“You’ll tell me later? No, none of your business? No, don’t be so nosey James Lacrosse… I don’t know how to deal with this… it’s just so,” he teased before she hit him with a pillow.
“Shut up, James Lacrosse. Better,” she offered and he sighed with an exaggerated look of relief.
“Much better. You had me worried there for a moment,” he said with an emphasis impish smile and she shook her head at him but suppressed her own smile. Lily could still taste the betrayal, like the burn of stomach acid after throwing up. Could she be doing this with him? Talking like this? The teasing and friendly banter? Should she? It seemed there was no one she could trust anymore but herself and her son. Everyone was betraying her in some fashion or another.
James stood next to where Lily sat, too nervous and anxious to sit down himself, but not too close as to make her feel crowded. Andrew, Tony, Bill, and what was left of the Aequivalere sat around the table as well. Keon stood next to Tony, similar to how James was with Lily. “So what are you saying, Dorin?” Lily said, sounding frustrated. She seemed to sound like that a lot lately, he noticed. “That, what, the Aequivalere are gone as in what? Taken over?”
“What I’m saying is that I can’t get in contact with anyone from headquarters. I’ve even tried the queen’s private line and got nothing,” the vampire explained. Lily made a sound of her ever-growing frustration. “An attack would explain some of the strange behavior I noticed in her lately.”
“What kind of behavior?” Tony asked him and Dorin looked hesitant for a moment before he answered the alpha.
“About two weeks ago Queen Hazar began sending certain people on missions outside of the state. These people were on leave, returning from other missions, or simply the type we don’t send outside of the headquarters. The hybrid is an example, she’s not a guardian but a researcher. Despite her history with Silvano, it was odd for her to be sent out but the queen insisted and insisted equally that Lily take her son. Looking at it now I suspect she was trying to protect and hopefully save the best, the weaker, and the innocent,” Dorin replied.
“If she knew then why wouldn’t she try to stop it,” Andrew asked.
“If she said nothing there was a reason,” Lily told them. “Hazar once explained her ability like a watching several monitors at once and through a kaleidoscope. Sometimes she didn’t fully understand what she saw until it already happened. She probably saw something but didn’t fully understand its meaning so she did what she could to minimalize the damage just in case,” she explained then looked to Dorin. “Nick?”
The vampire shook his head side to side and Lily’s face fell some. “I haven’t been able to contact the alpha or anyone else from his pack either,” Dorin said grimly. That was bad news, really bad.
“It gets worse,” Bill spoke for the first time. He stood with a prideful stance that James had seen Lily mimic a dozen times. “Most of you know me as the Crow,” he started. Dorin and his people looked to Bill with obvious respect. This just seemed to irritate Lily by the look on her face. “I’ve been in the service of the Elder vampires in Europe, and with the Aequivalere,” Bill continued.
“For about twenty or thirty years reports from the headquarters in the Americas has become questionable. The European Council nor the elders noticed anything off till about ten to fifteen years ago when they started to hear whispers of a monster, a werewolf who didn’t shift into a wolf but a terrible creature. Worse yet, he had the power to overthrow any alpha if he wanted and that his lust for blood, death, and women couldn’t be sated,” he explained.
James crossed his arms over his chest with a frown but Lily seemed to find it amusing since she was snickering near the end. Bill gave Lily a harsh look and James couldn’t help a little smile escaping as she glared back at him but went further by propping her feet up on the table. “Lily,” Tony complained, but she simply grinned and wiggle into a comfortable position. Andrew shook his head and gave his son a look of don’t bother.
“The rumors kept coming, but the local Aequivalere insisted they were just that, silly rumors and we believed them until the seer Hazar managed to smuggle out a report about a confrontation that took place in Montana a couple years back. This report confirmed that the boy has a beastly shift and the existence of a genetic hybrid,” Bill continued. James frowned at him again, not at all happy about being called “boy.”
“Aren’t ya proud pa? I come up in the world,” Lily mocked Bill, but he ignored her and continued his tale.
“An investigation was opened and people were sent, but none of them ever returned or reported back. Some, we discovered, had been murdered, but most we are unaware of their current state. I was sent in about a year ago and so far what I’ve discovered isn’t good. Ninety-five percent of what you know as the Aquievalre is not the Aequivalere. I had found all the headquarters to be overrun by criminals from Europe except for Montana,” he explained.
“But I knew it was only a matter of time before it too would be overrun. The seer was hoping that the death of Thompson would stall them,” he said, but Andrew stopped him.
“Xavier was working for criminals?” Andrew asked shocked.
“It shouldn’t surprise you, Andy. I told you he was no good,” Bill replied.
“What about the research? Lily brought her research to the Aequivalere, to them?” Dorin asked.
“I destroyed it all as soon as she left. All they have now is what they managed to copy,” he replied. “Unfortunately they seem to think they have enough to start where the lycan left off. Silvano, I think, was simply a distraction to keep us from looking at what they were really doing- gathering resources to begin experimenting again. When I discovered that the hybrid was my daughter…” Dorin made a strangled sound.
“Daughter,” he said, sounding appalled and disgusted.
“Yeah I’m not a fan of it either,” Lily told with a shrug.
“As I was saying,” Bill jumped in before the vampire could give her his comeback. “When I discovered Lily was the hybrid I’ve been having certain people watched, worried they could become targets and I was right. Around the time Silvano escaped a girl, seventeen, was kidnapped,” he continued.
“Why take the girl, Thompson seemed to prefer younger children. Those around their first shift,” James asked.