The Little Rose

Answers Are Needed

After leaving Roisin to rest, everyone else moved downstairs to Luna and Vespian’s private living room, sliding the doors closed behind us Vespian slipped the lock into place so we would not be disturbed. Luna sat on a couch positioned in front of a fireplace that was not currently lit, her legs tucked up under her as she seemed to stare off into space. Vespian and Leo had both headed straight to the liquor cabinet, pulling out a bottle of what looked like whiskey. Nullar stood by the door with his arms crossed over his chest, he seemed uncomfortable, which I could not blame him if he were, he did not know these people.

Libby and Isabella were not present, but that was to be expected, they had not been in the bedroom either. A small part of me wanted to find Isabella now, there was something off about her. Her scent was enough to make me suspicious, her lack of Lycan spirit made me nervous. They functioned as guides for us, helping us to understand our powers, and in most cases, use them correctly. Why was her Lycan being repressed? And why did I have the nagging feeling she wasn’t being completely honest?

If she had not been a Lycan I would have never allowed her on our journey, but she was one of my people, which meant I had an obligation to help her if I could and keep her safe if it were within my ability. I was almost tempted to do just that and go check on her where abouts, but the way Luna was staring off had me worried for her.

“Nullar, would you like a drink?”  I heard Vespian ask as I moved across the room, sitting on the couch beside Luna, I blocked out the other men in the room while they chatted over whiskey, and focused on the sister I had not seen in far too many years.

“Hey runt.” I muttered, drawing Luna’s attention. Her honey eyes sparkled, and a bright smile lit up her face.

“I missed hearing you call me that.”  She muttered, adjusting her seat on the couch so she was facing me, a throw pillow in her arms, hugging it to her chest like a shield.

“You used to hate when I’d call you that.” I laughed, propping my arm across the back of the couch and one leg over the other.

“True, but you never realize how much you miss something until it’s gone.” Even as she chuckled, Luna’s smile slipped, and she glanced away, nervously moving a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Of course I didn’t have to lose you to know how much I would miss you. Losing you was like losing a piece of my heart Orion.”

Her words sent a flash of pain through my heart. I knew when I left that my actions were going to hurt others: my sisters, my mother, hell even my father who had only recently come back into our lives. But I had not cared, all I had cared about was getting away from that place and all the memories that had haunted me.

“I’m sorry Luna, for running away, for never calling you back. I’m so sorry.” And I was. Looking back I was ashamed that I had never taken how my family would react to my departure into consideration. They had been grieving as well. Gracie had not just been my mate, she had been my sister’s sister-in-law, she had been my mother’s daughter, and Gracie had been Libby’s friend. Losing her had not just affected me.

“It’s okay, Orion. We all understood that you needed time, we all wanted to help you but that wasn’t what you needed.”  Luna reached over and patted my arm gently. “You needed to deal with your pain your way Orion, just as we needed to deal with ours, in our way.”

My vision began to cloud as tears filled my eyes, but as always, I pushed them back and forced a smile to my lips, nodding as Luna spoke. She had always been wiser than her years.

“You don’t have to do that Orion; you don’t have to hide your feelings with me.”  Luna whispered, leaning closer, wrapping her arms around me, and resting her head on my shoulder. Holding her to me, I closed my eyes and relaxed into the comforting arms of my sister. I had missed my family over the years, especially my sisters. We had never been apart for more than a night, having shared a womb we were the closest siblings could be.

“Thank you, Luna.” I whispered back as we pulled back, chuckling at each other as we wiped tears from our eyes. “We have turned very emotional over the years.”

“I like to think of it as we have grown over the years and no know sharing our emotions is safe and even needed.”

“How is Celeste?” I asked, while Luna was my sister and I loved her dearly, Celeste and I had always been closer. We had been able to communicate telepathically for years before we discovered we were Lycans, not to mention we had always had so much more in common than we did with Luna. Celeste had been my best friend.

“Celeste is…” Luna began, trailing off for a moment before sighing and plucking at the pillow in her lap with her long fingers. “Celeste has changed a lot. We were good for a few years after you left, but around five years ago she pulled away. I do not know what happened, but she’s refused to come around for anything more than holidays, and even when she shows up for those she leaves as soon as she can. She refuses to spend time with any of us anymore, I’m not sure why. I tried to find out, but she blocked me out.”

“Has she found her mate?”

