Chosen by The Fates: The prophecy

Chapter VIII - Ceremony - part II

“Well, I met her the day we came back. She is one of the new members and she lost her first mate in the fight that claimed their pack. They were both part of the defence team and when they broke through the pack house she barely escaped the packhouse along with her mate and the rest of the group we’ve just pledged. Just before they could get off their pack grounds and flee, her husband was caught and killed in front of her. So I guess it is no wonder she doesn’t specifically want a second chance mate.” She dropped her head and I could see the tears falling down her face.

“So she rejected you?” Kim growled, her eyes flickering back and forth, from bright purple to black.

“No. She just doesn’t want anything to do with me. She won’t even look at me when we are in the same room and it’s tearing me apart.” She was full-on sobbing in her sister’s arms by now and all I could hear from Kerbe were his incessant growls. Ben did not know how to deal with this situation and it was showing on his panicked face. He was probably also thinking how it would feel if Kim refused to acknowledge him. Mary looked at me, not really knowing what to say or do. Not that I knew. I could understand both of them… it couldn’t be easy losing your mate and then getting your second chance mate in such a short time.

“I think you need to stay away from her. At least for a while. She must be feeling pretty confused about all of this and if you smother her with your presence it won’t make it any easier for her. Just let her figure it all out and then give it another chance. She can’t escape the mate bond. I’m sure she’ll come around.” I got up and went around my desk to her chair. I turned her chair to face me and knelt down to reach her line of sight. “But no matter what happens, you will always be our little sister. You will always have us. No more secrets. Okay?” I lifted my index finger in a threatening motion and turned towards all of them. “From now on it is us against everything else. No matter how bad, at the end of the day we will come back here and discuss it all. No turning our backs on each other, no leaving anyone behind, no secrets, no going around being shady. Okay? We are family. We confide in each other and support each other.” I lifted her chin with my fingers so that she was looking into my eyes. “I will always protect you all. I will always be here for you. That’s my promise to you.” She slowly nodded, holding back her tears, I then lifted her small body from the chair and hugged her to my chest.

“If you want me to banish her, I will. If you want me to skin her alive, I will. If you want me to throw her in the dungeons and prohibit her from seeing anyone else but you, just say the word and I will. Whatever you want, I will do it.” I looked into her eyes and smiled at her. She knew I was joking, but if she said the words I wouldn't hesitate to make it happen.

“Thanks, Ki. Everybody. You reminded me that I have an awesome family by my side.” She hugged me tight and then let me go. “So, who are you guys betting on?” she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, picked up her glass and downed the contents of it. Now that is the Larna I know.

“Right, I’m betting on Cromus as well.” Kimmy said with a laugh and she too downed the drink.

“I’m betting your mom will try to pull a fast one on us just to test our defence.” Mary said, making us all turn towards her. “What, it’s true. No offence Killian, but your mother is a real bitch.” she shrugged her shoulders, downed her drink and looked me dead in the eyes. If it was anyone else, I would’ve taken her head off, but it was Mary and I loved her. But most importantly, she was right. My mom was a b***h. I had no idea whatever the hell happened between them for Mary to dislike my mom this much, but I was sure I was going to find out tonight, if there was anything.

“Thanks Mary. Always nice to hear.” I growled at her and she chuckled. “What about you Benny boy?” I looked at him and he seemed to be enjoying this a bit too much.

“Hmmm, let’s see, Kerbe has my dad, Mary has your mom, Larna has the witches, you and Kimmy have your uncle Cromus. Now who else would like to rip your throat out?” He stroked his beard with a thinking grin on his face. “After all, we have the incubi King, the vampire Queen, any of the witches and the werewolf King. I think my money will be on a very angry siren King whose daughter you f****d over about seven years ago.” He burst out laughing and I felt the colour draining from my face. f**k! I had forgotten about Amariel. I was her first boyfriend and I had promised to make her my Queen. Up until her cousin Zia ascended and I fell in love with her, hardcore. Then I forgot everything about Ama, but not before, of course, taking her innocence. She told her father what I had done and he threatened my mother to wage war on her kingdom if I didn’t marry Ama. My mom obviously did the sensitive thing and agreed not to kill Ama, his wife, and cut his balls off, therefore leaving him without the possibility of an heir and completely humiliated, as long as he and his family would forget they ever met me. All of this while Ama and her mother were present. She made a great display of power that day. He went back to his territory and never approached the subject again.

