The red demon looked where Elijah was and made a short throaty sound. Elijah spoke after.
"He says he will change back to himself again... Alpha's note was meant for King." Elizabeth sighed and turned to step out again, but she just stood on the threshold this time, turning away from us. My brother was switching back to himself again — instead of fear, all I had for my idol was admiration…it was extremely pathetic of me.
"How come Elijah can understand you when you bark?"
"Bark, thanks man." Elijah muttered under his breath bitterly.
"I spoke to him through the mind link," Liam said as he was pulling his pants up.
"Alpha! King is right here!" Elijah complained.
"Leave it to the Johnsons to enlighten the Kings," Elizabeth said sarcastically from where she stood.
Elijah turned on his heels and left the house right after, passing her by without a word.
"Did you have to embarrass him like that?" Liam asked after putting on his pants.
Elizabeth turned back and faced us. The wind that blew through the door carried her hair forward and carried the jasmine scent right over to me. "Everyone should know where they stand in the tabooed world,"
This time her perfect brow was arched my brother's way. He pressed down on his eyeballs again.
"Why didn't you speak to me through the mind link..." I was the one who needed answers right now.
"…Because I can't." His hand fell, almost as if it would've fallen out completely if it wasn't attached to his shoulder.
"Right, I'm not in the 'pack', so where do I sign up for membership?"
"You don't, you're only born with it." He sounded desperate.
"I get it, we hit the genetic lottery, so is it paternal or maternal or both ways around?" My brain was on the verge of frying, and it was easier to process if I didn't ask him seriously.
"It was dad, and…let's sit down on the couch for the rest,"
He was prolonging my misery again. But before I took a deep breath and argued with Liam, her soft interruption came through.
"The color must have something to do with Emma though, I've never heard of a red one before." Her doe eyes were innocent and serious at the same time as she spoke to my brother, and I wondered what my mother had to do with all this craziness, my brother sighed, exasperated. Then looked back at me, ignoring her. He pointed at the couch in the living room with his head, so I went there. I would have gone anywhere as long as it got him to tell me everything.
While I sat down where he told me to, I gave him the stop with the bullshit look. I half guessed he was going to take the chair across from the white couch but instead, he sat next to me.
This was going to be bad.
"Our dad comes from a long line of Alphas, while many werewolves either secluded themselves from the normal or abandoned the animal inside of them to fit in, our ancestors took the surname 'Turner' proudly, and were able to be leaders in both the normal community and the tabooed one... just like he is doing right now."
I squeezed my hands that were together in my lap, my heart felt the heaviness of missing my best friend. Then something suddenly came over me.
He was using the present tense to talk about our father. I felt all the blood draining from my face when I looked at him and saw his eyes expectant as if giving me a moment to realize what he was trying to communicate to me.
Something changed in his eyes and then he placed a hand on my knee.
"He went after her." He confirmed what I had hoped to hear but didn't dare to say.
Impossible.
Their bodies were burnt in the car accident.
"Shut up, Liam." My voice was only a whisper, he was lying again.
"Our mother, she went missing all of a sudden and dad had to leave everything and go search for h-"
"You saw me bury them without bodies, Liam! We buried empty coffins in that ground!"
I didn't know I had this voice inside of me as I shouted and spat in his face. I immediately regretted it, whatever it was, the girl that stood cold in the face of the red demon looked frightened by me. I cleared my throat and got up immediately feeling dizzy again. My right hand went to my forehead while my left got supported, I removed my right hand from over my eyes and looked down to see her, she wore a concerned expression while she held me.
My heart went flying as if I was running on the football field, and that was not the time for it.
I took my left hand back from hers, and her expression turned cold immediately. I ignored how I hated both, letting her go and letting her down, I glared back at my brother.
"Our parents…" I took a deep breath trying to calm my heart down. And hoping he would finally confess everything to me.
"Our mother has been abducted Theo, the thing that took her is not human, father, he turned his back on humanity too…he…he only left me a note…can you imagine what it was like to, what it's like to…"
"Shut up…just shut up."
A series of curses and profanities left my mouth after that, only stopping when the girl standing next to me took a step back.
"What are we still doing here! Why aren't we wolves chasing after whoever took our mother away!" I was fuming inside, I wanted to hit somebody.
"Theo, come sit back again little bro…"
He was not done yet. I looked at him horrified.
"There's more still?" I would've begged him to deny it if it wasn't for the fact that Elizabeth was here.
He pushed down hard on his eyeballs until his hand started shaking, his struggle was evident, he removed his fingers away from his forehead, and in what can only be a moment of weakness, I saw his teary green eyes looking as if they were pleading with Elizabeth.
"Your brother and you share the same mother, but Turner is not your real father," Elizabeth declared as flat as if she was talking about her hobbies, she saw something on my face that made her make an addition, "I'm sorry, Theodor." She said, finishing me.
"No." I shook my head over and over again.
"No." If I kept denying it Liam will tell me the girl was lying.
"Brother!" Liam ran and hugged me, his chest convulsed as he cried silently. I could not get my arms up to hold him back. And then his behavior finally made sense to me.
"You never cried, back then... in their funeral."
Liam sniffed but did not comment.
"I kept thinking you were crying somewhere far away from me." His fingers dug into my shoulder blade.
"This doesn't change a thing, you are my flesh and my blood, brother...please..." He was not being fair at the moment with the whole crying thing, soothing himself — having been a part of the grand charade.
"I know it's hard, I know... I know it's too much, but we will get through this together." He kept squeezing hard on me, I didn't find the strength to push him off even though I wanted to. I was trying to calm down and think clearly.
Now that I had no idea what or who I am, there was one thing I needed to learn immediately, the rest was less important.
"Who took mom, Li." He stopped shaking and took two deep breaths, but he did not let go of me.
"Whether I was a human or a wolf, I'm going to kill the bastard that took mom with my own hands," I promised.
"You're not a werewolf, Theo, but you're definitely not human either. " It was Elizabeth again, on a mission to shock me into an early heart attack.
'What am I?' I asked her silently, half thinking she could never answer me this time.
"You're the only one beside the Kings and my mother to be able to go through my mental defensive and be telepathic with me. You've done so effortlessly, not even practicing it, no one knows what you are capable of once you really mean it." She was back to pulling numbers on me. Answering my unspoken question again.
"You're a pureblood... like our..." Liam's voice cracked in the middle and at the end and he coughed twice.
As far as I could tell, knowing the truth didn't help my brother accept things.
"You're a pureblood Theodor, just like Emma, and just like me." Elizabeth smiled, her eyes were the coldest I've seen yet.
I wasn't able to process what I had heard about dad and Liam still, they were breaking so many things to me at the same time, and the more I heard the more questions I wanted to ask.
"A pureblood, like a horse..." I blurted out the first thing that came to my exhausted brain.
"A pureblood, like a vampire," Elizabeth said coldly, looking every bit like the creature she claimed to be, and the creature she claimed I was.