22 Years old
Juy

Seeing Veris for the first time in 2 years was the most awkward and unpleasant experience ever. The way he kept staring at me made me feel like a piece of fruit just dangling from a tree, reddened and ripened as he prepared to devour me. Maybe a year ago I wouldn't have minded but now I definitely did.

I wasn't his female and I wasn't his friend, we were just about acquaintances but still he tried to slide up beside me and talk as if we were. As if air only existed between us. I seemed to attract males that had pride in abundance, so much so that they were virtually incapable of apologising. I wasn't waiting for one but common courtesy dictated that if you were attempting to talk to someone you had wronged, you generally apologised first.

Not Veris or Carson. Both males were as stubborn or perhaps as inattentive as each other. They did nothing but flop about like lost children waiting for their mothers to give them guidance. Well I was no mother and I 100 percent was not theirs. If no one had taught them then I wasn't about to try it, I didn't have the energy and I genuinely couldn't care one iota about it.

So when Veris tried to pull me to the side to have a chat, I flipped my middle finger at him and kept walking, hoping that the delicate eyes of 3-year-old Carly didn't see aunty Vanya swearing. If she did then I would meditate and ask the gods for forgiveness but until then... He could fuck right off.

He seemed genuinely surprised by my animosity which was only made so much more apparent when Eliza took him to work. She called him all sorts of names, swine, scumbag and my favourite; a writhing cesspit of human bacteria and mucus.

He soon got the drift, especially when his brother stood by wincing in pain at the abuse but hadn't interjected. Veris deserved it all and more, and no one would come to his aid.

I thought I was saved from him because Eliza was like a hound with a lead... sniffing for blood, growling at any untoward movements from her victim but I forgot that Veris was the wind. He was fluent and soluble, he was not tangent he was complex and sneaky. Very sneaky and sly.

Slithery like a serpent.

Yes, Veris was like a snake but I was earth and everything came from me and eventually it was Mother Earth that their decomposing bodies returned to. I was the Earth, pivotal and unbending and so I wouldn't be moved by this male. His gravitational pull was a tiny inconsequential blip in the grand scheme of my life. So I told myself but that talk disappeared like Veris' nature the moment he caught me alone and unaware.

The party had just come to an end and Nerro and Niko had this really cute moment where they had gathered Carly in their arms and taken her up to bed. Nerro carrying a warm glass of milk and a child's book that he had drawn and written especially for her. Everyone had oohed and ahhed, even Eliza who had begun to think about babies now that her and Samyuri were officially married and mated.

The big red mark on her neck was always on display because as much as she didn't want to admit it, for a moment in time she thought she had become me and Cobalt. A human who had lost one of the most important things to them.

Carson had been that. He had been the centre to my orbit.

My sun.

A burning ball of molten fire consuming anyone who dared to get close. Yes, he had been the centre to my world but not anymore.

As Nerro and Niko had climbed up the stairs, people had begun to vacate the house. Veris had long since disappeared and so I had thought it was safe for me to make my way back to the compound, how misguided I had been. He had come at me like an unsuspecting torrential storm, wind howling and wailing as it dragged you to the centre of the emerging tornado.

There had been no avoiding this conversation because Veris was a sneaky thing.

"Vanya," his voice ghosted over my skin like causing goose bumps to rise along my arms.

Teeth gritted I turned to face the treacherous male all the while mentally preparing myself for this moment. Time had been kind to him, he had trimmed down a little but he still had those bulky muscles that I had loved to paw over. His hair was still dark black but it was cut into an extremely low fade, almost reminiscent of my first ever shave at 17.

Veris looked as delectable as ever but for some reason that natural appeal and charm was absent for me. I didn't feel the need to be lost in his storm like I had once been, I was grounded and his effect had begun to pale.

"Veris,"

"How have you been?"

I stared back at him blankly, waiting for him to speak up because he would receive no pleasantries from me. I was beyond the capability of pretending I was happy to see him. I wasn't mad but I wasn't happy either, I was somewhere in between. Indifferent maybe.

His Adam's apple bobbed and his teeth sunk into his lip in deep thought, something I thought him incapable of. Maybe I was being mean but gods this male had broken me at one point, this male who I couldn't even say I genuinely loved. I couldn't trust any of my past emotions anymore. Was it real or was I just an obsessed little girl crying for love, attaching that golden four letter word to anything that made me feel luminous.

"I can see you aren't happy to see me but I just wanted to talk and I guess clear the air." My head didn't move and my lips stayed pursed in a thin line, I knew I was giving him a dry stare but if he wanted to talk then he had better go ahead. I wasn't about to pander to his requests.

"Right, well basically... Vanya I wanted to apologise. It's probably ridiculously late for this but I hate the way we left things and before you interrupt me-" his hand raised as he hushed me up before I could cuss him for his inaccurate use of words.

