The BlackBurne Legacy (The Bloodlines Legacy Series Book 1) (15 page)

Stop
thinking about it!

“We carry the gene, yes, but I’ve never shifted.”

“Our…mother?” I ask him.

“She did, yes.”

The mug I’m clutching shatters. The pieces fall to the floor, dark liquid running in rivulets across the white tile. Some of it sloshes down my pants. I ignore it.

“Will Jason and I?”

“Wait!” Jason stands and glares at us in frustration. “What are you two talking about?”

Sabien ignores his nephew and focuses his attention on me. “I don’t know, Alexandria. Jason is already showing signs, but until this moment, I hadn’t seen any in you.”

“Me?”

“That mug you just shattered was hard pewter. A normal person wouldn’t have been able to do it.”

Majorly. Beyond. Freaked.

Crap!

“Somebody is going to tell me what’s going on
now
!” Jason slams his fist down onto the solid oak table. It cracks.

Jason looks down at it, a fascinated horror on his face.

Too much, too much
, my poor, tired mind screams at me.

Shh, Blue. You’re fine.

Micah? When had he come back? I look up expecting to see him.

No, I’m not back.
He sounds tired.
I’m helping Luka.

But I can
hear
you
, I think to myself.

He laughs.

You can hear me, Blue.

No. No. No. No…

Calm down
, he soothes.
You need to pay attention.

“Alexandria?”

“Yes, Uncle?”

“Do you need to take a break for a bit? Lie down?”

“No.” I shake my head, forcing back the insane giggles. “I need to understand.”

“You’re pretty shaken up, honey…”

“No.” The word comes out more sharply than I intend, but hey, I am freaked out in the worst possible way. I’m hearing Micah’s flippin’ voice in my head, for cripe’s sake. What more can happen? “I’m fine.”

“Al, you don’t look so good,” Jason eyes me worriedly. I must look pretty messed up for him to forget his anger so quickly. I’d seriously started to worry about him. He seems to stay angry all the time and could lose his temper at the drop of a hat these days. Coach even had to talk to him about his anger on the football field.

The worry is plain on both of their faces as they watch me. I feel a hundred times worse than I look. My mind has seen and heard way too much, and now I’m asking it to endure more. I bite back a hysterical bout of giggles. I need to focus.

“Just get on with it.”

Thankfully, nobody decides to argue the point.

“Our family is very old. We can trace our ancestors back to the early days before France was even a country. The Blackburne family was unique even then. We had certain…gifts that many coveted. Our ancestors used those gifts to gain power and influence. When the monarchy came to power, a Blackburne was always at the king or queen’s side, whispering in their ear.”

“What sort of gifts?” Jason asks, sitting back down.

“Magical gifts.”

“Magic?” Derision colors his tone.

“Let him finish, Jase.”

“But, Al…”

“No, Jason.” I wrap my arms around myself, trying to still the shivers. I let out another high-pitched giggle. “You didn’t see what I saw.”

Jason’s face shows his concern. I can’t help it. I giggle again, and his frown deepens. He nods slowly, unable to look away from me. What do I look like? Worse than when I’d seen my reflection earlier?

“With each generation, our gifts have become stronger, more varied. In 1642, Gerard Blackburne was riding with Baron Jacques Dutille on the king’s business. Their carriage was attacked by wolves, but these were not ordinary beasts. They were huge, larger than any animal they’d ever encountered before. In defending themselves, Gerard was bitten. He didn’t let the baron see the bite, however. He would have been killed on the spot.”

“Why?” Jason asks curiously, keeping an eye turned on me.

“Because they shifted,” I answer around another giggle.

Extreme shock? Who, me?

“That’s true. The ones they managed to kill shifted back to their human form in death.”

“Werewolves?” Jason asks scornfully.

“Jason…”

“No, Alex, this is beyond ridiculous.”

“Tell that to the ones who attacked me.”

“What?” That got his attention.

“I saw them, Jason.” I shudder at the memory. “I saw them change.”

“You saw someone change?”

“It was awful.”

“I’m so sorry about that,” Sabien mutters. “You and your brother should never have had to go through this.”

I so totally agree with that.

“Once Gerard changed, he knew what he had become,” Sabien continues. “When in human form, he still kept the instincts of the animal, and vice versa. Gerard did not see it for the curse it was. He saw it as a way to gain even more power. It gave him an edge, especially with the ruling powers. He could eliminate the competition without anyone ever suspecting him. Who would think a human had planned an animal attack? The monarchy never knew he was actually the animal.”

“The gene is passed to the children?” I ask shakily.

“Yes, but when passed from parent to child, it works differently. It takes time to mature. It wasn’t instantaneous as with Gerard.”

“You and our…mother,” I spit the word out, “were the last of the Blackburnes. It would have died with you.”

Sabien sighs in frustration. “Through the generations, our family became more and more selective, only bearing one or two children. At least that is what Alesha and I thought. There have been a multitude of children born into our family over the last two centuries, but only those with either the lupine gene or ones showing signs of magical gifts were allowed to live. Our family became so obsessed in their pursuit of ultimate power they took to murdering their own children.”

“That’s sick.” Jason’s horrified.

“I completely agree,” Sabien grinds out. “But it did serve one purpose. They limited themselves. Fewer and fewer were kept alive until there were only a handful left of the once mighty Blackburne family. They caused their own demise.”

Sabien starts to pace.

“Your mother and I discovered the family’s little secret when we were about your ages. There had been three others born to our father before us. He kept a careful record of his success and failures, as did the people before him. We found the family tree that he usually kept under lock and key. You can imagine our horror. We knew our father was a terrible man capable of great evil. He’d done things that were abominable in his pursuit of power, but we never imagined him capable of killing his own flesh and blood. It was too much for either of us. We swore that day to never have children.”

