Chapter 8

That following morning, they found trays of what was supposed to be food waiting at their doors. Against their better judgment, they ate, and Alexandra wasn’t entirely convinced they were eating food. It was simply too chewy and wasn’t anything easily identifiable.

Shaun seemed to have a surprisingly easy time downing whatever they were given. They sat in silence from breakfast to lunch, where more unidentifiable food was given to them, and eventually, when they reached dinner, Shaun seemed to be in a better mood.

So Alexandra asked something she’d never asked before, “Where are your parents?”

Shaun had been in the middle of stretching when Alexandra asked. She stopped and didn’t answer immediately, and Alexandra could see the somber expression on her face.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Shaun confessed. “I never knew who my father was, and my mother ran a jewelry shop here in Requiem. She was a beautiful woman. She had this flawless caramel skin, curly dark brown hair, and light brown eyes, and all the men on our block wanted her, Vampire and otherwise. I could barely remember when there wasn’t some man or woman coming into my mother’s shop trying to take her out.”

She wore a sad smile, “I loved her fiercely. And whenever I asked about my father, she’d just say he was kind. She wouldn’t say anything else. She never said one mean thing about him but always said he was kind.”

“Did you grow up knowing you were a Hybrid?”

Shaun shook her head, “Not entirely. My mother divulged what Hybrids were, and though she was careful when we went out and always seemed to be a bit overprotective, she never told me I was a Hybrid.

“And then one day I woke up, and I had transformed into a Werewolf in my sleep,” she shared. “The look on my mother’s face was priceless because I hadn’t realized what was wrong until I tried to get out of bed and fell on my face. I was freaking the fuck out, and that’s when she told me I was a Hybrid, and that I needed to be careful. I didn’t question it, so I did my best to be careful.”

“Is your mother… gone?” Alexandra wondered.

Shaun shrugged, “I don’t know. We’d gone to Vampire Territory to visit a friend, and I’d overheard my mother talking to her friend. She told her friend that the shop was struggling and she would need to close the doors by the end of the year if she couldn’t make a significant profit to pay off a loan and pay the bills to keep the doors open.

“That’s when I got the bright idea to rob the biggest house I could find first,” Shaun shared.

“And that’s why you were are Drake’s house.”

“That’s why I was at Drake’s house,” Shaun repeated. “It wasn’t like it’d been the first time I stole something. I was quite the talented pickpocket at five, and I was little back then, so I could easily slip in and out of places. Hell, if you weren’t a pickpocket in Requiem, then you weren’t living well.

“Funnily enough, my mother taught me everything she knew,” she laughed. “We would go into the markets on Sundays in the nicer neighborhoods and pick unsuspecting shoppers. Whenever my mother got caught, all she had to do was bat her eyelashes, and nobody in this realm could tell her no, so they’d let her go, and we’d leave.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I snuck into their house and was almost out when Drake caught me. He’s always been a righteous bastard, so it makes sense that he became a knight.”

Alexandra couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“I tried to get him to let me go, and he almost did, but Rashad and Ashanti were coming down for something else and saw Drake and me fighting in the dining room. Drake tried to cover for me, but Ashanti was smarter than that.

“Rashad had picked me up and was going to take me to the police station, but while we were on our way out, they got a call from someone.” Shaun looked at Alexandra, “We ended up at Bliss Palace, and there you and Erik were in the infirmary.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Shaun scratched her head, “I could smell it on you that you were different. Or at least in the process of becoming different.” Shaun tapped her nose, “I’ve always had a sensitive nose, so I could always identify a person off their scent alone. And I learned what Pure Bloods smelled like and what Mixed Bloods smelled like. And I knew when a Mixed Blood was gone because their scents faded, and I knew they’d been caught.

“But I never saw my mother again after that night,” Shaun shared. “When we took that overnight school trip to Requiem, I snuck out in the middle of the night and went to my mother’s shop, which wasn’t there anymore. It’d been turned into a pawn shop, and my mother was no longer at our apartment.”

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized.

Shaun shrugged, “The gods are cruel. My life wasn’t horrible, but I think about her often. I hope she’s okay, wherever she is. You would’ve liked her.”

“I’m sure I would have,” Alexandra agreed.

After that, Shaun shared stories of her childhood for the first time. Her life hadn’t been anything Alexandra had expected, but she seemed to glow as she talked about the past. She spoke about the liveliness that lingered in their end of Requiem and the people she’d grown up around.

Alexandra thought it was a beautiful life. She hoped she’d get to see it for herself.

“Rise and shine, Hybrids!” the Captain Commander bellowed as he strolled into the room. “It’s time for the Grand Assembly.”

Alexandra was grateful to have some sense of time again, but she wasn’t that grateful. She’d settled into the agonizing lull of being kept in the dark – literally and figuratively – for the last thirty-six hours. Before now, every minute of every day had been scheduled, and she’d have to steal moments of peace for herself, and now she’d been forced to sit and wait.

She didn’t love it.

The Captain Commander unlocked each of their cells and allowed them out. They were handcuffed with less force than before and guided out of their holding area and back through the underground maze.

As they neared the elevator, they could finally hear the thunderous furry of voices overhead. Alexandra tried her best to shift through the voices and try to make out what any of them were saying, but she was weak. In the meals they’d been fed, there hadn’t been nearly enough blood for either of them to properly feed. Alexandra figured it was to intentionally keep them week.

The harder she tried to focus, the more her head throbbed.

“Don’t,” Shaun warned. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

Alexandra reluctantly complied.

