Midnight Solstice

Chapter 22

Photo: Heidi Volturi
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I let another day pass before I decided that I was fully recovered. It was about five o'clock in the morning and I was thirsty. As in my throat was on fire and it was as if I haven't had blood in weeks. When "woke up" from being unconscious, I had a couple of blood bags after everyone who came to see me left but other than that I haven't had anything in three or four days.
Honestly I lost count of the days lately. Does it really matter anymore though? Even if we finish the newborn's training in four months, we still have to stop Michael and who knows how long that's going to take. And I refuse to just give up like we did last time.
Anyway, I'm getting off subject. I snuck out of the castle and ran through the forest to a neighboring city so I could hunt. I drained the first few humans I saw before disposing of the corpses and heading back. The moment I walked through the front door of the castle, I wished I went around the back way.
   Jane stood right in front of me with her arms crossed over her chest, tapping her foot impatiently. Her long blonde hair fell in loose curls around her shoulders and she wore a simple black dress that stopped just above her knees. In this moment she looked almost...normal for this day and age other than her dark red eyes that glared at me angrily. Caleb must have been making a big impression on her.
   "Hello sister." I said casually, trying to warm her up a bit. She scoffed loudly.
   "Don't give me that bull Alec! Where the hell were you?! I have been looking for you for the past hour and we had to delay your girlfriend's whole seminar off until we found you! Congratulations about that by the way, I'm glad you grew a pair and asked her out." She grabbed my arm and we began walking.
   "What seminar?" I questioned. I didn't recall hearing anything about a seminar, let alone that it was Katerina's.
  "Aro wants Katerina to try to teach all of us how to "harness our inner abilities" like she has. I feel pretty bad for her though, she doesn't want to do this at all. She had a nervous breakdown after she left the throne room. Caleb's trying to calm her down now, but I'm not sure if that's possible. We called Lorne to see if he could help; he got here about a half hour ago, he's with her too and I think Andi might also be but we will see."
   "So Aro just sprung this on her this morning?"
  "Yes. I was there when he asked and she looked as if she were going to be sick. I followed her out once she left but she was gone so I followed her scent as best as I could and found her vomiting in her bathroom. Don't worry though, she got to the sink before she started. Apparently she's not fond of speaking in front of people."
  "Would you be if you had to talk about the things your father taught you how to do before he turned you into an experiment?"
   "Of course not! I just find it ironic that she can preform in front of people and yet feels sick when she has to talk in front of them."
  "I don't think she's afraid of talking in front of people Jane, I think she's scared because of what happened to her and she doesn't want people to judge her because she's different."
  "I agree with that. But I think it goes deeper than that. I think she's also afraid that she won't succeed in what Aro wants. In the past couple of months, she's been doing everything she can to make sure everyone stays happy. She works at the bar for her Uncle, learns how to be a high priestess for King Alucard, and trains with the newborns for Aro. Not to mention how she's been trying to impress you with doing all that and working the rebel operation. It's just as impressive as it is awful. No one should be put through that much stress, especially not someone who is struggling to cope with their past."
"She's been trying to impress me?" I asked which caused Jane to smack me on the back of the head lightly.
"You can feed your ego later Alec! The point is that she's doing to much and one more thing on top of that just pushed her over the top so I suggest you comfort your mate and help her through this. Caius is already angry because she's upset and who knows how Aro's feeling anymore."
"Have you talked to him lately?"
"Yes I have, and he's giving me mixed signals. I don't think he knows how to go about this whole Morgynstein situation now that Michael has showed his face and displayed Hunter's ability to us."
It took me a second before I could recall that I saw Katerina's gravity working strangely the night of the wolf attack. I was told before about his ability as well. He's like an über shield that sets up blocks to mess with everyone's abilities and gifts.
"Did he say anything else?" I questioned.
"Not much other than he was "worried about Katerina" which is a complete fib. I'm not going to lie to you Alec, if she gets knocked out of the picture by all of this..."
"She won't Jane, I'm not going to let anything happen to her."
"And neither I, nor her family will let any harm come her way as well. But if something does happen, it won't affect him. He realizes that once Katerina completes her training here and her high priestess training, she'll go to live in the main Fae district here in Italy. Once that happens, he won't have to worry about chasing down Michael."
