Death's Daughter (Book 2)

Chapter 7

Ava's P.O.V

School was boring and I haven't seen Levi in over a week now. I sighed and watched the football team practice for their game tomorrow. This school made sure that any sports game, didn't interfere with school hours. The games were always on a weekend. "Look girls, there's Ava. I heard that her parents are back. I think that she's lying."

"Let's go pay a visit."

I watched them walk up to me. Most of my bullies had stopped picking on me, but not these three. "Hi Ava."

I sighed. "Hello Alina, Vickie and Violet. How are you today?" Being nice was something that usually drove them away, but not today. Something was up.

"We are wonderful! Thank you for asking!" Their smiles were so damn fake.

"That's great. What would you like?"

The three of them sat down. Oh great. "So, we heard a rumor or two going around. We were wondering if they are true or not. We thought we would come right to the person with the answers."

I rolled my eyes internally. I knew it. They want information to pick on me. 'If that's all you want, I won't give it to you."

"We just want to know if it's true that your Mom and Dad came back."

"Yeah. They came back a month ago."

Their giggles set my skin crawling. "Are they gone again? You've been coming to school alone again."

"No. They are still here. My Mom is expecting. Due to this pregnancy being at risk, Mom need to stay in bed."

"So what about  you and Henry? What is he to you?"

"Why are you asking me all this?"

"We just want to ge to know you, that's all."

"Liar. After all this time of bullying me, you want to get to know me? No. You just want new material to pick on me with."

Their jaws dropped. "How dare you! We meant no harm when we came over here! You're the one who's being mean right now!"

"No. I'm suspicious of you three. If I was being mean, you'd have run away crying already."

"Ava? Are you okay?" I looked up at Henry. "I felt off. Like you needed me."

"I'm fine. These priss girls were trying their best to get information from me."

Henry crossed his arms. "Picking on her again, girls?"

"N-no! We just wanted to get to know her!" I rolled my eyes. "Really, we meant no harm! She's the one who started being mean to us!"

"I don't believe you. You've been picking on her since middle school. You are as readable as an open book. Leave her alone. Of I'm going to get real mean." I haven't heard Henry threaten a girl before. I was in shock. The girls did bother sticking around after that.

"Henry? Are you okay? I've never seen or heard you threaten a girl before. "

He sighed. They have be bothering me and my friends about you. I don't know what they are up to, but it's not good."

"I know. They asked about Mom and Dad. Then asked about me and you. Who do people keep spreading rumors?"

"I don't know, but I think it's time we put a stop to this once and for all. You go find Levi, I'm going to the principal."

"Big Brother? There's something else bothering you. I can feel it."

He sighed. "I found my mate."

"Oh that's wonderful! Who is she?"

The look on his face made my smile drop. "Alina. She's a werecat and she hasn't shifted yet." My jaw hit the floor. "She will not be my mate."

"You think you will be able to reject her?"

"I'm not having her as my mate! She's an awful person! I'd rather be killed a thousand times over before touching her!"

I whimpered and took a step back. Henry looked at me with sad, hurt eyes. He hugged me tightly. I could feel how sorry he was. "Mate!" Zuri yelled. I quickly looked around, my eyes finally landing on Levi and Uncle Hunter. They really looked a lot like each other.

"Uncle Hunter!" I yelled and ran to him.

"What the f**k are you doing, Ava? You're supposed to be in class right now." Uncle Hunter didn't look happy that I wasn't in class.

"Because I was looking for my mate." I looked at Levi, but he looked away. "What's wrong?"

"My Father is your Uncle. We can't be together."

I blinked a few times before bursting into laughter along side Uncle Hunter. "Ava and I aren't related at all. Penny and I are best friends. Same with her Dad and mine. Ava's called me Uncle since she knew how to speak."

"No blood relation. Not even a single drop" I giggled. "I think Mom and Uncle Hunter had a thing way before Mom met Dad, but nothing came out of it."

Levi's cheeks turned a light pink. "So, I've been avoiding you for no reason than?" I nodded. "Oh Goddess. I'm so sorry, Ava. Please forgive me."

"You're forgiven." I smiled. 

Henry's P.O.V

I watched as Ava laughed with Levi. My wolf was confused as to why I was jealous. "Why are you acting like this? Ava is our sister, not our mate."

"I know. Kane, I feel like our bond is breaking. I can't feel everything that she's feeling anymore. Just when she really needs me. What do I do?"

