CHAPTER 29
LOGAN’S POV
“Prince Sebastian.” It was meant to be a question, but it came out as a statement because I was so sure that I heard him say ‘prince Sebastian’. Immediately, Ryan brushed his fingers through his hair in apparent frustration.
“I would return for you.” He pointed at Desmond in a manner of warning. “Your highness, I think it’s best we have that discussion now.” He directed his statement at me, and his sister’s mate released a low gasp.
“Your highness?” He whispered to himself in shock.
“Yes.” Ralia nodded.
“Your highness, please come with me.”
“Okay.” I shrugged my shoulders slightly, before standing up and joining him. With one last look of disdain at his sister’s mate, he walked away and I followed him behind. He led me through the staircase and we made our way up, several thoughts running through my mind. After a few minutes, we got to a door that most likely led into his study. He opened the door and ushered me in and when I walked in, it truly was his study.
Without waiting for him to offer me a seat, I made myself comfortable on one of the comfy looking arm chairs. He walked around the table and sat on the other side of the table. I expected him to start talking, but he remained silent, looking at nowhere in particular. I desperately wanted to ask him to begin already, but refrained from doing so.
“Your father.” He finally spoke up after some awfully long minutes. “Good men are rare, and he happens to be one of them.” His statement was in no way related to what I wanted to hear, but I decided to quietly listen.
“You would have to be patient with me. I know this is not really what you want to hear, but I would tell you what you wish to hear eventually. I just need to start from the very beginning.” He said, and I nodded in understanding. “5 years ago, a grave incident occured in this very castle, and it happened to draw the attention of the witches council.” Immediately he said that, I realized where he was beginning from, and my curiosity was spiked. I definitely wanted to know what really happened, and how his mate ended up dead. “It had only been a few years since I shifted into my hybrid form, but the whole feeling was still new.”
“We had all been always told from childhood, that once we shift into our werewolf form, we would experience a lot of physical and supernatural changes like our excellent vision at night, our speed, and so on. That was all I had ever imagined shifting would be, until I triggered my transformation, and shifted into my hybrid form.” At the sound of that, my ears stood erect. I feared I may have misunderstood something.
“By triggered, you mean?”
“Well, I hadn’t always known I was gonna be a hybrid, until the fateful day my father told me everything behind my birth.”
“What was it?”
“When my late mother had been pregnant with me, she suffered from a really terrible illness, which began after she was accidentally exposed to a very excess amount of wolfsbane. She was dying, and my father was so scared to lose her, so he went around looking for a solution to what she suffered from.” He sighed, readjusting himself on his seat. “As weeks passed, her heart’s condition got worse and that was detrimental to her growing pregnancy. Pre-eclampsia and all that. After sometime, my father got a suggestion from a friend, which was quite a risky one.”
“And that was?” I asked, slowly getting invested in the story.
“To turn her.”
“I don’t quite follow.” I squinted my eyes.
“To turn her into a vampire. That way, she remains alive and much healthy.”
“Buuutt….” I started, but forgot what I wanted to say.
“Though, their was a tendency I was going to die before she could….”
“Doesn’t one have to die to become a vampire? I thought vampires can’t bear children. How would that work?” I suddenly rushed out, the moment I remembered what I wanted to say.
“Exactly.” He nodded. “So, between the period she would die and reawaken as a vampire, I may have died in her belly.”
“So, did your father still take the risk? I mean…, how did he even kill his own mate?”
“That was the thing. He didn’t want to kill her, so he rejected the suggestion, even though his friend already had a vampire friend who could help them turn my mother into one. But then again, what my father didn’t know, was that he didn’t even have to kill her.”
“How?”
“He returned home that day to meet the whole castle in utter chaos. My mother and slumped earlier in the day, and remained unconscious for half of the day. The pack’s doctor was invited, and he seemed to be quite negative about her situation.” He sighed. “My father had been scared out of his wits, because he kinda knew that my mom may not make it, and in extension, I would die. So he decided to take the risk.”This belongs © NôvelDra/ma.Org.
“Of turning her?”
“Something like that. He wanted to use the opportunity, incase she didn’t make it alive. He planned to feed her vampire blood, so if she dies, she would reawaken as a vampire.”
“But they may have lost you.” I muttered.
“That was a chance he was willing to take. Moreover, if she died without the blood in her system, I would still die. So why not take the chance?” He shrugged. “I don’t even blame or judge him. I would also do anything to save my mate, considering the fact that they already had a child. Ralia. Moreso, how was he going to cope with little Ralia, when she realizes she wouldn’t be seeing her mother anymore?” That counts too. “So he hurried over to his friend’s place, who was surprised to see him return. After a brief conversation, they made preparations to collect some vampire blood, and feed to my mother in time.”
“They were successful, but the rest of the night had be so full of tension. Eventually, mom had died, and my father hadn’t even noticed, thinking she was still unconscious. Or maybe, he was being hopeful. It was also not news that the wolves would not tolerate having a vampire cohabit with them. That was the period when the seperation between the four supernatural kingdoms had newly taken place, so everyone would definitely not stand for it. But then, whatever the turnout, he was going to deal with it later. He just needed his mate to live.” He nodded slowly. “After a couple of hours, she woke up, and he had been ecstatic, thinking she made it, until she started acting weirdly. Almost crazily, clawing at her teeth which were obviously desperate to fang out. That was when he realized that she had already died, and was transitioning. All she needed was blood to complete her transition into vampirism.”
