Bound By Blood

Chapter 1: An Uneasy Truth

Ash's POV:

"I hate this," Rosa's words snapped us all out of whatever we had been doing before she spoke. Not that I knew why she had done it, much less the reason behind her words. It had been a peaceful six months since we took out the threat that had been stalking us for years. Long before my brother met Rosa and a lot longer before I met the beautiful girl currently lying with her head on my lap, her eyes half-closed as my hands played in her hair.

"Come again?" I asked with a confused tone when Rosa glared at the wall, everyone around her recoiling from the unstable energy she seemed to be projecting. Something she and Leila both seemed to do at the most inopportune times, though hopefully, it's just the pregnancy and not something else messing with the two of them. "What happened now, Rosalie?"

Rosa glared at me, and I shivered when I saw the black and amber eyes that I hated seeing since they always seemed to come before a loss of control. "Call me that again, and I don't care whose brother you are, I'll rip you apart." Her eyes flashed, and I felt the tension in the room increase, my eyes widening when I registered what she said. Seconds later, she clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes widening in fear. Fear and regret. "Ash, I-I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me."

I sighed, knowing what she said was true. I'd had enough with Leila in the past six months after she managed to heal from Amber's attack. "It's okay, Rose, I know you don't mean it. Though I don't know what's got the two of you suddenly feeling so unstable," I mused out loud, seeing my brother share a look with me over Rosa's head. "It's like when Leila and I met for the first time, and we couldn't balance each other out. Though why it's happening now, I can't understand."

Leila tipped her head up then, giving me a look I couldn't quite understand before she looked away again. Not sure what to make of that, I didn't mention it, but I also couldn't ignore the strange way she was acting. "Are you okay, beloved?" I asked her gently, waiting to see if she'd answer me before I started to get worried. "Beloved?"

"Not sure," Leila sounded confused, but I couldn't tell if it was from what I asked or what Rosa said before. "I mean, I feel okay, but that might just all be in my head." She twisted over to look up at me with a strange expression. "Hey, maybe it's just all in my head, and you've married a madwoman." Her eyes were alight with mischief, and I couldn't stop the smile that came from seeing her both safe and happy after what we went through not so long ago. "Hey, none of that, Ash." She hit me on the side of the head, and I blinked, giving her a wounded expression that brought a smile to her face again. "Hey, none of that, no looking back at what happened. It's in the past, and let's leave it there, okay?" I watched her with half a grin, and she sighed, rolling her eyes. "Okay?"

I kept watching her to see if she'd drop the subject, but she just kept her eyes on mine, her expression shifting to more unstable and angry the longer I refused to answer her. Still not sure how far to push her, I decided to keep quiet a second longer before her eyes started to darken, and I took that as a cue to reassure her that I'd heard and understood her, even if I didn't entirely agree with her logic.

"Okay, okay," I offered her a placating expression and saw her body lose what little tension she'd been holding. She resumed her previous position, her eyes on something over my shoulder where her head had ended up back under mine. "Sorry to have done something to offend you," I tried to keep my voice teasing, but I could tell she heard the mockery in it when she rolled her eyes and hit me again. "Ouch, babe, that hurt."

"Like you didn't deserve it," Rosa called over from where she was in my brother's arms with a similar smile. I sighed, and she laughed at me again. "But I'd like to know what's got me and Leila suddenly being so volatile, even when we're trying to control it." She looked up at Hunter, and I could tell he was as confused and concerned as I was when his eyes met mine. I offered up a small shrug, but I could tell he knew how I was feeling. "I wish I knew."

On top of me, Leila sighs, and I see her roll her eyes. "You and I both, Rose," she sits up slightly but leans against me, where I had put my arms around her. "I hate that I keep snapping at you, beloved," she turns suddenly tearful eyes to me, and I pull her closer, letting her rest her head on my shoulder. "I hate doing it because I know how it makes you feel." Her voice is muffled, but I can still hear her perfectly. "I hate it, and I wish I could stop, but I don't know how." She shivers slightly, and I hold her closer, trying to reassure her that it's okay.