"I'll talk to Zuri. She will know what's happening." With that, our link was closed.

I sighed and headed right to the office. I knocked on the door and heard a faint "Come in." I opened the door and stepped inside, shutting it behind me. "Just the boy I wanted to see." I looked at the principal. Her hands were neatly folded in front of her.

"Why did you want to see me? I furrowed my brow. I haven't done anything I shouldn't have.

"I've been told that you struck another student. A female on at that." 

I blinked. "I'm sorry, what? I hit a woman?"

"Yes. She came to me not long ago. Her face was bruised. She told me that you slapped her for no reason."

I burst into laughter. "I'm sorry. That's just too funny. I've never hit a woman in my life. Whoever told you that I hit them, is lying right to your face."

"Really now? Than explain this!" I turned and looked at Aline. She had a handprint across her face.

I began laughing again. "Even if I wanted to hit you, my wolf wouldn't let me." I turned back to the principal. "You see, she's my mate. I physically can't hurt her."

"There is no proof that she is your mate, therefore---"

Kane forced his way through with a growl. "Hi there, Eagle. I'm Kane. This werecat in my mate. Hurting her in any form, leads to me getting hurt. However, her claiming that Henry struck her, is a blatant lie." I tried to take over again, but Kane pushed me back.

"Alina, is this true? Have you lied to me?"

"No! I would never lie to you!" Her voice sounded panicked.

Kane turned and  looked at her. "Do not tell me a lie, Little Kitty. Did I strike you in any way?" He paused. "Did I even lay a hand on you in any way?"

She looked down at the floor. "No. You never hit me. I lied about it. I made Vickie hit me and I claimed it was you."

Kane turned back to the principal. "Now, do as you wish with her. However, I am rather tired of listening to the nasty rumors her and her goons spread. I'm tired of her picking on my Little Sister. Do something about it before I tell my Big Sister about it. That will not be a pretty sight, I can assure you of that."

Kane let me have control again. "I will deal with this whole matter accordingly." I nodded and left the office.

"Henry? Are you okay? I can feel your stress." Ava linked me. I couldn't help but smile to myself. 

"I'm alright. Kane dealt with it." Maybe it was just me who is not feeling her. "Hey, I have to ask you something."

"Yeah sure. What's up?"

"Do you feel our bond getting weaker? I seem to not be able to feel everything you feel."

She didn't respond for a moment. "I do feel it getting weaker, but why?"

"I don't know. Would Death know anything about it?

"No. Dad's clueless about bonds. Maybe Aunt Luna will know."

Later that night, Ava and I were in my room. With the sun shining in her room, there wasn't much shadow. Ava took my hand and stepped into the shadows. I gasped and closed my eyes. When the light hit my eyelids, I opened them. We were standing in a living room. It wasn't our living room. The scent around us was completely different. I looked around and there stood an older woman. She was beautiful. "Hello, Ava and Henry. What brings you here at this late hour?"

"Nana, where's Aunt Luna. It's important." 

"I know it is. She's down in the garden." She pointed to a door and Ava took my hand again.

She led me through the garden. There were flowers from all over the world in one garden. "How is this possible?"

"These are the first flowers. Father gave my Sister and I, one of every flower he made. These ones don't need a certain temperature to survive. They all live happily in this garden." I stared at the beautiful woman sitting on a bench in front of us. Her silver eyes and hair shined. With the lights over head, her hair looked like it had a halo. 

"Aunt Luna, this is Henry, my Big Brother."

"You're beautiful." I blurted out.

"You i***t! That's the Moon Goddess! Be more respectful!" Kane growled at me. The Moon Goddess and Ava giggled.

"I'm sorry, Moon Goddess. Please forgive my rudeness." I lowered my head in submission to her.

"Oh my child, Henry. You are fine. I am not your Luna, Ava is. Please, raise your head."

I lifted my head and Ava was covering her mouth, trying to hold back the laughter. "Ava!" I growled.

"I'm sorry, Henry. It's just too funny!" I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest. "She's family to you because of me." She kept giggling at me. I growled at her.

"Can we talk about what we actually came here for? I mean, no one knows where we are at the moment." I was annoyed with her, but I honestly could never actually get mad. Ava was just too adorable.

"You want to know about the special bond I gave you? The Goddess tilted her head. When she did that, she reminded me of Ava when she was younger. I nodded. "Well, it was never meant to last. I can tell you that. You'll have to tell me more detail if you want to know more."

