The Tribrid's Return

Coffee First

Callan's P.O.V.

Once Athena finally explained to me what Gregory had planned, I had braced myself to shift. I figured my wolf would instantly take over my body when hearing that someone was trying to kill me, so they could take over as Alpha, but nothing happened. I'm calm and collected, but mostly confused.

"Why am I not mad about this? I don't understand what's going on." I ask Athena as I wait for an explanation.

She furrows her brows at me in confusion for a few seconds, before realization finally hits her, "Oh. I forgot." she says as she reaches over and grabs my hand again.

The second she touches me, my hand instantly feels like it's on fire before the burn swiftly moves its way through my body. The rage I had moments ago suddenly consumes me again. Demetri grabs control of my body instantly, to which, I'm not even prepared for or able to fight him.

"He's dead." Demetri growls angrily as he violently pushes me to the back of my mind, before quickly taking over my body.

Before I even have the chance to try and control him or shift back, he attacks Gregory. In one swift motion, he jumps across the table and slashes his claws across his throat, instantly killing him. Then I hear it, an agonizing scream across the room. When Demetri realizes it's Athena, his panic sets in and he cowers down, allowing me the control I need over him to shift back. As soon as I'm in human form, I rush to her side. She's fallen out of her chair and is trembling on the floor with sweat coating her entire body.

Gavin is beside me instantly, but neither of us are touching her because we don't know what's going on. We stare at her as she hugs her legs in a fetal position while she breathes erratically.

"Athena! What happened?! Can you hear me?! Tell me what's wrong!" Gavin screams at her as we both watch her writhe on the ground in pain.

Athena doesn't answer, she only closes her eyes tightly as she cries. She's sobbing and shaking and sweating through her clothes. I try to pick her up but she yells at me not to touch her. My heart drops into my stomach as panic sets in from the helplessness I'm feeling.

"She's an empath." Sean says to me as he kneels down beside her, as well, before looking at me and handing me a pair of sweatpants to cover up with.

"Okay?" I ask him with confusion filling my voice, as I wonder why he's repeating exactly what she had told us moments ago, before standing up to put the sweatpants on.

Sean rolls his eyes at me, before looking down at Athena, "Which means that she feels people's emotions, even see some of their memories, almost like she's made herself a part of them. I think she might be able to feel their death, as well." he explains to me, before looking back up at me with worry.

Bile rises in my throat the second his words click into place, "She can...she can feel death." I repeat as my eyes go wide with realization.

"I'll...I'll be fi...fine. It goes...goes aw...away after...a few min...minutes." Athena whispers out as she continues to tremble on the floor.

I gulp down the lump that's formed in my throat, before I realize that my eyes are brimmed with tears. I turn away from her, before picking up a chair and throwing it across the room. I watch the chair break in half, before turning to William to tell him to get rid of Gregory's body as I storm out of my office. I walk down the hallway trying to hold back my tears so no one will see, before finally entering my bedroom and slamming the door behind me. As soon as I lock my door behind me, I slide down it and sit on the floor. Tears frantically start pouring down my face as her scream replays over and over again in my head.

"Callan." Demetri whispers soothingly to me to get my attention, "You need to find out exactly what she can do if she's going to stay here. We can't have this happening again in the future. It's too much of a distraction with her being our mate." Demetri explains to me calmly.

I continue to cry as dread takes over my body, "I thought she was dying." I whisper back to him as my bottom lip trembles.

"Well, she didn't. I don't even think that she can. Even if she does, she will become a vampire." Demetri explains to me, before grimacing at the thought.

I nod my head at him, deciding not to answer any further.

"I don't want her to become a vampire, though." he whispers to himself in my mind, not meaning for me to catch what he says.

"You're going to have to accept that part of her, if we want all of her. I don't know if she's our mate or not, since she isn't reacting towards the bond that I feel the way that I am, but I do know that I've never felt this type of pull towards anyone else before. I don't have any other way to explain this feeling, other than the fact that she's our mate. There's no way it could be anything else besides the mate bond. You have to accept that part of her, as well, or she will definitely reject us." I explain to him, my words making him walk to the back of my head in shame once he realizes I'm right.

There's suddenly a knock on my door, so I quickly wipe my tears away and compose myself, before opening it.

"I told you I would be fine." Athena says casually to me when I meet her gaze.

Her clothes are drenched in sweat, which makes Demetri quickly come back out of the darkness of my mind as his ears perk up excitedly from the scent of her. She gives me a sweet smile, before looking down at the ground. Her face is still a little pale, but other than that and the sweat, you would never have imagined she just went through, what she went through. I grab her wrist and pull her towards me, before tightly wrapping my arms around her small frame, which suddenly causes electrical tingles to take over my entire body.

