Mated To An Enemy

Powerful beings born of the ley lines and expected to maintain a balance within the world’s natural order, the Fae were tasked with protecting the sentient beings that had evolved from the dirt and muck.

But as is the case for all sentient creatures who recognize their power, they grew tired of their task. Boredom and ambition took root inside them and darkened their hearts to the call of the ley lines.

Division among the timeless beings grew broader and more violent. Battles raged all across the world. After more than a century of fighting, all they had succeeded in doing was nearly driving their numbers into extinction.

At this point, those who sought dominion over the world and all her inhabitants were backed into a corner.

Two Queens were all that remained of the leadership of the Fae. One who sought to rule over everything and one that sought to stop her.

Queen Luna was an ancient being, a fae of light and balance. She had survived when all the others died. And she, alongside her chosen warriors, her very own children, drove the Dark Queen high into the mountains.

She ended her life and seemingly ended the war.

Those who continued to carry out the will of the Dark Queen were sealed inside her tomb and forgotten.

There were holdouts across the lands. But the war was almost over, the end was in sight, and balance would soon be restored.

At least, Queen Luna believed it would be so.

But she had no idea of the depths the Dark Queen had been willing to go to, the evil she was willing to touch in order to achieve her goal.

In the final battle between the two Queens, when Luna believed she had overpowered the Dark Queen, she had no idea that the woman she fought had her focus on someone else entirely. As Queen Luna ran her through with the sword, the Dark Queen smiled, and Luna thought nothing of it until it was far too late.

Her two children, fully grown, were two of her best warriors. They trained together. They worked together. Everything they accomplished was together.

Unsurprising, given the fact that they were twins.

Something else that they shared was an affinity for the dead.

There were some fae known to have heard the last thoughts of a dying friend or loved one, but the twins were different. They heard memories and voices of the recently departed. They felt the turmoil of those confused by their death.

It was a strange and unique gift, but something they shared.

But his ability was more potent than hers in a way that no one could have known or predicted. He felt them, heard them, saw them, and they saw him.

No one in that mountain cave realized until much later that she had looked into his eyes and held his gaze as her life ended.

“Wait!” Ashleigh shouted, interrupting the story.

Lian furrowed her brows.

“Did you have a question?” she asked.

“Twins? A boy and girl, with the ability to hear the dead….” Ashleigh asked quickly. She licked her lips. “Are you talking about Lily and her brother?”

“You… know about her brother?” Lian asked with genuine surprise.

“Yes, I mean, I know she was a twin, and they had the same sort of ability. I don’t know anything else about him.”

Lian nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “The children of Queen Luna were Lily and her twin brother, Loki.”

Ashleigh felt her heart sink into her stomach and her veins ran cold with ice.

“L…Loki?” she whispered.

Lian nodded.

In the weeks that followed the death of the Dark Queen, as the rebellion was slowly squashed, A new evil was spreading below the surface.

She had pushed part of herself into his mind as she died, a part of her that slowly corrupted him. Loki withdrew from his mother and sister. He went out on his own and disappeared.

The next time they saw him, a new war had begun, one that targeted the humans rather than the remaining fae. Slowly the remaining members of Queen Luna’s court began to turn on her, to voice their opinions that the humans were beneath their concern.

They left, joining Loki in his plan to take the world for the fae.

After a long struggle, Queen Luna realized that there were too few of her people left, and Loki’s people were too willing to use humans as shields and weapons. She understood that she needed a weapon of her own. One that could fight the fae but that would defend the humans as their own.

Thus, the concept of the werewolf was born.

But the power needed to create an entirely new species, to evolve the humans that volunteered in an unnatural direction, she didn’t have enough.

“That’s where we came in,” Talis smiled, sitting beside Ashleigh. “The four of us and our alphas. There were others, about five more. We were the last of her people, the last fae that didn’t want the destruction of the world.”

“The others didn’t survive the transformation,” Solana interjected, leaning back against a wall a few feet away. “None of us were supposed to. The energy, the power that was needed, should have wiped us all out and transformed only the humans. But Queen Luna did something stupid.”

“Solana…” Lian said quietly.

“It was stupid,” Solana growled and turned away.

“What did she do?” Ashleigh asked.

“She gave up a large portion of her own life force and power instead of drawing on all that we had,” Lily replied quietly from the doorway. “It almost killed her then and there. Eventually, the power drain… caught up to her.”

Ashleigh swallowed as she saw the heartbreak in Lily’s eyes.

“She wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t volunteered,” Solana replied with another growl.

“I had to!” Lily growled back.

“No, you didn’t, just like you didn’t have to stay behind,” Solana said, turning away.

“Between losing my brother and my mother, I couldn’t just stand back and watch everything fall apart!” Lily shouted. “I had to be a part of the solution! I had to make sure it ended then and there!”

Solana clenched her jaw and looked back at Lily.

“But it didn’t,” she said quietly. “Where were you when your mother was dying? Where were you when your brother was finally stopped?”

Lily lowered her gaze and clenched her jaw.

Solana took several steps, closing the distance between them. She lifted Lily’s chin to look up at her.

“You were dead, Lily. By your brother’s hands, the one you swore would never hurt you,” Solana whispered angrily. “You weren’t a part of the solution, Lily. Your death killed Queen Luna and didn’t even phase Loki.”