“Come on! He can’t still blame me for that. I was sixteen! She agreed to it as well, it’s not like I had to convince his sweet little flower into sleeping with me. It was pretty much the other way around.” I rubbed the back of my neck, embarrassed of my past. I had done a ton of s**t things as a teenager and I was hoping they wouldn’t all come back to bite me in the ass.

“I would skin you alive if you did that to my kid.” Mary shrugged.

“Yeah, great talk guys. Let’s not ever do this ever again.” I said and rolled my eyes. I was about to dismiss everyone and go check on the ballroom when I got a mindlink from Axel:

Alpha, your mother is at the borders with four of the Impartials.

Thank you Axel, please escort them back to the headquarters.

“Let’s get a move on, my mother and some of the Impartials are here already. Mary, please don’t cause a scene. I mean it. That goes for everyone else too. Tonight is important. If any of you do anything to f**k it up, I will personally skin you alive and set you on fire.” I growled the last bit, already feeling nervous about my mother being here. For some reason, her presence on my territory was raising warning flags in my mind. Even Jax was unsettled and pacing the floor of my mind.

'Wanna go for a run, Jax? You feel anxious. Is everything alright?'

'I don’t know, Killian, but I don’t think it’s got anything to do with your mother. Let’s go make sure everything is okay with them and then run the perimeter.' He growled the whole time as he spoke and it made me feel uneasy to hear him this distracted. It wasn’t like him.

'Fine, we’ll do that then.'

I opened the door and walked downstairs into the living room, towards the front door. I opened the door and just as I stepped outside, Axel arrived with my mom, Theo, Circe, Ambro and Selene. I nodded at Axel to return to his station and went to hug my mom and the rest.

“Come in, the triplets are coming down in a minute as well. How’s things over in the city?" I asked.

“It’s pretty much all the same as it was when you left, more reports of missing hybrids and half bloods. No leads still…” Circe replied with a sad expression.

“Do you need any help? We’ve got some of the best trackers here, myself included.” Kimmy ran over and hugged Circe, Selene and my mom at the same time.

“Thanks Kimmy, if we need any help we’ll reach out.” Selene said with a sad smile “Are you sure that you’d be able to spare your trackers?” she asked, the fact that she was considering taking our help was surprising and only made me think of how bad the situation actually was.

“Yes, we’ve each got a team of five people that have been trained under all of our supervision, they are trained to be multi-skilled. We could probably deploy Kim’s team as they have focused on tracking more than any other team.” I said, surprising our family. “What?” I asked, not understanding why they were looking at me like I had grown another head.

“You have each trained a team of five?” Ambro asked me, wide-eyed.

“No. We have each trained every team of five. However, each team specialises in a different leading position. Kimmy’s team specialises in tracking, Larna’s specialises in defence and Kerbe’s in offence.” I said and the triplets all nodded.

“What about yours?” My mom asked.

“My team, well they specialise in everything, but their main specialty is uhm… intelligence extraction and collection.” I said, hoping they did not catch onto what I actually meant.

“So torture then.” uncle Theo concluded. “Like mother, like son.” He sighed deeply and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Where exactly were we when all of this was happening? When did you do all of this?” Selene Ambro asked, not believing what he was hearing.

“Well, considering this place is not that far when you have a portal pen, we probably came here at least a couple of hours everyday, whether it was all four of us or one at the time, we were constantly building something down here.” I shrugged, not knowing why this was such a big deal.

“This is all you?! This big ass house and the rest of the territory is all you?” My mom then yelled out, looking around the place wide-eyed.

“Us, yes. Everything that is built, grown and nurtured in this territory was done by me and my people. It started out as the four of us but slowly, in time, people started seeking shelter and grew to love the place, so they helped get it up and running.” I nodded and the triplets came to sit on either side of me, all proud of our efforts.

“This is unbelievable. Is this where you will be ascending?” Ambro asked, putting two and two together.

“It is. Well, the second underground floor is. We each have a wing designed to withstand pretty much everything.” Larna said proudly.

“Second underground floor?” He asked, wide-eyed.

“Yes, we can give you all a tour tomorrow. Today we have some plans, if you remember…” I did not understand why this was such a surprise for them. What did they think I meant when I told them that we would become a House of its own?

“Yes!” they all shouted in unison. Weird.

Am I the only one finding their reaction weird? I mindlinked the triplets.

No, it kinda pisses me off that they are this surprised to see our home. Kerbe growled through our mindlink. The girls nodded in agreement.

“Come on, let’s walk you to your rooms to get ready for tonight.” We walked them to their rooms and we went back to ours to get ready for the big ceremony tonight.

