Genetics

Chapter 16

It had been a few months since Michael's visit, and everything was peaceful for now. Caleb and I had agreed to get married, though it took a lot of him convincing me that it was a good decision. We had decided to wait until the main goal had been achieved to get married, so for now we were just engaged.

Our daughter though had been born earlier than expected. She was born on October 21st. We noticed right away that her eyes were different from her eldest sisters' eyes at birth. Her sisters both had no gold in their eyes, but we knew from what we had learned back then that they would have gold in their eyes if they had ever grown up, much like Mark's kids would within the next two to three years.

Her eyes were brown like Caleb's, but there were golden freckles inside her iris, making it clear she was more like me than Caleb who only had R2A while I carried what we had begun to call Vampire Lethality R2A or VL-R2A for short. Her hair was blonde like Caleb's, and she had shown no signs that she wielded magic. We had asked the witches to inspect her for signs and they found none, but they did warn us she could manifest them later in life much like the tiger form.

Caleb and I had both agreed to give her his last name to avoid those on the island ever learning she was born from me. She deserved the opportunity to live among her people after the vampire council was destroyed and Caleb fully agreed with me on that. We had also decided to name her Nicole, the false name I had used during the vampire ball. We had decided for her middle name to be Gloria to signify the fact she would live in a peaceful and glorious world after the vampire council was dealt with. Although Caleb had chosen her middle name, instead of the one I was going to go for. I was going to go for Alke, the Greek name I sought out that meant strength.

Unfortunately, Azra had not sent us any new information on the vampire council and neither had Michael. So far, we were trying to gather information by hunting down vampire nests and getting them to talk. It was hard work and most of the time none of the vampires talked, but it was slow. It was incredibly slow and made it seem like it would take years to find any vampire council members.

A knock on my office door drew my attention away from my journal. It was sunny, but even in this office, you could feel the cold nip of winter. The trees outside were barren and the ground was covered in snow. It reminded me strongly of when the entire group had come here during winter to escape Michael. This office in particular reminded me strongly of finding Autumn, Zackery, and Austin in here during that time completely crushed and without a pack anymore. I sighed and stood up. I just hoped Zackery and Autumn were alright back on the island.

"Come in." I called out as I closed my journal and stuffed it into the top right drawer of the desk.

The door opened and in stepped Kane. Behind him I spotted Kyrillos, Dwyn, Arthfael, Darren, and Adrien. Kane seemed like he had something to say while the others looked as if they were actually nervous to be in the room with me.

"What's up?" I asked Kane as I looked over at the rocking crib where Nicole slept.

"We just got back from Illinois. We were searching for vampire nests, and we actually found out something we figured you might want to know." Kane said as he glanced at Nicole's crib.

"What did you find out?" I asked Kane.

"We learned where Godiva Kjarr is currently hiding out." Kane said as he moved towards the window.

"Okay. Where is Godiva?" I asked as I moved over to a stack of books and picked up on.

I remembered how when I first learned of her, I learned she was cryptic and when she wasn't cryptic, she was silent and observant. It made me worried beyond anything else that they had found her first and not last. I could not fight her with my tiger form. It had stayed silent for a long time to the point I had begun to rely more on my magic and sword skills.