A/N: NOT EDITED.

Chapter 11 - The Past, Loved Twice, New Start (Kaden POV)

Four children. Mine. The hurt Etta has had to put up with, the decisions she's made on her own, and all I see is strength. "I named them, Reese and Morgan, their last names are Romano," she tells me and the part of me that wants to get angry that for the time I've come to her, from when she started calling out to me, that she's kept them a secret that part is shut down by the glare John shoots me and the simple fact that she did what she had to do.

I had done so much; we had loved each other twice. I can't remember it, but I can feel it. That ease and comfort, it's as though my body - my heart - remembers what my mind cannot. The Elders, they have done this to me. The research, the changed that they forced upon my body.

"How did I end up back in North Carolina?" I ask John and Etta. Information overload be damned, I'd reach my limit. "Why didn't you just bring me back?" I asked John specifically. "You're supposed to be looking out for Etta-"

"Oh no, he didn't know that we were seeing each other, I met you in London, I was - you played me." Etta stands right up to me, cutting off the verbal ass kicking I was going to unleash onto John.

"I didn't know it was you Kaden, until after I had given birth to Reese and Morgan," I frowned, "I - I didn't tell you?" I asked of John that gap in my memory more frustrating.

"Etta, I didn't know at first, but I had my suspicions, so I confronted Kaden." John speaks.

"As far as he knew, Etta, he - his plan-" John stammers too much and there is a flicker of pain in his eyes.

"The first time you saw Etta when you were Reese, you remembered her Kaden, you told me that seeing her brought back all those memories. You - your plan was to hurt her, that's why you approached her as Reese. You remembered that you two went to the Florida Summer program, but Kaden, what you remembered was Etta just ignoring you until she went missing... you had no idea that the reason you lost her was because of what you told her, and the things she overheard you telling some of the guys you roomed with."

Shame envelopes my whole being, I stare at the ground, wishing it would swallow me whole at this precise moment, but when I look up finally at Etta, I expect to see hate, but I can't find a trace of it.

"When you were a few months into your relationship and I told you what happened, why Etta had vanished and broke off your friendship, you told me that you would come clean, you would tell her that you were in fact Kaden." I nodded.

"So when I was twenty - two?"

"We were together for two years."

"The second two years I can't remember?"

Etta and John nodded in agreement.

"So you've lost me twice." It's a statement, a fact.

"We are mates, but with my Fae side, like I said, it didn't full develop until you were already gone, John and I, we knew that if we overloaded you, that you could end up shocked into being Feral, remaining that way... so I started calling out to you when I gained the ability to do so," Etta explained.

There was more, so much more I wanted to know, had to say things I wanted to apologize for because despite knowing I had these qualities inside of me, that I had hurt her more times than I ever should, Etta still wanted me. The monster inside that the experiments created and the boy she fell in love for when we didn't know any better.

John lifts a brow at my silence, his head cocks to the side. I know that face. He has a theory about something... before Etta can turn to him and read his face as well; a blank mask is put in place.

"We need a plan," I say rubbing my hands over my face roughly, tampering myself down. It was one thing for the people that fucked with me, to do that, to interfere in my life, turn it upside down for the sake of whatever the fuck they were getting at but for Etta's father to be the one to hurt her this way. To give away her children and leave her under the impression that they had died? If the bastard were alive I'd kill him myself.

"I want them back," Etta says leaving no room to argue, "The safest place for them is with us... they are supernatural living in the human world," her arms cross over her chest. "I know that these people that have taken them, have shown them love, are the only parents they know, but our children aren't human. Who's to know what abilities they have, and just how they come into them or when? And they were taken made before you were taken and experimented on Kaden," I glance over at John, unable to read him.

He called in Sean, so clearly he had a plan.

"What do you know already?" I asked Sean. Surely he wasn't here with zero information, and the grim expression that he wore said absolute wonders.

"The children were adopted - in a closed adoption - by Donavan and Katherine Bradley. Their names are Sawyer and Tristan..." pushing a file towards Etta and I, he continues.

"This is all unofficial, but look at the doctor that delivered your babies," he said with a sigh.

Mitchell Bradley.

"Compared to the doctor that signed the death certificates."

Mitchell Bradley.

"They had to file the documents." He goes silent and as I read red hot rage engulfs me completely. "Not now Kaden," Etta murmurs placing one hand on my shoulder and that contact is a cooling balm.

"This is false," I mutter after taking multiple long calming breaths, "all of it. It says that Etta was twenty-five; the father is listed as Bill with some fake last name-" I'm cut off abruptly when Etta stalks over to the bag I saw John arrive with. Unzipping she pulls out more documents, "Look at the signature on the line for biological mother," she says between gritted teeth. Throwing another document on top of it, "Look at the signature for the nurse on my release forms," her voice shakes.

