Chapter 124: BOOK THREE
Gemini Twins in the Land of the Gods
Ivy.
Fifteen years…
Fifteen years since the war, and every day, I tried to atone for the shit I had done prior. I could play innocent and act like I hadn’t done anything to cause it all, but I’d be fucking lying. Not only to those around me but also to myself.
The day Kara told me my children were to be sent to the land of the gods when they turned eighteen, I made a silent pact to prevent it. They were my children, and I was deter mined to make sure their lives were their own.
Even if I wanted to strangle them on more than one occa sion for their defiance, among other things. “Damn it, Pollux! Where are you?”
Storming through the house, I looked for the eldest of my six children and found, while gifted and the future of our pack, he never seemed to be where he was supposed to be.
“James, have you seen Pollux?” My words seemed to fall on deaf ears as James continued grading the papers before him. After all the hell we had gone through, he decided ten years ago to get into teaching, and he hadn’t looked back.
Which honestly was shocking, considering he taught
ninth-grade biology.
“James…” I repeated with a groan of frustration. “James!”
“Huh?” His eyes gazed up to meet mine with a clueless look. He had aged so much since I had first met him. Gray
hairs now streaked his head, and with it wrinkles crested the
corners of his eyes. “Sorry, sweetie. The end of the grading pe
riod is next week, and I have to get these done.”
“I know, I know,” I replied as I rolled my eyes and walked towards him. No matter how much he had changed physically,
he was still the sweet man I once knew. He always thought of
others before himself and took pride in his work..”I just haven’t
seen Pollux since he came home from school, and he
promised to take Dillon to practice.”
“Practice?” James glanced down at his watch and fur rowed his brows. “Babe, that started twenty minutes ago. Why didn’t you tell me I would have taken him?”
Smiling, I shook my head, “It’s okay. Talon was done with
his rounds and offered. He was excited to take him this week.
You know how much he hates missing out on stuff.”
With all the changes we had undergone, some were hard
er than others.
Damian had refused to take back his Alpha position, and in doing so, Hale took over as the Alpha of the pack, allowing Damian to spend more time with the business aspects of our world. As for Talon, his obsession with security grew increas ingly urgent with every child we had.
Running the training grounds and managing the borders. became his calling.
One the entire pack was grateful for.
“I know. Let him enjoy it. Dillion’s twelve now. He isn’t go ing to be young forever.”
Nodding my head, I leaned down, kissing him gently. “I know. I’m glad that he has been coming around lately. When little Sylvia got hurt a few years ago, I never thought he would leave the borders.” Thinking about the memory of that day made my chest burn with anguish, but forcing the feeling away, I pushed my mind forward. “If only I can find your son.”
James chuckled, shrugging his shoulders. This was a usual thing for the twins. Now that they were about to be sixteen, they thought they could do whatever they wanted, and out of
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the two… Pollux wasn’t the worst.
No, he may have had his moments, but Cassie was very
different from her brother.
“Why don’t you go ask Cassie where he went? She has her way of finding him,” James suggested, causing me to groan in
irritation.
There was no way I would let her do something like that. The thought of her using her powers for any reason was out of the question. “James-”
“Don’t start, Ivy. You can’t make her stop being who she is.
Just… ‘go ask.”
James didn’t give me much chance to reply before quickly going back to the papers before him, and by that point, I was already regretting even asking Pollux to help with his brother. I should have just taken him myself and saved the headache of
this entire conversation.
Taking a moment to think about what James suggested, I huffed with irritation before walking towards the staircase headed for Cassie’s room. There was no way I was going to ask her to use her powers to find her brother, but I could simply
ask if she had seen him.
Her bright white door appeared before me. The acrylic painted green flames and intertwining vines upon her door were her own design. She was the most artistic person I knew, and many pieces of her original work hung not just around our home, but around the pack.
“Cassie…” Knocking on her door, I turned the knob and walked into her room. The white drapes bellowed from the window, blowing through the open window. The twinkling night sky glistened from the balcony where the moon shone upon the world.
It was just like her to leave it open all the time, claiming the fresh air helped to enhance her creative ability. Gazing around the room, I took in the clothes scattered about her un made bed and littered dresser of makeup and jewelry.
“Cassie?” I called out again as I looked around for where she could be. The softness of her voice called me towards the open balcony doors.
“No, I’m coming, god. Just wait for me.”
As soon as my hand pushed back the drape, she quickly hung up the phone and spun to look at me. Her dark brown hair hung in waves over her shoulders as the same celestial blue eyes I once held looked back at me. “Hey, Mom.”
“Cassie, who were you on the phone with?” Raising a brow, I crossed my arms over my chest and sighed. She was up to something, and even though she thought she was smarter than me, she wasn’t.
“Oh-just Melissa,” she replied quickly as she pushed past me back into her bedroom. “She wants me to come over to her house tonight.”
“She does, huh?” I smirked as I watched her move around her room. She seemed to think I was stupid regarding her acts of rebellion. There was no way she was simply going to stay at Melissa’s house, especially during homecoming. There was definitely something else going on. “So, you’re just going to go without asking permission?”
Shoving a few pieces of clothing into her backpack, she stopped with a sigh and looked over her shoulder at me. “I al ready asked daddy, he said it was okay.”
“Oh, really… which daddy did you ask?”
With wide eyes and a disgusted look, she scoffed, “Why do you have to say it like that?”
“Because I want the truth,” I replied with my hands on my hips as I stared at her. “Cassie, do you think I’m stupid? Do you honestly think I don’t know what you’re doing?”