“So, care to explain the Sirens, Mermaids, and mysteries?”  Vespian asked as he sat on Luna’s other side, a glass of whiskey in his hand. She refuses to talk about mates as well, she says that not everyone is meant to live happily ever after like Vespian and I. I’m not sure what she means, but I get the sense that she has been hurt.” Luna was refusing to look at me, which meant she was hiding something she didn’t want me to know about. I wanted to push her, but all too soon our little reunion was interrupted.

“Oh my!” Called Leo dramatically, his own whiskey safe in one hand while the other flew to his mouth in mock horror. Nullar was staring at him as if he had lost his mind, which set off a round of laughter from the rest of us in the room. “It’s a movie, Nullar. Perhaps we can watch it before you leave.”

“Leave?”  Nullar asked, his eyes glinting between each of us in surprise. “You are expecting me to leave?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, were you planning on staying? I just assumed as a Siren you would head back to the sea.”  Leo asked curiously, glancing at me for answers, though I was not sure what good I was in this instance, I did not know any more than they did about when, or if, Nullar would be going home.

“I will be going wherever my Pearl goes.”  Nullar stated, sniffing the glass Vespian had handed him earlier.

“Your Pearl?”  Vespian asked, Luna was now curled into his side, his glass in her delicate hand as she took a sip of the amber liquid squishing inside.

“I assume he means Roisin.”  I muttered, still not exactly enjoying the connection between my mate and her ex-fiancée, and that was what he was, in my opinion, an ex.

“No, she was my fiancé, not my Pearl.”  Nullar said, taking another sip of the liquor in his glass, apparently liking it more than he expected he would.

“What, or who, is your Pearl, Nullar?” Luna asked softly.

“A Pearl is a wolfs equivalent of a mate. She is the one that was made to complete me.”

“That is so sweet.”  Luna cooed.

“You said wherever your Pearl goes, that means that you found her, and she is here, but Roisin is not her. So, who is your Pearl Nullar?” Though the tone of Vespian’s voice hinted that he already knew who Nullar was referring to.

“The Lycan who came with us, Isabella. I feel the pull. I believe she does as well, but she’s fighting it.”  Nullar shrugged his shoulders as if the last bit did not bother him but having found a mate who I had believed was rejecting me, I knew that pain he had to be feeling.

“She may not be fighting it; she may just not understand what she is feeling.”  I added, drawing all eyes in the room to me. “Isabella doesn’t have a Lycan Spirit that speaks to her, I believe it’s being repressed, and if that is the case, then she may not feel the bond the way that we do.”

“What do you mean she doesn’t have a wolf spirit? Is that even possible?”  Leo asked, sitting straighter in his chair, and leaning forward, fully at attention now.

“I believe it’s a spell of some kind, preformed while she was too young to remember.” I was not sure about my theory, but I felt that it had the highest likely hood of being correct.

“That could make sense.”  Luna muttered, before reaching for her pocket and pulling her phone out, tapping the screen to make it light up.

“What are you doing sis?”

“I’m going to call a witch to come over and help us figure some of this out.”  She mumbled, typing out a text message on the screen.

“So, lets discuss Roisin. She’s your mate, Orion?” I had been expecting this conversation, but if I was honest, I had not been expecting Vespian to be the one to bring it up.

“Yes. Well, kind of.”  And I began the story of how Roisin showed up on the island, our journey to land, and everything in between until we showed up at their gates. The story did not seem to answer anyone’s questions if anything they seemed to have more.

“Who is Roisin than?” Leo asked when I had finished retelling the events of the last few days.

“Gracie, you dolt, he just said that.”  Vespian muttered.

“No, he said that Gracie is in Odette’s body, with Roisin, but that Odette’s soul had moved on. Which means that Roisin is not Gracie or Odette but another soul entirely.”  Blinking a few times Leo chuckled and ran his fingers through his tousled hair. “I think that made sense. Honestly, this is all so confusing I’m not entirely sure what is going on.”

“Let me break it down for you, Leo.”  Luna laughed. “Odette is the Siren daughter of Poseidon, she is the Heir to the Seas and was Fiancée to Nullar, who is Prince of the Northern Seas. Somehow Odette died, brain death at least, because her heart had to be beating just enough to allow Gracie, and apparently her and Orion’s three unborn babies to enter Odette’s body. Roisin is the wild card here though, we don’t know who she is, or what she is.”  Luna looked between me and Nullar with a look of proud accomplishment. “Did I get that right?”

“Yes, basically.”  I answered her.

