Rising from the Ashes

A broken family

Chapter 3

Regina’s pov

From the first time she cut me, I withdrew from my family, I stopped eating with them unless they made me sit with them at dinner. Mum and Grandpa were getting more worried about me. That was when she started to let me spend more time with Lilith.

Liana and Louis were happy for me to stay whenever I wanted. They also let Lilith stay with me a lot of the time. They could see I was hurting and knew how close I and Lilith were, so they let her study online as well.

We were both straight A students, and we took our schooling seriously, so they didn’t mind. They knew we helped each other out to learn our weaker subjects, and our grades just got better until we were A+ students, even in combat.

I preferred being with Lilith when I had to be home without her. All it did was cause more family problems. Mum and dad would fight more, and I hated it. Just because they didn’t like me didn’t mean I wanted them all to suffer, especially Mum.

So I would much rather stay out of sight then everyone could be happy without me there. I even stopped going to the west dragon kingdom where my mum's family stayed. Anytime I was there, Sophia would turn up and cause trouble.

Grandpa Cole and uncle Chris thought the same as dad did, even though they never asked my side or saw my scars. Grandma Tamara and Aunt Katya were on my side, but I couldn’t even tell them because of dads command.

Yeah, my sisters and brother were named after my grandparents. I think that’s why dad loves Sophia so much as it was his birth mum’s name. He didn’t know her well because that bi.tch Katerina killed her when he was little.

I know dad thought I was like his step mum and step sister. I had heard him saying it to his beta that it was like they were back to life, and he couldn’t understand how I was so manipulative. His betas and gammas didn’t like me much because they believed what he said.

So yeah, basically everywhere I went, it caused more fights between my family. I didn’t want my family to be broken, I would rather they were happy together with me on the outside. I stopped caring and wanting to have a family long ago.

Lilith’s family was more like my real family anyway at this point, and they loved me for who I was. They didn’t believe the lies about me and loved having me over as often as they could. I only felt proper peace with them.

At times, Storm would break through from dad to tell me he loved me and that he was sorry for what was happening to me. He knew I wasn’t the one at fault and was angry at dad for hurting me and weakening his bond with mum.

He didn’t get out often. Dad kept him dull, worried he would tell Mum or Ember what was going on. Things were bad enough between them, and I would never forgive myself if they ended up breaking their bond because of me.

I told him to listen to dad. It was enough that he believed me and loved me. It made me resent dad more, though. If you trust anyone, it should be your beast as they want what is best for both of you and their family, dad didn’t care what he thought.

I even started to resent mum it had been years, and she never noticed how much pain I was in or seen my scars and wondered how they got there. I both loved and was disappointed in her in equal measures. It was hard to be around any of my blood family.

Even Lilith noticed and demanded to know what was going on with me. I managed to tell her everything, I guess her and her siblings were exempt from my dad’s command. She only told her parents a small part of it, knowing I didn’t want to cause any more disruption in my family.

Liana started having me over more often. She and Louis even gave me my own room in both the magical and vampire kingdom, so I would feel more at home. It was Lilith’s family that kept me going in my darkest of times when I would wonder what was the point in being here.

I think mum was relieved in a way. There were fewer arguments with dad and other family members, and she could see I smiled more with Lilith around. She started to spend time with me in their kingdoms. It wasn’t as often as she did at home.

I knew she wanted us all to feel her love equally, so I didn’t complain, there was three of them and only one of me. They deserved to have her with them more often. She kept us apart as much as she could. It was only when dad made a fuss that they fell out.

He didn’t like her being away from him, so he blamed me more and more for taking her away from them. It was nothing new, and I had stopped letting his words and actions tare out my heart long ago. Mum kept him on a leash for the most part.

When he was being ridiculous about her being just with me, she would threaten not to go back to him. The fear she may reject him was enough for him to skulk away to lick his emotional wounds. It was these moments I saw how much mum loved me. She was willing to destroy her mate bond to spend some time with me.

I am not sure what I would have done without Lilith at times, and I tried my best to be just as good a friend to her as she had been to me. Her future mate was one of the biggest a.ssholes I had ever met, so I supported her through all the sh.it he put her through.

She was like me. She learned early to keep her emotions held back so no one would see her hurt. She didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing they caused her pain. She only let her emotions show when we were alone.

Unfortunately, every now and again, I had to go home if I could call it that or attend a function with the rest of my family. It wouldn’t look good in front of others if they thought our family was broken and dad didn’t want to lose face in front of the other leaders.

Because of what Lilith told her mum, she tried to find out what was going on with my family. She suspected witchcraft, but she couldn’t sense what type. Cassie was good with magic and potions, but she hadn’t developed her gift fully, and the trace of magic was faded when they saw him.

Mum agreed that something more than a few lies was the root of the problem and started to look into it more. At that point, we didn’t know basically everyone had been commanded by dad to not speak of events to do with Sophia and I, so she kept hitting a dead end.

At some point I stopped caring about if they ever found out the truth, and I just prayed that when I was 18 my mate would not be from the capital of my home kingdom, as I don’t think I could ever live there full time again.

I still remember our last family blow-up that showed everyone how fu.cked up and broken our family was. Dad was still hurting from Rayne and Sienna seeing his bad side when we went to help Angelina learn her powers. He tried to make out it was a misunderstanding.

So he was mortified when Sophia fu.cked Ezekiel. It was the last straw for Lilith, and she told him she would be rejecting him and that she could wait to turn 18 to do it. Dad, being dad, tried to protect his little princess from everyone.

He even tried to make out that Ezekiel tricked her and stole her innocence. I think everyone knew what a joke that was. She practically climbed him on the dance floor, she made it clear she wanted him and now she was 18 he happily fu.cked her.

That girl hasn’t been innocent since she turned 16. The first person she screwed was my parents Beta’s son. Everyone could smell him on her for days after. Julius wasn’t happy about it at first. Apparently, it broke bro code, but Sophia talked him around.

Tamara didn’t agree with it. She was waiting for her mate, and I had noticed they started to drift apart as they got older. I was happy for Tamara when she found out she was mated to one of the dragon Lords sons in the west kingdom.

I didn’t get to see how it all played out with dad because Mum flew off to the magical kingdom, and Lilith teleported me there. We had both had enough of this party, but I knew he would make yet more excuses for her and find a way to blame me.