow.
“He blamed me for brainwashing our son against her, but also because when he plunged the dagger in her chest, the knife used was one Celeste had made to kill Hades,” he says, holding it up.
“Celeste was going to kill her husband?” I gasp.
“He was going to take her daughter. She gave it to me before she was banished to the Moon Goddess realm, in case he came back so I could protect my son, only it was Luna he needed protecting from,” Kaif explains.
I nod, eager to find out more. “So what happened after he killed her?”
“Hades felt her death and came after my son. Only when he came, so did Celeste. Hades cursed me, said I took not only his daughter from him but Celeste,” Kaif sighs.
“How did you take Celeste from him?”
“Because when Hades came for my son, Celeste stopped him by using the knife on herself.” He looks away.
“But that makes no sense, because how did Seline become the Moon Goddess? Wouldn’t Moon Goddess Seline have to kill her when Celeste handed over her power to her?”
Kaif nods his head before answering. “When she found out her daughter was dead, she started looking for someone to take her place. Hades waited a year before he came looking for his daughter. Seline was a human woman Celeste saw could tame the Lycans. When Seline’s daughter Koraline was killed, Celeste offered to bring her back using the same spell that created the Lycans. Only she would be forever trapped in her wolf form since she was only half Lycan. In return for bringing her daughter back, she would have to become the next Moon Goddess.”
“Gosh, that name sounds familiar,” Kora muses.
Kaif holds the dagger up to show me. “This dagger is the only thing that can kill a god. When Hades came for my son, I learned the dagger didn’t just kill a god. It trapped their soul in it, to never know peace, only agony. Your mother would have another similar. When this was made, so was another one. The other dagger transfers power and gives life between the Goddesses, while this one trapped their soul, and power and killed them, forever banishing them to the shadow realm. This dagger is like a portal, in a sense.”
“So Celeste wanted to die, and that is why she brought Seline’s daughter back?” I ask, trying to understand everything he is telling me.
“Celeste couldn’t live without her daughter. Hades blamed me, and I happily would have taken his place, anyway. Only I expected him to kill me,” Kaif states.
Jonah remains quiet, also listening, and I wonder if I am making his legs numb sitting on him when he runs his nose across my shoulder, inhaling my scent. Kaif watches him but says nothing. Instead, he continues to explain. “When he realized what my son had done, he placed the curse on me, said the only love her monsters deserved was the pain of losing it.”