Lia’s scream tore from her throat with such force that it hurt.
Too quick she fell, and too swiftly the ground seemed to reach up towards her, the houses, the street, and the movement of the battle coming into focus.
Raiden.
Her heartbeat was so fast it felt as if it would explode, and once emptied, her lungs refused to draw in air again.
There was no time for thought or spell-casting, but her power ripped through her on instinct, and she threw her head back in agony, her scream silent, and her hands clawing.
Her wings opened, ripping through her skin, shredding through the cloth of her t-shirt dress, and caught the air with a whomp of sound, the feathers fanning out as they distributed the speed that wanted to tear the fragile sails of bone and keratin.
Her fall slowed and then evened out.
She had been right, she thought in a daze as her mind caught up with her body and she realized that she was not about to die, smashed upon the ground below her. Flying was just like riding a motorcycle, a matter of angling the body and wings to catch the draft of air, and core strength.
Her wings were not white like Cael’s, but black, like a raven’s.
She saw Cael above her, his expression shocked, but she had no time for him. The road below her was scattered with bodies and blood – vampires and wolves.
She could not see Raiden and assumed he had shifted to join the battle. She could track the ongoing battle of Elior and Lucien, and their children, her eyes following their movements easily, heightened by the instinctual changes within her triggered by her fall.
She tucked her wings to her back and dove, plucking a vampire from the battle just as she was about to snap the neck of a wolf. The vampire screamed and fought, but Lia was stronger. She carried her high, and dropped her, before diving again, kicking a vampire in the head as she landed, and bowling several others over with her wings.
She caught Lucian, tearing him away from the snarling Elior, and carried him up with her.
He clung to her, his face, and hands bloody, his eyes eclipsed by the red of his Other, and his lips pulled back from his teeth, frenzied from battle, but he calmed as he realized who carried him, throwing his head back in joyous laughter.
“So strong! What are you?” He reached over her shoulder to stroke the feathers. “Beautiful Cecelia. What are you?”
“A mistake,” Lia replied. “A mutation. A hybridization of the original mutation breeding with the Other slaves of this world.”
“And you are mine,” he framed her face with his hands, his expression gleeful. “You know it to be so. You saved me.”
He kissed her, and she threaded her fingers into the long, white-blonde hair, and held his mouth to hers. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly, his hips pressing against hers.
And then the kiss changed, and he tried to pull away, at first puzzled, and then frightened. He shoved at her shoulders, twisted against her, fighting, clawing at her skin leaving red streaks but failing to break the skin, until the strength fled him, and he whimpered.
She drifted to the street and placed him on the ground.
The battle had stilled, all faces turned to the sky when she had stolen Lucian from amongst them, and now the vampires watched, warily.
“What have you done to me?” Lucian’s wail was hoarse and desperate, and he clutched at himself, writhing on the tarmac. “Oh, f-k, the agony. What have you done?”
“Vampires were made,” she said. “They can be unmade. I took the Other from you.”
As Cael had once done to her, she had used the opening of a consenting kiss, to un-work the magic that had created him.
His scream was brutal, terrified, and agonized. The vampires recoiled, horrified. From the edges of the crowd, she saw several flee along the road, towards the burning city. She let them go. They would spread the word of what had happened.
“This is over,” she said to them. “Unless you want to suffer the same fate.”
A wolf sprung, catching Lucian by the throat and shaking him brutally, the snap of the man’s neck audible, before dropping him to the ground. Raiden shifted, and rose to standing.
“For my mother,” he spat at the corpse. “And for Lia.” He stepped over and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face into her neck and breathing in her scent.
She held him, the heat of his body like a homecoming. “You did not have to do that,” she murmured.
“He was evil, vampire or not, he was evil and deserved to die.”
Elior, Rebecca, and Nate came forward and knelt on the road before her. After a moment, the vampires around them did likewise, sinking to the ground.
The wolves shifted, hands going to soothe injuries, staggering to the fallen. She saw Wade and Diedre crouch beside Tara, who did not move, and felt their grief.
“Cecelia,” Elior said.
“You need to go, Elior,” she said to him. “You need to go onto TV and radio, whatever you can. You need to spread the word, that this is done, and bring peace back to this realm.”
“Do not mention Cecelia,” Raiden said hastily. “Leave us out of it.”
“You won the battle,” she agreed. “Elior was victorious and killed Lucian. What was it that Alatar said,” she looked up at Raiden. “History is written by the victors?” She turned back to Elior. “Rewrite history for us, Elior, and leave the werewolves, Raiden and I out of it. Can you do that?”