"I'm not feeling everything Ava is anymore. I can only feel when she really needs me. However, Ava still feels everything I feel. Is our bond breaking?"

"Yes. As I  said, it was never meant to last. Death told me a long time ago that Ava would need someone to protect her, love her and raise her. I saw that you love for her shined brighter than Penelope's. I chose to give you that bond with her. At that time, I didn't know why, that is, until Penelope died. That bond was only meant to last a few years. However, it lasted a lot longer, as you can tell."

I looked at Ava who had stopped listening and was now looking at the flowers. "Goddess, I don't want to lose this bond I have with her. Please, let it remain." She looked at me, then at Ava. "Please, Goddess. I will do anything to keep it. I want to be her protector."

"Ava, come here please." Ava looked over and smiled before coming over. "Ava, Henry has asked me to let the special bond remain with you two. Is that what you want too?"

"Yes Aunt Luna. Henry is the only one who had protected me from my classmates. He holds a very special place in  my heart and I don't think I would be able to go on without him having my back. I wish for the bond to remain as well." My heart thundered in my chest for two reasons. One, because Ava made me happy when she too wanted to keep the bond and two, because i was afraid that the Goddess would say no to it.

"I will let you keep the bond, however," She paused and looked at both of us. "Both of you must give me one thing in return."

"Name it Auntie. We will give it." Ava said.

The Goddess smiled softly. "Ava, you must give me one of your memories." Ava furrowed her brow. "I won't take anything important. I'll take one of your memories from when you were a baby."

Ava nodded. "I agree." She held out her hands and the Goddess touched them with her own. Then, she turned to me.

"Now Henry, yours will be more than Ava's, since your side of the bond has weakened a fair amount. It will hurt you, but you will have Ava." 

"What is it?" I felt nervous now. She said this would hurt me. Was it physical? Mental? Or something worse?

"I will take your first and second chance mate bond. You will have no mate. A chosen mate is fine, but you will not have a fated one."

I looked at Ava. Her eyes were sad. "Well, I don't like my first mate. She's not a nice girl, but, would I be able to see who my second chance is before I give you an answer?"

"You may, but it might make your choice harder on you."

"If I choose her, wouldn't that mean I'm going against you?"

She shook her head. "No. I'm taking the bond, not the girl. When I take that bond away, there will be no mate pull. You won't have any help. You will have to do this the human way." I nodded and she held out her hands. I took them gently. I closed my eyes and saw a girl. Her hair was light brown, almost golden. Her eyes were strange, yet beautiful. They were purple. She was petite with a wonderful figure. She was beautiful, but not smiling. Why is she not smiling? I then noticed the sadness and anger in her eyes. Something was happening. "Find her." I head the Goddess say, but she sounded far away.

"Henry?" Ava called to me. I snapped my eyes open. "Are you okay?" I blinked a few times and looked around. We were still in the garden.

"While I was showing her to you, I took your bond."

"That's fine. I agreed to it long before I knew what I was giving up. Goddess, what is happening to her?"

She looked sad for a moment, but shook her head. "I can't tell you. I'm sorry, my child."

I nodded. "Thank you, Goddess." After that, Ava took us home. I had to find her. Something was happening to her and I needed to know.

Ava's P.O.V

I took Henry and myself back through the shadows. I stepped into my room with him and looked at the clock. It was already three in the morning. Sleep was hardly an option because I could feel that Henry was worried about something. "Henry? What are you so worried about?" He shook his head and left my room. I sighed and went downstairs to get something to eat because we skipped dinner to go see Aunt Luna.

I was rummaging through the fridge when someone cleared  their throat to get my attention. I looked over to see Mom standing there. She looked angry with her hands on her hips and tapping her foot. "And where the hell were you for the past two days, young lady?"

I blinked. Two days? We couldn't have been gone that long. "What do you mean, Mom?"

"You and Henry have been missing for two days! Where the f**k have you been!?" 

Her eyes flashed and I took a step back. "I went to go see Aunt Luna. I swear I only meant to be gone for an hour."

"Well you weren't and now you are grounded! Leaving without telling me is something that scares me more that dying! What if you got hurt? Or kidnapped? Ava, I can't lose you again. I spent fourteen years watching you from afar. I didn't know if you would remember me. I didn't know anything." Tears were rolling down her face. I felt my own burn my eyes. I walked over and pulled her into a tight hug. "Please Ava, don't do that to me again..." She sobbed into my shoulder.

