Defiance: The Hybrid's Tale (MxM)

Chapter 6: Smoke and Mirrors. [Edited]

Cassandra Pope.

Rushing up to my bedroom's door, I quickly pushed it open and slammed the door shut behind me. My heartbeat drummed in my ears. I rushed over to the liquor cabinet and clumsily fumbled with the nearest bottle of alcohol. I threw a heavy-handed shot of scotch and downed it in a single gulp, trying to numb the gripping fear around my chest. I then walked up to the king-sized bed and collapsed onto its edge.

That was close.

I rubbed my bruised neck. I risked a lot by walking up to my father, reporting to him about my failures, but what choice did I have? The Council was starting to suspect that my father was up to no good. It was not my fault. The old man had become so obsessed with killing my nephew that he was making reckless mistakes, leading the Council to our doorsteps.

"Cassandra, are you alright?" a soft voice asked.

With a gasp, my eyes shot to the freestanding mirror in the corner of my bedroom. There was another reason I stayed in this godforsaken place and she stood staring at me with her piercing blue eyes. Her blonde wavy hair fell over her sun-kissed shoulders.

God, she's still as beautiful as the day that I first saw her.

She was my sister-in-law, the mother of my nephew, Alex, and the wife of my demented brother. Even though she was never mine, I loved her with all of my heart. I never married or had children of my own. How could I? She's the one I wanted but couldn't have.

I got up, walked over to the mirror, and placed my hand on the cold surface. She did the same.

"Talk to me, what happened?" my angel asked, fear creeping into her mesmerizing eyes. At that moment, I craved to touch her silky soft skin, just for a second. But I could not.

Several years after my father began hunting my sister and nephew, Aveny, the goddess I secretly worshiped, began challenging my father's reign. She called him all the names under the moon, 'a lunatic' being the kindest insult. This open animosity reached the tipping point when my brother used their child to lure my sister's werewolf husband into a trap and killed him. When Nathan turned sixteen, he became one of those all-knowing teenagers who second-guessed his mother's warnings. He made a mistake and contacted Alex. They had been best friends since childhood. Alex, being the naïve boy that he was, told his father. My asp of a brother, in turn, couldn't wait to tell my father. My father, in turn, used the information gained to lure Nathan and his mother into a trap. My father convinced (I used the word loosely) the pack Nathan's stepfather approached to join, to kill them. My sister and nephew barely escaped the ambush but Jacob did not.

When Aveny learned of the attack, she lost it. She attacked my father in front of the entire coven. A fierce battle shook the mansion to its foundations, but in the end, my father was too powerful for her. She lost. My father would have killed her and he wanted to, but I begged him to show leniency. Foolishly, I thought he had an ounce of mercy in his wretched heart, but he had none. Instead, my father stunned every member of the coven (me included). He did something more evil than killing her. He cast a powerful spell on a mirror and threw Aveny into it, imprisoning her. She would never sleep, eat, or touch another for the rest of her life. As a final nail in her coffin, he banished her son so that she'd never see Alex again.

Ever since that day, I began working on a way to free my sister-in-law, but my father made it impossible. The devious old man removed every tome from the library which contained the means of releasing her. Finding an alternative route to free her proved a waste of time despite spending a small fortune. I had failed.

"Where are your thoughts?" she said again, pulling me out of my heartbroken stupor.

With a heavy sigh, I placed my head up against the mirror. "I can't continue like this... Every day it's getting progressively worse, and I don't know when my father will eventually snap and kill us all."