"Wait what?!" I shouted. "She can't leave!" I felt a strange sense of Deja Vu. I talked about this with Caius before, but it still shocks me every time I hear it.  
  "She'll have to. Here is no place for a fae Alec."
"But she's half vampire too!"
"She won't have a choice! I know that isn't what you want but as far as her safety is concerned, that is the safest place for her. Here everyone expects her to fend for herself, but in the Fae district, she'll be surrounded by guards 24/7 who will protect her as if their lives depend on it, which it will."
"Then I'll go with her."
"You know what happens to guards who try to leave. Not to mention what will happen to her."
"Aro won't try anything with her. If he does, he knows Alucard and Lorne would kill him. And Alucard has got an army behind him so Aro would be screwed. An angry fae with more faeries with the finest elemental powers standing behind him is a force to be reckoned with, and Lorne could see any strategies that Aro may have anyway so that wouldn't end well."
"True. But that still doesn't make you safe if you try to go."
"Well he will let me go if I have things against him that he doesn't want getting out."
"Black mail? That's low." She knew I was talking about what he did to Didyme.
"Well I guess I don't have a choice. It's either that or he kills me. I don't think he'll try to kill me so maybe it will work and if it doesn't..."
"If it doesn't you'll be dead and he'll have to deal with the wrath of Katerina and I." I smiled.
"Aw, you'd go mad if I got murdered? You're so sweet."
"Does it count as murder if you asked for it?"
"We are definitely going to need mental blocks after having this conversation." I whispered to her, causing her to laugh.
"Did someone say mental blocks?" Andi asked as she ran up to us. It was then I realized we were a couple of yards away from Katerina's room. I looked to her and nodded.
"Do you just stand around and wait for someone to say mental block so you can magically appear when we need you?" Jane asked, arching an eyebrow. Andi scoffed and rolled her eyes.
"No I don't. I was coming to look for Brynn or Demetri so one of them could track you two down! You've been taking too long. I feel bad for everyone who has been waiting in the training room all day. But honestly I'm glad you were M.I.A. because we've been using that as an excuse to hold off the seminar."
She grabbed our wrists and pulled us into Katerina's room. She shut the door and locked it. I looked around the room to find Katerina sitting on the bed with Lorne and Caleb on either side of her. Her eyes were dry, but red surrounded the blue color of her eyes which showed she was crying.
"Get ready Kat." Andi told her as she placed her hands on either side of my head.
"Ready for what?" She sniffed, but before anyone could answer, the familiar pain of the mental block setting filled my head and Katerina cried out in pain. I have gotten better at dealing with the pain but Katerina, being the delicate person she is, still screams a little at it.
"Ow! That freaking hurt!" She exclaimed as Andi moved on to Jane, who barely flinched when the block got placed on her.
"Language." Lorne scolded.
"Sorry! But would you rather me say the f-bomb for real? I don't think my language is our greatest concern right now."
"I would rather you not say it at all. When you are a High Priestess, you won't be able to talk like that in public."
"So I can say that stuff in private?"
"I don't recommend saying it at all but what ever floats your boat kid." Katerina's eyes moves onto me and she stood up and ran over to me. She threw her arms around me. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her closer.
"Do I have a seminar I need to attend today?" I asked her, trying to lighten her mood. She looked up at me with big teary eyes and a quivering lip.
"Why don't we all just stop talking about the damn seminar?" Caleb suggested. He was looking quite annoyed. Jane walked over to him and grabbed his hand.
"Not taking about it is even worse. She still has to go to it." She told him before kissing him lightly on the cheek, causing a huge grin to spread across his face. She sat down next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. I'm not going to lie...it was odd to see Jane being that friendly to someone after all this time, but I'm glad she's happy.
  "True." Caleb responded.
  "Okay, I know I can see the future, but I did not see that coming." Lorne said, gesturing to the two of them. Caleb continued smiling.
  "Yeah, me either."
   "Ditto on that!" Andi said as she walked over and pulled Katerina and I apart. She gave me a satisfied smirk before turning to Katerina.
  "You can't grip to him the whole seminar Kat. He's got to learn too."
