Unraveling Selena by Marisa Maichel (black female authors TXT) 📕

still?" I shook my head. "Then I'm sorry, but I have to stay here until I'm sure that you won't take off again." He smoothed my hair back and kissed the top of my head.

"I'm hungry," I said. "I need blood!"

"The last thing you need is human blood," Louis said. "If he drinks human blood and goes through the transformation, he won't be able to control himself tonight."

"Again, this is all my fault," Uncle Soren said. Louis looked at him.

"Again, you're wrong, it's my fault."

"I don't care whose fault it is, just fix him!" Father cried.

I slowly calmed my breathing. Had I really been turned into a werewolf last night? Or was I some sort of hybrid?

"What hybrids do we know?" I asked. My family looked at each other.

"Liam Wolfheart was one," Louis said.

"Who?"

"A guy who was obsessed with your sister," he explained. "He claimed to be madly in love with Selena. He was born a hybrid, though."

"Many wolf/vampire hybrids are rejected by both our species," Grandfather said. "The suicide rate for them is rather high, and they're extremely rare to begin with." Father glared at him.

"I don't understand," I said. "Why are they rejected by both our species? Father, can you please get off me?"

"Are you going to run away if I do?"

"No, I promise, I won't run."

"Good boy." He slowly got off me. I rolled over, staring up at the cloudy sky. I looked up as I noticed Mother's car coming down the driveway. She turned off the car and got out. She took one look at me and rushed over to me.

"Reese! Are you hurt?"

"Mom, I was bitten by a werewolf last night," I said. She turned and glared at Father.

"He was what?! Mordecai, explain this instant!"

Father ran through the events of the night before, leaving out the part where it was a ritual honor fight between Uncle Soren and Damon Sage. He made it sound as if we were just visiting. I knew Mother would see through this at once, and she did. She yelled at him for a few minutes, leaving him hanging his head and looking ashamed. Then she turned her attention to me.

"My poor baby," she cooed, picking me up. She glared at Father. "This is all your fault!" I growled, smelling her blood. I was shocked by the violent thoughts going through my mind towards my own mother.

I sat up, clutching my stomach. "Mom, why are you here?"

"I came to check on you, and to talk to Soren."

"What did you want with me, Marina?"

"It's a private matter between you and I."

"Whatever it is, you can say it in front of the family."

"It's about the night and you and I...before I met Alexander..."

"Oh! Well, come with me into the library!"

"Wait, what?" Father said. "Soren, did you and Marina..."

"It was before she knew you," he quickly said.

"Good, because if it had been while we had been married...."

"It was before she even knew Alexander, so yes, it was before she met you as well."

"I'm confused," I said. "I thought Alexander introduced Mother to Father?"

"Yes, but who do you think introduced her to Alexander?" Uncle Soren replied, opening the door for Mother.

"Dad and Marina...ew, bad mental image!" Louis said.

"Even I did not know," Grandfather muttered. "What, now my own sons hide things from me? Not that that is anything new." He glared at Father.

"You took a long time to accept Reese's sexuality," Father said, glaring back. "If I've made any mistakes regarding Faolan, it was not realizing what I had until it was too late."

Searing pain shot through my midsection. I doubled over, blood dribbling out of my nose.

"Reese!"

I got violently sick again. I kept throwing up until my stomach was empty. Even after I was empty, I kept throwing up. I fell into my own vomit, getting blood all over me.

"Sweetheart!" Father rushed to my side. He lifted me up and carried me like a baby into the bathroom, where he set me on the tub. Mother came in soon after, as Father was peeling away my shirt. He'd already gotten my boots and jacket off.

"Is he all right?" she asked.

"I don't know," Father said. "He threw up again, then passed out."

"Guys, I'm fine," I said, then doubled over again.

"You are most certainly not fine," Father said. "I wish I had wolfsbane, but I'm scared to leave his side. No one else besides Louis knows what it looks like."

"Louis can get it, then," Mother said.

"I searched," Louis said, coming in. "I can't find any, and no witch or warlock will sell to a vampire."

"Have you tried?"

"Grandfather is asking around. So far, the witches and warlocks we've talked to have been very rude to him. They are accusing him of wanting to kill the wolf pack. I may or may not have shouted that those jerks tried to kill us last night." He was embarassed. "My bad."

Mother thumped him on the head. Then she turned back to me.

"What did you and Uncle Soren talk about?" I asked her.

"I will tell you later. More towards never."

"She told me that she had a pregnancy scare after that night that we had sex," Uncle Soren said.

"Um, Dad, I'm right here!"

"You're a grown man, and you do it almost every night, either with some poor woman or yourself. Your mother and I did it to create you."

I nearly threw up again.

"Soren! Shut up!" Father shouted.

"They're only children," Mother said. Louis raised an eyebrow.

"Technically, I'm older than you, Marina. You're three hundred years old, I'm three hundred and sixty eight."

"You still act like a teenager."

"That's because he is," Uncle Soren said. "You were frozen at thirty. He's a natural-born."

"I have a sentence," Louis said. "It starts with 'I' and ends with 'care.' The middle word starts with a D."

"Dunce?" I said. All of the adults except Louis laughed at this.

"Glad to see you're still yourself," Father told me.

"I know, but I still feel like crap. If Sarah saw me...Sarah!" I looked at Mother fearfully.

