REVIVED: Vengeance of The Sun And Moon

She's Back

    It was strange being back home in Crescent Falls-even more than that it was odd being in the Crescent Manor. No stepmother...not even a nagging sister. Just her and her father. And worst of all, without her mother. She was gone, and the pain of that loss was almost suffocating.

    She was torn between staying at the house with him and going to the old bed and breakfast that was owned by Mrs. Linda to grieve in her loss in solace. But she knew that leaving wouldn’t be for the best. Not with everything that her father had gone through during her absence. He needed her around more than ever now, and she couldn't fathom leaving him in his most vulnerable moment. Even in spite of her own internal battles-some of which have nothing to do with the loss of her mother at all. 

    Kazmiyah looked into the mirror, her eyes reflecting through the glass as they began to glow. Her indigo-colored gaze pulsating with pent-up power-a power that she had yet to even tap into yet. This erratic feeling was fighting to be released and the battle to keep it retained was an uphill battle.  It had been happening a lot since the evening of her resurrection.

    Flashes of her being revived played  incessantly through her mind; the intense breath of life that shocking her heart back to the land of the living. The memory of her hands pushing and digging through the dirt in desperation to reach the surface was so real for her that at times she could feel the rich soil crumbling between her fingers as she clawed through the endless ground. This experience was a constant occurrence since that day. 

    Kazmiyah shook her head vigorously in an attempt to lose the flashbacks from her mind. When she returned her attention back to the mirror, the pulsating glow faded. 

    She pulled her midnight violet tendrils away from her face and sighed, trying not to think further on the subject when she heard a knock at the door. 

    Kazmiyah knew who it was. He’d been knocking at the door every single day since the day of her return-sometimes just staring at her whenever she opened the door to answer him. Kazmiyah knew why he did it-why he had to see her every half an hour; he just couldn’t seem to believe that she was back. That she'd actually returned to him

    When she heard the light knock again, a small smile appeared across her face. The idea that someone actually cared enough about her to want to see her face helped a great deal in retaining her sanity. It also helped to make her decision to stay with her father easier if she were being honest with herself. “Coming,” she said with a hint of amusement.

    She left the bathroom and went into the bedroom in which she had been staying for the last day and a half. She opened the door and there her father was, standing there staring at her.

    “He-hey.” He reluctantly greeted her.

    “Hi, dad.” Kazmiyah replied warmly.

    “Just-just checking on you to see if you’re-”

    “Still here?” She teasingly smiled. 

    “If you are alright.” He corrected with a mixture of amusement and concern.

    “I’m fine dad-the same as I was half-an-hour ago.” 

    "Are you sure?"

    "Dad," Kazmiyah expressed stressfully. 

    "Kaz," Warren sighed. "I understand that the question may be getting tiresome for you but...that death...that was a final death. That wasn't a minute neck-break or drop from a building. Your heart...was punctured...you died," Warren emphasized. "Surely...surely, you understand my concern. I-"

    "Dad," Kazmiyah touched her father's arm sympathetically. She stayed silent for a moment to figure out the words that she wanted to use to express her understanding. "I get it...I know that...that this is...an odd occurrence, but I am here," She smiled. "I am alive...and I am okay," 

    Warren allowed silence to sit between them a moment before he reluctantly nodded his head. "Okay," He finally replied. "I just...Kaz, I will not stop worrying about you. You know that."

    Kazmiyah felt secure in her father saying those words. "Wouldn't have it any other way, dad," She squeezed his arm before releasing it then walked out of her room and headed downstairs and into the kitchen. She hadn’t had much sustenance since her return home. 

    There wasn’t much in the way of human blood roaming freely around Crescent Falls. They were all enslaved-personal property of the inhumans; and while she was not a real human, Kazmiyah still felt a certain way about the humans being branded like cattle, whether good or bad. The thought, recalling her attention to her own cattle brand-one that never healed.

    Kazmiyah searched through the deep freezer that was held in the back of her father’s kitchen, hoping to find some sort of raw meat that had some semblance of blood in it.

    “Kaz, what are you looking for?” Warren asked as he followed her into the kitchen, leaning against the entrance way with his arms crossed, and his expression curious.

    “Food.” She casually replied, opening the door of the fridge to see if he had something that would quench her thirst. Of course, there was much of nothing.

    “Human? Or….human?” Warren asked.

    Kazmiyah turned around and smirked. “Is there any other kind?” She joked. 

