"Why would you want to break a mating bond, Hel?"
"Want the list in alphabetical or chronological order?" I mocked bitterly, undoing my braids for the sake of doing something with my hands. "I'm not joking, Lix, I can't let this happen. I don't have feeling for him yet, but this cursed bond snapped into place when he touched my cheeks. I need to break it before it's too late."
He kept staring at me as if I had turned purple. Speaking of purple, how in the bloody burning hell did I use purple flame back there when the one I have is the green flame? Did that shite evolve? Or I always had it?
"Are you serious?" Lix gasped when I didn't denied.
"I've never been more serious, honey!" I exclaimed frustrated.
"It's unbreakable for a reason, Hel. It's forever, there's no getting out of it. I mean, dying is a way. The only way we all know." No!
Fuck, no. "I don't believe it. There must be a way. There's always a way out of anything, Lix. Always. You just doesn't know it. There must have a way. I need to break this. I… I can't… I…"
"Shit. That's what caused your panic attack," he said matter-of-factly. "Look, I don't know what happened, who is your mate for you to be acting like this, or your reasons to want to break the bond. But if there is a way, the only person who might possibly know about it is Mia. She's the most ancient and strongest witch alive for a reason. If anyone knows a way, that someone is her!"
My eyes widened, "I need to go to her. Where is she now?" But before I could get up, he held me still. "I have to get to her!"
"She's unavailable now, Hel. But you will go to her tomorrow morning, so just use that opportunity to ask her about it. Besides, you are euphoric and in a bad emotional state. It's not good to make decisions like this, so, let's wait for tomorrow, the you go to her."
"But…"
"Please, listen to me. And you have to keep your expectations low, because the probability of existing a way to break the mating bond is lesser than 1%. If you keep your hopes up, you might potentially get disappointed and it might start another panic attack," sigh. "Can I stay near you now?"
I blinked, "What do you mean? You are near me."
He licked his lips, blushing, "No, I mean, like a friend. Can we be friends? Or at least stick together? I haven't talked this much with anyone in all these years, and I can help you with your panic attacks, and you can help me with mine. Besides, it'll be good to have someone to talk to in my last year here."
His request made me freeze, and despite all of my intentions of not making any friends, the sadness in his voice and the loneliness I only saw in myself, made me bite my tongue, "Sounds good," and the words left my lips before I could control myself.
["No going back now,"] Jack finally spoke.
"But are you loyal to Meredith?"
His face turned to stone for a second, "I… I can't lie about that, Hel. I know you were chosen by her, and you're probably loyal to her, as my uncle is. And I also know she's the Dragon Queen, but I despise her. Most people do, to be honest. I'm sorry to say this, but she's a monster."
Wait, he thought I was… loyal to Meredith? "Believe me, Felix, I am absolutely not loyal to that fucking bitch." My words caught him by total surprise. "I loathe her more than anything in this world. Her and Philippa, to be honest, but she's first. She took everything from and she's the reason for all the misery that fell over me and my mother," I hissed. "I know everyone in this hell hole thinks I'm her mad dog just because she sent me here, but she's just trying to use me as a pawn."
"You hate her? Are you being honest?"
I scoffed in disgust, "I've never been more honest in my life, Lix. You have no… no idea the things she did to me. I've only been with your uncle for ten years, it's also the time I met him. But I'm a lot older than that and all of those years I spent locked under her talons."
"Crypts. The crypts. My mother told me that the Queen developed a weird habit of going to the crypts every 1st Sunday of the month. And that every time she left, she left with the stench of blood," oh? So that happened uh? "You were there."
"I was," I whispered. "Fuck, I've only managed to leave that hole less than two weeks ago, Felix. Those last ten years I locked in there with Cosmos, after the bitch finally took me out of the coffin and allowed my body to grown. He was good to me in his own way, for a change. He raised me and taught me everything I know, but she still went there every month to torment me. No one could do shite about it!"
He let out a squeak, "How… how long did she kept you locked in the coffin, Hel? How long were you locked in the crypts?"
"Two thousand and forty years," I whispered under my breath. "I told you when I arrived, Felix, I'm the oldest in here. She would come to see me every first Sunday of the month, the she would wake me, give the damn potion that made my body stay in stasis and evolve special abilities, and then she would get me drunk," I raised my sleeves, showing him the shackles scars on my wrists, "lock five different emerald shackles in me, and torture me!"