As Elior left, the defeated vampires scattered, fleeing before the werewolves could take their revenge, or Lia change her mind and use her magic against them, leaving the chaos of the street, and the werewolf injured to their kin.
“Tara is dead,” Raiden’s voice broke. “And Ethan injured. He may not live.”
“I am sorry, so sorry,” she held him against her, resting her forehead on his shoulder. He was covered in blood and unidentifiable gore, his skin mottled with bruises and claw marks, but he was whole, and he was alive. “I am so sorry, Raiden. Cael was right. I am a poison. I am cursed.” She wept the words.
“Cael,” he snarled, looking up at the sky. “I thought I saw you fall, Lia, before you suddenly grew wings.”
“He dropped me,” she agreed. “His family have been killed by his people for his interference in this world, and he meant to kill me. Falling triggered some latent instinct… I think, somewhere deep within me, I always knew I could fly. When I was on your motorbike, and when Cael flew with me, it felt so natural to move in that way, as if I were meant to do it…”
The sun rose whilst the werewolf pack tended the injured, the dying and the dead. Lia stood on the front porch of Raiden’s house, watching as the new day fell in golden rays over a street still crazed with abandoned cars and broken bodies. She wept for those lost and for those losing loved ones.
She had not seen Raiden for hours and wondered if he could forgive her the death of his sister.
Diedre walked up the garden path and came to stand beside her, resting her palms on the wooden handrail that fenced the porch from the garden. Her arms were heavily bandaged, and her eyes sunken and reddened from weeping.
“This is not your fault,” she said quietly.
Lia bit her lip, fighting back her despair. “But it is.” Her throat was sore, raw from screaming, and her voice hoarsened by it.
“Some will agree with you,” Diedre turned her head to look at her. “In their pain and sorrow, they will look for something or someone to blame, and you will make a handy target. But it does not make it true. You were born what you are, Cecelia, and you could not help that.
“It is the greed of others that brought us here,” Diedre turned her face back to the street as someone began to wail. A tear slid down her face. “If Lucien had not stolen you from Raiden, we may never have been brought to this moment.”
“If Cael had not saved me from the car wreck that killed my parents, this would never have happened.”
“Lia,” Diedre was firm. “You have a choice now. You can believe that this is your fault, and let it tear you apart piece by piece, until you find no joy in living. Or you can accept that it is not, and be grateful for the life you have, and find peace with my son.”
“They will not stop,” Lia told her. “The Wingless will seek to kill me, and Elior and the vampires, now that they know, they will come for me.”
“That may be true,” she agreed. “And the pack will protect you. You are pack, Lia.”
“I may not be able to change, and my child may not be a cub,” Lia whispered. “My ancestors have mated with werewolves and Others before.”
“We will see upon the full moon,” Diedre replied. “I somehow think that someone who has grown wings, will be able to change into a wolf. Maybe not the normal way, but in your own way, and that may be enough.”
“I am… so very sorry about Tara.”
Diedre nodded, her tears overflowing. “No battle is ever fought without loss, Lia. Tara fought for the pack and died for it. It is what we do.” She turned abruptly and put her arms around Lia’s shoulders, pulling her against her in a fierce embrace. Lia clung to her and wept.
When their tears settled, Diedre held her back by the shoulders, and searched her face before nodding and releasing her.
“It will take the world a long time to recover from this,” she observed. “And it may never be the same again. But we will make a new world for our young. Perhaps it will be a better one.
“I will find you some clothes to wear,” she added over her shoulder as she returned along the garden path to the street. “You should take a shower, and sleep. If I encounter Raiden, I will send him home to his mate.” She paused suddenly and turned back, walking slowly up to the porch stairs.
“Diedre?” Lia felt her heart clench at the expression on the other woman’s face.
“It may be nothing, but… Thirteen years ago,” Diedre said slowly. “Wade and I were taking Raiden home from… oh, I don’t remember, now. There was a car on the expressway that had been in a terrible accident. It was burning before we pulled up to render aid. A little girl was sitting on the verge, utterly unharmed… Cecelia. It just occurred to me that Lia might be short for Cecelia.”
“Oh, god,” Lia pressed her hand to her mouth. “I remember you. I remember Raiden. The little boy with kind eyes who looked after me in the car.”
Diedre’s smile was luminous. “He always remembered the sweet girl that didn’t want to leave him. Well,” she sighed it with a sense of satisfaction. “Isn’t life funny? After all the years between, you found each other again.”