  "Yeah but it's not like any of us are actually going to get anywhere today, I mean all of our gifts are pretty strong and didn't you say that people with stronger gifts have a harder time learning how to find their inner abilities?" Caleb questioned.
  "That's true but you also have to open up to the whole idea of it being possible. The whole process is about more than just finding power, it's about finding yourself and the potential that you hold inside of you." Lorne answered.
  "So it's like therapy then?" Andi asked.
  "Sort of." Katerina said. "But without the meaningless medication."
  "Hey, sometimes the medication isn't meaningless. When I was in therapy I had this pill that I took that helped me get to sleep at night. At the time I thought it was the best thing in the world."
  "What did you have to take medication for Andi?" Jane asked.
  "PTSD. Now before you ask what about, just remember I lived in a part of Mexico for a while when I was younger that had a lot of drugs, gangs, and violence in it. There isn't more to say than that."
   "Say no more I got it. I've been to some cities where you can't go two minutes without someone trying to mug you. I can't imagine what it would be like to live there." Lorne told her. She gave him a small smile.
  "Anyway, how do you teach someone to gain special abilities?" I questioned, trying to further change the subject. Andi didn't seem to comfortable talking about her past. I can understand that, I'm not comfortable talking about mine either.
"You can't. You just have to guide them in the right direction." He said.
"Yeah, it took me a while to come up with anything." Katerina added.
"Well we didn't know that you specialized in all of the elements back then so any special ability you had we thought was from that. This time it will be much different because we can pin point what abilities everyone had and then work from there."
  "True. But I feel like Aro expects results within the first session. There's no doubt he will make us do this again and again until everyone can do...whatever he wants the end result to be."
  "Well in that case, I will personally walk over to him and tell him to piss off because we can only do what we can." Katerina laughed quietly. "What? I'm serious Kat! I don't give a damn that he's one of the vampire leaders; he shouldn't be putting you through so much stress that you would have to sit somewhere and have a nervous breakdown because of what he asked of you!"
  "Uncle Lorne, I'm fine really. I just was worried about a lot to begin with, and that on top of it pushed me over the top."
  "But that's the point Kat, you shouldn't have been that worried in the first place." Andi told her, rubbing her back.
  "I know but..."
  "No buts..." Jane said. "After this whole seminar thing, Alec and I are going to talk to Aro to see if we can get you some time off so that you can just relax a little bit. Right Alec?"
  "Absolutely!" I responded giving Katerina a smile. Jane was going to get it for pulling that fast one on me.
  "See! You'll be fine. And I'm sure Alucard won't mind you taking a few days off from training." Lorne added.
  "I'm not going to be able to do that for much longer." She said, frowning.
  "Exactly! So take it while you can!" Caleb encouraged. "I mean if it were me I would already be packing my bags!"
  "Yeah, I guess you're right...a break would be good for me. I guess I've just been so focused on doing everything for everyone that I forgot to take a chance to breathe."
  "And now you have an incentive to look forward to." I told her.
"If Aro agrees to it." She spoke in my mind.
"He will."
  "And if he doesn't?"
  "Then I'll make him agree." She shook her head and smiled, biting her lip just as we heard a light knocking on the door. The door opened to reveal a rather impatient looking Felix.
"Are we all alright now? Aro doesn't want to wait too much longer to start." Katerina looked to Lorne who gave her an encouraging smile. She nodded.
  "Yeah, I think we're good to go." Everyone began making their way out of the room. I was the last one out so I shut the door behind me. Felix walked next to me and we let the others lead the way to the training room.
  "Hey buddy, I'm glad you decided to make your grand appearance." He said sarcastically.
"Well if I knew my girlfriend was doing a seminar today, I would have stolen some blood bags or something. My throat was killing me when I woke up."
  "I still can believe Aro doesn't get pissed when you leave like that. If Jane did that he would be mad, but you get a free pass."
  "I lucked out there, normally Jane's everyone's favorite...god forbid she get in trouble. I mean I love her to death, but I just get annoyed by that."
  "Well if it makes you feel any better, after all of these years you are still my favorite twin."
  "You better not be getting all soft on me Felix." I teased.
  "Oh no, I still want to bash your head in for "making us wait for hours" so you don't have to worry about me."