"I know it was my choice, I didn't trust our love enough. I was insecure and I doubted you, I doubted us. I'm so sorry, you may never want to be with me again but I'm sorry"

I could feel my lashes flickering ridiculously fast as I gaped at him. An apology? I was shocked but not enough to shut me up.

"You're right, I will never want to be with you again and not because you're a bad person. Yes, you were careless with my affections, insecure, inconsiderate, selfish... the list is endless but the only reason that really matters to me is that I just don't need your love like I used to."

"You see I know your sorry but I have no doubt that if I told you I was mothering Carson's child, you would just give up... I can see it in your eyes already"

His brows were furrowed but there was an almost cold detachment in his once warm green eyes. It's funny how one name would always affect a male that had no reason to doubt his place. When I was his, I was only ever his.

"I just don't understand why Vanya, you're a great woman and you deserve better"

"I know I am" I grinned, I wasn't trying to be conceited but if I didn't know how amazing I was, then how could I ever hear those words from someone else and not find them hollow. Self-love and appreciation was a lesson I was learning.

"I'm going to be honest with you Veris, you are a great male but you are not for me. You are too flighty and unstable, any small thing can end in destruction with you and I'm over it. So how about we bury this between us and work on being friends?"

His lips flattened into a line and his nostrils flared like a bull but he nodded his head in agreement. There was nothing worse for a prideful male then to hear his negative attributes listed out to him and then face rejection. Oh well, it would only build his character.

"It was nice seeing you Veris," I waved, unable to stop the slight sarcastic edge to my voice as I turned on my feet and headed home.

I didn't explain to him that I would always go back to Carson in his mind, because he couldn't understand my bond with Yavan. Most people wouldn't, no female in their right mind would help raise a child that their mate had conceived while they were technically, partially together.

No one would love that child as if they had carried the little bundle of life themselves. Well maybe some would but most wouldn't. Some would even begrudge that child, hate him. Wish bad for him but not me and the reason was simple.

Though Kai had no physical or legal tie to me, he was mine. He was the child of my soul, a child that my very being had connected to on a level that I had never experienced.

There was a protectiveness, a longing to be with him every moment of everyday. He was a beautiful soul and I felt blessed to be gifted with the opportunity to help raise him. Father be damned, circumstances be damned, I was glad that Kai was born. Even if his mother was evil incarnate and his father was an inconsiderate asshole.

I loved that boy. He was the gravity that kept my earth in orbit. A world that spun before him would cease to exist without him. How scary that thought was.

//--//

My mind ticked as I made my way back to the compound which was why I was so easily taken unaware.

I felt the niggle before I saw him but even then it was too late, I was already too close to the surface, skin burning as boils appeared and flesh charred. I knew he would blister me open with his burning, flaming fire.

"Vanya" my eyes rolled heavenwards with just how amazing my luck was, seriously two exes in one night. All I needed was to run into one of those faceless males and then it would be a triple threat.

"I was here to see Khan but I thought I would linger so I could catch you. Yavan wanted to give you this and I promised him I would."

He handed me a thick glossy piece of paper, a child's colourful drawing filling up the page.

"He wanted to give you more but I said he should take his time with one and make sure it was the best he could give you."

"Quality over quantity," I croaked, eyes burning as tears dropped from my ducts.

The drawing was so beautiful, it was of me and him but what had my tears watering was what was attached to our backs. He had drawn us with wings, mine painted with watery colours so they looked like a rainbow and his were a milky grey. Underneath our bodies he wrote, "We fly together," in that childish squiggle that I had to squint to read.

It was oddly poetic for a child so young, so beautifully moving.

"Tell him I love it so much and that I'll be home soon" I sniffle, wiping at my face.

"How is he doing?" I questioned, the only conversations we ever seemed to have were always about Kai.

"He's doing better, Nobel is thinking to try a blood transfusion first and see how that goes. We don't want to use the drugs because we think the side effects may be brutal and they aren't definite."

Kai had been diagnosed with Haemolytic Anaemia, which meant that his body either didn't produce enough red blood cells or that they were dying prematurely. As a result, there were scarce amounts of haemoglobin in his blood stream which meant a limited amount of oxygen circulating around his body. There were also a number of other health issues and his jaundice was only one side effect.

It was a genetic blood disease, which probably resulted from his mother's Rh incompatibility during her pregnancy. It wasn't a common occurrence but as his disease was genetic, we had assumed it resulted because of her.

This, however, worked in our favour because the only way a woman suffered from Rh incompatibility was if her blood was Rh positive and her child was Rh negative. Rh was a protein in the cells but that was irrelevant, the important information was that if his blood clashed with his mothers then that meant his blood type was likely a match with his father's blood type. This was important because it gave us the option of transfusing blood between them.

