Family and pack
Family and pack
1 year ago
Claire
I entered the apartment sliding through the window. The rain had started early and that hadn’t made my work easier. Neither had the African American mob; stealing from them was one of the hardest missions. And the funniest one.
Pulling my boots, I walked soundly from the living room’s windows, through the hall, into the room. Pink covered the walls and the puffy white blankets had almost made Mimi disappear from my sight.
She was curled into a small ball, her hands small fists under her chin. Her brown curly hair had also fallen to her face. I smiled at my little sister and carefully I closed the door. The condo was silent, dark and for a moment I wondered if Mom would cringe knowing what Thomas and I were doing. Penelope Limona had died of heart attack two years ago, leaving Thomas, the eldest, me and Mimi alone, the two of us standing like a shield for Mimi before my father, the boss of Chicago’s Italian Family.
I had stop counting my father as family on Mimi’s birth. Even at ten years old, I knew the distaste on my father’s gaze when he had seen Mama holding Mimi. After that he had taken extreme measures in order to train me in everything a mob boss’s daughter had to know. Fighting, poison testing, stamina building and even more brutal things, which would make a sixteen year old to run for her life.
But not me.
“Claire.”
I pivoted around. My brother stood on his bedroom door, his naked torso thick with ropes of muscle. At nineteen, Thomas was a handsome man with black hair and dark brown eyes, a candy for the ladies. Thankfully he was missing the malice of our father. “Hey.” I said tiredly and pulled out my jacket.
He grabbed my arms. “You’re hurt.”
I looked down; my arms were scratched, while my sternum bore a thin slash from the knives I was thrown. “It’s nothing. The job is done and he will leave me alone for now.”
Thomas tightened his hold. “I never wanted you to get into this Claire.”
I pulled away. “I know, but if we want to escape one day from him, we’ll have to keep low.”
Even into the darkness I could guess the line between his eyebrows when Thomas was worried or how his eyes would darken and his lips would tighten. I pulled away from his grip and stumbled in my room. Despite the lush couch and the queen size bed, my room felt cold. Everything was cold after Mama’s death. “I am doing this and will continue to do everything I can in order to keep him away from Mimi.”
“I know!” Thomas almost shouted and I glanced at him sharply.
“I know,” he said with low voice “but we can escape Claire. Let’s take Mimi away and leave!”
“And go where? He will catch up with us and kill us all!”
“No he won’t. He needs a successor for the Family.” Thomas brushed my black strands away from my temples and kissed my forehead.
“Hold on sister. Hold on.”
------------------
Now
I am holding on Thomas. I am holding on. The mantra was repeated again and again in my mind to the point I couldn’t even feel the burning pain on my back, or the bruises on my face. Christo Serpente, my father, snarled above me. I laughed but the sound came out as a gurgle of blood and saliva.
“Stop Boss. There will be nothing of her left if you continue.” Nicola pulled my father back; at least that’s what I saw from the cracks of my swollen eyes.
“She will break. I need her for another job.” Christo spat and Nicola looked down at me with a mix of grief and sympathy.
“Claire will come around. Let’s go, night has fallen.”
My father smiled at him and stepped back. “Keep an eye on her.” He said and left my sight. Nicola knelt and lifted the chair. My body was in pain and I bit back a whimper. How long had I been here? How was the house with me absent? The only good thing in this mess was the keys. No one could see them except me, thanks to the magic which covered them.
Nicola placed an ice bag on my face and sat in front of me on his haunches. “Your hair looks strange in blond.” Nicola said after a while.
I didn’t answer but tried to breathe and slowly move my wrists, trying to feel if I had any broken bones, except my ribs.
“You remind me of your mother. Penelope also had blond hair.” His voice turned soft and I cracked my eyes open. Nicola had a far away expression on his face. It was sadness and longing together.
“You loved her.” I stated quietly, fearing that Christo would pop up and hear us.
Nicola got up and stepped away. “I did and still do.”
“Do you know what he said when I cried over Mimi’s body?” I paused waiting to have his full attention. Nicola’s dark eyes were hooded as he looked down at me.
“That Mimi wasn’t his daughter.”
Nicola stood still for a moment, his breathing slow and steady. This was his kind of shock. I had hit bulls eye. “So now you can see why I escaped. I had returned at home one night after a cruel mission with the Yakuza, only to find my father sitting atop the bodies of Thomas and Mimi. He had laughed while I cried over her small body! So don’t you dare point fingers on ME!”
I hadn’t realized I was screaming until the moment the roar echoed. The double doors of the warehouse opened and a group of ten men ran in, screaming and holding guns. They circled Nicola and me and I noticed my father shouting and swearing in Italian.