"Assuming there is a way," Eris mutters from where she and Phoenix had been sitting opposite us. His arms were around her, and I could tell that she was just as perplexed as the rest of us. "Hey, maybe it has to do with that," she points between the two, and I know what she's referencing. "I mean, think about it, the wolf you two spoke to..." She looks between Rosa and Hunter. "She said that the power had to be in the same generation, right?" I nod, and I see the others following. "Well, the four of you had it, but I'm assuming that the two children growing inside Leila and Rosa are taking that power from you. Both parents had it, and now the power of both parents is being transferred into the children." She sits up gingerly, careful not to move too much, given that she too was pregnant. "Maybe that's why the power's been acting out. Because..."

"...Because it's transferring from the four of us into them," Leila speaks slowly, but I can tell it's not from a good point of view. Eris nods with a slightly hopeful expression—one that I hope stems from what we discovered and not what it meant—and I see Eris look at me with a strange expression. I frown at her before she subtly nods her head in my direction, and I register Leila's shaking. "It's passing on the curse. From us to our children." She turns sparkling blue eyes up to me, and I can see her shivering, the moonstone blue appearing and disappearing from her eyes in a changing circle. "Our time's up, Ash. We... we didn't do it. We couldn't do it."

"Oh no," Rosa says next, and I can see her sharing a look with Hunter, who also seems to have figured out what Eris meant, just as Leila had done before. "We can't do that. We can't put them in harm's way when we know what's wrong." She curls her hands around her stomach protectively, and I know Leila's done the same with our daughter. "We can't let them do this. They wouldn't— shouldn't— have to deal with that amount of bloodshed, that pain and sorrow. They deserve a better life."

I see her share a look with Leila, who seems to be looking down at where her hands were with that same protective look in her eyes. My hands find hers, and I can tell when she can feel it since her eyes switch to look up at me with that same expression, that same determination in her eyes that shows me she will be okay, that she will survive this because of what she is, who she is— an fighter.

"So we don't," Leila's tone is firm, and I find myself wondering, not for the first time, what she was thinking, what was running through her head. "I want to make a promise," she looks around at the four of us, but it's me her eyes linger on, on where our hands were still holding each other around our unborn daughter. "I want to make a promise that no matter what happens, they will never know the life we had. They will never know the pain, the heartbreak, or the horror of what the four of us had to suffer." She looks at me, and I see so much love in her eyes it almost breaks me. "I want to promise that our daughter will never know what we had to go through, that we'll give her a better life than we had, one where she knows she's loved, always."

I nod to her but don't speak, knowing that she doesn't need me to vocally agree with her, because I do. I want that for our daughter, so she doesn't have to know what we did, the pain, the heartbreak, the cruelty. She deserves a better life, and she's lucky enough to have loving parents who want to give it to her more than anything else. She's lucky that we love her enough to put our own lives before hers because that's what it will be when Amber realizes what it means. She'll hunt us down and make us suffer for what we didto her. I just don't want to admit what it means, what it all means.

Looking around at the faces, I can see I'm struck with a sense of something I hadn't felt in a long time, if ever. The sense of belonging somewhere, of having a family, and I know it's something I will treasure for as long as I have left. Because if Amber manages to heal from what our combined magic managed to do, she'll come after us, and I know the other three know it from how somber the tone suddenly became.

I can see Eris, hers and Rosa's witches, the pack that had become my family when I had no one, nothing left. The brother I always had, no matter how dark I became or how much I spiraled. The girl he married, whom I've come to see as a sister and whom I'd do anything for. And finally... finally, the girl who stole my heart before I even remembered I had one and who made me finally start to see past what I'd done, what I'd been. She let me see beyond the past and who I was before my parents' cruelty almost broke me beyond repair.

Before she saved me.