He’s quiet, stopping to stare out the window, lost in his own thoughts for the longest time. Jason and I watch him. He looks so alone.

“We kept that promise for so long,” he whispers. “It was hard. We had to watch our family die one by one. Our grandfather begged and our father threatened. Alesha was afraid of what he might do to make sure she bore a child. It was easier for her to have a child than me, We both knew he was capable of making sure she became pregnant, so I helped her run. She hid from him and from what we are.

“You’ve no idea of how hard it was for us. The need to reproduce is embedded in our blood. How were we to know the need to murder our children was not there as well? We couldn’t risk it. There were times it was a physical torture to resist our very nature, but we endured.”

“What changed?” Jason asks him.

“Alesha met John.” Sabien smiles bitterly. “She fought hard, but there was never really a choice. Your father didn’t make it easy for her either. He pursued her with a vengeance. He knew he loved her, and real love is not something that can be easily defeated.”

“You make it sound like that’s a bad thing,” I take a deep breath, holding back the giggles.

“For our family, it is.” Sabien says gravely. “We were to be the last, never to force what we are upon anyone else.”

“Did she leave because she wanted to kill us?” Jason asks softly. The same question bounces back and forth in my head now that he’s voiced it.

“No,” Sabien tells us adamantly. “Never. She would have hurt herself first. All she ever wanted was to keep you safe and happy.”

“Safe from what?” It is the one question that haunts me.

“From others of our kind. Alesha thought that if she changed her name, didn’t use her magic, and didn’t shift, it would be fine.” He sighs heavily. “We may be the last of the Blackburnes, but we are not the only ones with gifts. There are many who would seek us out to kill us.”

“Why would they want to kill us?”

“There are three main families of Power—the Blackburnes, the Winters, and the Petrovichs. We’ve gained more power than any of the other families across the globe who practice magic. Some came by it honestly like the Winters, others killed for it like the Petrovichs, while the Blackburnes cultivated it and became selective. You asked why they would want to kill you? Power is always in the blood, Jason. The only way to gain that power is by shedding the blood and consuming it. To consume the blood is to consume the power, and the magic that courses in our blood is more ancient than most. Many would sell their souls to gain even a taste of the power we have.”

“But not me or Jason.” I laugh hysterically. I can’t help it. It’s all too much—magic, werewolves, and the murdering of children. The thought that my mind has really snapped occurs to me and that I’m trapped in some kind of delusion. “Kill on sight, remember?” 

“They’re afraid.” Sabien eyes me carefully. “You don’t understand the strength of will it took for your mother to resist her very nature for over two hundred years. They’re afraid of what you and Jason will be capable of. Our gifts get stronger, more pronounced with each generation. Considering what your mother was capable of, the two of you will be extraordinary.”

Two hundred years? Did he just say my mother was two hundred years old when she died? “Wait, what? That’s not possible. No one lives that long, Uncle Sabien.”

“Normal humans don’t live that long, no,” Sabien agrees. “Even normal witches don’t live that long. It’s part of why our family has been able to gain so much power. We are shifters as well. Even if we never shift, we still gain the healing and regenerative abilities of a shifter. We don’t age like normal supernaturals either. The combination of our power and the lupine gene has morphed us into a hybrid. A hundred years to us is like a nanosecond to most. You won’t age past your prime for a very long time.”

Uncle Sabien himself doesn’t look older than maybe twenty-five or thirty. I just assumed he looked young for his age. If what he says is true, just how old is he? Then the reality of what he is saying sets in and I gasp, my breathing speeding up. He’s telling me I’m not going to age? What does that mean? What does that mean for the rest of my life?

“Calm down, Alexandria.” Sabien is in front of my chair, kneeling. “It’s going to be fine.”

“Going to be fine?” Jason shouts. “This is ludicrous. Alex, I think we should go. You don’t need this after everything you’ve been through already. We don’t want you back in Compton.”

“Compton?” Sabien tilts his head curiously. “What is that?”

“You don’t know about Compton?” I ask quietly.

He shakes his head.

“It’s a psychiatric facility.” Jason’s words are laced with a fierce loathing. “They put her there when the nightmares got to be bad.”

“Your father locked you up?” A dawning understanding lit his face. “Dear God…I knew he thought Alesha wasn’t stable, but to put his own child in an institute…”

“No,” I interrupt him. “I needed to be there. I hurt Jason.”

“What happened?”

I close my eyes. “No, Uncle Sabien. I can’t talk about it right now. I just want to deal with this. We’ll discuss Compton later.”

“Your father and I are going to have a long talk about that. He never told me, and I’m guaranteeing he never told your mother. She wouldn’t have stood for it.”

I laugh bitterly. “Right. She left me, but she wouldn’t have stood for me being locked up in a place where I got help for the problems she caused.”

Sabien opens his mouth to argue, but closes it instead. I think he knows I’m not that stable right now and not to push me.

“Just finish telling us what you should have told us the day you arrived.”

“Alex, this isn’t healthy. It’s crazy talk.”

“Is it, Jase?” I turn my attention to him. “Or is it an explanation for my nightmares? Does it prove that I wasn’t crazy all these years? That what happened that day in the park was real and not a figment of my imagination?”

“I…”

“I saw that thing change into a human, Jase. Saw it with my own two eyes. I can’t deny that. Let’s give Uncle Sabien a chance, okay? Try, for my sake, to believe in it just a little bit.”