"She's fine," she informed me. "Hurt and heartbroken, but otherwise okay."

"How can you tell?"

"I'm her mother. I may not have given birth to her, but I'm more of a mother to her than that bitch Alicia!"

"You have strong maternal instincts," Uncle Soren said, touching Mother's arm. "If I had gotten you pregnant, what would you have done?"

"I would have told you. I was cursed in my human life to be feared and alone, the daughter of a wicked woman accused of witchcraft. Now I have three beautiful daughters, three sons, and a handsome fiance."

"Three daughters?"

"I refuse to accept that Selena is dead. I came back because my other babies needed me, and because I had no more leads on my first daughter. She is still out there, and she needs me. I wish I knew where she was. Did she look for me after the fire? Did she call out for me?"

"Marina, all of us were there. We all saw the fire that swallowed her up. There's no way she could have survived that."

"I disagree," Mother said, but she wiped at her eyes. Uncle Soren turned her around and hugged her.

"If things were different," he said. "If I hadn't been so depressed at the time, and if you hadn't met Alexander, things would be different. You'd be mine. I'd have two sons instead of one. I do love Reese like he's my own, but he belongs to my brother."

"He's mine," Father growled, squeezing me.

"I know, Mordecai. I know."

"My baby," Mother said, kneeling beside me and kissing me. "My sweet baby. All my babies are sweet."

"Except Kieran," Louis cut in.

"Yeah, Kieran's pretty messed up," Uncle Soren agreed.

"A pox on you two! It is Alexander's fault that Kieran is the way he is! As much as I love Alexander, he really is the root of most of Kieran's problems."

"She's not wrong," Father said. "Alexander says he misses Kieran, but Kieran purposely avoids him because of how he's treated him and his lovers in the past."

"What does Kieran look like?" I asked.

"The last time I saw him, his hair was pretty long," Uncle Soren said. "Even longer than Toby's, and his hair reaches his ass. He has blue eyes, as both Alexander and Celine had blue eyes."

"Reese, are you all right?" Father asked me.

"My stomach hurts, and my muscles feel like they're on fire, but otherwise, I'm okay."

"Oh, Reese," Mother simpered, eyes brimming with tears.

I sat up, groaning at the ache in my back. Father whimpered and hugged me gently, kissing me.

"My poor baby," he cooed.

"I'm still hungry," I said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a few pounds of chicken and beef, I felt full again. Raw steak was my new favorite meal.

I settled in bed, trying to ignore the raging fire which grew worse. I kept the curtains closed, because if I saw the moon, I'd change. If I went outside, I'd change.

All too soon, darkness fell, and the fire in my muscles became unbearable.

Need meat. I smell vampires. Must kill. Must kill vampires! Destroy. Need meat!

The pain was excruciating. I could feel my bones crack, my muscles tighten and grow. Fur started sprouting up from my skin. My black hair became dark brown and started to cover my entire face. My ears became long and pointed. I was turning into a wolf.

I rolled over as my ribs cracked and spread out. Dragging myself to the door, I opened it and started to crawl downstairs.

"Reese!"

"Father, stay away!" My voice had become gravelly and much deeper. I opened the front door as my nails grew into claws, my palms became sweaty, and I nearly passed out from the sudden heat. Every bit of me was burning up.

"Something's wrong!" Father cried. "Louis, Soren, do something!"

I turned around and growled, my teeth growing long and carnivorous, my nose elongating, turning into a wolf snout. My chest started to hurt, and I realized that my heart, my dead heart, was beating for the first time in my life. My heart was pounding at one hundred and eighty beats per minute.

I growled at the vampires. They were my enemies. Competition for food. But there was something else...something in their blood called to me. I wanted to drink their blood. My large stomach was growling, hungry for meat and vampire blood.

Wait, this was my family. I whined as I realized that this was my family.

"Reese?" Father stepped forward. "Reese, it's us. I'm your father."

"Give him some space, Mordecai," Uncle Soren said. "His mind is going two hundred miles a minute, and he could attack any second."

"He's my son, Soren. I have to be here for him, even if he does end up attacking me."

He was willing to risk his life and his blood to save me. I was a terrible son. I whined again, my ears flattening, my tail between my hind legs. I nudged him with my head, rolling onto my back to expose my belly, telling him that I knew who he was and I trusted him.

"He recognizes me," Father said, amazed.

"Amazing," Louis muttered, shaking his head.

"Incredible. He's in control," Grandfather said. "Normally he'd be trying to tear us to shreds and running off to find something to eat. Or drinking our blood."

"Reese, do you recognize me?" Father asked. I whined in assent. Father scratched my ear.

"I'm surprised he hasn't sent the whole house down," Louis said. "He weighs at least a thousand pounds."

"This house was built with the intention of holding a lot of weight," Father muttered. "More so than other houses."

"That's because you ordered it that way, Mordecai," Grandfather said.

"Father, I came here with the hope that he'd be protected from our world. His world. I know that I couldn't keep him away from it forever, but I was hoping that he'd at least be fifty before that happened."

"That's unrealistic."

"I know that now. All I wanted was to keep my newborn son safe."

I rolled over onto my belly and wagged my tail.

"It's okay, Reese," Father said. "We'll fix this. I promise."

"Not much is known about hybrids," Grandfather said. "They usually commit suicide before we can properly