Chapter 78
Chapter 78
-Ignatius-
It was my mother who told me the story of how she had found her mate. It was one of those days
where, instead of locking herself away in her study. Misirah had scooped me up and carried me outside
to show me a fallen bird’s nest that she had
found
It was days like that I looked forward to the most, the days when my mother felt like a real mother, like
she cared about me and wanted to include me in her private lonely life. I would watch Angie interacting
with her mother, the pecks on the cheek, and the handwritten notes that were left for her when her
mother had to work late on some days.
I would watch the small acts of affection and, even from a young age. I learned that my mother was not
like most. There was something that my friends around me had that I did not. Although I could never
quite figure out what exactly it was that was
missing.
For the most part, Moirah seemed repelled by me. She would keep her distance. She went about her
motherly duties of washing me, feeding me, making sure that I brushed my teeth. But when I tried to
reach for her, tried to wrap my little arms around her or k*ss her cheek the way I had seen Angie do
with her mother, Mourah would wrench herself away, sometimes pushing the to the floor.
She would stare at me like I was a stranger. Like she couldn’t remember where I came from or why I
was in her house. Sometimes she would look around herself in a daze like she couldn’t recall how she
had gotten there at all.
But on some days, as few and far between as they were, I truly felt like my mother loved me. On days
like that day, when she called me with excitement to come and see what she had found. I would drop
whatever it was I was doing and rush to her side, ecstatic that my mother, my real mother, was back.
On that particular day. Moirah pulled me close to her side and tipped the fallen nest to show me three
small speckled eggs
nestled inside.
I was curious and I peered into the tiny enclosure made of twigs and leaves as Moirah explained where
the eggs had come from. “Do you know what a Cu ckoo bird is?” she had asked me as she stroked my
hair and I shook my head.
“Cu ckoo birds are evil little creatures. They’re aggressive and cruel. They also lay their eggs inside the
nests of other kinds of birds. When the egg hatches, the unsuspecting bird takes care of it as if it were
one of its own.
“Sometimes, when the baby Cu ckoo gets bigger it throws the other bird’s eggs out of the nest
completely. The bird has no choice but to raise the Cu ckoo like its real mother. Because of the way of
nature, the poor bird feels like it doesn’t have a choice but to stay and mother the thing.
She sounded unusually angry at that, but her voice softened when she noticed my distress.
“Can you guess which egg belongs to the C uckoo bird?”
I examined the three eggs in question. They all looked the same to me. All of them had a teal tinge to
their shells and brown speckles spread across them. One of them, however, was slightly bigger than
the others. I pointed it out and Moirah nodded, picking the egg up with the tips of her fingers. “That’s
right. Well done, Ignatius.“
“What are you going to do with it?” I had asked tentatively when she placed the rest at the foot of the
tree it had fallen from and kept the Cu ckoo egg in her palm.
“People are always saying it’s best to not mess with nature,” she said it bitterly and I assumed that she
was thinking of things that only grown-ups knew about. “They say there are consequences to disrupting
the flow
She lifted her hand to her face, examining the egg through the cra cks in her fingers. “But sometimes,
those rules are meant to be broken. And surely such an imposter deserves to be punished?”
I cried out in horror as she crushed the egg in her hand. Yellowy liquid and congealed blood ran down
her arm and she
stared at her denched list. I remembered the look on her face when she had done it. There was anger
there, frightening Tury But there was also relief as if she was finally allowed to breathe again.
After that, she had taken me in her arms, her fingers still dripping with the gruesome fluid, and lulled
me when I began to cry, “It’s alright baby, it was only an egg”
Eventually, my sobbing receded and she had offered to push maron the swing that my father had built
in a nearby tree nutsisle of our house. That cherred me up almost immediately and I rushed to the tire
and rope contraption and waited for Moirah to make me fly.
I remembered the rhythmic thump of her hands on my back that pushed me into the air. I giggled
gleefully as I swung into the air with legs kicking and then fell back down to earth again.
swang, squealing with excitement when the ground seemed so far away beneath me, Moorah began to
speak. And all the while there was that thump of hands on my back, pushing me higher and catching
me again.
“You know, I met your father completely by accident,” she had said quietly and her voice trailed away
like she was looking back into the past. I was too busy enjoying myself to truly listen to what she was
saying but her words held weight all the
“My parents were travelers. Rogues. My mother had always wanted to senle down agam but my father
would have none of it. He had been the Alpha of a small pack until he was kicked out. He never did let
it go, and he refused to join another pack as anything less than an Alpha He dragged my mother and
me along with him on his latile search for conquest.”