"I promise, I won't leave without telling you where I'm going." 

When Mom finally stopped crying, I took her back to her room. Her pregnancy was making her be an emotional mess, plus, this one wasn't being nice to her. I finally left her room, it was almost six in the morning now. I headed right for a shower then to get dressed. By the time I was done, it was 7:30 and it was time to head to school. 

I walked in the front doors of the school and noticed everyone was looking at me. I could hear their whispers. "How can she just go missing for two days and come back like nothing happened?"

"Poor Levi. She ran off with Henry and left him behind."

"I think she's having an incestrial affair."

Zuri was growling in my head. They were getting on my nerves. I growled so loud that every werewolf in the hall shifted to their wolf form and coward away from me. "I've had quite enough with the whispers and rumors about myself and Henry! You better listen because I'm not saying it again! Henry is my Big Brother! Nothing is happening between us! The next time I hear another f*****g whisper about us, I'm killing that person!" I sounded powerful in that moment. It was odd seeing the werewolf students submitting to me. I turned right back around and kicked the front door open. It flew off the hinges and fell down the stairs. I didn't know I had that much strength in my body to do something like that.

I headed right for the trees. I needed to run my anger off before I hurt someone. I didn't bother taking my clothes off and just shifted into my wolf form. Zuri took over for a while and destroyed some trees. She was just as pissed off as I was. When she was calm, she let me have a turn. I didn't bother with the trees. I just ran.

I didn't know how far I had gone, but when I looked around, I was no longer in Shadowdale Woods. I couldn't see, or smell anyone around. I let a loud howl out. I was still pretty pissed about what happened in school, but the run and now this howl, helped a great deal. I could hear howls in the distance. They were responding to mine. Why? "Because of who we are." Zuri said. What in the world did she mean by that?

"What do you mean, Zuri?"

She huffed. "Levi is an Alpha. Mom and Dad are Alpha and Luna. That makes us, of Alpha blood. Weaker wolves will be drawn to us because of our powerful, aura. Our future depends on us having a pack."

"What do you mean, our future depends on us having a pack? Why do we need a pack for our future?"

"Remember our markings? The ones on our fur?" She paused for a second. "Well, that has something to do with having a pack. We need one in order to do what we are destined to do."

"What are we destined to do?" Zuri was making no sense to me.

"We are a mixture of life and death. Light and darkness. What's written on our fur is technically a book of spells. When it's time to use them, I'll tell you what they say. Until then, we need to build a pack."

I huffed and went to turn back to go home, but I caught the scent of another wolf. I looked around, but I couldn't see anyone. I growled and instantly, there was a whimper of submission. I shifted to my human form. "Come out. Now." A medium sized, tan wolf crawled toward me. They exposed their belly to me. "You're pretty small for a male. Shift."

He shifted, but kept his eyes to the ground. "I'm sorry if I have mistaken your howl." He was a young man with sandy blonde hair and green eyes.

"He's an Omega." Zuri spoke softly.

"Omega, what is your name?" I asked him.

"I don't have one, Alpha. I was born to a wild wolf. I was nine when I took on a human form. Please, forgive me."

"Do you hear another voice in your head?" He nodded. "That means you are a werewolf. What is your age?"

"I am fifteen, Alpha."

I nodded. "Ask him to become a pack with us. I'll tell you how if he agrees."

"Do you want to join my pack?" He hesitated for a moment before nodding. I could hear other wolves approaching us.

"Get him to stand and bite his left wrist."

"Stand." He stood and I took his left wrist. I felt my K9's protrude and I quickly sunk them into his wrist. He yelped, but I felt myself become connected to him. "Welcome to my pack, Omega."

"Thank you, Alpha." He lowered himself into a bow. 

I had done the same thing about twenty times before wolves stopped coming to me. There weren't many, but I know it will grow over time. I headed with them back home. This was going to be a huge surprise to Mom and Dad.

I shifted to my wolf form. I kept at a slow pace because there were some young pups traveling with their parents. "Let the elder couple set the pace. They can't keep up." Zuri spoke. I turned and saw they were falling behind. i barked and everyone stopped. 

I shifted and went to check them out. "Are you okay?" I checked their bodies, but mainly their paws. The woman's paw was sliced open. I looked at one of the parents that had an infant. "Do you have something I can use? Her paw is sliced open." The mother nodded and gave me a towel to wrap the elder's paw with.

When we got back, Mom looked at me. "What is all this?"