Indignation (24 page)

“It’s for your own protection!” He yells.

Alyssa’s silent tears fall down her face. “Maybe I don’t want protection!” She yells back. “Have you thought about that? Maybe I want you to answer my questions and be here with me instead of me thinking that somehow you left again.” She snaps at him.

“I’m not going to leave again.” He moves around the counter to stand in front of her.

“How do I know that?” She wipes her tears off her face.

“This isn’t about your jealousy for Caillech or about me leaving again.” He states more than questions her.

She shakes her head. “No.” She confesses.

“Then what is it?”

She looks away from him. “When Dias told you do a blood oath for my protection you said no. I thought that maybe you really didn’t want to do it because you wanted to actually kill me at some point. I thought that the night of the pool party was just you lying to me. That’s why I told you to leave after Dias left. I doubted everything you told me that night.”

Julian pulls her into his arms. “I did the blood oath. That should tell you something.”

“You did for the exchange of Caillech. I don’t know what to think about that.”

He pulls away from her and lifts her chin so her bright purple eyes can connect to his. “Nothing is going on between me and Caledonia.” He assures hers.

“Then why didn’t you just say that before?”

“I thought I didn’t have to.”

She rolls her eyes. “I can’t read you Julian.” She laughs. “Oh, and Brandon and Jim know that we are together again.”

“I don’t want them here.”

She presses her lips to his before she pulls away from him completely. “You have nothing to worry about.”

Caillech paces back and forth with her thoughts yelling at her. She has a hard time believing that Julian would set a coronation in silence. The kingdom has always considered Annalisa, and treated her, as their queen, but it was ever made official. This is getting too much for her. The destroyer goddess of the underworld wanted nothing more than to have Julian for her only. He might think that she doesn’t love him, but her immortal heart tells her otherwise.

What is the exact reason that he saved her from Hades when he doesn’t want her in that way? How will she have a relationship with Julian and expect for a coronation that has already happened centuries ago? It doesn’t make sense that the fallen king would keep that hidden for so long. Or was he? She shakes her head at nothing in particular. No. She knows Julian well enough to know that he would have trusted his kingdom. A thought enters her mind. Julian didn’t hide it from his kingdom, they all knew. She has a feeling that he ordered for no one to reveal it. If the coronation was held in secret then there would have been no one to stop it, including her.

Her eyes widen at the long mirror. Her beauty has always been unbelievable, but not even her beauty will help her here. She has lost the crown. Her position as the head of the mansion will never be other than that. She will never be the queen beside Julian’s throne. The position belongs to Annalisa. Somehow she feels betrayed by her own illusions of her future. 

Evans enters the library. “King Julian has ordered for all to meet him at the dining room.” He informs her.

She frowns in confusion. “What time is it?”

“It is four in the morning. The king has just returned.”

“This must be important then.” She comments before following the butler to the dining room.

Every chair in the room is filled with a Loyal. She takes her seat beside Julian, not caring if the seat belongs to Annalisa. Hans sits in front of her. Julian enters the room with power radiating off of him. She doesn’t know what he is doing, but beside him is Dias’s Adviser Elim. The red hair woman holds her head high. Her shorts show off her perfect legs that many women would envy, except her of course. Caillech has the perfect body, while the woman just has a tan and spotless complexion. Her bright silver eyes seem familiar.

Julian takes his seat while the Elim stands behind him. “I want to present you to Yenta, for as long as I order so, she will now be running any protection involving your queen.”

Caillech’s eyes widen in surprise that Yenta is alive. Then it hits what Julian has said.  “That would mean that she-”

“Yenta will now be Annalisa’s Confidant. If something is to happen to her, Yenta will become your queen.”

