Hidden One

Chapter Sixteen

Tessa sat at a small sitting room table, a cup of tea in hand and Cecilia across from her. The Pack House, Tessa had realized, was for more than the Alpha's lodging and pack meetings. Over a dozen young Shifters who had come to the Alpha with nothing were being housed there. The Shifter Library, which held all the records of Shifters everywhere in the world since they'd come to this planet, was also here. It included family trees, pack locations, and so many other things that Tessa had stopped listening to Atticus after that. He was, hilariously enough, actually the librarian.

"I didn't realize my mother had a twin." Tessa murmured, staring out the window. Demetri was at the tree line, talking to Mya while he waited for her to come back outside. For some reason, she couldn't take her eyes off him, or shake the feeling of wanting to gouge Mya's eyes out with a rusty spoon.

"It bothers you, doesn't it?" Tessa turned to look at Cecilia, not understanding. "Seeing him out there with her. Why haven't you two formally mated yet?"

"I only realized this morning." She answered. The sun had set as Tessa'd been led into the house, giving way to the cool night air and the full moon. The passing of the day had not stopped the busy activity of the pack, however. Torches and a bonfire had been lit, and when Tessa inquired about it Atticus had told her the movement wouldn't stop completely until sometime between midnight and two o'clock in the morning. He had gone on to say that it usually resumed about six a.m.

"Well, we'll get you squared away soon enough, though I'm afraid you'll have to wait a few days. Atticus has his ceremony in a few days and I'd hate to push it back. He's been waiting much too long for this, honestly." She looked at Atticus- who was lounging on the couch in front of the fireplace- with an open affection that Tessa felt was very rare for Cecilia. Atticus, however, did not seem to appreciate it as he appeared to be asleep.

"To whom?" Tessa asked, curious. She had not seen anyone rush out to meet him when they'd gotten back, like some of the others had.

"Mya." Atticus grunted. Maybe not asleep, then. "So tell your mate to keep his paws off, or I'll hand them to him on a plate." 

"If he touches her, I'll beat you to it." She said it with a vengence that surprised her, but did not seem to surprise them. In fact, Ceci looked impressed.

"Well said, my dear. Now, back to this matter about your mother. I don't want you calling me Aunty Cecilia or any nonsense like that. Cecilia will do. You are my equal, and I will treat you as such. You're mother and I..." A sigh. "She didn't want to be part of this world, Teresa. She was one of the rare Shifters born without the gene, and wanted to live a normal life. We had no idea you would be born into our line, so it didn't seem like a big deal at the time, and we wanted her to be happy. When we realized what you were, we suggested that she bring you here...but well, she didn't want to give you up. You've had such a hard time, Love, and I'm sorry for that. We never meant for you to fall in with those dreadful Seers. That first day you met Atticus, he was supposed to bring you back here-"

"I told you what happened." He grumbled.

"Yes, you told me you gave up and let them take my baby girl. You know what they did to her and her mate, Atticus." Cecilia was clearly working up to a full-blown rant.

"We're fine, Cecilia. Please don't yell at Atticus." She said, trying to lead her away from an arguement. Strangely enough, she backed down.

"Alright. But do you understand, Tessa. Why things happened the way they did? We didn't mean to leave you there, and if we'd truly understood what was going on-"

"Ceci, I understand." Tessa said, quickly and naturally falling into the nickname. It was wonderful to Tessa to finally have family, when all her life she'd believed both her parents only children and her mother's parents dead in a car crash. She loved the idea of an aunt. "Are there any others?" She asked suddenly. "Any others in our family?"

Cecilia laughed, so long and hard that Tessa wondered at what she could have said. "Oh, my dear." She sighed, removing tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand/ "There are so many of us I don't even believe I could list them all for you. There are cousins and grandparents and uncles and great aunts...but you'll meet them all tomorrow. It's late, and you've had quite a trying day."

"I still have questions." Tessa argued. Cecilia nodded, understanding. Tessa had rarely been given answers while with the Benders, causing her to e left in the dark on so many things that were very important for her to know. She would want those answers, now that she was in an environment that was open with her.

"And you will get those answers. After you've rested." She answered, standing. "Here, I will show you to your room. You'll be standing in this house, in one of our bedrooms on the floor below. A lot of our independent family members stay there, as does Atticus, Mya, and one other young mated pair- two of my betas, actually."

Tessa nodded, smiling at Atticus before leaving the room, following Cecilia down the hallway.

"Where will Demetri be?" She asked as she walked down the hallway, she and Cecilia of equal height. She hadn't noticed before, as Cecilia's presence was so formidable that she seemed to be a foot taller than anyone else.

Cecilia looked back at her, a surprised expression crossing her face. "With you. I just assumed..."

Tessa turned red. "No, no, that's fine. I just wasn't...aware." They walked in silence after that, both lost in their own thoughts.

"Alright, here you are." Cecilia said finally, stopping in front of a huge oak door. With a slight push of her hand it opened, revealing a beautiful room furnished in maroon, dark brown, and tan. There were a few chairs and an armour, but most of the room was taken by the large bed that sat in the center, pushed up against the far wall.

The headboard was intricate, a carving of two wolves dead center. One was howling to the moon, while the other wrapped around her in a protective embrace. It reminded Tessa, oddly enough, of her and Demetri. The footboard presented another image of the same two wolves, this time with them running through the trees underneath a full moon. Their flanks brushed, both of them looking at the other as they ran.

"That was the first Alpha and his mate." Cecilia said quietly. "They lived almost five hundred years before another wolf challenged the Alpha. Selene tried to save her mate, but..." She sighed. "It was brutal, and bloody. Selene went rogue and awoke something inside of her, something no one had ever encountered before in a Shifter. She was our first Seer.

"Since then, the power of the Shifter Seer has passed randomly through decendents of Selene. It's impossible to track, as it picks a female at random for every new cycle. The first after Selene was her niece, Cordelia. Than her daughter, Christine. Than her cousin, Josephina. And so on, until you, Tessa."

"Who was before me?" She couldn't help but ask, fascinated by this bit of history. Cecilia smiled sadly.

"My grandmother, Mildred May. We used to call her G.G." Cecilia looked around a moment, at a loss, before she grabbed the doorknob. "Well, I'll...I'll let you get some rest. Goodnight, Tessa."

She shut the door.