Star

Howard seemed to be done with my hair and so he was now standing directly in front of my face as he applied little bits of makeup. He was still talking though, and his words were making my skin crawl.

"Yes, it was quite the coincidence that I met your mother in Colorado Springs. I was sniffing around there, checking for updates on an experiment my father had left there. But could you imagine my surprise when I found out that there was another, even more special child there? You know, most wolves are too proud to mate with anything outside their species. Humans and wolves happen from time to time, but they almost always refuse to breed with someone who is not a wolf. Or, should I say that the rest of the pack members refuse to accept the matings." Uncle Howard was laughing at that for some reason. I didn't know why he was telling me all of this. I didn't know what it had to do with me.

"You know, Astraia, a shifter like you actually has no choice but to accept who they have been mated to. It's like a compulsion for them, something that leads them around by the nose and makes them do stupid things. I am so glad that I am not like them at all."

This was making no sense to me at all. Uncle Howard was telling me that he was not a wolf like me, like the rest of our family. If he wasn't a wolf then why was he with us? Why had he spent so much time with us? Why was he running our family if he was not a wolf? I was so confused by what he was saying.

"You and I are rare. A special type of offspring that came from our parents mixing with things that were not like them at all. And because of that uniqueness we have both suffered. It was your mixed heritage that made it so easy to convince your family that you were weak and to lock you up. I am sorry to admit that it was me that suggested it, but I needed to limit your contact with the world so that I could keep you close to me."

Uncle Howard was the one who had caused me to be locked up? It was his idea to throw me in the basement when I was two years old? Why? Why would he do that to me? What did I ever do to deserve this life?

"Your family didn't want to accept your mother back at first. She ran away from them when she was a child. She disappeared in the middle of the night and was gone for twenty years. She was nearly thirty when she came back though, and in that time she had amassed quite the fortune. I don't know what she had done to get that money, but she was loaded."

Uncle Howard reached up then and closed my eyes with his fingers. I felt him then begin applying eyeshadow to my lids now, gently moving the brush across my closed eyes.

"This family was going broke from the poor leadership they had. That former head of the family was an idiot and so easy to manipulate. After I convinced your mother that you were going to be in danger if she stayed in that pack she had fled to, after I sent her back here I simply followed her. I have been planning this day for eighteen years now."

Eighteen years? How could that be? He would have been planning this since the time that I was born.

"You see, I had just arrived in Colorado Springs and was looking into another Hybrid child, and then I met your mother. I saw you and her by chance and I smelled the difference in your scent. Wolves wouldn't catch onto it, no, you smelled enough like a wolf to them. It would take someone else versed in magic to smell the difference in someone like you."

What was it he was saying? What was I if I was not a wolf? But I was a wolf, I know I was. I had shifted into one when I was thirteen. I was a wolf. He was lying to me. He had to be lying to me.

"I knew when I smelled the double heritage on you that I needed to have you for my own experiment. My father was making half breeds for his experiments. The problem there was that he needed to make something even more elaborate. You are a half breed hybrid and so am I. This will make your children quadruple breed hybrids. They will have the wolf and Fae from you."

My mind wanted to explode. He just said I was a wolf and Fae. I don't even know what a Fae was.

"That alone will be special enough, but once we mix in my DNA then you have something truly amazing. My half warlock half demon lineage will make our children truly gifted."

My heart stopped beating at those words. Half Warlock? Half Demon? What was he saying? I knew from Artem and the others that Warlock were real, but demons? They couldn't be real. Could they? I mean, they were listed as mythology in the encyclopedias that I read.

Then again, werewolves were listed as mythology as well. Is it possible that everything that was considered mythological was real? Demons, Angels, Gods and Goddesses, monsters, all of it. Was everything real? I felt like I was having a panic attack on the inside, but still nothing showed on the outside to let anyone know that I was flipping out.

"We will be such a good match, Astraia, you will see. Together we will make a new race of people. And with the army of children you give me over the years I will rule the world. I will take that dream from my father and I will be the one to rise to power. My dreams of power and recognition will come true, with you by my side. Now you know, my sweet, sweet, Astraia, now you know why I had to keep you close. And now you know why I needed to keep you complacent. We were meant to make this new world together. You will see, and with the slave talisman fully in effect, you can never leave me, even if you want to."