She giggles for a couple of seconds, before she gently pushes me away again, "You don't need to worry about me. Things are going to happen to me that you won't understand. I need you to trust in the fact that I'm always going to be two steps ahead and that I know what I'm doing. You'll soon realize that I'm very strategic in everything I do; I'm always thinking of the outcome. I knew it was going to happen the second I gave you your anger back, so I was able to brace myself for the pain that I knew would come from his death. It was a lot worse the first time it happened because it caught me off-guard." she explains to me, before slowly taking a couple of steps away from me as she continues to stare at the ground.

"You...you've been through this before?" I ask her, as I quickly realize that I have no idea what she's actually been through the past five years that she's been gone.

She nods before looking back up at me with gentle eyes, "Yes, I have. The first time the death wasn't brutal the way this one was, though. This one burned, like my body was on fire. I'm guessing it's because he was killed instead of just dying from natural causes. It almost felt like he was suddenly just ripped away, which, if you think about it, would make sense, seeing as he was. However, the first time I felt it, was the only other time I have ever felt death. It was one of my grandma's friends. My grandma and I held her hand as she took her last breath. She was dying of old age. There wasn't the feeling of fire taking over my body, like this one. There was only the feeling of complete darkness and loneliness. A feeling of despair so painful that I just wanted to stop breathing." she explains to me as tears brim her eyes, before she looks back up at me, "I think that one was actually more painful than this one, because I could feel the fact that she wasn't ready to let go. I could feel that there was more she wanted to do with her life, but didn't get the chance to."

I slowly walk towards her, before brushing my thumb against her cheek to wipe away a tear that managed to escape, "I'm so sorry that I put you through that; that I made you feel that pain again. If I would've known..."

"No." she suddenly interrupts, "He needed to die. That's the punishment in a pack when one of it's members conspires to kill it's Alpha. I will not have you walking on eggshells just because you're afraid of what will happen to me. I will always be fine, no matter what. I promise you that, Callan."

I drop my hand away from her as I step away from her again, "Athena, I need you to sit down with both me and Gavin to tell us everything that we need to know about you. We both need to know exactly what powers you have and what happens when you use them. We need to know what to expect from all three sides of you." I tell her, before crossing my arms over my chest, "The way I feel about you...it will be a distraction if I'm worried about you all of the time, if I'm questioning my decisions and second guessing how they will affect you."

Athena nods her head at me as a soft smile pulls upwards on her lips, "Let me get some sleep and the three of us can meet tomorrow." she says, before turning around and walking back down the hallway towards her room,"...and Callan?" she asks as she stops at her doorway, before turning around to look at me.

"Hmm?" I ask her as I lean my back against my doorframe, already watching her.

"Exactly how do you feel about me?" she asks me, before playfully lifting an eyebrow at me.

I let out a small chuckle as I look down at the ground, before shaking my head and looking back at her, "I think you know exactly how I feel about you, since you're able to read people's emotions."

Athena nods her head at me as a small smile pulls at the corner of her lips, letting me know that I was right about the fact that she could feel my emotions, "I've already warned you that I'm too much woman for you to handle." she softly says to me, before turning around to walk into her room and closing the door behind her.

"Hmm. I've always enjoyed a little game of cat and mouse." Demetri tells me as he makes a playful growl rumble through my chest.

A smirk covers my face as I stare at Athena's bedroom door, "I don't think she's necessarily trying to play a game of cat and mouse. I think she has a different motive in mind." I tell him.

"Oh, come on! You saw the way she looked at you!" he tells me as he paces back and forth in my head.

"I did. I definitely saw that. I don't think she's trying to play hard to get, though. I think she's trying to prove something." I tell him, before walking back into my room and closing the door behind me.

"What exactly is she trying to prove? That she's able to control her wolf side with her little witchy powers and that she's not going to give in to the mate bond easily? Speaking of which, I wouldn't mind meeting her wolf, by the way." Demetri says to me as he plops down in my mind and sighs, before laying his nuzzle down on his paws.

"I don't think that's it at all. I definitely think she's somehow controlling her wolf and not giving into the mate bond, for sure. However, I don't think it's because she's trying to play hard to get with us. I think it's because she's trying to prove herself to the pack on her own or something." I explain to him.

My wolf perks his ears up, "That actually makes a lot of sense. A woman that powerful who's been shamed her entire life is going to want to earn everyone's respect on her own, rather than through a man's power from his Alpha status." he says before he lifts his head up and tilts it sideways, "But you definitely think that she's our mate, though, right?"