“What happened?” Nicola shouted over the blast of the firing guns, pulling his own from the inside of his coat at the same time.
“A madman appeared and began killing the others! We have already lost six men!” one of the men answered, probably ready to piss on himself.
I craned my neck, trying to watch over the standing bodies. Suddenly everything became quiet with only the sound of the snowstorm hissing outside. The double doors were open and the cold air rushed into the warehouse cooling my cheeks. It was quiet, like the deadly quiet before the upcoming storm.
The men around me breathed hard and someone behind me cut the ropes and hoisted my body up. “Don’t you dare make a sound.” My father hissed on my ear. I wanted to laugh. He was being ridiculous, because the feeling I had deep in my gut was a familiar one. I felt the pressure of my father’s grip on my wrists but I didn’t notice it; my eyes were trained at the shadow which moved towards us, bringing the darkness inside.
“Fire!”
My screams were covered by the time the men stopped shooting. The shadow moved closer to the entrance of the warehouse and stepped into the artificial light, laughing deeply. It made me shiver both from relief and fear.
Jericho was here.
And he was on his human body.
His long black hair fell past his shoulders and they swayed with cool breeze. Save for a pair of black trousers he was barefoot and half naked, making the scars on his torso and the thick lines of tattoos on his arms look more menacing. His hands were tightened into fists and by his stance I could bet that the wolf had taken over.
“Who are you?” Nicola shouted.
Jericho took a step closer and the men parted in front of me, retreating back. He stopped dead on his tracks and his eyes locked with mine. His nostrils flared and for a fraction I saw many emotions passing from his face; relief, longing, sadness, anger and fury.
I instead saw horrified that the bullet wounds on his body were closing fast, popping the bullets outside his healed skin. Despite the morbidity of it, the skill was neat. I squirmed, trying to move and my father kicked my knees, making me fall. The werewolf growled, staring at my father.
“What are you? Don’t tell me you are one of those shits the Indians believe to?” my father spat and the men laughed nervously.
Nice move Dad, piss him off. I would love to see your balls cut off.
“Release her.” The brutal deep voice of the wolf spoke and the warehouse became chillier.
I felt something cold pressed on my temple. I didn’t need to turn to see that it was the barrel of a gun.
“Answer me monster, what are you?”
Jericho smiled revealing his pointy too sharp teeth. “You call me monster, yet I see the monster you are truly mortal. I see blood and darkness in you and so many sins that not even the Devil would welcome you.”
Jericho lifted his arm, pointing at me. “Release her. She belongs to my pack.”
Family. The thought brought tears on my already swollen eyes and I tried to blink them back.
“Who made you like this? In which mob do you belong?” my father asked and the men lifted their guns, aiming at Jericho.
He looked at me for a moment and then he turned to my father. “Release her, let her come to my side and I will tell you. If you don’t, your men will be dead in a blink of an eye.”
The barrel pressed into my scalp. “She will be dead before you make a single step.”
“Christo.” Nicola spoke slowly behind me with an edge. I heard them murmur but I was focused on the werewolf who stared at me with his dark eyes.
Hi wolf. I mouthed at him. I am sorry.
He shook his head faintly and smirked. The men began praying around me, seeing the claws and the teeth. My beast was beautiful. Suddenly, I was lifted up and pushed to the front. I yelped and fell, face down to the ground, hearing my father say that he could take me.
I got up and stumbled towards Jericho who had opened his arms. I fell in him and inhaled the spice and fire of his scent. Placing my ear to his chest, I felt his rapid heartbeat and laced my arms around his waist. His own were covering my back.
“Now talk!” my father shouted and I felt the vibrations on Jericho’s chest as he growled.
Jericho tightened his arms around my waist. “I am a lycanthrope. Sick and able to change under the moon; in truth, I am nothing more but a mutation of the nature.”
“No.” I croaked in his arms, rubbing my nose to the crook of his neck.
“I have a deal for you.” Jericho spoke. “Let Claire go, release her from the burden of her past and I will come with you.”
“No!”
I heard my father laugh. “And how can I know that you will not kill us after she is gone?”
“In contrast with you mortal, I have honor.” Jericho growled and I looked up at him.
“No Jericho, you can’t. The day-”
“It’s this or you can all die, slow and painfully.” Jericho ignored me, continuing talking.
I turned. The men looked at Christo, probably already thinking, while my father stared at Nicola. He nodded faintly and then he turned to us.
“Very well, this daughter of mine had always been a disgrace after all. Just like her mother.”
I screamed and I would have leapt at him, if Jericho hadn’t held me back. Jericho turned around, shielding me from the group of men. “Claire, listen.”
