TheRoyalspart21

“Kyle…Kyle,” a soft voice was calling out to him from far away, but Kyle Valenti didn’t want to open his eyes. Actually, he knew somehow that the voice calling to him was the one voice that could possibly make him open his eyes…that the voice belonged to the driving force in his life, but he couldn’t open his eyes, something important was coming, something that he should know. No, something that he HAD to know, and all he had to do was stay where he was and it would come to him. If he waited here, they would come to him if he just waited long enough. The siren’s voice…the goddess calling to him…would have to wait.

“Guys,” Tess said as she looked up from where she held his head in her lap. “He’s not waking up. He’s been out for ten minutes now.” The others said nothing, they’d all crowded around the boy in a circle with Tess holding him in the middle, and now they all sat and waited.

“He’s fine Tess,” Michael said as he linked hands with Maria. For some reason his girlfriend was just as distraught as Tess was over Kyle’s passing out. “He just has to get used to it his own way,” he added for Maria’s ears only. “Give it time,” he said louder for everyone’s benefit.

“Poor Tess,” Isabel said softly to Jessie, who was sitting on the other side of Alex. Then the tall beauty turned to her boyfriend. “I never expected him to react by fainting.”

“I don’t think any of us expected him to react by passing out,” Alex said with a small grin, it was grim, but it was still a grin. “I mean, who really expects the football star to pass out at hearing his girlfriend is a witch?”

“I guess that we shouldn’t have expected anything in particular to occur,” Isabel said softly as they continued to gaze at the boy that was lying silent in the middle. “I mean, we’ve never actually told anyone to see how they would react.”

“You okay?” Trent whispered to Jessie as they watched Kyle with the others. He’d been with her constantly since the meeting earlier at the beach, and he would continue to be that way until this thing was over. Jessie was nothing like her brother, if there was trouble she would be in the middle of it and Trent would do everything in his power to make sure that she got out of it as safe as she got in it.

“Yeah,” Jessie said in the softest voice he’d ever heard her use. “It’s Tess I’m worried about. Well her and Maria. God Maria looks pale.”

“Leigha,” Ryan said to the girl that hadn’t spoken since Kyle had collapsed. “What’s wrong?”

“Maria,” was all the small girl said as Ryan squeezed her hand reassuringly. Ryan nodded and continued to hold her hand as he waited from his seat between Trent and Leigha for the outsider boy to wake up.

Maria hadn’t said a word since she had seen Kyle collapse on top of Tess. But for some reason when he had, she had too, in a way. With Tess, it was easy to understand, but with Maria it wasn’t. Kyle wasn’t her soulmate, but she was having some odd unexplainable connection with him, and just like Tess, she had been rendered helpless, as if she was the one who was passed out. She was scared, but not for the reasons that everyone else was filled with trepidation. There was something going on here, something that was bigger than their little coven of witches. This was waking up more than Kyle;b this was waking up something as old as time itself, something that was living within all of them together. And Maria had a sneaky suspicion that her mother had something to say about the whole thing…including the part where Maria felt like Kyle was a physical part of her.

******************

Amy Deluca looked out her window and waved as Jim Valenti made his way back to his own house. She sighed as he left. This was going to be hard on all of them. When the Council had contacted her and told her that they had started the process she had thought that she was ready for this, but she wasn’t…she was far from ready. How in the hell was she going to do this?

She hadn’t been ready for Jim Valenti. She had taken one look at him in her store over a week ago, and all plans and orders from the Council had fallen from her mind. She had thought she had known overwhelming love with Maria’s father, but she hadn’t…she had known all-consuming passion with the bastard. What she had found with Jim from the first moment she had locked eyes with him had been love…she had found what she thought would never be in the stars for her…she had found her soulmate. And not only was she about to take herself, and what he thought he knew about her, away from him, but she was about to take away the one constant thing in his life…his son.

God she wanted to damn Brian Felini to the farthest corner of hell for the millionth time in her life. But now it wasn’t just for what the devastatingly handsome demon had done to her and their daughter, but also for what he had done to all of them, Kyle and James Valenti included…as well as Ursula Valenti…Kyle’s deceased mother. Amy cursed and for a moment let her fury fly, the result was a nice sized whole in her living room floor. She turned to let her anger loose on some poor unsuspecting piece of furniture when a prickling at the back of her neck signal something she really didn’t want to face at the moment. But she couldn’t exactly turn away from the Council when they were trying to contact her, so sighed and closed her eyes, tapping back her fury for when it could be used to cause some real useful damage.

Amy opened her eyes and moved outside to her yard where her cottage/greenhouse stood. She opened it and moved to the back room where her hidden sanctum was located. She walked to the mirror that was placed in front of the large bay window and pulled off the midnight blue velvet covering that hid its antique beauty from the world. The light of the full moon hit the mirror, and instead of her own image, Amy saw the Council …the six men and women that ruled the underworld that humans knew nothing about, the Lords and Ladies of the Dark and Light.

“Young Mother,” the Lady of the Light said formally to Amy, using her title. “The Royals need you now…the last of them has begun to awaken…he needs the Mother, he needs the Healer…he needs you. They all do.”