There were a few reasons we hadn't taken this step earlier and that was because we had considered using old world medicines such as Prednisone which was a Corticosteroid. If used it would either stop or limit Kai's immune system from making antibodies that destroyed the blood cells. None of us were really keen on this idea and so I was glad that they were going to try a blood transfusion.

I hoped it would work but if it didn't we had a back up plan, in my readings I found an article called "The ethical immorality behind curing diseases". The article had discussed a number of things but what stood out most to me was a method of healing that they had called Allogeneic Transplants, which was basically giving Kai a bone marrow or blood transplant.

We believed this would be the most effective way to cure his disease but the downside was that the radiation could cause serious side effects. This was our plan B but also our most viable option. The likelihood was that Kai would be bed-bound for a while until he recovered, that was if his body didn't reject the procedure.

It was a scary thing to think of but we were being optimistic.

"I'll be back for then. Give me a week or two if you think he can wait, if not I can return sooner."

I couldn't just up and leave because that would take a lot of explaining and grovelling and then even more explaining, but I would if Kai's health was urgently at risk.

"2 weeks will be fine; it will give us enough time to prepare for the transplant if it's necessary."

"Okay," our conversation quickly dried up now that we had discussed all we could about Kai. Well not all. I hesitated for a second and then I thought fuck it. I was tired of not saying what I thought to this male all for the sake of peaceful co-parenting.

"When are you going to tell Neema and the family about Kai?" I knew Khan knew and that was bad enough, it was only going to get worse when Neema found out I knew as well.

"Hopefully after his treatment, I'll bring him to the wedding to meet the family. I don't want to just drop his existence and illness on her now, especially when she's so consumed with her wedding" he chuckled lightly but I was only disgusted by his words.

"Do you really think Neema would put her wedding above family? She wouldn't and if you don't know that then you don't know her."

"Sorry I just-"

"You're sorry? Well what a bloody surprise, an apology from Carson," I snarled.

The moment I said the words I wished I hadn't but it was too late.

"What do you mean? Vanya? Speak up"

There was nothing I hated more than when he spoke to me like I was some petulant little child. A switch always seemed to flip when he did.

"What I fucking mean Carson, is that you are a gutless, pathetic male! You fuck up, don't apologise and then start crying that no one will forgive you!"

"Maybe you should forgive yourself first and then you would realise that everyone else already has!"

"I'm sorry" he stuttered, shocked and nervous at the same time.

"You keep stammering those damn words but everyone has been waiting years to hear them." His face flamed in embarrassment at that cheap shot and I did feel bad but I was on a roll.

His apology wasn't necessary to my forgiveness but the apology would be a sign, as if he were extending an olive branch or flying the white flag, whatever the correct terms were.

"We are family Carson and though I may not ever agree or understand your choices, I have long forgiven you because I'm not made to hold grudges. Maybe you can begrudge yourself for the rest of your life, but all you'll be doing is picking at festering wounds. You'll never heal"

"Maybe I don't deserve to heal," he murmured solemnly.

"See that's what I mean! Man up and admit your mistakes. Apologise and move on, because while you're sitting there wallowing in self pity, you are missing out on your nieces and nephews lives. And Neema's." I hastily added.

I could never forget Neema but I knew their friendship was a touchy subject. He had betrayed her when he had become this male and especially when all had gone down between us. That friendship was probably irretrievable but it was always worth a try.

"I know you miss her, so just man up Carson. Or woman up because it seems our vagina's can take more than your balls" I cringed at my final line but it was the truth.

"Okay" he nodded, "okay."

"Alright, well I'm going sleep now so just think about what I said. Goodnight" a sigh eased past my lips as I finally made my escape from my second confrontation of the night.

"Vanya,"

"Yes Carson" I growled in annoyance, turning back around to face him.

"I'm sorry. I can't believe I've never said those words especially when every day since then I've felt it. I'm ashamed of myself for a lot of things but you are right. I need to man up and so I'm starting with you because I always told you that you weren't woman enough, but really I wasn't man enough."

I hadn't failed to see the irony along time ago.

"I'm sorry for hurting you and for ruining this bond, but more importantly, I am so sorry for making you doubt yourself worth. You are a loving and strong woman and I know you don't need to hear that from anyone, especially me but I have to say it because I'm just glad that you didn't let my shit change your nature."

Not like he had let society change his.

"I know sorry isn't enough but it's a start... I am genuinely and deeply sorry"

I thought I heard him murmur butterfly but maybe it was a trick of the wind. Just like it had to be a trick of my sight when I saw the flickering flames of fire colouring his grey eyes orange.

That blazing inferno that was his nature.