My Perfect One (Hidden Destiny #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Apollo

Most shifter families are large and ours is no exception.

I have three older brothers, Ares, Eros and Adonis, they’re triplets.

And a twin sister who’s five minutes younger than me, Artemis.

We grew up in Thasos, Greece, our family’s been there for four generations.

We moved here to Lake Renegade, Illinois, three years ago when we were chosen to fight with the SMMA—Shifters Mixed Martial Arts.

We only fight other shifters, because it wouldn’t be fair for us to fight humans.

Ares has always been the protector of the five of us, but six months ago we almost lost him.

I’ve never been so scared in my life. There’s not much that can kill us, but a shifter had a serum created that could do just that.

Ares got shot with a bullet that was loaded with it.

If he didn’t get the counter-serum within a few hours, he would’ve died.

Even so, he was still in a coma for three days.

The counter-serum that saved him was made by another shifter.

Satoshi Minamoto, is the father of Ares’ wife, Sakura.

We were lucky he was with us when that all went down.

The woman who was the head of the group that created the killing serum, Samantha, is now in the hands of the cleaners.

The cleaners take care of anything supernatural.

When they take the shifters that need help, they try to rehabilitate them.

If they can’t, the shifter has to be put down.

Hanako Minamoto is a cleaner, and she’s now part of our family.

She told us last month that Samantha’s daughter and son, Matilda and Paul, were released.

Apparently the cleaner council felt that they were rehabilitated.

They said that they were only following their mother’s orders, and they deserved a second chance.

Hanako said she tried to fight them, pointing out that Matilda was the one who shot my brother.

But the cleaner council said that after spending time with her, they feel that she never would’ve done it if her mother hadn’t made her.

None of us believe that. I saw the look in Matilda’s eyes when she did it.

Now we’re all worried that they could come back and try to retaliate.

So the Lake Renegade council decided to up our security for the foreseeable future.

What that means is that the main property is on lockdown.

No one goes in our out alone and all the kids are homeschooled.

The Lake Renegade council is made up of seven men. Enea, Leonardo and Antonio Mancini, Giacomo Bastianini, my baba—Zeus Athanasiou, Panagiotis Nikolaidis and Elio Salvadori. They make the decisions for everyone that lives on the main property. They’ve kept everyone safe for a long time.

Watching my brother and sister find their mates has made me wish for mine.

My twin sister, Artemis, actually found her fated mate.

Not everyone is lucky enough to find their fated mate, but a chosen mate isn’t any less for us.

Ares and Sakura have shown me that. They’re chosen mates and they act the same as Artemis and Kostas.

So I don’t really care if my mate is chosen or fated. I just hope one day I find her.

Seraphina

My life was perfect. I had my parents and four siblings.

I’m the oldest at twenty-one, then there’s Oliver, who’s twenty.

Then Archer, who’s seventeen and the babies, Isla and Colby who are twins, just turned fourteen.

We’re snake shifters, specifically Inland Taipan Snakes, the deadliest land snakes in the world.

There’s only been a few times that I’ve wanted to bite someone…

as long as you’re not counting my siblings.

We’re a really close family. I’d thought about leaving to go to college, but in the end, I really didn’t want to leave.

Neither did Oliver, so we both chose to stay with our family.

Maybe one day we’ll decide to go to college, but until then, our parents had said we have enough money to keep us all comfortable.

We had been hearing stories about a family in Lake Renegade, Illinois.

They rescued shifters from a facility where they were being held captive.

The shifters that were there were being experimented on.

That’s always a worry for us as shifters.

People wanting to be able to do what we do.

As far as I know, no one’s ever truly figured out how to ‘make’ a shifter.

The only way is to be born one, or be bitten by one.

And even if you’re bitten by one, that doesn’t guarantee you’ll become a shifter.

We made a plan to go to Lake Renegade and meet up with the shifter families there.

Two months ago, everything changed. We were at our favorite beach.

Unlike normal Inland Taipan snakes, we love the water.

We had just finished lunch and then we all decided to shift.

Our snakes love to be able to sun themselves, and there weren’t any humans around so it was the perfect time.

After we shifted, we were all sunning, when suddenly I was in a net.

I didn’t even have time to bite whoever it was that grabbed me.

I could see through the mesh net, and each of my family was being taken.

One by one. I saw my dad bite one of them and even in my shifted state, I knew that they would die if they didn’t get the anti-venom within thirty minutes.

My dad is a bigger Taipan, and his venom is more powerful than mine.

Oliver and Archer are as big as our dad, but I’m on the smaller side, like our mom.

Even though we’re smaller, our venom can still kill any human and weaken other shifters.

I tried to shift back, but before I could, I was injected with something.

And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shift back to my human form.

As I was panicking, I felt another stab and I lost consciousness.

When I woke up, I was in a room with my family and we were all back in our human form.

The relief I felt in seeing all of my family there with me was overwhelming.

We huddled together and tried to calm down enough to talk.

They all had the same memories of what happened as I did.

The fucked up part is that we didn’t know how long it had been since we were taken.

The room they had us in is like a mini apartment.

Minus the kitchen. There’s one room that has a couch and television in it.

And another room that has a bed for each of us.

There’s three bathrooms, with a shower and toilet in each one.

There’s also a slot on the wall of the main room with a clear box on it.

They use it to give us food and drinks, but whenever they drop off the food, we never see who’s behind that wall.

And because we can’t see outside, we don’t know when the day begins and ends.

Then one day we finally saw other people.

It was a woman and she came in with two men.

They grabbed my parents and took them away.

When they came back, they sounded so tired.

They told us that they were forced to shift and then they were milked for their venom.

This has happened to each of us since then and it hasn’t been pleasant.

The people doing the milking don’t care if they hurt us.

The only thing that keeps us from being really hurt is that we’re not as fragile as real snakes.

Our human side helps us deal with the extra trauma.

Our family is different from other snake shifters.

We have two types of venom, one is highly toxic and the other isn’t.

We have four venom sacs, two on each side of our heads.

We’re able to choose which venom sac we want to use when we bite someone.

The highly toxic one can kill a human within half an hour.

It won’t kill a shifter, but it will make them really weak and sick.

Which can make it easier to kill them another way.

The other venom we have will just make humans and shifters sick.

Basically, they’ll get the shits and vomit for three to five days. It’s actually amusing to watch.

This morning when we got up, there was breakfast as usual.

Oliver, Archer and I were taken first today.

We’ve learned not to fight them too much.

It makes it easier and less stressful for us.

That doesn’t mean I don’t try to bite them every time.

My family says the same thing. My dad has bitten another person since we’ve been here.

After Oliver, Archer and I are brought back, they take my parents and the twins together.

When they get back, we resume our usual routine of sitting around.

All of a sudden, one by one, my parents and the twins started convulsing. Oliver was yelling into the intercom system for someone to come and help us. But no one came. We tried everything we could to help them. Then we watched them die one by one.

The day started off like any other and ended with the loss of half my family. My brothers and I swore that the next time they came for us? We would kill all of them.