   "Yeah, I bet everyone is pissed at me." I chuckled. "Not that I actually care because it wasn't all my fault you all had to wait."
  "True, but everyone thinks we were just waiting for you so have fun explaining that to them."
  "Oh great! More lies."
   "Not lies, secrets."
   "Secrets can be lies."
   "But lies aren't always secrets." He responded just as Katerina came over to us. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly.
  "I'm not sure I can do this." She whispered.
   "Don't worry Kit Kat, I bet you'll have such and easy time, it will be like taking candy from a baby." Felix told her.
  "But that's mean!" She exclaimed causing him and I to burst out laughing. "What are you two laughing at? I already feel bad enough, you two don't need to laugh at me on the side!"
  "I'm sorry, love. You're just so cute and you're cuteness is overwhelming sometimes." I said.
  "Yeah!" Felix agreed. "We weren't laughing at you, we were laughing with you...but you forgot to laugh." She rolled her eyes and smiled.
  "Ha ha...very funny."
  We all stopped walking once we reached the door to the training room. Katerina took a shaky breath. We all exchanged glances of worry. No one in this room had any idea what they were about to get themselves into...even we barely knew about what we were about to do but we entered the room anyway.
  If this "training" (if you can even call it training) works, this could change the vampire world as we know it. If these two individuals were successful...then our species has evolved into something more powerful. If this is real, and not just a result of an experiment like the rest of us; as in everyone who isn't a Morgynstein; were thinking it was, then this day will go down in vampire history.
  I looked at all the familiar faces as we moved forward. The first were the masters who looked slightly perturbed but still eager to watch the scene unfold. Marcus gave me a small smile as Cauis gave me a look that screamed "it's about time you showed up!" Aro smiled at us, although his attention was on his son who sat in the corner of the room, quietly chatting away with Gracie-Lynn. They both stood up when they noticed our presence.
   Next came Demetri and Brynn who stood in each other's arms looking slightly nervous as they gazed at us. Demetri gave me a firm nod which I quickly returned. It was nice to see those two getting along (and not making out every two minutes.)
Fred and George stood next to them and were laughing quietly to themselves as they attempted to hide their nervousness. That was one thing about them that I could relate to, their ability to hide their fear. It was something that was hard to see through, due to the fact that they use humor to build the façade. Andi walked over to the two boys who smiled and began to quietly tease her.
  My eyes wandered over to Heidi, Chelsea, and Afton who had the same look of anxiousness plastered on their faces. The three of them didn't know how to feel. I don't blame them, I mean after all this is all new to me as well and I feel the same anxiety and fear that they do. Corin and Santiago stood close to the three and looked the same until they noticed Katerina's hand in mine. Santiago gave me a thumbs up from across the room while Corin winked at me and wiggled her perfectly arched eyebrows. I rolled my eyes at that, fighting my smile.
  Finally, my eyes wandered to Renata, who is usually always standing with Aro, but today she stood with Corin and Santiago. Her usual peppy exterior was down and she looked just as scared as everyone else. Renata hasn't been here as long as I have, but she's been here for a long time. She is a very powerful physical shield that can repel any physical attack by confusing the attacker and making them wonder for a moment why they even chose to attack in the first place. It's quite fascinating to watch.
   But I don't know her as well as I know the others in the elite guard, mainly because she's always guarding Aro and I have other duties, but the times I have talked to her, I remember that she was quite peppy to the point where I was annoyed. But she seems pretty nice for a vampire. But today, that peppy look was gone and her jet black hair covered her face. She barely looked our way. Santiago elbowed her softly and then said something to her that caused her to smile and nod. It was easy to say that she was the happiest person here.
  Katerina squeezed my hand tighter before letting go with a scared smile. She continued to walk towards the front of the room with her Uncle who never took his eyes off of the walls. Out of all of us, I think he's the most anxious. He's seen this whole scene unfold out before him once before. And this whole thing is just making him relive bad memories.
  I walked over and stood next to my sister and Caleb with Andi and the twins. Gracie and Jayden joined us. They didn't look as scared as they were intrigued about what was about to happen. They were young and didn't realize how serious this was for the rest of us.
  "So you're alive. That's good." Gracie whispered to me.
  "You thought I was dead?" I asked.