“No! You jerk, I am not going back without you!” I hissed hitting his chest.
Jericho pried my hands from his chest and held them in his. “You have the keys?”
I nodded, trying to hold back my tears. He lifted my chin and stared down at me. My breathing stopped. Clear, pale blue eyes looked down at me. “Call Fred, the gargoyle always answers to the doorkeeper. He will take you back and in three days you can break the curse.”
“Jericho I-”
His lips crushed mine and I moaned, not from the pain of the bruises or the split lip, but from the sweet abandon of it. Our tongues danced and his very being enveloped me; it was sensual and at the same time sad.
As I opened my eyes with his taste on my lips, Jericho smiled down at me and his right eye became black. Closely to my ear he whispered: “Yavaro.”
His double voice vibrated in my chest and my back arched as if I was lifted up. I felt my face lighten, the bruises disappearing and the broken ribs healing themselves in a loud crack. I tried to muffle my screams and I felt copper in my mouth from biting my tongue.
“What did you do?” I whispered, too shocked to look at myself.
Jericho ran his fingers through my short hair and looked behind us. He growled before turning around. “I gave you my wolf’s name. And a wolf always protects.”
He kissed me again and pushed me away from the warehouse, closing quickly the double doors behind me.
“Jericho!”
The thud of the closed doors felt like a crack in my heart. I got up and pulled the keys from the pocket of my jeans. I wouldn’t waste his help, I would bring him back. Before anyone could follow me, I looked at the keys on my hand and sighed. “Fred.” I whispered and the silver keys glowed.
In a flash the gargoyle had appeared, bending before me so I could climb on his back. “Go!” I shouted and he pushed his wide wings back, taking off.
“Where is Jericho?” Fred shouted over the sound of the snowstorm and his wings.
“He stayed behind!”
As we left the warehouse and Jericho behind us, the sound of stone wings slashing through the snow storm, I touched my lips, trying to feel him again. He gave me the wolf’s name.
He had just made me his mate.
---------
“Claire!” Elfas ran towards me and in a strange brotherly hug he lifted me up, twirling me like a ballerina. Way too awkward. He put me down gently, as if he feared I would break.
“Where are the others?”
“Where’s Jericho?”
I swallowed hard, trying to remain calm and pushed past Fred and Elfas heading to Mina’s room.
“Why do you smell like that?” Elfas shouted behind me. “It’s as if you bathed with a dog!”
I flipped him off and opened Mina’s door. And thank God I held the door, because I would have fallen down from the sight. Do you remember Voldemort from Harry Potter? That’s how Mina looked. Her body had almost disappeared under the blankets and a very tired, ragged and famished Todd was sitting beside her.
They turned and looked at me. Todd’s nostrils flared and Mina smiled. “He did it.” She croaked.
“How can you tell?”
“Apart from the smell?” Todd spoke and got up hugging me tightly. “There is also a glow around you, like a halo. It screams ‘mate’ from miles away. It can keep you safe.”
“That’s what I told her!” Elfas shouted behind me and I flipped him off again.
Todd rolled his eyes and smiled tiredly. I rubbed his arms and pushed him outside the room. “Go and rest. I can keep her company.”
“But-”
Mina said something a strange language and Todd almost melted to the floor with that grin of his which screamed ‘googly-in-love-eyes’. When the door closed behind us, I held up my hand. “Let me take a shower and I tell you everything.”
Mina nodded and let her head fall on the pillow. Her skin was ghostly pale, to the point where I could see the veins under her skin and her eyes had lost their yellow color turning almost creamy white.
She maybe looked like she had escaped a thriller but her voice was tired and I could hear her shallow breathing. I quickly showered and pulled a baggy shirt from Mina’s drawer which had the logo “Kiss my Frog Prince”. Pulling the covers, I settled beside her and hugged her frail shoulders.
“Tell me.” She whispered and I recited everything that had happened. The lump in my throat tightened and I burrowed my face to the pillow, letting the tears fall.
A small palm smoothed my hair; I looked up and Mina smiled down at me while shiny tears fell from her eyes. “We have two days Claire. Jericho will hold on and we will complete the ritual.”
“How can you be so sure?” I whispered. “What will happen if by the time we make the ritual Jericho might-”
“Don’t finish that thought.” She turned her head and stared at the ceiling. “We need him, yes, but you also are a part of him now, just like he is one of yours. We will find a way. A witch always does.” Mina spoke casually, a hint of her usual sarcasm in her voice.
I closed my eyes and prayed for her words to be true. But I didn’t dream of Thomas and Mina lying into pools of scarlet. Instead, Jericho howled in my mind from pain as manacles, silver rods and bullets, pierced his body. His human body.
