Awakening (29 page)

“Turn the damn television off,” Auberon growled, the noise of Blight destruction fueling his anger, his lust.

Grabbing the remote, Celeste turned it to the screen, pressing the off switch. As the picture faded, the living, breathing Beck stepped through the screen, looking resplendent in black leather pants and a black, long sleeve t-shirt. Her auburn hair was pulled back in a braid, her green eyes flashing with interest and amusement.

Falling backwards and landing with a soft thud on
the hard floor, Celeste watched in astonishment as a man follow Beck out of the screen, also dressed in leather and black. He was similar but not identical in appearance to Adam but with… blue eyes. He had to be the third brother Auberon mentioned, the fraternal triplet. The rebellious one. Cocking her head to the side, she contemplated this strange event; it wasn’t every day an action heroine stepped out of fantasy and into the real world.

“Auberon,
Adam,” Beck spoke, her voice smooth and extraordinarily beautiful. “It’s been a while.”

“Daddy,” a little girl’s voice murmured from behind the strange man. He turned around and scooped
the precocious child up into his arms, smiling at her with absolute devotion. Her head was covered in dark curls and she wore the frilly pink and lace dress of a princess but her bearing was that of something far grander. She was all of maybe three years old and Celeste could feel the power thrashing within and around the small child.

“What is it, Poppet?”
the blue-eyes man asked, his voice warm, loving. Celeste watched Beck stare adoringly at the man who held the child, love and deeper emotion evident in her green eyes.

“The Guardian needs help; she is in pain,” she said
in her small voice; her little, child's body belying her age, her power. “I wish to be of service.”

The man set the child down and she toddled over to Kim, resting a hand on the woman’s forehead and closing her eyes. As she chanted softly, Kim’s body relaxed into the cushions, her face returning to stillness. The Vespari twins stepped away from the couch, turning to face the newcomers. Auberon’s lips quirked upwards in a grin as he took in the sight of the trio; they came.
Shaw looked at him and nodded his head in recognition of his request, a slight smile playing at his lips.

“
Shaw,” Adam murmured, disbelief and joy mingling in his black eyes as he stared at the brother once lost to him. After the Blight incident, he wasn’t sure if he would ever get the chance to get to know his brother once more, as equals and out from under the Queen. There were too many regrets for a short visit; but now everything had changed and there wasn’t time for more. Years of watching him at the Agency, pretending to be strangers to keep Shaw hidden and now…. Emotion clogged his throat; his brother was returned to them.

“
Adamanteros,” Shaw smiled, stepping forward and clasping Adam’s forearm and Adam clasped his in greeting. They stepped forward and embraced fully. “It’s been a long time.”

“Where have the three of you been?”
Adam asked, looking over his shoulder at the small child Goddess, at Beck as she stroked her daughter’s hair. “After you disappeared….”

“We had no choice,”
Shaw smiled leading the conversation for the trio. There was no accusation in his voice as he continued, “The two of you sort of left us floundering, bro, and we had to disappear completely. It was all I could do to get Beck to agree to this meeting, and that’s only because I promised her she could beat the shit out of one of you.”

Guilt warred within
Adam as he remembered what had to be done nearly four years prior. He glanced down at Beck as she looked up and grinned back at him, amusement and mirth in her wide smile as she teased, “You said both of them.”

“Can she do that?” Celeste asked from her position on the
floor, watching the exchange with an amused, horrified expression. After years of seeing Beck on Blight Fighters, she was surprised to find the girl so young and so slight, not the muscle-bound giant of a warrior.

Celeste go
t the impression that Beck was a sleek but deadly predator patiently lying in wait, unconcerned about any threat that entered her lair, knowing that there was no threat she could not handle. She would strike and it would be deadly. But she wouldn’t strike until she wanted to; no matter what anyone else wanted. Beck was definitely powerful but she allowed Shaw to protect her and the child. Strange.

Beck’s head shot around, nailing Celeste with her gaze, “Who the hell are you?”

