Chapter 5 #2
“Born with the ability to soothe nightmares that most feared,” I voiced, remembering his words. I felt all eyes turn to me. “Saint said that humans used to sacrifice young women and men to the monsters that terrorized their villages, hoping that one would have the ability.”
“And if they did?” Zain leaned forward. “What would happen?”
“Most of the time, the sis metas, since they weren’t slaughtered, would mate and breed with the nightmares.”
And this was the reason that I was glad my father wasn’t here. All of this had the potential to be so awkward. ‘Hey, so Dad, I have the ability to mate with these terrifyingly hot nightmare terrors and even have their babies, isn’t that neat? Best part? They are totally into me.’
“Others can mate with terrors, that is literally Class D,” Razar pointed out, confused. “Just not A-levels.”
“Exactly,” Saint confirmed. “Only sis metas have the ability to mate with extremely powerful nightmares and continue their line. Only they could survive a pairing like that, outside of other class A terrors of course, but that doesn’t usually happen for dominance reasons…
” He seemed lost in thought before looking at me.
“Arabella was left on the doorstep of the institute, presumably because her birth parents knew she was different.” Saint shrugged. “A correct decision, because if they hadn’t, she would have been in extreme danger outside of these walls.”
“Danger?” Cy suddenly sounded very concerned.
“Yes. She would have been fucked if she was in the human world, not only because she would have been so different, but because of how valuable she is to nightmares who would have hunted her down. She is the only known soother left; the rest were hunted and slaughtered.”
Lovely. Just lovely. I felt an unexpected surge of pain for those that had suffered and died for simply being born different.
Amun frowned. “But that is why she is able to not only soothe nightmares but also survive mating with them? I have no idea how the hell you recognized that, Saint. I’ve been around for centuries, and that never crossed my mind.”
“Good.” Saint nodded. “I was telling Arabella that the lack of knowledge of what she is has allowed her to hand-select her mates out of free will instead of coercion.”
“Coercion?” Razar demanded.
“Nightmares could try to force me into mating, apparently,” I explained, hearing a dangerous noise echo from most of my men. “When I mate with a nightmare, I am affected by your magic, which explains why I seem so affected by Cy, for example… I act as a… What did you call it, Saint?”
“A collective vase or void,” he said. “You take in everything, which is why you seem so damn affected so quickly, but then once the energy cycles through you, it rebounds back, not only increasing the energy and power of your mate, but leaving you with a marker of their magic. A mate mark of sorts. You essentially become less human with each mating and become far more durable, so that you won’t, for example, die—”
“Saint,” Razar growled in warning.
“Fine, fine.” Saint smirked. “You get my point—it won’t happen as extreme with any of your powers, and for sure not mine anymore. But she will be affected the first time…”
“Worth it,” I said honestly as Zain chuckled softly. I blushed and looked down at the little shadow man staring up at me and pretending to climb the side of my coffee mug. It was pretty damn funny.
Saint let out a low rumble, drawing my gaze where he was staring at the shadow in question. I cupped the small figure protectively as he looked back towards the room, looking thrilled about something… I swear, he grew more confusing, not less.
“But you still get hurt,” Razar grit out, looking a mixture of hopeful and tortured.
“Honestly, I didn’t even notice that part, like the pain part…” I whispered and then closed my eyes. “It sort of…added to the experience.”
A loud sound echoed as a chair fell back, and Blackwell was out of the room. My eyes went wide as I found Damian laughing so hard he had to put his head down on the table, causing everyone else to look beyond amused. I was confused and looked to Amun, who offered me a small smile.
“What?” I demanded. “Is he okay?”
“He’ll be fine.” Damian grinned happily. “He just can’t handle himself.”
“I can handle myself just fine…it’s not myself I want to handle,” Blackwell snapped, his voice echoing from outside the room and making my cheeks go bright red.
“Well shit.” Zain seemed a bit stunned. “I have no idea what to say.”
I know what to do though.
“Arabella,” Razar warned as my smile grew.
“What?!” I demanded, smiling. “I mean, come on, Razar, this is good news—”
Before we could say anything else, the sound of the alarms buzzed through the room and I was up and out of my seat, jogging towards the observation room window. What greeted me had my eyes widening.
The observation room, which was currently open on the back end, allowed me to see a view of the entire skyline, and what I saw shook me to the core.
I had never been particularly scared of humans—that would not be the word I would use at all—but in large groups, I had to admit that they were somewhat of a threat.
Especially when their helicopters headed our way from a distance and I could practically hear the trucks rolling towards all gates of the institute.
I was not about to let them get away with this. Not in my home.
“Precious.” Amun appeared right behind me, making a slightly surprised noise as I kicked off my heels and climbed on top of the desk to reach a metal box above the window.
I didn’t bother explaining myself because I knew there wasn’t time. I also was really hoping there were no nightmares high enough up in the air that this would injure them, because if I didn’t do this, we were screwed.
I had no doubt that if humans had the aerial advantage, it wouldn’t stop with helicopters. It was also beyond obvious that this had been planned.
Any excitement I’d felt about our conversation moments ago was silenced as I typed in the four digit code of my birthday.
I suppose we didn’t know if it was my actual birthday—we were somewhat assuming based on my estimated age— but it was the day we celebrated and the code my father used for a ton of stuff.
Immediately, alarm bells rang, deep and vibrating through the institute, letting everyone know that the aerial shields were about to go up.
I jumped back off the desk and walked towards the key pad, ignoring my nightmares’ attempt to gather my attention as I slammed my hand against the pad, entered the chamber, and then proceeded into the main room.
The air was cold from outside, but I barely noticed it as I jogged across the space and watched as an electric field of red and black arched above the institute and covered it in interweaving strands right as the helicopters grew close enough to have to swerve out of its way.
I breathed out a sigh of relief that I’d somehow managed to do that in time before they tried to pull some crap.
I knew it didn’t solve the problem, but it sure as hell helped.
“We need to get this entire place on lockdown until we figure out how many are headed our way,” I told them as I turned around to find that they had followed me here.
“This was planned.” Razar’s jaw clenched. “We need to get you the fuck out of here, Arabella, until this blows over—”
“No,” I warned, “I am not abandoning everyone just because of some danger. We are going to handle this. I am not leaving.”
Razar very clearly wanted to argue, but instead of doing so, he just offered a sharp nod of his head.
I looked towards Saint. “Can you tell your sister to have my dad come back? We need to plan, now,” I said and then looked down at what I was wearing. “I also need to get out of this—”
The wind whipped around me, and I was completely unsurprised to find that Blackwell had transported us upstairs… So I could change, maybe? My question was what the heck I did with that look on his face?