“Yes,” Lia felt a tear down her cheek. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Fated mates,” Diedre murmured as she turned and walked down the path.
Lia stood, her fingers clenching around the porch railing. She could see it now, she thought. She could see Raiden in the little boy’s eyes, she imagined that she could even remember his name being spoken. He had been hers ever since, she thought, and it gave her comfort.
She made her way into the house, her wings unwieldy on her back within the close confines of the hall and doorways. Cael had managed to hide his, she remembered. It had not been a glamour of she would have seen through it, but something else. Searching within herself, she found the answer, and as the wings had appeared, so did they disappear, but not without pain as they retracted, and the skin closed behind them.
She made her way into Raiden’s bathroom and stripped off the ruins of her dress. Diedre had been right, she needed a change of clothes. She scrubbed herself thoroughly and was about to turn off the water when Raiden stepped into the shower behind her.
“Oh, Raiden,” she murmured as the water turned red beneath their feet, picking up the blood and filth from him.
“Just… Let me rinse off,” he replied, his voice gruff. His eyes were bloodshot from weeping.
She reached out hesitantly until the palm of her hand rested against his skin, and when he did not pull away, she took the soap and began to wash him. He closed his eyes and stood beneath her touch, a muscle working in his jaw.
She shampooed his hair and ran her fingers through it to help the water carry the soap away, and then worked on his hands, the gore caked into the nail beds and under the nail.
Clean, she could see the were claw marks just beginning to seal themselves along his back, and so many bruises that there seemed to be no skin unmarred by them. He had fought hard, and without mercy.
She turned off the water, and reached out for a towel, using it to pat him dry, gently, trying not to open the wounds, or hurt him. He took the towel from her and rubbed it through his hair, and she dried herself, stepping out of the shower to do so.
“Your wings are gone,” he said, and she was relieved to hear his voice, and that he was talking to her. His hand rested against her back where they would have sat. “There is a… a pair of silver scars here.” He traced them with his fingertips, and she shivered beneath his touch.
“Raiden…” She wanted to apologize, to plea for him to love her despite what she had wrought upon his people. She turned and looked up at him.
He pulled her against him, his mouth coming down to hers, his kiss fierce, filled with pain, grief, and relief. She wrapped herself around him and kissed him back, the touch of his skin against hers, the flavor of him against her tongue, raising a desperate need for him. He picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.
“Lia,” he said against her cheek, his voice breaking, as he laid her onto the bed. “I…”
She pulled him to her, wrapping her legs around him, and he groaned as he entered her. He covered her with his body, pinning her hands to either side of her head, his fingers woven with hers, and his lips against hers, as he took her, fast and ferocious with his need.
She lifted her hips into him, throwing her head back to cry out as her body gave to pleasure, her voice rough, and he kissed the point of her chin, the column of her neck.
“Look at me, Lia,” he said, and there was alpha command in his voice. Her eyes met his, the glow of the Other bright. “Mine. My mate. My cub.”
“Yes,” she sobbed it. “Yes Raiden.”
He buried his face into the curve of her neck as he came, and collapsed over her, weeping. She freed her hands from his in order to stroke them through his hair and over his back, offering what comfort she had to give. He had lost his sister. She did not know if he had also lost Ethan. There had been other losses, too, she knew, friends, extended family.
“I am so sorry,” she pressed her lips to his head. “I am so sorry, Raiden.”
They eventually crawled up the bed and beneath the covers and slept tangled in each other. When she woke, it was dark again. She lay with her head on Raiden’s bicep, and her leg over his, the palm of her hand against his chest, as if she had sought in her sleep to reassure herself of his heartbeat.
Raiden was awake, stroking his fingers through her hair whilst he gazed unseeing at the ceiling.
“Ethan will live,” he said softly. “I got up a little while ago to check on him, and he is doing better. Beginning to heal.”
“I am so glad.”
“Elior was on TV. He seems to have the vampires under control and has organized them to quell the riots.”
“Okay.”
“He will be a problem. All of them will be. Now that they know about you.”
“I know.”
“Dad retrieved your fairy from his clothes and freed him into the garden.”
It was such a minor thing, and yet it moved her to tears. He rolled onto his side, curling around her, and pressing his face into her hair as he wept with her. Their weeping moved into lovemaking, their kisses flavoured with tears, and their movements gentle and tender.
“I love you,” she told him.
“I love you,” he replied.
Towards midday he sighed. “We should shower and eat something. Mum left clothes for you,” he slid out of the bed. “I left them… downstairs I think,” he ran his hand through his hair as he scanned the room. “Must have. I will be back.”