“This is your destiny,” the Lord of the Dark said from behind his cloak. Amy grimaced when she felt his black ice eyes on her. “You must be there for his awakening…for their awakening…for all of them.”

Amy stood straighter at his words, at his condescending tone. She opened her mouth to retort, but the Lord of Light saved her the trouble. “Watch how you address her my Lord,” the Light Lord’s voice was not one of warmth and cheerfulness. “Do not forget that she is not merely some witch that you can order around. She may not be a Council Lord, but she is of the Council itself…she is the Mother. A leader among the witches, and the destined guardian for our Royals.”

“Then she should be doing her job,” the Lady of the Dark said snidely from behind her own cloak. Of the four Council Lords, the Lady and Lord of the Dark always wore cloaks to hide their true forms, only a handful of people knew who they truly were. “She should not be playing with outsiders.”

“That outsider My Lady,” the Lady of Light said sternly, “has his own place in this. You of all people know that. Amy has done everything that we have asked of her, and that is all that we can ask. But you should go to them Mother,” she said in a kinder tone to Amy. “They need their Mother, they need their Healer, and they need their Guardian…they need you.”

“Then I will go my Lords,” Amy said, bowing to all of them. “As the Goddess wills it through you I will follow the path.” With a flicker of moonlight the mirror was again an old antique mirror and all Amy saw was herself in its reflective surface. Her brown eyes narrowed, “Show me my daughter,” she demanded of the mirror. Instantaneously the mirror’s surface changed and the image of Maria, in a circle around a fallen figure showed itself. “Oh Goddess no,” Amy said as she took in the sight, “they’re doing it all wrong. He’ll never wake up with her outside the circle. Goddess give me the grace to get there in time.” Amy took a moment to throw the covering back over the mirror after she broke the spell. Then she stood perfectly still and closed her eyes, calling upon the power of the moonlight itself, she flickered out of existence.

***************

“Michael,” Amy said from where she appeared just behind the circle. “Let my daughter go. Maria,” she said softly to her daughter, who was now staring at her in shock, “open your mind to the knowledge. You know how to wake him…and you’re the only one who can.”

Tess gasped in something like pain, but she began to move away from Kyle so that Maria could help him. For the first time in the twenty-five minutes since he had passed out Kyle made a noise. He groaned in pain once Tess was no longer touching him.

“No Tess,” Amy said quickly. “You must open yourself to the knowledge as well. Stay with him,” she added and sighed to herself as Tess moved back and placed Kyle’s head back in her lap. The young man’s groan ended and yet again he was silent. Maria moved beside Tess and locked eyes with her friend as she sat down and pulled Kyle’s head over so that it lay between her and Tess’ laps. Both girls placed their hands on his head and closed their eyes, opening themselves up to whatever Kyle was experiencing. Amy sat in Maria’s place beside Michael and took the silent young man’s hand in hers. She knew that he had reached a whole other level of fear when Maria had moved to the inner circle. And she knew that what was about to happen would send him into a fury and that he would need her.

“NO!” Michael yelled as Maria and Tess both gasped in pain and fell unconscious beside Kyle, their hands still on his head. Michael moved to go to her…to his Maria…to the girl who had always been the face of the goddess to him when Amy’s stopped him with a gentle tug on his hand.

“This is not your battle Michael,” she told him silently. “This is something that she must do on her own. All we can do is wait and hope that she completes it. You’re life, once you found her was complete…you were complete…but that was because you already had all the elements inside that make you who you are…she doesn’t and you can’t help her find them.” Michael growled but made no other move towards the collapsed trio in the middle of the circle.

Silently they all watched with tears streaming down their faces…all except Amy who sat there screaming on the inside over the injustice of it all. It had begun and there was no turning back now. Now it was completely in the hands of the collapsed trio in front of them. What happened now would shape more than any of them had any idea of.

********************

“Kyle,” Tess screamed from where she stood on some other plane of existence holding onto Maria’s hand. She dropped Maria’s hand when she saw him standing there waiting for her.

“About time you got here,” Kyle said with an easy laugh as he swung Tess up in his arms. “I didn’t think you would ever get here.”

“It took us a while to find out that we needed to come to you,” Tess whispered as she kissed every single inch of his face. “But we came as soon as we realized you couldn’t come to us.”

Kyle sighed and hugged her close before setting her aside and turning to the girl that stood apart looking a little unsure and scared. “You came,” he whispered as he took a shaky step toward her. Tess watched in shock as Maria took her own shaky step towards him. For the first time Tess noticed how pale Maria was…she looked as bad as Kyle had. What was this?

Maria didn’t say anything she just threw herself in his arms and hugged him as tightly as she could. “It’s okay Maria. Shhh…it’s going to be all right I promise. I’m here now and I know it…but you don’t you have to find it on your own. I can’t find it for you.”

“I know it,” she finally gasped out. She moved away from him and with tears streaming down her face she smiled the most beautiful smile anyone had ever seen from her. “I found you and I didn’t even know I was searching for you.”

“Sister…”

“Brother…”

They both said at the same time as the embraced again, and behind them Tess gasped in surprise.

TBC