“Whoa.” This response came from both girls.
“Yea, whoa about sums it up,” Elyssia spoke. “And we don’t know what will happen now that all her powers are no longer dormant. We can only hope if her powers are indeed online, that will aide in protecting her, and not the other way around.”
“What do you mean not the other way around?” Genie didn’t bother to try and hide the worried tone in her words.
Elyssia attempted to continue the explanation, hating herself more with each word as her fear mounted for her only niece. If she and Anya had gone against Tia’s wishes and revealed the truth to Jelissa, would she be safe and sound right beside them now, instead of wherever she was?
“We bound her powers when Jelissa was born, not knowing how exactly they would affect her, terrified they might even destroy her mentally or physically. We barely know anything about demons really; those that are here keep themselves hidden. For good reason. But to have all that in one tiny little person? To tell the truth, we really didn’t know what the heck to do. We did know one thing though. If the wrong person had gotten their hands on her, it would not be a good thing. We planned on letting them emerge one at a time, not all at once. And we didn’t know whether she would even go through a vampire transitioning or not. I mean, come on, she was already going to be part vampire through her mom, and with Bran part-demon. Him being a sin eating demon wasn’t really that much of a big deal in this realm, ’cause sin isn’t a thing here; that’s a human thing. Most of them think just looking at someone of the same sex is a sin. Throw in another vampire’s essence and that of an incubus, how does that affect everything else? Not to mention the fact she’s also a witch from the most powerful bloodline? Dammit, what were we supposed to do?”
At this point Elyssa was in tears, her voice escalating. “Y’all are upset? How do you think we feel? I’m sorry we didn’t tell her sooner. I’m sorry we kept all of you in the dark. I’m sorry for all of it, but we didn’t know what else to do.”
“Sis, sit for a bit, okay? The temp dropped several degrees in here.”
Elyssa did as Anya asked, realizing the only reason she didn’t have any tears rolling down her cheeks was because they were turning into ice crystals.
Anya attempted to finish up. “Look, what’s done is done. There’s no going back, just moving forward. And before you start thinking of Tia as the Evil Bitch Queen, keep in mind something similar was done to us. She and Elyssia were kept in the dark about me and what Tia really was for a long time. Not saying that justifies anything, but the decision was made out of love. Bran has kept his vow to make little Rasputin pay for what he did after he’d learned the real truth of what the elixir was for. None of us wanted the Rasputins to know anything about Jelissa. We thought we were okay when they realized Bran was actually the demon who was summoned and not the little prick who originally made the deal. They didn’t know Tialanna was pregnant. But when Jelissa was born, we couldn’t cloak all that power quick enough. So, since we couldn’t mask her birth, we faked her death, after we bound her magick. All but her witch magick anyway. But looks as though either that plan didn’t work out so well, or they somehow just learned the truth. Or worse, someone else entirely.”
“And how exactly would that be worse?” Deelah asked.
“The enemy you know is one thing—you at least know what you’re up against. Someone who you don’t know, well, it’s kinda hard to come up with a game plan when you have no idea who or what you’re even preparing to fight.” Anya sat back, stared off into the distance at some sight unseen. “And if they somehow took her into the human realm, we also need to worry about how being a sin eater demon will affect her.”
“Dear Goddess, I didn’t even think of that,” Elyssia gasped.
“That’s right, Sis, none of us really did. Like I said before, sin isn’t a thing here. We never even entertained the possibility of her ending up there. She’s been her entire life with almost no power at all. If that much power comes on line all at once—power that won’t only be foreign to her, but more than she’s ever learned how to contain or control—it’ll either help her, or it just might kill her.”
8
Pot, Meet Kettle
In the gardens, Tialanna was explaining to Grimm the very same story, which for her was the easy part of it. The hard part came in asking for forgiveness for keeping it all away from him for so long. When she came to the decision to not tell him, she thought she had no choice. They had learned of his whereabouts after searching for him for months, a search she had no part in as she was pregnant with Jelissa at the time. The search was conducted by her mates and her sisters. Truth be told, Tia was glad it had been them and not her to have found him in the condition he was in. She probably never would have forgiven her father otherwise.
They had been searching the entire realm for him after the second battle in the wars was over and found out he had been right under their noses the entire time. Literally. As punishment for betraying him, Tia and Anya’s father had Grimm chained, a prisoner in the catacombs of the castle, their vampire family home, for months. Deprived of light, he had only been given the bare minimum amount of food and water to keep him alive. The only touch allowed him