    Warren shook his head and gestured for her to follow him into the garage. Through the kitchen, they entered into the garage area where a large appliance that resembled a huge fridge was. In it, were rows upon rows of blood bags.

    “I moved it here when I...well when I thought that you were human.” Warren told Kazmiyah. “Didn’t want to offend you and-”

    “No need to explain, dad.” Kazmiyah interceded. “You are who you are. I knew that before I became who I am.” She reassured him before taking a full row.

    “Geeze, I-you’re that hungry?” Warren incredulously asked. “When’s the last you ate, Kazmiyah?” He seemed quite concerned.

    Sheepishly, Kazmiyah glanced at him before returning her attention to the blood bags. She popped one open and began to drink from it, sucking the bag flat before she answered her father’s question.

    “It’s, um, well it’s been around a day or so.” 

    “And you’re that hungry, still?” He asked. He seemed to find this hard to believe and understandably so as wolves, lycans, and the like were all supposed to be conditioned to contain hunger fits for far longer than a day. It could never be determined when the trait would need to be used. Of course, Kazmiyah was never offered such conditioning. Though….he never recalled before her death where her hunger was so unchecked.

    “It…” Her voice trailed off as she snatched the little latch from the next blood bag. “It’s been this way since my...since….” She latched her teeth to the blood bag, her incisors piercing the bag, causing a slight gush to pour from its sides, blood falling down the side of her lips as she attempted to drink. When she finally stopped and dropped the bag, she finished her sentence. “Since I came back.” And truth be told, these bags were not going to be enough. Honestly, if she devoured the whole fridge full of blood, it still wouldn’t be enough. Because it wasn’t fresh.

    “Kaz.” 

    When Warren called her name was when Kazmiyah realized that he was staring at her. There was curiosity in his gaze and she knew where it was stemming from.

    Her gaze was averted from her father before she spoke again. “How did I come back?” She said before he could even ask the question. 

    Warren approached, sincerity and concern in his eyes as he stood in front of her. “How, Kaz?” He asked. “How did you do it? How did you come back?”

    Through her sixth bag, she finally looked at her father and sighed, placing the bag into the trash bin. She didn’t even know how to answer that question. It was a complication that she could not even explain.

    “I...I don’t know, dad.” She looked up into her father’s eyes. “We were on the mountain, in that castle...was it...Blue-the Blue Ridge Fortress.” She recalled, not having fully been able to take in the full details of that day outside of having lost her mother. “I died….I was in darkness-no feeling, no….” Her words trailed off as she inwardly remembered the void feeling of death. Was it death? Where her gaze was once on her father it had veered off, distancing itself. She shrugged. She didn’t want to think about it anymore. She didn’t want to think about the entirety of it all. “Then I was crawling out of a grave.” 

    “Were you of yourself? When you left-when you left Crescent Falls?”  

    Kazmiyah knew what her father wanted to hear. He wanted to hear that she wasn’t cognizant of herself the night that she pulled herself from her grave and ran away out of temporary insanity. He wanted to hear that her mind was temporarily not in a sensible state and that was why she left him. It wasn’t true, though. He needed to know the truth.

    “Yes.” She answered honestly. She was suddenly afraid to look at him. She didn’t want to see the sadness and disappointment in her father’s eyes. 

    The night that Kazmiyah returned from the grave and saw what damaged emotional state that her father was in, she could barely look at him. He had been through so much and he was so distraught mentally and she  knew that while she was cognizant of her surroundings that she was about to go through something that would not be easy for her father to deal with. Kazmiyah refused to force her father to live through that. She hated that he was in such a sensitive state, but she knew that she could not help him in the state that she was in, and he needed to know that truth-her truth.

    “I was so afraid.” Kazmiyah confessed, shaking her head as she thought about that night. “I was afraid of what….I-I was just afraid.” It was the only words that she could even put together at that moment. “The thought of being alive again-of being back....and then...when I saw what you were going through...I...I knew that I would not be in any condition for moral support-”

    "Why? Why would you think that?!" He asked. "You being here would have been enough for me, Kaz! I just...I needed to know that someone...." Warren's words broke off halfway through, him trying to keep himself together. He took a deep breath, his gaze facing the ground. "I just...needed to know that I hadn't completely lost everything...that you didn't...blame me for...for what happened."

