Lucy POV
I paced the hall in the hospital ward, waiting for the Pack Doctor to come and give me news on my parents. Avery was in the room next door with Aamon, and I was shocked to learn she was pregnant.
“Lucy, stop pacing,” Ace growls. We had been waiting hours, they managed to revive my stepfather. However, he hadn’t woken up, and neither had my mother. Apparently, a fair few pack members except those of the original pack belonging to my grandmother were knocked out along with Ryker.
Only those that served the original Hybrid Queen remained awake and the mutations. Tyson and Ace explained it was some sort of default. Luckily it only affects those he personally brought into the pack and had pledged to him. Despite my stepfather being the King, the rest are bound to my grandmother Aria and grandfather Reid who were apparently on their way here.
“Lucy, stop!” Ace snarls, his temper bubbling over, and I glare at him. I still hadn’t forgiven him for knocking me out. Tyson suddenly walks out of Avery’s room with Aamon, but my attention is diverted to the Pack Doctor; when I see him walking down the corridor toward us, I all but pounce on the man.
“My parents?” He sighs, looking over my shoulder at my mates, and I growl when Ace steps closer to listen to the Doctor.
“Your mother is in a coma which appears to be induced by the King, same as the rest of his blood-bound members until he wakes up, neither will she.”
“When will that be? My brothers are out there somewhere. I need them awake to help find them. We haven’t the manpower to search the entire City without all of his pack.” I snap, tears brimming in my eyes at my frustration.
Everything was so fucked up. My brothers were god knows where and my mother was knocked out due to her bond. We already had every person out looking for them, and an amber alert had been broadcasted across the radio, yet nothing. It was like they had just vanished. While I am stuck here wasting time that could be spent searching for my brothers.
“Ryker has burns to over Sixty-five percent of his body. The only thing keeping him alive right now is the machine he is hooked up to, his lungs are burnt, we have vacuumed them twice now, and his wolf genes are too weak at the moment to heal him, it is hard to say when or if he will wake up,”
Ace suddenly walks off, and I feel his heartache at the news of his brother, yet all I could think of right now was my own brothers. Ryden was completely defenseless since he’s a baby and at the mercy of a psycho, and Rayan wasn’t much better off. He still hadn’t shifted, so he was also defenseless against Josie and god knows who else.
Aamon comes over with Tyson, and I listen to the Doctor retell them. When he leaves, Aamon turns to me.
“How is Avery?” I ask.
“Fine, for now. She overloaded herself. Her magic isn’t at full strength right now,”
“But the baby is ok?”
“Yes, our daughter is fine. It’s why she was visiting her father, but she felt I needed help. Misting is dangerous while pregnant, and then using her magic drained her.”
“You’re having a girl,”
“Yeah, hopefully, this one makes it,”
“This one?”
“We don’t like to get our hopes up, this isn’t her first pregnancy, but Avery is a Hybrid witch. Half succubus and also a priestess, her pregnancies have trouble going to term, her power too strong for them, but this baby seems to be holding on,”
“I don’t understand?”
“She is a half succubus. It would be fine if she were just a witch like her mother, but being half succubus, her body powers up off magic. She feeds on it. We think this baby has made it nearly to term because it is more demon than a witch, so her energy hasn’t been feeding off it like it has the others which killed them, although now she is growing weaker, the baby is draining her,”
“So she can’t use her magic?”
“She can, but it isn’t particularly safe,”
A few of Tyson’s warriors make their way down the corridor, and we all turn to face them when we wander over to them.
“Anything?” I ask, but they shake their heads.
“They weren’t searching. They went to Alpha Jamie’s pack,” Tyson says, and my shoulders sag.
“What did you find? Was she telling the truth?” Tyson asks just as three gurneys are rushed down the hallway by paramedics toward the pack doctor’s ward.
However, I am shocked to see Luna Elise strapped to one. She looked emaciated and terrible. I gasped in shock when Melana rushed in with the next one, a man was on it, and she was murmuring to him while clutching his hand, tears trekking down her cheeks, and I couldn’t help the growl that slipped out of me as she passed me. Her sister has my brother’s, and she wasn’t totally innocent, yet she stayed and helped put out the fires Ace had told me, and she told the truth, we were all doubtful of her claims, and I couldn’t believe she knew anything of where Josie went with my brothers.
Tyson’s hand settles on my shoulder, and Melana darts past me while glancing at me nervously.
“Well, that answers that question,” Tyson says.
“So, what did you find?”
“None of his pack knew any of them were down there; they were just as shocked as us finding them,” Floyd tells Tyson.
Tyson nods as more people are brought in.
“Alpha Jamie?” I ask them, and Floyd shakes his head sadly.
“We think he left the City with a few of his men, his daughter is also gone, no sign of them, we believe the fire at the packhouse was also a distraction to help him leave too,”
Aamon nods in agreement. “Yes, Beryl wouldn’t be comfortable knowing Avery is linked to your pack and would come here,”
“Why?” I ask, turning slightly to stare at him.
“Avery was her high priestess. Avery stripped her of her magic when the elders tried to kill her. Beryl was also part of the Faewood Coven elders, who killed Avery’s mother. Beryl was one of those elders, and Avery showed her mercy, let her live because she was brainwashed by Agatha. However, when all the drama with Kade happened years ago, Avery found out Beryl was helping by making the elixir that helped Kade create the mutations,”
“Wait, I thought you killed Avery’s parents?”
“No, her aunt and Uncle, they were her adoptive parents, and yes I did, and I spent ten years in the underworld with her father as punishment before she brought me back. Beryl killed her bio mother along with Agatha, who is now dead, but she used to dabble in the dark arts, but she found a way obviously when she helped Kade,”
“Pardon,”
“The mutations, the hybrid gene she helped Kade mutate it, we didn’t realize until after she killed her daughter by accident trying to make her tribrid. She wanted a power source that wouldn’t die, so she tried to make her daughter immortal. However, something went wrong, and her daughter died. When Beryl’s house was raided, we discovered she was using necromancy,” Aamon pauses glancing at the room where Avery was before continuing.
“We thought it a little odd she wasn’t aging but assumed it was her daughter using her magic on Beryl while she waited for Avery to return Beryl’s magic to her, turns out she had been dabbling in the dark arts the entire time. Beryl couldn’t use her magic, so she turned to necromancy instead. She helped Kade, on the promise for every mutation she helped make, she got to keep one to keep her magic,” Aamon says explains with a sigh. He rubs a hand down his face.
“By the time we found out she was already gone, she left Avalon City. She went missing just after the mutations were found, no one has seen her since, and Avery has been trying to track her for a decade now, but Beryl has grown too strong, she is able to cloak herself,”
“So your saying we might not find them,”
“Maybe we still can?” Melana says behind me, and I spin around. A feral growl left my lips, and I fought the urge to claw her eyes out.