I promised Jax a run after we welcomed our family here, so I jumped over the balcony and gave him control. At some point during our perimeter check, I was notified that the rest of the Impartials had arrived and that they had been seen to their bedrooms. Once we were done running the perimeter and Jax was satisfied, I went back to my room and got ready for the ceremony. There was still an hour until midnight, so I decided to go join the party downstairs.

When I got into the ballroom, the party was in full swing and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. I went around and spoke to people as I was waiting for the ceremony to start. There were only a couple of minutes left until midnight when I saw the triplets coming in, along with the Impartials. I went and stood next to the table that had been set-up with the necessary items for the ceremony. Our House's book was sitting in the middle of the table, awaiting the moment it shall speak.

Once everyone made their way over to the table, the triplets and I waited in front of the table while the Impartials went around it. Theo nodded at me, signalling the Acknowledgement Ceremony was ready to start.

"Thank you everybody for being here today. As you probably know, this will be our Acknowledgement ceremony. Tonight, after The Fates have chosen, we will be a House, not just a pack." I knew there was still a chance for The Fates not to accept our bond, however, being their chosen warrior gave me a sense of confidence. The crowd was cheering in excitement." Now, without further delays, let us start the Ceremony.” I nodded at Theo, giving him the ok to begin.

The Impartials started chanting together, blessing the land and the people. When they were done, Prometheus cut the palm of his hand, pouring a couple of drops on the book, followed by the rest of them and, in the end, me.

"Killian, are you ready?" he asked me, looking into my eyes with pride.

"More than I'll ever be, uncle." I smiled and nodded at him to continue.

"As the leader of the Impartials, I ask the Fates to grant the honour of this land and its members to become a House, a representative for the species this house protects. I ask the Fates that they bless these lands the same way we've done. I ask the Fates to give Killian Demetrey Lycaon the power to protect the people of this pack. I ask the Fates to guide him and look after him throughout his journey as the King of this House. Now, Circe if you may… " he took a step back and allowed Circe to take his place to perform the linking spell.

As she started chanting the spell, the blood that we poured on the open book started changing its colour until it turned blue. It then started spreading onto the table, covering the entirety of the book. As she finished the spell, the blood got sucked into the book until words formed on the first page, a clear sign the Fates had accepted our sacrifice. In silvery blue blood letters, the first words in the book were my name. The blood then changed to clear silver for the triplets' names and then back to blood red for the rest of the members. While I had no idea why the blood had turned different colours, I looked up at Theo, who was seething.

"You bound everyone to the land?! Do you have any idea what this means?" he grabbed the collar of my shirt, not having time to react. Before I knew it, Larna and Kim were on both sides of him, grabbing onto each of his arms, Ben and Kerbe watching their backs, making sure no one intervened. I couldn't help the growl that ripped through my throat.

"What the f**k Theo?!" my mom shouted, trying to get past Ben and Kerbe to us. Des and Ambro were looking in our direction, not really understanding what was going on.

"You have three seconds to get your hands off me, or this entire room will be at your throat. God or not, you will die one way or another." I growled through gritted teeth.

"You have no idea what you've done!" he shouted, exasperated, taking his hands off my collar.

"Why don't you enlighten us all then?" I challenged him.

"Killian, this is a big deal. This will mean that if you die, these people cannot join another House, nor another pack, coven or clan. They can't form a new pack and they can't go rogue anymore. If you die without having an heir, the lands will also die." Circe spoke for Prometheus. “They will also die…”

"And you assume we didn't know this?" Larna asked, shaking with anger. "You assume our King did not offer our people a choice? Look around you! These are all people that have willingly come here because they had nothing else, nowhere else to go. They all know and chose this. We all know and chose this."

"The fact that you assumed I had not given my people the choice is in itself disrespectful. The fact that you laid your hands on me is a death sentence. Because you are my family, I will let this slide. This once. Trust me when I say this uncle, not you, not anyone has got any right to question my judgement. I am the future King of Nezarches and I will go through anyone that threatens my reign and my people. The fact that you are The Impartials doesn't mean s**t to me. You haven't got any influence here. Are we understood, uncle?" The power rippling in the air made most of the people bow their heads in submission and I could even see some of the Impartials fighting the instinct to submit.

Kora and Des came over, trying to defuse the situation:"Right, I think we all need a drink. Besides, the most important thing is that we now have a new House!" Kora said, and the crowd seemed to forget the scene that had just unravelled.

"Ki, what is the official name of your house?" Des asked proudly.

I went over to the table and lifted the bloody book. The words were shining in shining blue letters. "House of Yvridio." I shouted in my royal voice and the crowd erupted in cheers.