Finding the Search

Miranda stares off into nothing. Alyssa needs direction and she has to give it to her. Miranda doesn’t know exactly what will happen now that Julian forgives Alyssa. Ever since she saw Julian shut himself down when he realized who Alyssa was, she set herself up to protect her and look over her as her Elim even if she wasn’t hers. She owed it to the truth. It was heart breaking to see how Julian’s hatred turns him into a killer to his own love. She couldn’t help him when he fell off his power. She had always admired Julian’s will to love even when he had a dark throne. She saw him revive. The God punished him and gave him immortality by giving him black wings, wings that Julian never wanted. Fate has been so twisted that she even questions what will truly happen if when he find out the truth.

Miranda wishes to tell him the truth. She wants to tell him that Annalisa did kill him, that Alyssa took part, but that those two don’t connect. She has proof, but there’s a flaw. She needs to find the descendent of Selene who put the curse on them. She knows now with strong evidence that Selene never cursed Alyssa, she cursed only Annalisa. The only problem with that is that the only descent known to be alive is Alyssa and she’s not a witch. Her future godship rules her veins more than the blood of Selene. She needs to find the real truth behind all these mysteries. She needs her proof to be a valid one, before she talks to Alyssa or confesses her findings to Julian.

“Miranda?” Gabriel appears behind her. He lightly wraps his arms around her waist. She groans with great annoyance.

“Get your hands off of me, Gabriel.” He lets out a frustrated breath and moves to the seat in front of her. They are sitting in the restaurant called Winston, an expensive restaurant just outside of town. Miranda has called him because she needs some questions to be answered and he would be the only person to know. Just because she asked him to come doesn’t mean she forgives him for trying to trap Julian with the Lost Souls. She doesn’t think she can forgive a man with his mindset.

Immortals tend to go back to their old English whenever they are angered. “Why did you summon me, Miranda?” He says looking at her. His dark hair is as messy as usual. His eyes are as blue as the night sky. He has on a white tight shirt in black pants. Her lust for him has never faded. It kills her to know that she can’t love the way others do. He has made it nearly impossible for her to believe blindly in him. She rejects him over and over again because he never chooses correctly. He would never give up his wings for her if he had a choice. The God has one twisted sense of humor for having a man who would chose him over his love for her. A sudden realization comes to her. As much as she wants to hate him for everything that had happened all those centuries ago, she can’t. But then, she’s not one to give up. She will continue to try to hate him at least. He deserves that.

“I need answers, and I’m hungry so…” Just in time a human waiter comes into view and asks her what she would want. She smiles politely at his admiring gaze over her body. It’s typical for mortal males to admire her beauty. It comes with immortality to look like perfection. “I would like a glass of your finest wine, Oh, and I haven’t had the caviar in a while.” He smiles seductively at her and she winks, learning from the teenagers she’s observed at Alyssa’s pool party. “I’d like my dink now.” She says to snap him out of his daydream about her. She puts a finger up before he leaves. “Umm… my friend here would like something.” She turns to Gabriel who looks like he was going to snap in jealousy at any minute.

“I’ll have the same, but instead of wine I want the strongest shot you have.” He enforces a smile at the waiter, wanting to kill him. It plainly shows in the Authority Elim’s eyes.

The waiter seems to notice and he has fear written in his eyes. “N-No problem, Sir. I’ll be r-right back.” He leaves in a rush.

Gabriel smirks at the coward mortal and Miranda just rolls her eyes. “What?” He asks with the smirk never leaving his lips.

She rolled her eyes again. “You didn’t have to scare the kid.”

“I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.” He says with a frown appearing on his face.

“It’s not his fault a hot blonde walked into a restaurant. Gosh, you act like I was interested in him.” Her modern English is getting better and better each day.

Gabriel raises his eyebrow in question. “Were you? You always had a soft spot for these mortals.”

Miranda smiled. “Is it your business if I decide to take a mortal to my chamber?” Her old English is coming out. All her hard work means nothing when her anger appears.

He leans closely over the table to have less space between them. “I make it my business. No one will be in your chamber other than me.”

She grins with a glint in her clear blue eyes that look like the sun compared to his blue ones. “You say that as if I would allow it.”

He leans back to his chair with a smirk playing on his lips once again. “You have before.” He states proudly.

