The Beast And The Blessed by Ashley Breanne
Chapter 65
Natalie’s P.O.V.
Killian shifted back to his Lycan, his joints popping loudly at the sudden change as he stood tall in front of me.
“Come out!” He demanded. The Alpha command was thick, and even I felt the need to step toward him at his order. His body shook with anger, and while I was excited to have shifted, I was in no way ready for a fight in this form. I had no training in my fur… I had barely learned how to walk.
My gaze moved to the mouth of the cave, wondering if our guards would come to assist, but there was only silence.
The magic in the air grew thicker.
I shifted, not worried about my lack of clothing. My training had all been in my human form, and I wanted to be ready to fight.
My fingertips touched Killian’s back, and his fur bristled as a female peaked her head around the corner of the cave above us before transporting down to stand only twenty feet away.
We both took a step back at the action. The only person that we had known who was strong enough to do that was Joselin. Even then, her ability wasn’t as clear. She flickered in and out, while the stranger before us popped from one place to the other.
The power she must have had to master that skill was terrifying.
She was breathtaking. Her long ebony hair was curly and wild. Her eyes were a pale, sea-green. I shivered when I met them and found them locked on me. “You have grown so beautiful, my dear.”
Her soft voice seemed to echo through the cavern, and the hair on Killian’s hackles rose. For me to have grown meant that she had seen me when I was little. But I had no memory of her. i
“Who are you, and why are you here?” Killian asked her with a low rumble behind his words. The underlying threat made me anxious. While he had been doing better to control his anger and reactions, pissing off a witch with no backup, especially one as powerful as she appeared to be had me feeling uneasy.
“I do not have to answer to you. You are trespassing in my home, but if my memory serves me correctly, this is not the first time.” She laughed as she pulled her gaze away from me and landed on my mate.
“You seem to have a habit of bringing women to my home. First the witch, and now my daughter.”
My mind shut down, and my lungs refused to pull in air. Beyond our height, we didn’t have very much in common. There was little to no resemblance in our coloring. While she had black hair, I had brown. Her lips and eyes were bigger than mine were. We both had green eyes, but hers were significantly lighter than mine.
I narrowed my eyes at her in disbelief as I failed to find a matching feature, anything that would confirm that she was my mother.
“That’s not possible.” My denial caused a flash of hurt to go over her face, but she quickly masked it with a forced smile.
“I assure you, my dear. It is. I birthed you myself. Right here in this very cave, as a matter of fact.” She lifted her arms, palms up, to gesture toward her surroundings. But I refused to take my eyes off her as she spouted her lies.
“I knew you would be beautiful and strong. I am glad to see that I was correct.”
“How could you be my mother? Prove it.” I whispered, feeling my confidence fade. I felt desperate to know if she was a threat to our safety or just a threat to my mind and heart. Either way, I would come out damaged from whatever happened here.
I knew my parents weren’t my real parents. My mother had told me herself before she died that they had found me and taken me in. If the wrong person learned that fact, they could use it against me. I wasn’t stupid enough to blindly trust a witch when I knew witches were working with the vampires.
“I don’t need to.” She smirked as she watched me step to Killian’s side, not bothered by my being nude. “We are connected by our blood. If you try, you can feel it. You may have shifted, but the other part of you hasn’t gone anywhere. If anything, you just made it stronger.”
“The other part of me?” I whispered, my hand staying on Killian’s side as he eyed her with distrust. He shifted to place his shoulder ahead of mine to shield me in case anything should happen, and I stood still as I tried to process this information.
She wasn’t wrong. I could feel the magic in the air with every ounce of my being. Having her here, someone to connect it to, was like fine-tuning an instrument. The pull of the magic toward her was there.
It was both comforting to know that I could, in fact, feel the connection between us. It helped to reassure me that she was not lying. But knowing she had been here this whole time, only a few hours away made me angry.
“Let me start over. My name is Aurora, direct descendant of Selene. Her gift runs through our blood, and nothing will ever be able to mute or turn that part of you off.” The witch explained as I felt my hand drop from Killian’s side.
“This is insane,” I whispered as I turned to look at my mate. Killian growled as the woman took a step closer, and my head shot back up to glare at her. “Your white-furred beast was not proof enough? That in itself should tell you how rare you are. Your father’s wolf was a pale, golden color. When you first walked in here, and I saw that you had his eyes and hair, I figured that your wolf would be the same. I’m glad that you share at least that with me.” Aurora smiled warmly at me before the magic in the air began to thin as if she were calling a truce. “Please, let’s talk.”
Killian huffed, his arm moving in front of my torso to protect me as Aurora walked around us to take a seat on a thick section of grass.
“If you are my mother, where were you?” My voice cracked as she gestured for us to join her.
“I was here.” She smiled sadly as she continued to stare at me.
“Why did you abandon me?”
Killian stopped me as I moved forward. I did as he silently requested, keeping my hand on his back as I waited for her explanation.
“I couldn’t keep you. You needed to be around your kind, and the vision I had told me that where I left you was where you were supposed to be. I had to put you first.” She swallowed visibly, and I fought the urge to roll my eyes. She was the one who gave me up. In my mind, she had no right to be upset. “I wish I hadn’t. I wished I kept you with me, but there was a greater plan for you. You needed to be there, without me.”
“Why?” The loud yell of my question was mixed with a cry.
“I have been hunted for decades, my dear. With each passing year, my magic has been fading, and yours has been growing stronger. If I kept you, you would have been in danger every second of every day. My magic was leaving me, and I didn’t know if I could keep you safe. So, when Selene blessed me with the vision, I knew it was the right thing to do.” Her explanation made me want to curse the Goddess, but I bit my tongue.
It was the same for every child, people making decisions for them, and those decisions impacted the rest of that innocent soul’s life.
Killian’s arm dropped, and I looked up at him, pleading with my eyes for him to take me away from here…from her.
“I know you need time to process this. I will give you that. But we will see each other again soon.” She whispered.
I was grateful at first, for the space and time. But as she popped out of the cavern, my heart dropped to my stomach, and I couldn’t resist stepping forward and looking around for her.
My heart wanted to know her, but my mind was closed to the idea of her literally popping into my life after all this time. I was also bitter that she had chosen to use tonight to do it.
I had been waiting for this moment since I was a kid. I finally had my wolf, and now all of my excitement was gone.
“Are you okay, my love?” Killian asked, and my heart sped up as it always did when he used that word.
“I just want to go home,” I whispered as I called upon my wolf. The transition wasn’t as hard this time. It still lasted a few minutes. But I was back on four paws and running toward the exit as quickly as I could.