Last Fae

Chapter 26 ~ Answers

It took a few days for my voice to finally come back. The entire time I laid in that bed my mother and my sister sat beside me. I knew if I shifted into my Wolf I would heal faster but with no voice I had no way of warning them what I was doing.

I wasn't sure if they knew I was half Wolf now. And even if they did, I'm not sure how they would react to me turning into one right in front of them. Especially if they still believed the Mythics had attacked them led by the Wolves.

"Where are we?" I asked once my throat was working again. My mother smiled and looked down at Mia with the most intense love in her eyes. She turned that look back to me and I felt the tears well in my eyes once again.

"It's a Fae world. A pocket of reality linked but separate from Earth. The elders created it the night of the attack to save us from the Traitors. We call it the Haven because without it we all would have died."

"I couldn't find anyone when I first got here. And then a Fae showed up with a gun. I though we weren't supposed to use weapons? And he wouldn't tell me where you were or how to find you." "You were in a linking space. Not here, but somewhere inbetween. No one lives there it's a safe guard just in case anyone manages to get through the portal. Only Fae should be able to but we can't be too safe. We know the Traitors want us dead. They could be searching for a way to get in. I'm sorry that Milan hurt you like that. He wasn't sure what you were. Your aura is..." she hesitated.

"Different?" I asked. She nodded.

I lifted my arm and pointed at the scar marking the skin. She stared at it her expression blank. After a few seconds her eyes widened and her gaze came back up to meet mine.

"You were bitten?" She jumped to her feet, knocking the chair over in her rush, and scurried back from the bed. Her fingers wrapped around Mia's arm and dragged her back from the bedside as well. My heart lurched at the smell of fear in the air.

"Mum?" I asked.

She stared wide eyed. Her hands were a flurry of motion in front of her. They pressed to her chest and sprang out towards me reaching for me before shifting back towards her body, up to her lips and down clutching tight to Mia. Mia stood wide eyed staring at me with a pained expression. Her fingers clutched tightly around our mothers comforting arms.

"It's still me, Ma." I whispered, dropping my gaze to my fingers resting motionless on the bed in such contrast to hers. My body was rigid, my muscles tense. I'm sure even my heart stopped beating as I waited to see what she would do.

"I...I know, sweet heart. It's just, well, it's just a lot." She strained the last word. I gulped, but my heart started beating again. She hadn't walked out.

"Have you hurt anyone? As a Wolf, I mean. I know you wouldn't hurt anyone. But those monsters..." She trailed off. I saw Kat standing at the foot of the bed. I shook my head. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. My heart stuttered. I couldn't tell her the truth. She was already afraid of me. I just got her back.

"No. Of course not. I don't even let it out." She took a single step closer, her shoulders relaxing. "Right." She shook her head and patted her hair down with a shaking hand. Mia's head tilted up to Mums. "Why would you. They attacked you too. You probably hate them even more than we do since they bit you." She laughed, nothing more than a couple of breaths of air blown from her nose, and stepped back over to the bed. Mia followed behind, her footsteps hesitant. Her head turned from me to our mother and back again.

"I also thought that they had killed all of you. I hated Mythics more than anything in the world.""Hated?" She latched onto my slip up and eyed me with suspicion,"And they no longer deserve the title Mythic. We call them Traitors here."

"Well, I know you're alive now. I'm too happy to hate anyone as much as I did before." I smiled and my heart sank. I'd only found them a few days ago and already I was lying to them. The people I was supposed to be able to trust most and I was lying to gain their acceptance.

"Once you are feeling better, you will have to go before the Elders. They have the final say as to whether or not you can stay. If it weren't for the bite there would be no dispute. But once they learn you are a Wolf now, it might not go so well."

"You don't trust me?" I asked, tugging at the soft blanket that covered my legs.

"It's not me that you need to convince, Sweetie." She gave me a sad smile. "Everyone here knows that the Wolves led the attack. That they hated us so much they decided we needed to die and convinced the other Traitors of that to further their cause."

"So, we really didn't do anything to them?" I asked, "They just attacked us for no reason." Her lips formed a thin line and her shoulders lifted in a shrug.

"No reason that we are aware of. That's why our work now is so important. We must do everything in our power to help the Elders achieve their goal. We have to obtain the last of the Amulets and use them to remove the power of the other races. Once we do that, we will be free to move back to Earth. We won't have to hide anymore. The Elders say we won't even have to hide from the Humans. We will be so powerful that they won't be able to stop us."

All I could do was nod along to her words. I had no idea how to respond to that. What did she expect me to say? It confirmed Kellan's story about the Amulets and with what I had seen in the Fae village I was losing all hope that Kellan was the one lying.

"Where's Dad?" I asked, both to shift her train of thought and to get an answer. I hadn't seen him once since I had woken up in this bed, though Mum and Mia had been an almost constant presence.

She just looked at me for an age. Her eyes welled and her hand came up to her heart. She shook her head.

"The Traitors got him." Her voice was a whisper but each word felt like a blow. The pain in my chest from the bullet was nothing compared to what I felt now. I'd believed for years that he was dead. One look at Mia and my mother alive and I'd jumped to the conclusion that he would be too.

I couldn't get any sound out of my throat. My brain throbbed with every blast of my pulse. My heart was being ripped from my chest. I had to concentrate to ensure I kept on breathing. It was like I'd lost him all over again. 

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