And my father continued to laugh.
---------------
One day before the Winter Solstice, I dressed heavily, pulled my gloves from my nightstand and headed to the garden, close to Lethinia’s pond. After the snowstorm passed, everything was covered with snow, transforming the garden and the perimeter around the house into a scenery taken out straight from a Christmas story. Strange, I didn’t thought of Christmas.
It felt as if there was no future for me after December 21st. Had I become that deep involved with the house’s residents? Todd’s jokes, Elfas’s stupidity, Jericho’s warm presence, even Mina, Fred and Lethinia, everyone had attributed into something new within me.
Jericho had called me part of his pack. I looked around, taking in the white scenery, the high trees around the house and the willow to my left. This is my family. I thought and I felt Lethinia’s branches curling around my hands, touching softly my face.
I smiled as I turned to her. “Thank you.” I murmured and I began cleaning the space in front of Lethinia and the pond. I shoveled the snow away, thanking the skies for not snowing, creating a big circle, which began from Lethinia’s closest root and the edge of the pond, to the edges of the house’s balcony door.
At some point I caught sight of Todd and Elfas watching me from inside the house. The vampire held a weak Mina in his arms and he shoved the door open, not daring to take a step outside.
“Is this good enough?” I shouted, pointing at the circle.
“Mina says it is. When night falls we will place the objects.” Todd spoke for Mina and closed the door again.
The objects were parts from every resident in the house. Each one of us had chosen a part which would be placed in a specific position around the circle, while the pond’s water would work as a circuit of power. While holy water could turn a witch blind, it usually helped in cases of casting spells.
Mina had taken great care of teaching everything to me, in case she wouldn’t be able to do it herself. Now, I could see why. I titled my head back and exhaled. The puff of my foggy breath lifted up until it disappeared. When I turned towards the locked gates across the road, I held down the urge to arm myself and burst into my father’s safe house, which I was certain he had, and go all ‘Terminator’ on him.
The only comforting part, if it could be comforting at all, was the feeling I had. I knew that Jericho was still alive and despite the nightmares, my instinct was that of a trained con artist. I had never failed on any of my missions and when I would return back home Mimi would run to me, hugging my feet tightly, with her brown curls bouncing around her.
Cold winds rushed into the garden making Lethinia’s branches sway. Gripping my coat tightly and gritting my teeth, I made my way back to the house. Elfas waited me with a steaming cup and a bag of jellies in his hands. I eyed the sweets suspiciously.
“You didn’t put anything in there, didn’t you?”
He frowned. “This is my first act of caring for a mortal. You should be honored.”
“As long as there is no poop inside the mug, I will be honored.” I muttered, taking the bag from him, checking its contents for anything strangely green.
“Claire, I can relate.” Elfas spoke softly looking at the kitchen’s window.
I bit my lip and took the cup from him, sipping it a little. Chocolate with caramel syrup. Yum.
“What did you decide to offer for the spell?” I asked instead, trying to make Elfas not look to the window.
“That’s an interesting question. You see, I have so many items and artifacts and riches-”
“Elfas.”
“-so I decided to offer a wedding dress.”
I almost spurted with my chocolate. Coughing loudly I placed the cup to the counter and filled a glass of water. “A wedding gown?” I asked after making sure I could breathe.
Elfas’s silver eyes glowed and he smiled. “Aye, a gown made of the silk from the diamond spiders, threaded with the golden pins of the pixies and decorated with golden leaves from the trees of the Fae Palace.”
Wow, only the image of it in my mind was poor contrast to the real thing. But a wedding gown? Realization hit me. “Oh…” I breathed.
Elfas sighed. “I thought maybe something of both of us would be able to make the spell stronger.”
“That’s a great thought.”
Elfas grinned. “One of the many I have.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course you do.”
Todd came into sight as he stepped into the kitchen. The scent of shampoo lingered on the air and as he ruffled his long rainbow colored hair, he pulled a bag of blood from the refrigerator. “Mina is sleeping.” He said without looking at us as he made his own steaming cup. When he sat beside me on the table, he hugged my shoulders and said. “Now tell me what happened these last days.”
Elfas and Todd took it quiet well after I explained everything to them. The truth rolled out of me uncoiling like a loosening rope and I felt light for the first time in a year. When I spoke to them about Jericho, Todd left a groan.
“Boys. Even on his nineties they still have puberty hormones.”
“I was smarter than him in my nineties.” Elfas said and I furrowed.
“You still wore diapers on your nineties, Fae.” Todd said smirking.