I chuckle at him, "Yes, I do. We will figure out what's going through that head of hers sooner or later, though, with time. However, that means that we need to give her the space that she needs; the space that she's obviously wanting. I'm going to need you to control yourself and be patient with her. We need to let her initiate any type of affection, rather than you pushing physical advances onto her. Do you think you can handle that?" I ask him.

All Demetri does is respond to me with a frustrated growl as he rolls his eyes, before retreating to the back of my mind again.

***

The next day, I send some of my men to collect Estelle and tell them to lock her in the dungeons until I decide what to do with her. If Athena can feel her death, I want to give her a few days before she has to go through that again. Even though she says she's fine and she only experiences it for around ten minutes, it still looked completely agonizing and I don't want to put her through that right now.

I walk towards the kitchen to start brewing coffee and to start making breakfast, but her scent hits my nose before I even get there. I smile at the smell of her scent, before I round the corner, only to see Athena already in the kitchen flipping pancakes and crisping bacon. Her back is towards me and she's dancing around in front of the stove with ear buds in her ears, completely unaware of the fact that I'm behind her.

I quietly walk over to the plate of bacon and grab a few pieces, before sitting down on the bar stool and leaning back so that I can watch her. Her hair is in a messy bun on top of her head, with tendrils of hair falling around her neck. She also has on a large tee-shirt that barely reaches mid thigh. I take the chance to allow my eyes to roam freely over her entire body as I look her up and down, before they land on a small white tattoo on the back of her neck that's barely visible. Athena sways her hips while dancing to the music as she twirls around to place some pancakes on the plate, before instantly screaming when her eyes land on me.

She clenches a hand to her chest where her heart is, before pulling her ear buds out of her ears angrily, while looking at me with wide eyes that are now filled with annoyance, "I figured you'd be gone already! Don't you have, like, training or something?! How long have you been sitting there?!" she yells at me.

"Long enough." I tell her playfully, before a smirk covers my face as I take another bite out of the bacon.

Athena rolls her eyes at me as she walks over to the coffee pot and pours some coffee into a mug, before bringing it back over to me and setting it down in front of me, "And what about training? Don't you guys have early morning training?" she asks me as she leans her elbows onto the counter, before furrowing her eyebrows at me.

I nod my head as I take a sip of coffee, before setting it back down, "We do. I let Sean take my place today, though. I have other things I need to handle." I say to her before looking over at the plate of pancakes.

Athena stares at me knowingly as she lets out a frustrated huff, before she grabs a few pancakes to place on a separate plate and handing them over to me, "What other things would that be, exactly?" she asks me as she cuts up a pancake of her own, before taking a bite of it.

"I told you that Gavin and I need to learn everything there is to know about you." I remind her, before taking a bite of my own food.

Athena rolls her eyes, before scowling at me, "When exactly am I going to be able to interact with the entire pack again? Or am I going to be imprisoned and hidden away in this house forever?"

"Once you show the two of us what all you can do, so we can be prepared." I say to her.

She scoffs at me, "What exactly do you need to prepare for? I told you that I'll be okay no matter what."

"And I told you that I don't need to be distracted by worrying about you. I need to be focused on how I'm going to handle pack members if there's any type of rebellion, without worrying if my actions are going to hurt you somehow." I argue back.

"Fine! I'll show you both what I can do, everything that either of you could ever imagine, later today. I was planning on letting my wolf run after breakfast, though. Is that okay with you, Mr. Alpha?!" she asks me sarcastically as she stares at me with irritation.

I start chuckling at her, "You aren't much of a morning person, are you?"

She squints her eyes at me, before letting out a scoff, "I'm a morning person if I'm alone and able to enjoy my peace and quiet. I have a low tolerance when it comes to dealing with people before I've had my coffee, though. You probably didn't think about this, but mornings are the only time throughout the day that I have my mind all to myself. The rest of the day is filled with everyone else's emotions coursing through me." she says to me as she tilts her head sideways, before a challenging look takes over her features.

I chuckle at her some more, "That's pretty obvious, seeing as you were as happy as could be when you were dancing around. Then, everything changed the second you had to interact with me." I say to her, before sliding my cup of coffee towards her, "Here, you need this more than I do."

She hesitantly picks up the coffee and whispers, "Thank you", before taking a sip of it while she stares at me through her lashes.

"She's feisty." Demetri says to me as I watch her, making me chuckle, before an adoring smile covers my face as I watch Athena turn back around towards the stove.

"She's perfect." I tell him, before sitting back down to finish eating the food on my plate as I watch her shove her ear buds back into her ears.