“Um, Celeste Hamilton,” she answered, holding the warrior’s stare, seeing the power whirling about her. Clumsily, she stood up and offered her hand to the infamous warrior. “It’s an honor to meet….”

“Oh, cut the crap,”
Beck grumbled, flushing slightly, obviously uncomfortable with her status as a super hero, dead or otherwise. Rising to a standing position, she nodded towards Celeste but kept her eyes on Auberon. “Is she why you’ve requested our presence?”

“Yes,” Auberon said, causing
Adam to turn to him, wondering what the hell he wanted to accomplish by involving the Blight Fighter and their brother. Auberon stepped forward, avoiding any accusatory glares from the peanut gallery; someone had to do something, after all. “She’s to give birth the new Queen.”

“No,” the child
interrupted, her voice clear and exact. “Aunt
Celeste
is the new Queen; the child is just… a redundancy.”

Celeste felt the color drain from her face as she stared at the little girl with no small amount of fear and awe
, and a measure of relief. Her child would be safe. But if she were the new Queen and her child was not, where were her powers? How was she ever going to go up against the very old, very, very powerful Queen if she didn’t have any power?

“That actually makes sense,” A
uberon murmured and Adam slowly nodded his head in agreement even as his brow furrowed in bemusement. Celeste understood his confusion; he still thought she was a mere human. How could she possibly take on the Queen and survive, let alone win? But how did Auberon accept it so easily?

Shaw
’s lips curved upwards in a smile, his eyes sparkling with laughter. “It’s about time someone brought that bitch to her knees. Well done, Auberon.”

“It wasn’t me,”
Auberon admitted softly, casting a glance at his brother and the girl. Nodding his head towards Celeste, he continued, “She arranged it before she arrived; her call went out into the wild and Adam answered it.”

Celeste felt like she had taken a hallucinogenic because whatever it was that Auberon just said made no sense. She looked up at
Adam, “What’s he talking about?”

“There was more to the prophecy,” Auberon continued, ignoring Celeste’s questions, not looking at
Adam either. Turning to Beck, he explained, “She was born a few years after you and recently she has awakened. We thought it was the child but it wasn’t, was it? It’s her, it's always been her but Adam and I didn't want to believe a human could be our Queen. But she's not human."

“Huh?” Beck stared at him as if he were speaking gibberish
; Celeste felt the same way. Shaw put his hands on Beck's shoulders, pulling her back into him. “Wilson? Do you understand what this bastard is talking about?”

He chuckled softly against her hair, “Celeste has
a huge destiny and it’s almost as big as yours, my love.”

“Oh,”
Beck nodded, letting the words sink in a bit before she turned to the girl, pity in her green eyes. “I am so sorry; it sucks having a destiny bigger than yourself. It’s hard to adjust, to accept.”

“Uh huh,” Celeste nodded her head, quickly agreeing with that assessment, still pondering Auberon’s words; a call out into the wild. Her eyes rested on Kim as her friend rested peacefully. What did the little girl mean by Guardian? What was Kim? She was starting to get a headache from all of this destiny crap; and at the moment she just wanted to pass on the whole blasted thing.
Her only comfort was the fact that she was going to be facing whatever shit storm was coming instead of the innocent child within her.

Her world was crashing down around her and she simply didn't have the time to take a moment to simply catch her breath. She had no powers and yet she was selected to be the Queen of an alien race; she was
going to die the moment she set foot in the Queen's chambers and no one around her fucking cared. The air was too thick to breath and her heart was pumping too fast in her head and she needed the ability to hit the rewind button so she could enjoy her time when she was just a normal girl with her greatest concern being a midterm that counted for thirty percent of her damn grade.

Oh, God; she wasn’t human; isn't that what Auberon said? Madly, she glanced around the room, wondering how everyone could act so normal when her life was breaking into a million little pieces and floating away. She couldn't even gather the pieces up because they were so fragmented and why the hell was Adam talking to the blue-eyed man when he should be by her side trying to
help her contain her shattered world before it disappeared completely?