At the mention of her father, my interest was piqued. “You said it was his finger in the jar, Was it his
finger?” The thought of a severed finger in a jar enthralled me for some reason.
“No, she had laughed and I thought I must have said something right because my mother never Property © NôvelDrama.Org.
laughed.
“No that wasn’t his. But it should have been. My father went up against your father, Elbot, when we
stumbled on territory one day. Elliot was the Alpha to be and he wasn’t too happy to have lurkers on his
turf. My father, hows tough to back down. Eventually, Ellot put hum in the dirt.”
There was a wistful tone in her voice that I couldn’t understand. My mother had cried but I was ecstatic,
I was final The second Elliot’s eyes caught mine, we were in love and married soon after that. My
mother wouldn’t accept it and disappeared the night Elliot killed my father. I never saw her agum.“
Her voice turned bitter after that. And the thump on my back grew more aggressive, pushed me to new
heights, and winded me with the force of it.
“I did love your father once, or at least I thought I did. Elliot was charming, he promised to protect me. It
was only after he put a child in me that he let his true colors show. And now I’m trapped again, fated to
take care of a monster and his son.”
I swung into the air once more, flying so high I thought I would swing a complete 180 around the tree
branch. When I fell back down again the hands at my back were gone. I swung back and forth, waiting
for the momentum to slow enough for me to climb off without falling while I watched my mother walk
away from me. I never heard her laugh again.
Now, as I watched my parents collide with one another in a flurry of teeth and claws, I thought back to
that day, Moirah had tried her best to love me. But she had never quite managed it. I was always going
to be another bar in her prison cell. Years of pent-up anger and the greatest need to run away had
twisted my mother into something else entirely.
That tire swing didn’t exist anymore. Neither did the house. My father had burned it down the day my
mother left and after that, we built a new house.
Only that house was situated as far away from the previous one as Elliot could manage. Even the field
was gone, abandoned and mattended, it became nothing but a scar of dead earth and soil that
poisoned anything that tried to grow there.
I wanted to intervene in my parent’s battle but my legs refused to move. I no longer knew who I was
supposed to be defending. My father was lighting the woman who had sworn revenge on my people.
My mother was lighting the man who had sworn revenge on hier.
I winced when my mother’s woll yelped as Elliot caught her in his jaws at the scruff of her neck. It was a
horrific battle. It was wrong and terrifying and I could do nothing to stop them. They were determined to
tear each other to pieces.
Unable to get to her feet from where Elliot had pinned her dow, Moirah shifted back to human form in
the blink of an eye
LID ONTS
and slipped away from Elliot before he could snap his jaws down again.
She darted across the clearing and threw open the canvas curtains of the tent. My father shifted too
and bolted after her but not before Moirah, bleeding and breathing heavily, could bring a vial of dark
liquid to her lips.
She gulped down every last drop and, as soon as Elliot was upon her she turned, shattering the glass
against his head and shifting once more, While Elliot stumbled back, wiping blood from his eyes that
poured from a nasty ga sh in his forehead Moirali dropped to the floor like her b*dy had suddenly given
up. Elliot raised his fists and I finally began to move.
“No, don’t
I shifted on the spot and sprinted to my father, stopping his fist midair and wrenching him away from
where my mother lay, seemingly unconscious.
“Leave her alone! I kicked at my father who fell to his knees, growling. “She’s down. You’ve done
enough.”
Eliot spat blood on the floor and looked up at me with angry eyes. “Now you’re defending her? She’s
the reason the Bielke is in trouble.”
Elliot stood up and tried to push past me but I pushed back, glancing over my shoulder at my mother
who didn’t seem to be breathing. What was the stuff in the jar?
Furious, Elliot barrelled towards me again, fur breaking out on his skin as he roared, “Can’t you see
what she’s doing?! That’s how she’s been turning these shifters! She’s going to wake up stronger.
The words had barely passed his lips when something thumped against my back, into my back.
I gasped and sta ggered forwards a few steps. Sudden pain shot through my back, traveled up my
spine, and made my head spin. Elliot’s eyes were wide with shock. I had never before seen my father
truly stunned.
Whatever had buried itself in my back was suddenly removed and I felt hot blood beginning to flow. I
turned slowly, hazily, and faced my mother, Moirah’s face was a blank slate, her eyes were cold and
wide open. Her pupils were pinpricks. She looked taller, stronger. Her clawed right hand was red with
blood. My blood