   "I went back to Blue Ridge, dad," Kazmiyah replied. "I...saw what happened first hand and, I'm here to tell you that you could have done nothing that would have changed the outcome of that day. So no, of course, I don't blame you for what happened. It Christoph that forced mother's hand not yours," She looked at Warren. “As for me personally...I didn’t….” She sighed. “I died and...it was just something that I never….I guess, I thought it would stick the second time around.” Kazmiyah said. "and when it didn’t, I just didn’t know what to think. And, I didn’t know what you would think. I didn't know what was going to happen, so I decided that it would be best not to show my face.” She lifted her gaze to the ceiling in deep thought. “I always seem to cause trouble wherever I go.” Kazmiyah touched her father’s arm. “I didn’t want to do it again. But I missed you and I missed Crescent.” She confessed. “I wanted to be your daughter again. For real this time.”

    Warren sighed, tears streaming his eyes. “I’ve lost a lot, Kaz.” Warren said. “Your sister, and Crescenda.” He thought about those two a lot. “And I would be a liar had I, not the courage to admit that I missed them. But there was something-” He tried holding his composure as he talked to her; as he looked into her eyes and saw her mother. “There was something in me-in my heart….that was….an unfillable void when I lost you and your mother. I felt like a piece of me-a a piece of my soul had been ripped away from me.” A stray tear escaped his light brown eye. “I hadn’t realized how much you or your mother meant to me until you were gone. And in life, you were invaluable even then.”

    “What happened, dad?” Kazmiyah asked as she thought about Crescenda. “What happened that night that she disappeared? And why isn’t Alora here? With you?”

    Warren sighed and leaned against the table. “Your mother and I-we had….a talk the night before we marched on Blue Ridge. She, uh….she finally decided to….” He could barely stomach saying the word. “She thought it was high time to sever our bond to one another.”

    “That’s what you wanted though, right?” Kazmiyah asked. “I mean, you chose Crescenda over her, so-”

    “Kazmiyah.” Warren exasperatedly intervened. “It’s….it’s so much more complicated than that.” 

    Knowing how it felt to have your true mate choose another over you, Kazmiyah felt a kindred spirit in terms of her mother’s pain. She understood why she felt bitter and why she held such resentment for her father and his family. So, when Warren gave such a vague answer, Kazmiyah admittedly found it offensive.

    “Surely, you can do better than that dad.” She finally replied. “Considering the fact that I am in the same boat as my mother.” It was as if saying this switched a lightbulb on in Warren’s head. He had apparently forgotten this little point that was made.

    “Sweetheart, it's not that I love Crescenda more than your mother. Not that I even prefer her or that I am afraid to choose my true mate.” He took a harsh breath. “I didn’t-I didn’t think that I’d ever find my true mate and so when I met Crescenda, I-I lost myself in her and I let go of the hope of finding your mother.”

    “But when Cres, went feral, you could have started over-you could have left.”

    “I had an obligation, Kaz. I took her away from her family and swore to her father and her brother that I would care for her-love her for the rest of my life.” He explained. “How could I call myself a true Alpha if I deserted her at her worst time?”

    Kazmiyah understood what he was saying. She understood that he felt an obligation to Cres, regardless of how he truly felt about her mother. Still, she couldn’t help thinking that he could have gone about it in a better way, but she didn’t even want to bring that subject of conversation up at this point. She decided then, to get back to the root of what she asked her father in the first place.

    “What does your conversation with mom have to do with Cres leaving?”

    “She saw it.” Warren distantly answered. “She saw...and heard our conversation-she heard the truth of how I really felt and….she couldn’t take it.” He confessed. “I was being selfish that night when I begged your mother not to sever the bond, I realize that now.”

    “Did she?” Kazmiyah asked. “Did she sever the bond?”

    Simply asking the question seemed to wound Warren. “Yes. She did.”

    “Oh.” Kazmiyah didn’t know how to feel about this. “I’m sorry dad.” She didn’t blame her mother for doing what she did but she understood why her father felt so hurt by it nontheless. Regardless, Kazmiyah didn’t want to dwell on this subject either. “Where is Alora?” She asked, though a deeper part of her wondered about the packs' wellbeing as well as Alora's chosen mate and his Beta even more. “What happened to her?”

    “She’s been banished.”

    With her brow raised, Kazmiyah continued to inquire. “For?”

    “Murdering you,” Warren answered. “Your grandmother gave her a lesser sentence than death on my behalf.” He said.

