Tales of a Shifter (P5) The White Mountain

Chapter 35 - Queen Tatiana

Chapter 35 – Queen Tatiana

Brandon inhaled and leaned forwards in his seat. "This whole poem, the Acris...NONE of it would have happened if there was no child even born from your affair with a Druid."

Brandon shook his head and pointed at his father. "And you said that you and Tatiana left each other and never saw each other again. You told her you would kill her if she came to you. So how did I come to be? How do I even exist!?"

Hovel rolled his eyes and snapped. "You came to exist, because Tatiana was a fool!" he shouted at his son, before the Grand Master tsked and stood up from his seat.

It seemed to Brandon that his father always sought a physical release when irritated or unhappy. Like when he spoke of Tatiana the Druid.

"Yes. We separated that day beneath the water falls, and for nearly a whole year I heard nothing from her. I tried to forget what I had done. The mistake. The flesh that I had found pleasure in. I tried desperately to wipe her from my memory. But I won't deny that she remained. Thoughts of her enchanting body were never far...."

Hovel hid a small shiver as he dropped back his head. His glass frames gleamed in the celling lights, hiding his eyes from Brandon's for a few seconds. Then Hovel breathed and continued with a chuckle and a sudden flourish.

"Lucky for me my father, Merlin, was dying. He had passed on all of his power as Grand Master to me, only a month after I separated from the creature. So Instead of thinking of my own mistakes....I was busy with my own ascension to the head of the Brotherhood. My days were filled with countless duties and my nights were never dry for want of a warm beautiful body in the sheets."

Brandon rolled his eyes at the self-satisfied look Hovel had on his face. Then Hovels face went hard and cold, blue eyes darkening with rage, and memory. Brandon instantly knew what was coming next.

Hovel took a few long legged steps to his left, then he turned and walked back, and plopped down in his chair. Silence. Then He clasped his hands on the desk and looked at them, as if he saw something on them as he spoke. "...but that creature found me as I had found her that night." He suddenly and softly whispered.

"I don't know why she came to me, with the reveal of your life within her womb." Hovel seemed to rasp as he clenched his fists and looked up at Brandon. "But one day Tatiana called upon me with a letter delivered in secret to my Castle. The moment I opened the parcel and saw her words I knew I was tapped." Hovel chuckled sounding resentful. Then the Grand Master licked his lips and spoke further.

"My Father, Merlin was on his death bed and only days from his last breaths, but when a message arrived for me with her name on it, her soft words calling me to her side? I couldn't resist. Her disgusting body still called to me. I still lusted to feel her in my arms. No matter how taboo it was. I can't fathom what sickness held my mind even after so many years..." Here Hovel shrugged, hunching his shoulders before he nodded his head as if confessing to a crime.

"So I answered her summons, and to this day I wish that I hadn't." Brandon noticed how Hovels said this last sentence with careful emotion. Cool and cold.

"Off I went. I stole off into the southern plains. I ignored the Mountain lumbering over me as I came back to the waterfall in the dead of night. Like a vision I found her waiting for me in a tent. A swath of cloth tied into the trees. And all around there were pots and various other items that one would use if they were sleeping in the woods."

Hovel scoffed suddenly and sat back in his seat and put a had beneath his pointed chin. "I remember asking myself why Tatiana had set up camp there instead of going up to her own home, somewhere above, up there with her own filthy kind. But as I stole into your mothers Tents to meet with her? I realized exactly what Tatiana had been doing." Hovels voice dropped into a growl of soft rage. His eyes hooded and focused on a point to Brandon's left. "She had been hiding it. Hiding you."