I burst into laughing, a wild one with tears. But as I laughed my tears began falling more and more and everything became blurry. I felt hands on my waist and shoulders and Todd’s cold body brushed mine as he hugged me. “Cry Claire, you have every right to cry.” He mumbled as he brushed my hair, rocking me back and forth.
When I finally calmed, the vampire brushed my tears from my face and smiled. “Better?”
“Thank you.”
“Good girl.” He patted my head and finished the last of his hot blood.
“If I didn’t know better, I would think that she is your kid.” Elfas spoke under the smoke of his pipe. At least it didn’t have anything green in it.
“Ew! Seriously Elfas?” Todd and I spoke. And then I smiled. “More like my grandfather.”
Todd turned to me and smirked. “What a good kid you are.” He growled his purple-red eyes flashing.
“That’s impossible! Then Claire should be your great-great-great-great-”
“Are you hungry Claire?”
“-great-great-great-”
“No, thanks Todd, I will go to sleep.”
“-great-great-great-great-”
Todd slapped Elfas’s head. “At least nine hundred more –great- and then she would be your grand daughter.
Todd’s growl could still be heard even after I closed my room’s door. The sun had already set and I could hear Fred’s wings as he flew around the house. I pulled my sweater over my head and shimmed out of my jeans. Letting my clothes to the floor I headed to the bathroom; my eyes fell to the carved wood on my desk.
Gently I took it in my hands caressing the smooth lines, the expression of joy and movement on the woman’s face, the feral grace on the wolf’s movements; it was truly a work of art. Ragged lines at the bottom of the small statue caught my attention and I looked under the base.
“ageyv waya” it said and frowning I googled the words.
“Beloved woman.” I murmured and tightened my hold on the wood.
Breathing slowly I turned to the window and looked at the snowy night. He may had saved me, giving his self up. But I hadn’t done the same for him.
Not yet.
---------------------
Jericho
The chains dug into my skin, their sharp edges, moving under my skin as I walked the confines of my cage. This was nothing, nothing to the training I had, nothing to the violence I have seen and lived. The pain of my soul, that’s unbearable. Pushing Claire out was the best and worst choice. But through her dreams, I saw her into the house, with a frail Mina near her.
But I couldn’t touch her, couldn’t taste her lips and feel her beating heart. That monster of father, locked me into the warehouse at first and when I changed back into wolf, I gave to my beast the satisfaction of killing half of his men. They darted me with drugs and I woke up in the cage with a collar on my neck and the chains around my arms, legs and thighs.
They didn’t even consider closing my mouth. Too bad for them I could chew through steel. I sat down and stared at the doors across me. Ten guards were patrolling outside, judging by their rapid heartbeats when Christo left me here. Good, they are scared.
A clicking sound drew my attention. Cool wind rushed inside filling my nostrils with the forest scent. A day away from the confines of the house and most of my senses has dulled already. If I were to remain more days out…
“I know you are awake.” The man spoke as he stood in front of me. I kept my head down.
“You know Claire. She is a stubborn child, just like her brother and mother were.”
I growled. “Don’t mention her name. You don’t deserve it.” I looked up. The man’s brown hair had some gray to the temples and his dark eyes stared back at me.
What was that I could feel? Sadness, anger, grief…love? For who?
“You are not like the others.” I said. “You may have blood in your hands but your soul still harbors light.”
He laughed dryly. “Light? The only light I had died three years ago.”
“You mean…Penelope? Claire’s mother?”
He drew back. “How do you know of that?” he demanded.
“It’s there, faint but it exists, the scent of fruit, just like in Claire’s.”
The man left a sound of pain and fell to his knees. “He had killed the children and all these years he fooled us all! He had said Claire had done it.”
“And you believed him?”
“Family murders happen, in order to gain the heir’s seat. It’s nothing uncommon.”
“In your world human.” I growled and gripped the bars. “But you care for Claire. Do you know what I saw in Claire’s dreams?”
“How could you do that?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I shook my head. “Christo had said that Mimi wasn’t his daughter.”
By the look of shook and fear in his face my guess was right. Mimi was his daughter, Claire’s half sister. “No, no, no!” he almost screamed and a tingle of pain for him tugged on my chest. No man, despite his life deserved to lose his child.
“I can’t leave.” I spoke over his fallen head. “But if we play our cards well, I can earn my freedom and you, your revenge.”
The man looked up, his steely gaze landing on me. “What’s your name?”
“Jericho.”
“My name is Nicola and by the name of the Family you will get free.”
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
Here you go! I am finally doen with exams so, I will be able to finish with the book. Please vote/comment! Apparently, with one day's reads we get to hit #31 & #50 ranking on the best paranornal! :) <3
Love you and thank you for the support!
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