“That was a time of my lapse in judgment. I was young.”

“That was only one hundred fifty three years ago, and you where over three hundred of age at the time.”

“Yes, but I was stupid and naïve. I shall not make a mistake of such sort again.” She wonders how frustrated he is that she has not given herself to him for so long.

He lets out a sarcastic chuckle. “You will accept what you feel about us. When you do I will be here.”

It is her turn to laugh. “Gabriel I will not be interested in you anytime soon. Stop the wait. Oh, I almost forgot. You don’t wait. Since we slept together about a hundred years ago, who else have you been with, in other words, who have you slept with? No man waits for so long.”

The question takes him by surprise. He hesitates to answer.

“Too many to count, huh?” Her old English fades as the waiter returns to give them their drinks. She needs to learn to stop talking like that in public, but it comes out like her first language. She turns to the waiter with a smile before he leaves again. She turns her attention back at Gabriel to find him taking the shot before him like water, and waving for another one. She frowns. “Don’t drink too much.” Elims are resistible to liquor, but if they wanted to get drunk they would. That’s exactly what he wants. Her question must have affected him, but she doesn’t care. He’s always the one who destroys what they have. If he doesn’t care about her enough to choose her for once, then why should she?

He gives her his famous glare. “I see that’s not any of your business.” He snaps at her.

“It is because I need you sober to answer some questions. Plus what will Dias think when you’re drunk when you’re supposed to be taking care of his daughter?”

“He won’t care. Julian is her Elim. It’s his problem now.”

“But your duty is to make sure that the Elim Guards have her protected at all times.” He doesn’t care. He takes another shot. She lets out a frustrated breath. She hardly thinks that Dias wouldn’t care. “I need to know why Alyssa looks similar to Annalisa.” She blurts out before she can stop herself. She mentally slaps herself for making her question so forthright.

That gets Gabriel’s attention. He slams the shot on the table and looks at her with curiosity. “Because she is Annalisa.” He says slowly.

“No.” She shakes her head in rejection to his statement. “She looks dead similar to Annalisa, but they aren’t identical. The curse put upon them said that Annalisa would be reborn again with her same identity.”

He sighs in relief. “It must be a simple mistake. We don’t have the transcript of the curse. It was lost during Julian’s fall.”

“There’s a transcript?” Her eyes widen in her new discovery.

Their food arrives and they continue talking when the waiter leaves without a single word. Gabriel must really have scared him. “Annalisa was created between a witch and the God. That was something he didn’t take lightly.” He explains to her.

“That’s the contract initially, but what about the curse?”

“I’m getting there.” He takes another shot. “Selene was of descendant of Aradia.”

She gasped in shock from the revelation. “The Goddess of witchery and witches.” She states in memory.

He nods his head in confirmation. “Yes. She is same goddess.”

“But that means that Selene created Annalisa with blood of a goddess running in her veins.” She’s confused on the meaning of that.

“Precisely why there was a contract, but the transcript was never to be seen. It’s a great mystery. There’s something in there that Selene didn’t want anyone to see.” He explains.

“Has it been proven that Selene doesn’t have any descendants? Or have anyone alive that knows her secrets? Surely someone knows. If she had to hide it, it must be very important, henceforth, they would keep it not destroy it. It has to be in someone’s hands.”

“I was sent to look for the transcript after Julian’s fall when the God suspected a hidden secret to be found on the transcript.”

“Was it the time that you left for five years without contacting me?”

“Yes.”

“Did you find anything?”

He nods his head. “Yes, I found the body of the last descendant of Selene. She was well dead before I got to her.”

“Someone killed the last descent other than Annalisa and Alyssa? So you’re telling me that there is absolutely no way to get the transcript now?”

“I’m telling you they kept it to their descendants. Their bloodline was their trust. The last one was killed almost instantly. No one else would know anything and for you to search for it…it will be impossible to locate it.”

“If the last descendant was killed then that is a motive to be killed for. Someone has the lost transcript that Selene left. Someone knows all of Selene’s secrets.”