She started the shower whilst he went.
They showered quickly and she pulled on the clothes. She had dreaded them being Tara’s, not wanting to cause Raiden pain from seeing them on her, but Diedre had sent her own clothes instead, a simple summery dress and a cardigan to hide the fact that there was no underwear to go with it.
They had just finished eating and were doing the dishes when Wade called out from the front door.
“In the kitchen, Dad,” Raiden answered.
When Wade entered, he was not alone. “Elior,” Raiden greeted cautiously, stepping in front of Lia.
“You do not need to fear me,” Elior told him. “I am not here to harm your mate, wolf. But you are wise to be wary. Word of what her blood can do has spread through the vampire community, and there will be some who will seek the font for themselves.”
Raiden snarled.
Elior held his hands palms out. “We are spreading word,” he said. “That seeking the font, could result in losing the Other within a vampire, that she can do that to any that try. It will dissuade many. But,” the red of the Other in his eyes picked up the light from the windows. “For some, it will not be enough to stop them.”
“Is that all that you are here to say?” Raiden asked him. “Be wary of vampires? I think the pack knows that well enough, and it will be a long time before we welcome vampires onto our lands again. I am surprised that my father allowed you back today, before our dead are even buried.”
“Elior is not our enemy,” Wade murmured.
“Your father is right,” Elior agreed. “I am your ally. We must work together, to protect Lia.”
“I will protect Lia,” Raiden replied heatedly.
“It would be wise for Lia to stay on pack lands,” Elior looked to Wade, ignoring Raiden. “Even to disappear for a time. Perhaps a move to another pack, where she is not known and can live in obscurity?”
“Werewolves are not like vampires,” Wade replied. “We know each other. A move to another pack, and Raiden and Lia will be identified within a day. We cannot hide them.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” Elior said heavily. “Because that would be a good solution.”
Wade saw Elior back off pack territory, and when he returned it was with Diedre.
“I will put the kettle on,” Raiden decided, seeing the expression on their faces.
“Elior’s idea is not a bad one,” Wade said gently. “I did not want to go into it in front of him, as there is only so far that we can trust him, but there are isolated packs, Raiden.”
“Packs which live apart from humans,” Diedre explained. “And the rest of the world as much as possible. If we relocated you to one of those packs, the likelihood of crossing paths with vampires would be much less, and to the vampires, it will be as if Lia has disappeared entirely.”
“Go to another pack?” Raiden’s voice was grieved. “Leave my family?”
“You are known here,” Wade walked over to him and placed a hand against his shoulder in comfort. “And the vampires will know that you are Lia’s mate. The moment you leave pack territory, you will become a target, Raiden.”
“Then we stay,” Lia walked over and took Raiden’s hand. “We stay on pack territory. We don’t leave. Better that, then separating Raiden from the pack. He needs his pack around him, especially at the moment.”
“Alright,” Diedre released her breath. “I cannot say that I am not relieved. I have lost one child, I did not want to lose another, even if it were only to another pack, but we felt we should give you the option.”
“Perhaps in time, it will become safe to venture out of pack lands again,” Wade added. “It feels like a prison sentence to say you must forever more stay within them.”
“No, it is not a prison sentence,” Raiden sighed, and he put his arms around Lia. “I have my mate, and my family. I have no need for the rest of the world.”
After they left, Lia sighed. “Raiden.”
“No.” His tone was all alpha, cutting off her protest.
“Alright,” she leaned her head against his chest. “My grandmother used to ward me as I left the house. Perhaps, I can work something like that out for us.”
“Yes,” he was happy with that conclusion. “That is a good idea, Lia.”
“There is something else you should know, Raiden.”
“Lia,” he was wary.
“When my ancestors mated with Others, their children may not have turned… But the abilities were passed along to the next generation. When the fall triggered my wings, it also triggered the strength and speed of the Others.”
“Dormant abilities, like recessive genes,” he murmured. “The full moon is tomorrow night,” he said slowly. “If you have the strength and speed… The wings…”
“Yes. Perhaps your bite might trigger the ability to shift.” She felt fear tangled with the hope. What would happen if she did not turn? “It may work the same, for our children?”
“It does not matter,” he answered her unspoken question. “If you turn, or do not turn, Lia. You are my mate, and this,” he placed his hand over her stomach. “This is my cub. I will love you both, no matter what.”
She turned in his arms and he leaned his forehead down to rest against hers.
“My mate,” she whispered. “My werewolf.”