Chapter Eleven

“Not untils she apologizes,” I hissed, my voice sounding like the echoes from within a cave. My grandmother’s eyes widened at the sound, her mouth dropping slightly in astonishment.

“You have what your father does not.” She whispered, her eyes taking a look at me once more. “Why is his blood so prominent in you?”

My father crept up closer, his eyes pleading, “Keiran.”

“Leave him, Raidon.” My grandmother hissed, her eyes narrowing. She tapped my hand around her collar, once. Twice. Three times. Then she said, “I apologize, son of my blood. Now let me go.”

A mirthless smile spread across my face as I let her go. Not even bothering to set her on the floor before doing so. She was like a cat that lightly touched the floor, never taking her eyes off of me. My wings were still spread across the span of the room, I could not make myself retract them, they stung for some reason.

My grandmother stalked around me, examining my wings with narrowed eyes. Unlike the last time my wings were out, for some reason just the tips of them were bright blue. She paused at this color and reached out to touch it. I flinched away, snapping my wings close to my body at the same time both my father and Zane lunged forward to stop her.

She just narrowed her eyes more until they were nothing but slits. “Your wings hurt when touched?” She muttered as if she understood. When I gave no response, the nod from Zane gave her her answer. “Ah,” she whispered, almost too quiet for me to hear. “So it’s like that.”

“It is like that, Madame.” Zane whispered, with his head slightly lowered as if in remorse. My grandmother reached out toward Zane and slapped him up beside the head.

“Zane Ambrose, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Eilianna?” I couldn’t contain my chuckle as Zane raised a hand to his head and touched the spot where she had hit. He looked almost astonished that she had hit him. She turned around and looked at me, her gaze falling onto the blue tips of my wings. “What was your name, boy?”

I automatically straightened myself and responded, “Keiran D’Arrow.” This woman was terrifying, I realized, once I actually paid attention. Before, I was out of my mind from my powers, but now I could feel a not so subtle pulse of power coming off of her as well. I gripped my hands into fists and winced. Looking down, I found that the hand that I had grabbed her with was deformed and already a nasty purple color. My grandmother noticed and sighed. She moved forward and lightly touched my broken hand, the feel of her fingertips had me flinching.

“Raidon,” She sighed, “Fix him please.” My father wasted no time and quickly began to heal my hand to it’s original form. I could feel his soothing power cascade through my veins as my broken bones began to snap back together. My grandmother stared at me all the while until she smiled an almost pleased smile. “You can call me grand-mère, petit-fils.”

Beside me, I felt my father relax. This must have meant that I had been accepted. I was super confused in reality. I had no idea what had just occurred and why she had flipped a total 180. Zane moved warily out from behind her to stand beside my father and I, it looked like to him she was an enemy. A bright enchanting smile lit my grandmother’s face, it was alight with mirth and happiness. She twirled around on her feet and plopped down into one of the vacated seats. She patted the area beside her saying, “Come, come, petit-fils.”

Raising an eyebrow at her and the seat, I glanced back at my wings, then at my father. He just gave me a look that said he was just as confused as I was. A glance to my left at Zane revealed nothing. Sighing, I stepped forward, my wings taut to my back. I gingerly sat down on the seat, perched just so that my wings touched nothing. My grandmother watched me with a confused look.

“Why don’t you put those away for now, mon petit oiseau, I will do nothing to you.”

“I don’t know how.” I muttered stupidly, staring at my hands. I really didn’t. The last time, Zane had put them away for me, and the time after, they had gone away on their own without me doing anything.

Grandma dearest squeaked, “You don’t?” She tapped her chin in thought, muttering to herself, “Hmmm…. I remember he had said something about this all those years ago.” She snapped her fingers and then tapped my forehead. I closed my eyes involuntarily and sighed. Damnit, she was a force to be reckoned with. I suddenly felt sorry for my father. No wonder he changed his appearance before she walked into the room. She probably would have a fit at his other one.

“There we are. Envision your wings as if they were simply a coat on a rack. Now take that coat, put it on and zip it up tight.” Following her instructions, I envisioned this menial task. Strangely enough, after I did so, my wings gently folded in on themselves and disappeared beneath my skin. My eyes snapped open in astonishment as I stared at my grandmother.

“How did you know that?” As far as I knew, my father and her did not have any wings, not even the bat like wings humans depicted them with.

“Your grandfather.” My grandmother breathed.

“Dad’s dad?” No shit, I thought to myself. What other grandfather did you have, stupid.

“Yes.” My grandmother replied as if I hadn’t just asked the stupidest question in the world. She paused, and looked at the other two men in the room before she stared at me straight in the eyes. Grey met gold and a shiver traveled down my spine. “There is something you should know about him, only those in this room know the truth.”

Another shiver made it’s way down to my finger tips and I grumbled to myself, “Am I not going to like where this is going?” I looked over at my father. “Is he like some super evil bad guy?” All three of those in the room burst into laughter, even Zane was chuckling into his shoulder, not showing me the grin on his face. Lifting my eyebrow, I looked at all of them as if they had lost their minds. “Did I say something stupid again?”

“No, petit-fils,” my grandmother chuckled, her eyes alight with an emotion that looked like joy. “You do not know, that is why you can make such a joke.”

“But I wasn’t joking?” I grumbled questioningly to myself.

“Your grandfather is indeed very powerful,” my father said in place of my still laughing grandmother. Her laugh was cheerful and almost made me want to join in for no reason. “But not in the way that you are thinking.”

As soon as she caught her breath, my grandmother continued, “He is the one you inherited the wings from. I would not have believed you had some of his powers until i saw the blue on your feathers. That is the best sign possible that you have his blood.”

“Who’s blood?” Obvious question. Maybe they should just call me Captain Dumbass from now on.

My father and grandmother looked at each other once more before my grandmother dropped the bombshell of all bombshells. “Your grandfather is the ruler of Elysium, basically what the humans refer to as God.”

I squeaked, “God?” I couldn’t exactly wrap my mind around this. “Wait…my grandfather is God? You had sex with God? Succubus blood for the win.” I shook my head from the thought of my grandmother having sex with my grandfather. “No fucking way, so does that mean my dad is like Jesus?”

“No,” my grandmother snapped, annoyed, “what it does mean, is that this part of blood in you may be the only thing keeping you alive.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Mage blood and demon blood were never meant to mix. Any previous existence never made it passed their childhood. Yet you are still alive, and that is because your Elysium blood is acting like a barrier between the two so that they do not explode.” My grandmother explained calmly even though I was suddenly very, very terrified.

“You’re saying I’m like a ticking time bomb?’ This came out as a yell. I didn’t mean for it to, it just kind of happened. You know, just finding out you could spontaneously combust at any moment might have that effect on someone.

My grandmother patted my shoulder as if this would soothe me. “Not if you train your powers equally.” She said, imparting her age old wisdom. “The issue you have right now is that you trained too heavily with your mage blood. Now your scales are out of whack. In order for this ‘bomb’ to not go off, every part of you needs to have an equal amount of training.”

“How do I do that?”

“You need to meet a variety of demons and angels alike to further understand how to control your powers.”

“Well..I can do the demon bits, but how am I supposed to find angels in Tartarus?”

“I can help with that.” Zane said quietly from where he leaned against one of the chairs. His bright silver eyes pierced into mine, and a wave of pleasant heat rolled across my skin. I really needed to learn how to stop myself from getting slightly turned on just from the sound of his voice. Otherwise, I would end up being a laughing stock to everyone around me.

Maybe I could just walk around with a boner and tell people it was a side effect of my powers. Yeah, that didn’t seem like it would be a good idea. Better keep that idea to myself.