The little girl toddled over to where she sat, looking up at her with the most extraordinary amethyst eyes.
A sense of calmness washed over Celeste and her pulse slowed to an almost normal rate as the child's eyes bore into her soul. “Do you wish to know what will happen should you fail?”

“Uh, no,” Celeste said, a slight frown pulling at her forehead
, her heart kicking hard against her ribs a few times before settling back into a bearable rhythm. "I’d rather not think about that at all.”

“It will be quite bloody,” she continued cheerily, oblivious to the
fear gnawing away on Celeste’s being. Her speech was too clear, too perfect, for a child and Celeste knew that the child housed an ancient, powerful soul. “It will rain blood, it will quite literally rain blood, as Adam and Auberon are devoured by the Queen. What she will do to you is far, far worse and it is not pretty….”

“I really don’t want to hear this,” Celeste interrupted the girl’s recitation of failure. Perhaps she
would pass on challenging the Queen if it meant Adam would come to harm and they could all live. Looking at the little Goddess, she forced a smile that she didn’t feel and lied with little conviction, “I won’t fail.”

“Oh,” the girl said thoughtfully. After a moment, her little rosebud mouth widened into a grin, “Then do you wish to know what will happen should you succeed?”

“Uh, no,” Celeste replied again, staring into the amethyst eyes, seeing depths of sorrow, of wisdom, of power, that should not exist in any human, let alone such a small child. Those amethyst eyes held her gaze and she felt herself falling into the vast oceans of the child's soul. Peace weaved through the fear and doubts and for a moment Celeste felt hopeful. Softly, purposefully distracted by the child, Celeste whispered, “You have such beautiful eyes.”

“Yes,” she agreed, climbing onto the chair and settling herself in Celeste’s lap. Taking Celeste’s bigger hand in her two small hands, she traced the lines on the palm. “They are just like my father’s.”

Celeste frowned; she could have sworn Shaw’s eyes were blue. Confused, she looked up and saw blue eyes laughing at her. “You’re not…..”

“No,” he shook his head. “I am not her biological father.”

“But he is my daddy,” the little Goddess said, gifting Shaw with her brilliant three-year-old smile before returning her attention back to Celeste’s hand. Her little finger moved across the life line and heart line, giving Celeste strength to deal with the next few months, the joy and the grief, so she wouldn’t fail from lack of spirit. She might fail because the Fates have decided that she wasn’t worthy but not because she lacked spirit. Hopefully the Fates would find her worthy; she liked this new Queen.

“You’re a very lucky little girl,” Celeste murmured, brushing a strand of dark, silken hair from her brow as little fingers tickled the palm of her other hand. “It is very apparent that your daddy loves you.”

“Your father was not so kind.”

“He was distracted,” she said with a shrug, her fingers still stroking the child’s soft curls. “
Because my mother died just after I was born.”

“No,” the little girl stated firmly. “She did not die, not exactly.”

Adam scowled, tilting his head to the side as Auberon raked his hands through his hair. Uneasily, Auberon spoke again, “Um, perhaps I can explain.”

“If it will
prove illuminating,” Adam said, his jaw tightening.

“I heard the cry
all of those ago,” Auberon hesitantly admitted, alternately glancing at Adam and looking away, wanting and not wanting to see his reaction. As a muscle began to tick in Adam’s jaw, he continued, “It wasn’t the mother that called you; it was the child.” His gaze drifted to where Celeste sat, the child still on her lap. “But there was no way for you to know about the baby until it was too late; it’s what the child wanted.”

The words were quickly worming their way into
Adam’s memories, of a woman whose body was riddled with sickness and death; a child that was coming, “Gloria.”

Auberon laughed ruefully, “Yes; Gloria.”

“That’s my mom’s name,” Celeste whispered, absently absorbing the information that her mother was still alive. Rather, she was not alive, but
Calix
.