    “Are...you alright?” That was the only thing that Kazmiyah could think to say about it. As far as she was concerned, Alora deserved far worse but she agreed with her grandmother’s decision to keep her alive. Her father had been through more than enough to last him a lifetime in terms of losing those that he loved. And besides, Alora was her sister regardless of what she'd been guilty of. That fact may not have meant much to Alora but it certainly meant enough to Kazmiyah.

    “What father would be okay with it? I'd be a liar to say that I was," Warren admitted. "But I knew that it was the right thing to do outside of the death penalty. Alora has done wrong and needs to be punished for it," He said. “It was hard, of course, regardless of how much she deserves her fate; she seemed to be all that I had left but I knew that she would be safe with Falcon looking out for her and that’s all that matters-”

    “How is he?” Kazmiyah asked. This was the question that ran through her mind every single day since her revival, and unfortunately, for her, reflexive concern for him outweighed her curiosity of her sister's whereabouts. Afterall, he had gone through far worse than Alora.

    “He’s...different.” Warren said. “But fine. He’s a strong young Alpha.”

    Kazmiyah nodded. “Yeah, I know.” 

    How could he not be changed? Kazmiyah thought about all of the mental anguish that he had gone through with her grandfather in his head. There was a mental connection between her and Falcon that caused her to see and even partially feel what he had been through throughout that entire time. However, it wasn’t just him that she could feel but Nox as well. Falcon definitely had changed.

    “You alright?” Her father asked, releasing her from her reverie of thoughts concerning her true mate.

    She looked up at her father and forced a smile on her face while inwardly suffering because of her connection to Falcon. 

    “Yeah.” Kazmiyah reassured him. “Yes, I’m fine dad.” She sighed. “I think I’m going to go for a walk,” 

    “Wai-I-do you-” Warren was suddenly off-put by this notion. “Kaz, I-I haven’t told anyone that you’re alive.” He confessed. “Seeing you for-just seeing you will be a very….tender subject to approach for the whole town.” He said.

    “Dad, I’m sure you told Varick.” She said. “You probably didn’t even have to tell him.” With the way that his abilities worked, there was very little that Varick of the BloodHaven coven was capable of.

    “Varick knows, yes.”

    There was hesitation in his expression and his words when he spoke. Somehow, she already knew why. “You didn’t tell Godfrey...that I am alive.” When he didn’t answer right away, Kazmiyah knew that her assumption was right. “Why?” She asked. 

    Kazmiyah always had a connection to Crescent and always made it a point to check on Godfrey whenever her mind would wander there; but somehow, it never occurred to her that he didn’t know that she was alive. 

    “He didn’t take your death well, nor the fact that you allowed Falcon to live, sweetheart” Warren answered. “What you have to understand, Kaz is that the Jefferson-White clan has always had enigmatic powers-harder to understand and even harder to control at times.” He explained. “Both Varick and his son’s power can sometimes be rooted in their emotions. Him having to deal with the grief of you was one thing, but adding immediately the idea that you had come back to life and that you had just up and left would have…” He sighed. “Varick didn’t want that burden on his son. Especially, not knowing whether you’d ever return or not.”

    “So...he wanted him to get over me….is what you’re saying.” Kazmiyah came to the conclusion. Somehow, this frustrated her. She needed Godfrey to remember her-to miss her….he was all that she had left at this point aside from her father. “I need to see him.” When she looked at her father again, his expression seemed concerned. “What?”

    “You sure you alright?” Warren asked.

    “I’m fine dad.” She said, heading for the door. “I just need some semblance of normalcy.” Her gaze distanced. “You and Godfrey….even the Elder Varick….” Her voice, along with her mind trailed off.

    “Sweetheart?” Warren called to Kazmiyah. “Kaz?” He touched her shoulder and she snapped out of it and looked at him again. 

    “Yeah.” She suddenly said. 

    “Maybe you-are you sure you're okay?”

    “Why do you keep asking me that?” Kazmiyah suddenly asked, her head tilted, irritation clear on her face. 

    “Because you….seem different too.” He said. “Your eyes….”

    “What about them?” Kazmiyah asked.

    “I-” Warren didn’t know if he should even continue the subject. “You know what, maybe you’re right.” He said. “Maybe you should go and see Godfrey.” When she smiled, he thought this was the moment to catch her off guard. “I was actually going to see Varick anyway, about a situation that happened a little before you got here.”

    “Hm.” Kazmiyah hummed with curiousiy. “Think you can fill me in on the way?” She asked.

    Warren opened the door, a small smile on his face. “I think I can do that.”