"You were in a coma?" I ask reading the notes, "The dates don't - it says you signed them on a day that clearly shows you were in a medically induced coma."

I rest back, "How on earth were these people able to get away with this?" I question not expecting an answer.

"You'd be amazed at what nearly two hundred grand can get you," Sean mutters across from me as next to me, Etta releases a sob stepping away from us. I'm immediately on my feet, pulling her against me, offering her the comfort I hadn't given her when she gave birth to Sawyer and Tristan. The rage I feel inside tenfold but not more important than the consoling Etta deserved right now. They were my children too, but it was different; she had lived every day since they were born believing that they were dead. Living with a type of grief I hadn't experienced, that no one should.

I hold onto Etta until her body calms, the sobs quiet and the shaking ends. Pulling away, cupping her face between my hands, my thumb wiping her tears. And when Etta's finally in control of her emotions we both turn to John and Sean.

"Do you-" Etta clears her throat.

"Do you think that Donavan and Katherine were aware of all of this?"

"Without talking to them first... there's no way to tell."

"It's been eight years, do we - I mean is there anything we can do legally?" I ask not wanting to go the route of kidnapping our children, or hurting the Bradley's, then taking our children.

"If you want to take this the human route, it's going to be a bit of time, to get the results that are in the interest of Sawyer and Tristan..." Sean tampers off.

"We don't want to just rip them away from their parents, but we want to do this," I nodded agreeing full heartedly.

.

.

.

Two days later, after Sean pulled a few strings, Katherine and Donavan Bradley, Sawyer and Tristan were currently at the police station, the twins with a social worker in another room, but Katherine and Donavan were in the room in front of me.

"They can't have them," Katherine sobbed, her body shaking. My hand holding Etta's, I glanced at her from the corner of my eyes. All I saw was sympathy, she had lost those two children, and she understood what the Bradley's were dealing with. But a small part of me, knew she had suffered worse.

When the door opened, Sean, and the woman I knew was Donavon's sister Margo Stony entered the room. Sitting next to her brother, across from Sean, "You have nothing to worry about," she told them, placing a manila folder on the table.

"I'm not sure why you have decided to drag my clients down here-"

"I would like to know how your clients came into possession of minor child Sawyer and Tristan."

I waited, with my heart racing, my hands trembling as Donavan looked to his sister for approval.

Once he got it, he turned to Sean, "Eight years ago, my father - he's a Fetal surgeon - was in Europe, we had been trying to have children when we learned that it wouldn't be possible for us. He called to tell us of a friend of his that was interested in giving their baby up for adoption. At first we weren't sure since the biological parents were friends of our father." He swallows, his wife holding his hand on top of the table, her knuckles turning white.

"We were assured that they in fact wanted a closed adoption, they weren't finically stable to provide for the children." Pushing the manila envelop towards Sean, Margo takes over, "As you can see everything was done, by the book here - legally binding. These people cannot come in years later, claiming-"

"Right now, there is nothing in this file that is valid," Sean starts off slowly, while Katherine, Donavan and Margo tense up, "All this information is fraudulent."

Katherine whips her head to Margo, "Not only do you not have consent from the biological parents, if your father were alive today he'd be sitting in a jail cell."

Opening his own file, Sean handed them the death certificate paper, "Sawyer and Tristan, were born to Elizabetta Philips and Reese Morgan." At the mere utter of my name, Margo's eyes widen.

"Elizabetta was in a car accident, placed in an induced coma, and when she woke up, your father as well as hers, said that her children had passed away. As you can see your father's signature is on the death certificate. This man - Bill Veda - is actually Bill Philips, Etta's father."

"Oh god," Katherine whispered, her face ashen.

"Your adoption files show that Etta was in her mid twenties when in reality she was only fourteen years old and the birth father, had no idea, but you didn't have his consent either."

Pulling out another file, he passes it to them, but with shaky hands only Donavan reaches for it, "The signatures are fraudulent, in your document it shows that the birth mother signed away her rights, when according to factual hospital records she was in a coma. So please tell me how she would be able to sign away her rights to her children?"

"They're our children - we are the only parent that they've known-"

"Because your father falsified documents-"

"Are my clients under arrest?" Margo interrupted Sean.

"Not at the moment."

"Then we will be leaving, with Sawyer and Tristan."

Sean stands as well, "This injunction, signed says that the two minor child will be placed in emergency foster home until the assigned court date."

"What?" Donavan stood abruptly his chair scraping against the floor as his wife stood on shaky legs, tears streaming down her face.

"You will be able to see them at assigned times, in the presence of a chaperone."

"Court hearing?"

"Yes, the birth parents are filling for full custody of their children."

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