  "No, but that doesn't make it less of a possibility. Especially lately with all this Morgynstein stuff going on." Jayden said.
  "What are you two doing here anyway?"
  "We are here to watch everything." I scoffed at that quick comment and turned my attention back to Katerina and Lorne.
   When the two finally reached the front of the room, the usual fun loving and carefree Lorne was gone, and a different, more adult like and serious version took his place and began speaking.
  "Hello everyone. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Lorne Morgynstein, the brother of Michael Morgynstein; the man who you all are deathly afraid of today. I'm going to be helping Katerina today with your training.  Before my brother became this way, he and Fern VonHeusen, daughter of Alucard VonHeusen, discovered a way for vampires to uncover special abilities."
  "Hold up...Fern VonHeusen is Alucard VonHeusen's daughter? As in Alucard, the King of the Fae?" Santiago questioned. Lorne nodded. He looked to Katerina.
  "So that makes you the next heir to the Fae throne?" Geez, these people need to catch up on everything.
  "Technically yes, but now I am training to be the next High Priestess since I have specialized in all of the elements." She told him. A couple of shocked gasps and mutters filled the room coming from those who haven't been working with us in the past few months. They soon stopped.
  "Today we aren't here to talk about that. We are here to talk about all of you, and to help you look inside of yourselves so you can attempt to harness your inner abilities." Lorne said. "Now it won't be easy, and you certainly won't get the hang of it on your first try. But it can happen if you believe it can."
"Can you guys do it?" Jayden asked. His voice was quiet, but it was still able to be heard.
"Yep." Katerina responded, giving him a smile that was very convincing to everyone but me. I could see the fear behind it and it just made me want to scoop her up and never let her go. Jayden's voice snapped that train of thought and brought me back into the real world.
"What can you guys do?" At that moment, you could see the uneasiness in Lorne's face.
"Well, I can sense disturbances in an area that I'm watching over if something enters it. It's kind of like remote viewing." Lorne sighed once she finished before speaking.
  "I have aura perception. If a person's emotions are strong enough, I can see the colors of those emotions in their aura."
  "The colors?" Jayden raised an eyebrow.
  "Yes, the colors...it's difficult to explain but...for example right now you all have..." He put two fingers against the side of his head and closed his eyes. When he opened them, his eyes went wide.
  "Your auras are really dark right now because you all have large amounts of fear running within you. I don't use that gift much...but it's helpful in some cases."
  "In what cases would that be helpful?" Caius asked. A look of agitation crossed Lorne's face.
"If I'm in combat with someone, I can use what they are feeling against them. It also helps me to make sure that the people I care about are feeling emotionally stable. But I haven't had a need to use that in almost a year now." He swallowed hard as Katerina's eyes wandered. I had nearly forgotten that it's been about a year since they escaped Michael. That's a story I still don't have all the details on. "But with all due respect I think you are asking all the wrong questions."
"How so?"
"Well this whole training party is about getting personal with yourself, but how can you do that without being able to become personal with others." Lorne walked across the room over to Caius.
"Ask me something else, anything else that will push the boundaries of this conversation." Caius looked at Marcus and Aro who exchanged a glance before shrugging. Everyone else remained silent.
"How did you discover that you have your special abilities?" Lorne chuckled.
"Now we're talking..." He began walking to the front of the room. "When I was still human, Michael and Fern were trying to push the boundaries of their powers to new levels. Fern has always been a fae, but she wanted to embrace the vampire side of her...so they worked together. She figured out that she could compel others to do her bidding, as well as erase memories from someone's mind, and Michael...he was different. He never figured who turned him all those years ago, not to mention that he is overly manipulative, and that in itself is dangerous but that isn't his ability. The truth is, he's never fully developed one. He has a grasp on a lot of abilities; he can change his eye color, feel when a shield is being used, and detect when a person is about to use their gifts...and those are just the ones I know about."
   "I was only human when I discovered my ability. Fern helped me in the same way she helped Michael and I showed more promising results in what they were trying to find. That made him bitter. He thought that he, a vampire; should be able to develop abilities better than a human can. That's what started his wild fascination with his experiments he performs today."
  "Now that you know that piece of recent Morgynstein history, you know that this is possible. If  there are no more questions, lets begin then, shall we?"