“But how? How is it possible for the babies to grow in a body that does not have Orion’s DNA in it as well? Will they just be Roisin’s or Gracie’s kids than?”  Leo looked as if he were going to have an aneurysm if everything did not make more sense soon.

“We don’t know, we just found out about the pregnancy when you did.”  I answered honestly, just as frustrated to know the answers to those questions as they were.

“I would assume it has something to do with our blood.”  Nullar mumbled, taking the last sip of his whiskey, and moving to the side table to put the glass down.

“What do you mean by your blood?” I asked, confused by what he meant.

“Sirens’ blood is pure magic, it’s why we were hunted into near extinction hundreds of years ago and why we can’t let humans know of our existence, or else we’ll end up like the unicorns.”

“Unicorns?” Luna asked as she nearly jumped to her feat in excitement. “There were unicorns?”

“Were? Are, there are unicorns. There are only a few left though, and they must stay in human form or risk humans seeing them.”

“Human form? Unicorns are shifters?” Luna’s eyes were so big I was scared they would pop out of her head soon.

“Yes, of course. Just as Sirens, werewolves, Sphinx, Dragons, Vampires and even Fae do. We all have our human form and our shifter form. Where were you educated to know so little of your own kind?”  Nullar asked, his tone full of condemnation that raised the hackles of every other male in the room as Luna’s face fell.

“No need to be rude, I was raised human, these things aren’t exactly taught to them.”  She mumbled, curling further into Vespian, most likely in an attempt to calm her overprotective mate before he said or did something he would regret later.

“We werewolves are only taught of our own kind, of course we know of Sirens, Fae and Vampires as they live freely among us, but Unicorns, Dragons and Sphinx are all extinct.” Leo said, defending his Luna. “At least, we’re told they are extinct.”

“What is a Sphinx?” I asked.

“Cat shifters, usually leopards, lions and tigers.” Nullar answered.

“And Dragons are seriously real as well?”  Luna asked hesitantly.

“Yes, and none of them are extinct though they have been hunted almost to that point. The point is, Siren’s blood is almost pure magic, just as a Unicorn’s horn can heal any injury, our blood can do the same.”  Nullar brought the conversation back around to the present topic at hand.

“Clearly the Unicorns horn is stronger than Siren’s blood than.” Leo mumbled, throwing back the last of his drink and placing the glass on the table beside him while Nullar turned to glare at him.

“Why do you say that?” Nullar grumbled.

“Because you said a Unicorns horn can heal any injury, if Siren’s blood could do the same than we wouldn’t be here would we? Odette wouldn’t have been on the bring of death and moved on to the next life.” Leo answered with a shrug of his shoulders.

Nullar stared at him wide eyed for a moment before blinking and turning to rush for the door. Jumping from the couch to rush after him I followed him out of the sitting room and towards the stairs.

“Nullar, where are you going?” I called out after him as he raced up the stairs, me hot on his heels.

“Leo was right, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. For Odette to be in such a state that her soul passed to the next life she must have been on the brink of death, as we discussed, but it could not have been an accident. Very few things can kill a Siren, most of which are poisons that are dangerous only to our souls.”  His words were rushed as he began striding down the hall to Roisin’s door.

“You’re confusing me, what could possibly hurt your soul but not your body?”

“Waters from the rivers of Tartarus.” Nullar answered, we were almost at her door now, and from the way he was acting I beginning to get nervous.

“Tartarus, as in Hell?” I demanded dumbfounded.

“From the Underworld, yes, and very few have the ability to access the waters, and fewer have the power to bring them back to this realm.” Nullar said as he placed a hand on the door, frowning when it would turn. It was locked.

“Which means that someone was trying to kill Odette.”  I heard Luna say from behind me.

“Do you have a key to this door?”  Nullar demanded.

“Yes, there is a master key downstairs, I’ll have someone bring it up.” Luna was saying, as I walked towards the door shook my head.

“No time.”  I growled.

“Odin, unlock the door.” I called on my Lycan spirit, who was already at the surface as he had been listening to everything we had been discussing about our mates.

“Though you would never ask.” He muttered back. In the next instant my hands were surrounded by a red mist and the door lock unlatched the door opening and flying inward to bang on the hall behind it. I ran into the room, hoping that all these dramatics were for nothing, but once we reached the bed and pulled back the covers, Odin released a growl combining both of our frustration and fear, for the bed was empty. Roisin was gone. We’d had her for all of three days and we had lost her twice.

“I want her found now!” Odin growled through the room.

“We’re coming for you my Little Rose, just be okay. Please be okay.”