“Once you enter the main room, you are not to speak unless spoken to,” the Captain Commander shared as he stepped onto the elevator. “Any futile escape attempts will have the full force of the Celestial Guard on you in a matter of seconds, and I can guarantee you won’t survive.”

“We wouldn’t expect anything less,” Shaun commented.

“And you’d do yourself a favor but sealing that mouth of yours shut, Hybrid,” another guard spit.

They rode the elevator up in silence, and once they reached the main floor, there was nothing but silence. All talking ceased nearby, and they were escorted through another series of hallways.

When they reached the central part of the temple, they could see that nearly everyone who had attended Alexandra’s birthday party the other day was gathered again. Nearly everyone. Alexandra hadn’t thought about it until now, but she didn’t know how many people had died that night.

Amarille Zinran’s horrified expression flashed across her mind, and she visibly shook.

Amarille’s husband stood nearby with their children, and they were sorrowful. She saw several others who seemed to still be in mourning and several others who just scowled as they passed.

“Alex!” Drake caught sight of them first and hurried over but was cut off by a Celestial Guard. He gritted his teeth, “Move.”

“Make me,” the guard challenged.

“That’s enough,” Rashad, Drake’s father, approached and put a hand on his son’s shoulder. He looked at the Celestial Guard, and they immediately backed down and stepped aside. It was an impressive sight.

Drake brushed past the guard and approached the two of them. He looked them over, and relief visibly washed over him, “Thank the gods.”

“You shouldn’t be speaking to us,” Shaun warned.

“I don’t care,” Drake argued. He looked at Alexandra and placed a hand on her cheek, “You haven’t fed, have you? You look weak.”

She slowly shook her head, “They wouldn’t give us any blood or blood replacements.”

“Lester,” Rashad’s father caught the attention of a nearby Celestial Guard, and they immediately approached, “see that the two of them get at least two capsules so they’re not collapsing during the assembly.”

“Of course, Captain Commander,” the Celestial Guard nodded but stopped when he caught his current Captain Commander glaring daggers at the two of them. “I mean…”

“You’re no longer in charge of things here, Raman,” the current Celestial Guard Captain Commander sneered. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t order my men around.”

“My apologies, Emmanuel,” Rashad seemed to intentionally sound condescending, “but if the two of them collapse due to Hunger during this assembly, then I take it you’ll be taking responsibility for that, yes?”

Emmanuel gritted his teeth, then looked at Lester, “Get them two capsules each. Nothing more than that. They just need enough strength to get through the assembly.”

Lester nodded and headed off this time.

“Come,” Emmanuel ordered as he nudged Alexandra and Shaun away from Drake and Rashad. “This way. You’re not supposed to be fraternizing.”

Alexandra silently thanked Rashad before they were ushered away. And then the intercom system squeaked to life, and she and Shaun knew it was time.

“This evening’s Grand Assembly will begin shortly,” a voice echoed through the intercoms. “Please make your way to your seats. This evening’s Grand Assembly will begin shortly. Please make your way to your seats.”

The gilded double doors they’d passed just days ago were now opened, and the interior of the Celestial Council’s main hall could be considered breathtaking if they weren’t marching to their pending execution.

The auditorium's dome didn’t have defined lines and looked like they had their piece of a galaxy nestling overhead. The blue-black seemed to move gently while speckles of stars sparkled and formed one constellation after another. They’d shift to create the constellations of the gods and then the heroes of the stories they’d all heard growing up.

While Alexandra and Shaun were guided to the center of the main floor, anyone of any importance in the Celestial Realm filtered into their seats. The monarchs sat nearest the main floor, with their respective High Council sitting just behind them with everyone else behind them. No civilians were allowed to spectate, and there weren’t even any cameras or reporters. It wasn’t a spectacle for all to see like previous Grand Assemblies.

Alexandra wasn’t the least bit surprised by the irritated expressions on the Vampire High Council’s faces. And she saw how exhausted both her parents looked. Alexandra couldn’t imagine the endless hours of bickering James had to endure before now. Cassandra wasn’t nearly as bright as she usually was, and Erik wore a scowl on his own face. He seemed frustrated, and then there was Allison. She was still. Uncharacteristically still.

Allison had always been bubbly and chatty, even in situations where one usually wouldn’t be, but she was different. Like Alexandra had seen nearly a dozen times before, Allison’s eyes didn’t look like they belonged to her. They looked like they belonged to someone decades – no, centuries – older than her. It was unsettling.

Then she looked to the Werewolf section to see if Orion and Raven were in a similar state. They looked tired, but then her stomach dropped. It wasn’t because of the ashen expression on Orion’s face or the scowls of the Werewolf High Council, but because of the woman sitting near Orion.

Alexandra hardly recognized her. She’d been the epitome of radiance when she was a child, and it was rare to see her without a smile. Once upon a time, Alexandra considered her an aunt like she felt Orion was her uncle despite their lack of blood relation. She had played with them at their family gatherings more than any other adults, and she’d taught them the importance of the moons and stars when it came to their people. She’d taught them what it meant to be who they were.

Now, she was dark. Her skin was pale, and the shine that’d once been in her amber eyes was gone. She wore elegant black robes, and hanging around her waist was a set of chains that held a book. It was bound in cloth, so they couldn’t see what it was exactly, but it seemed to carry a presence of its own.

“Who is that?” Shaun wondered.

“Calista Pierce,” Alexandra answered said. “Carl’s mother.”

“Carl? That’s the jackass who attacked us the other night, isn’t it?” Shaun grumbled.

“Shut it,” a guard warned.

They ceased their brief conversation.