Defiance: The Hybrid's Tale
Chapter 6: Smoke and Mirrors

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.”

“He’s not happy that the Council’s snooping around, is he?”

“True.” I pulled away from the mirror and poured another glass of Scotch before walking over to a chair in front of the mirror.

I plunged down onto the chair and pulled a few strands of black hair out of my face. “I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold up the illusion. He already questions my loyalty.”

“Then you have no choice but to approach the Council directly,” Aveny said.

I took another sip of Scotch. I could not. It was too risky to involve the Council. I didn’t know for sure who I could trust. “I’d be slitting my own throat.”

“You have no other choice. The longer you play off the idea, the more chances you give your father to gain more influence within the Council.”

I hated it when she was right. But it didn’t take away the fear I had. One wrong step and I’d be dead in an instant and Aveny would be trapped in this hellhole forever.

She spoke again, reading my sullen face like a well-read scroll. “Don’t worry about me. I have nothing to lose.”

I jumped up from the chair. “Don’t say that! I can’t live with the knowledge of knowing that Alex might never see his mother again because of me.” Tears began blurring my vision.

“If you don’t do anything soon, it won’t matter. If your father continues with his plans, every one of us will die in the end.”

***

Nathan Underhill.

I nearly yawned my lungs out of my chest as I drove along a winding road into town. I wasn’t a morning person in the slightest. The only reason why I dragged my sorry ass out of bed before noon was to attend school or in emergencies. I glanced through the rear-view mirror. My little sister was doing exactly what I fought against right now — she was fast asleep. My mom sat beside me, sucking on a pen while frowning up a storm. She was trying to work out our food shortage, making a long list of groceries she had to buy, which was a lot. I usually eat my body weight in food. But that’s not the only reason we came to town. My mom wanted to meet the Supreme, the leader of the local coven.

I was anxious, to say the least. Who wouldn’t be in my shoes? I didn’t know what to expect as I pulled up to an unassuming small shop hidden between a computer shop and a clothing boutique for the local Goths. Although I found the headquarters to be a bit of a letdown, the aura surrounding the place could recharge a cellphone in a second before blowing up in your face. I climbed out of the SUV and retrieved my sleeping sister. My mom walked out in front of us and entered the shop while I locked the doors. I sighed and walked up to the door and pulled the door open.

Let’s see what the creepy shop of horrors has in store for us... I hope we don’t regret this.

Walking into the shop, my eyes began to water as an overwhelming woodsy fragrance of sage burned my nostrils. I coughed, trying to kill the tickle at the back of my throat. The shop reminded me of an old-fashioned apothecary. Shelves wrapped around the whole store were lined with glass containers filled with herbs. Glass counters separated the shelves from the rest of the floor space.

As I took in my surroundings, I expected an old crone to make her appearance. However, it seemed that the Moon Goddess had her divine little fingers pulling the strings of fate into our favor. The one person I least expected to see popped out from behind the counter.

Joshua.

“Holy sage, it’s you!” The idiot shouted, nearly tripping over as he ran along the counter. He lifted the wooden barrier and then rushed up to me, shaking my hand vigorously. “I never thought that I’d see you again.”

“Nathan?” My mom’s eyes narrowed. Shit! I had some explaining to do.

I nervously chuckled before saying, “This is the warlock I told Mom about, the one from the woods.”

My mom’s demeanor gave me whiplash as she began to smile all of a sudden. Wow, I thought that she’d be angry about this... I mean, I screwed up and allowed someone to see me. She shook the young warlock’s hand while a mischievous glint in her eye told me that she was up to something.

“So you’re Joshua Staten... That’s funny, I knew a young girl with the same surname.” My mom continued to smile, which freaked me out. It’s not as if she never smiled, she usually did, but this type of smile was one of those she used to pull the bag over her victim’s eyes. “Do you by any chance know Serena Staten?”

Oh, that was hilarious! My mom already knew the Supreme’s name. She was fishing for an angle she could use to her advantage.

“That’s my mother,” Joshua replied with a gullible grin.

Oh no! I shook my head and rubbed the bridge of my nose. There she goes. Her eyes caught mine, expecting me to play along with her plan.

Since I saved Joshua from the Hunters, my mom hoped that I could help her gain an audience with the Supreme. We originally came into town to make an appointment to see the head of the coven. However, now it seemed my mom wanted me to wrangle loose an actual meeting.

“Um, Joshua?” I said. “Is there any way that we can talk to your mother by any chance? I know that we don’t have an--”

Joshua’s face lit up. “Sure! Wait here!” He scampered off and disappeared behind a curtain to their right.

My mom walked up to me and rubbed the back of my sister’s back. “Thanks, honey.” She winked, walking off to the nearest counter to peruse their inventory.

“Ugh! Why does Mom have me wrapped around her finger?”

“Because she is our mother,” Fenrus said, yawning.

“Oh, come on! Not you too. Why am I the only one that can’t be asleep right now?”

Fenrus snickered, cutting the mind-link. Ass!