His eyes widened in horror, "No way…"
Slowly, I rolled up my sleeves to show him the scars in my arm, "The tattooed aside, my body is covered in scars, Felix. My healing is strong and so is my regeneration, but she would torture me enough for it to fuck my healing enough to leave these scars. A collection of scars over scars that came together in twenty centuries and forty years of torture. Without counting the last ten, when she would also torture me, but now without the coffin in the picture."
"Wilhelmina Rosalind Miralanthor," he connected the dots. "Shay Miralanthor was said to have disappeared around two thousand years ago. You were capture around that time," his eyes widened. "Bloody circles of hell, Hel, she was your mother wasn't she?"
I closed my eyes, clenching my jaw, "Yes. She's my mom. And she didn't 'disappear', Felix. My mother was coldly murdered by the Queen and Philippa in front of me, when I was 7 years old, on the day I was taken away and locked on the crypts." Sighing, I pressed my shaky hands on each other. "She died because they wanted to get their hands on me."
I'll just hide my blood relation with Meredith.
"Oh no… why did she wanted you? Why go this far?" He gasped.
"Because I'm different, Felix. I'm something that was believed to be gone together with the old world. And I came to be again after two dragons got together. Meredith couldn't resist, she wanted me!"
After staring at me in pure shock, when I thought he would press or down and ask me what I was, be seemed to notice my discomfort, because he chose something else to talk to, and I couldn't feel more relieved. "When did you get the tattoos?"
"The same day I left the crypt," I adjusted my sleeve again, "it too five days to get all of them. I'm full of them. All magical," I did my best to grin. "It's a special tattoo artist who embeds spatial magic on the tattoos, allowing us to hide stuff in it. I'm a walking arsenal with all the weapons my mom made and kept hidden in our lair. I'll show you after they are all healed and my body gets used to them. Until then, the artists told me to keep my skin always covered, which I normally already do."
"No way!" He gasped in awe. "Is that how you summoned the cool daggers and the katana you flew on?" So he was there.
Nodding, I demonstrated to him, making of a deadly emerald fan with bladed edges appear in my hands, then I gave it to him. "Like this. You can keep it, I noticed you have one with you," I pointed at the main pocket of his hoodie. "This is matches you better and it is a weapon, so be careful with the edges, they are insanely sharp."
His eyes widened again, "Are you for real?" Nod. "You're giving me this?" And this time, it looked like he was about to cry.
"Hey, swallow it. It's not big deal,"
"This is an emerald fan, Hel. A sculpted emerald blades fan! It is pretty much a big deal to me," he chuckled. "Made by Shay Miralanthor at that!" It's still weird to hear everyone calling mom by her nickname.
Her names was Shayanne Clementine Miralanthor after all. "If you like it, that's what is important. Mom wouldn't want me to keep weapons I won't use with me just for the sake of keeping what she made," and it's an emerald fan after all. I would never use something that can weaken me. It would be a dumb move, and I'm not dumb.
"But, Hel," he tensed up. "Did you genuinely meant what you said to Strauss-Khan back in the hall?"
No way. No. Fuck, don't tell this is happening! "Strauss-Khan?"
A nod, "Yes, you know? The Crowned Prince of the Vampire Court and strongest supernatural being of Belladonna in centuries. Oliver-Sean Montgomery Strauss-Khan," but when he saw how pale and still I turned, he blinked confused. "You did know the guy you were fighting, right?"
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. And I though just having a mate was the unluckiest shite in the world. But no, I had to mate the damn Prince of the damned Vampire Court. Thank you, Crone, for (not) helping. "The vampire who mocked me… the leader of the little vampire bunch… is the Crowned Prince of the Vampire Court?"
"Yes. And his little bunch is the group of the strongest and most influential born vampires in centuries too. There's Oliver's brother, Elliott-River Hayes Strauss-Khan, who looks like Oliver by a bit shorter, with short hair and eyes leaning more towards light green that turquoise."
And he has a brother? Ugh.
"Then there's the twins Dimitry and Igor Kursonova. Dimitry is the one with the buzzed hair cut, and Igor the cute one with fluffy light brown hair, crystalline blue eyes, and a underwear-dropping smile," seems like someone has a crush.
"Who's cotton candy baby blue hair? The annoying one?"
Felix chuckled at my description, "He goes by Rio, but his name is Eleutherios Konstantopoulos," so, that jerk is Greek. "He dates Irene, who,"
"I know that one. And the last tanned skinned girl with bangs?"
"Nevena Radovanovic, she's Irene's cousin," that explains a lot.