“Eventually, he fed her his blood, and she had almost dried him out, if not for the timely intervention of his Beta. Seeing how crazy she had become, and how hungry for blood she was, she was subdued and locked up. It pained my father to see her that way, but that was his way of protecting her. He didn’t want her forcefully feeding on someone else, and calling unwanted attention. Days became weeks, and weeks turned into a month, but most of all, her belly grew bigger. Apparently, I had survived, and it was quite a shock.”
“Wow.” I muttered in obvious awe.
“Fast forward to a few days later, when she delivered me and everything seemed fine for a while. According to my father, her maternal instincts may have tappered down her hunger to sink her fangs into random people, so letting her out of the isolation room was kinda easy. They had lived in secrecy of her new life since and was born, until it became years, while she survived on the blood bags supplied to her by the pack’s doctor. The pack’s doctor and my father’s beta were the only ones in on their secret. Everything was fine, until rumours started to spread about it. We didn’t know how, or who was spreading this information that happened to be true, and it got my mother more and more agitated.”
“I was only 19 then, and was yet to shift. Meanwhile, Ralia had already transformed into her wolf form. So more and more speculations began to spread about me. Was I also a vampire like my mother, and maybe my father as well?” He released yet another sigh. “During one of the many pack dinners we normally had then, an arrow was shot at my parents, aimed at their hearts. It had been the plan of some rebels in the pack. To the shock of everyone, my mother began to petrify. The entire place went up in chaos, especially as my father was in great pains and almost dying.” At this point, I heaved a sigh, recalling when my own father had brought news about the death of the Alpha and Luna of cold moon pack. Layla, Liam, and I had felt so sad for Ryan and Ralia. My father had also told us about the plan of his pack members to dethrone him from becoming Alpha, because they weren’t sure if he was truly their kind.
“I assumed your father died eventually.” I whispered, to which he nodded in agreement.
“But he didn’t die, before telling me to do all it takes to keep the Alpha bloodline running in our family. He managed to tell me everything that happened with my mother, because I was still shocked with all that had happened that day; the arrow shot, my mother being a vampire and dying, my father struggling for his life. Ralia was a mess. We both had no idea our own mother was a vampire all the while. She did occasionally feel cold and pale skinned even in hot weathers, but we didn’t really take it so seriously.” He scratched his beards, lost in his thought for a moment.
“I was scared. What if I wasn’t a wolf?” He continued and in that moment, I could totally relate to his fear. That was also my present fear, but then, our cases were different. I was either a wolf, or nothing. Maybe, a witch. “But my father sounded quite convinced I was a wolf, because my mother had delivered me after three months, which was the normal gestation period for wolves. He had felt my wolf side was still dormant because I was yet to activate my vampire genes. Moreover, a hybrid was a combination of werewolf and vampire genes, so I couldn’t really transform, except both sides were fully ready to come forth.”
“Later that night, my father had died. I was so grieved and scared, and worried for my sister. If I got thrown out of the pack under the unanimous agreement of our pack elders, then she was gonna be alone. Feeling gingered to protect her, I decided to take a leap of faith.”
“What leap?”
“Have my first taste of blood.” He replied, and I nodded slowly as understanding dawned on me. “I had walked into my late mother’s room, and found her freezing stack of blood bags. It took a lot of courage, and I eventually took a sip. The hunger was ignited immediately, and I continued to drink much more. Instantly, I started to feel different. I was shifting for the first time into my wolf form, and it ought to be extremely painful, but I figured the ecstatic feeling of transitioning into my vampire side, tuned the pain down.”
“So it wasn’t such a painful experience.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He sighed. “But that was until the witches council appeared in our pack a few days later. Apparently, I was a creature that was seen as an imbalance in nature. Supernaturals were supposed to be of one race or another, but I was of two races. There had been hybrids in the past, when the supernatural kingdoms cohabited, but not anymore. My nature had caused quite the stir across the 4 kingdoms after a long while.”
“So what happened?”
“As an imbalance of nature, my abilities could be quite uncontrollable and eventually destructive, especially when I was angry or emotional.”
“So the witches council revealed that my future mate was more like my ‘destiny helper’.” He rolled his eyes as he released a light chuckle. That was the first time I saw him laugh or even smile in a long time. It pleased my heart. “She would help as an insulator or manager of my energy, whenever it became uncontrollable or destructive.” Immediately, his smile died. “What I didn’t know, was that my future mate may not have been as strong as was needed, to control me.”
“What?”
“After they delivered their message to me, they left. I was accepted to be Alpha by my pack members, definitely because of my wolf side. I spent the next few years trying to build trust and love within my pack, especially since my parents must have broken their trust after they found out that their Luna for years had been a vampire.”
“Everything was going smoothly, because we began to have less intruders and rogue attackers, after news flew about the hybrid Alpha of the cold moon pack. Eventually I found my mate, and that was the happiest day of my life. Brenda and I hit things off easily, and in no time, I was deeply in love.” He closed his eyes for a moment, as if reminiscing the past. After a while, he opened his eyes again. “A few months later, my tragedy struck.”