“Oh my god, mom!” she groaned. “I’m literally not doing anything. Just going to Melissa’s and hanging out for the night since she is like, one of the very few friends I have. Or am I not supposed to have any friends?”
This was her usual MO. She would sit there and pretend she was disgusted with the mention of her doing something wrong and then try to backtrack to have me trust her.
The moment Cassie came into her powers almost three
years ago, I thought the world was going to end. I didn’t un derstand why she had to be difficult, but my mother told me all the time it was just a phase and she would grow out of it. I just wished that would happen sooner rather than later.
Anger surged through me at her tone. “You need to watch how you speak to me young lady.”
She quickly realized that I wasn’t going to put up with her tone, and with a sigh she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m
sorry I just don’t like how you act like this to me, but Pollux can
do whatever he wants. It’s not fair.”
The soft pitter-patter of footsteps behind me in the hall way caught my attention, and as I turned, I spotted Raya walk ing down the hallway with a book in her hand. She was only a year younger than the twins, and while they had a particular way about them, Raya was more of a mother hen, making sure her younger siblings were staying in check at all times.
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A child quite often capable of telling me exactly what I wanted to know. Glancing back over at Cassie, I watched her eyes dart to where Raya had just walked by, and her face paled.
“Raya,” I called out softly, stepping through the doorway into the hallway, watching as my dark brown- haired beauty turned to me with a confused glance.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Raya, do you know where Pollux went tonight? I can’t seem to find him, and he was supposed to take Dillon to prac tice earlier,” I said with a very nonchalant attitude as Raya shrugged her shoulders.
“The homecoming bonfire is tonight. All the kids are go ing. It’s supposed to be seniors only, but you know how Pollux is. He plays on the football team, so he’s kind of friends with all
of them.”
“Is that right? And what kind of stuff will be at these par
ties?”.
I wasn’t that old. I knew exactly what would be at these
parties, but after I asked, I turned my gaze to Cassie, watching as fear crossed her eyes. She had been caught, and while I had
hoped she would have told me the truth, she decided not to.
“Well, there’s a lot of drinking and dancing and stuff, and
sometimes the boys play pranks on each other, from what I’ve
heard. I mean, Cassie should know more about it. Melissa is
going tonight.”
“You fucking bitch!” Cassie screamed as she stormed to wards Raya, who quickly jumped backward. My arm reached out, snatching Cassie by the waist as she tried to attack her
sister.
“Castor Alexandra, that is enough. If you think for one sec ond I didn’t know what was going on at these parties or that you thought you were actually going, you were sadly mistak
en.” I was seething in anger, and I had every right to be. She had lied to me, just like she had tried to lie so many times be fore, and I couldn’t understand why she kept acting like this.
Pulling away from me, she stepped back, her eyes filled with tears as she clenched her fists at her side. “Why are you always ruining everything? I can’t wait to get out of here. Maybe my grandfather will have a better time teaching me to be who I am in the other realm than you would ever be able to do for me. You’re not a mother, you’re a dictator.”
Like a dagger to my heart, I broke slowly. Whenever we got into an argument, she would say things she didn’t mean, but never had she said anything this hurtful to me. Before I could even speak, a voice sounded behind me.
“Cassie, apologize to your mother right now.” The sound of the voice belonged to Damien, and from the cologne, I smelt, he wasn’t alone. In fact, Hale was with him as well.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to bother you both,” I sighed, turning to face Damian and Hale. They had obviously been in the study down the hall, and while I was trying to get to the bottom of this, I didn’t expect it to take the turn it had.
“Ivy, why are you apologizing?” Hale chuckled as he pulled me close to him. “Let Damian handle her, and then when Talon gets home, we can fill him in.”
Over the years, it was clear that most of her traits came from Talon. Honestly, while we never actually tested who their
fathers biologically were, we could tell
a mix of Hale and Talon.
God knows Cassie had Talon’s temper.
“Dad, this isn’t fair.” She began to sob. “All I wanted to do was go to the party with everybody else. Why does Pollux get to do whatever he wants, and I don’t?”
“Perhaps because Pollux is honest about what he’s doing and doesn’t try to lie whenever he wants to do something. You were trying to be deceitful again, young lady. And speaking to your mother like that? It’s unacceptable.” Damian didn’t have to raise his voice at Cassie to get his point across.
In fact, he had never raised his voice to any of them.
The only one of my mates who ever got into it with anyone was Talon and Cassie. Both stubborn and hardheaded. Yet, they were very close and had a bond the rest of us would nev er understand. “So, what… I’m just supposed to stay here and do nothing? Everyone is going.”
“Well, you should have thought about that before you act ed the way you did.” Damian sighed, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Cassie, but you’re grounded. Give me your phone.”
“You can’t be serious!” she yelled through the tears run ning down her face. “This is bullshit!”
“Castor, do not raise your voice at me again. Give me your phone, now,” Damian calmly snapped with his hand held out, waiting for the device to be dropped within it.
Cassie hesitated for a moment, shaking her head before taking it from her back pocket and giving it to Damian. “I can’t wait to turn eighteen. Then I’ll finally be able to get out of here.”
Damian was used to Cassie saying ridiculous things, and as I watched him sigh with a slight chuckle he replied. “You say that now, Cassie… but one day, you’re going to miss this place. One day, it will be gone, and you will wish to have it back. In fact, you will give anything to be here again. Trust me, I know this firsthand.”