06-28-2009, 04:42 AM
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mall-caps;">In Character Whatever fear Kaena might have held about Jael's attachment to Vitium and his ways was resolved, and Kaena was too happy to swallow them. He spoke and Kaena got the filtered version of the story first. It was heavily edited and gave only the sparest details, a familiar tactic to the silver hybrid. It was the number version of the story, the one that didn't hurt quite so badly—Kaena could talk about the wolf she'd loved once, the one who had been killed by another lover—but still, she could hardly think of Zulifer without hurting. Jael continued, and Kaena listened raptly, wishing to know everything she could about Jael and his father. The ashen hybrid's head jerked in response to the next sentence, and her eye flared with anger. Vitium had raped someone? Wolf or not, she had not raised her children that way, and a deep, immediate sense of regret filled the Lykoi. The hybrid's face contorted with emotion, disappointment and rage at her son. She had only inflicted such a fate on Salvaged because he'd done the same to so many others, and given the chance, he would've done the same to her. If he had gained the upper hand on the beach that night, she would have been raped and killed. It wouldn't have been wrong, either way—Salvaged and Kaena were long at war, and in the throes of battle all of the rules, regulations, and civility were suspended. They hadn't dueled at dawn; they had crept after each other in the night, slaughtering whatever and whoever hindered them. He seemed to have finished, leaving her with an aching, endless sense of loneliness. He had his siblings, he had his clan... but there was something in him that seemed incredibly isolated, cut off from the whole rest of the world and buried deep within him. He spoke just once more, a clipped, short sentence vibrating with more frenetic emotion than she had seen from him before. The hybrid had nothing; she knew she had just hurt him just as clearly as if she had driven a knife into his heart, and she hurt for him. Vitium had betrayed her, yes—but he had lied about everything to his very child, portraying himself as a valued member of a clan that no longer tolerated his presence. Vitium must have known Inferni would have killed him if he had returned, otherwise he would have hand-delivered his children. The hybrid moved closer to him, moving to wrap an arm around him. She wasn't sure how he would react to the touch, but damn it, she would hold him anyway. He was her grandchild, and he needed it; he deserved it. "Oh, Jael," she began, breathing his name like a sigh. This was much the same way Kaena would have felt about her own mother had her father not saved her—assuming Kae survived the woman's abuse. As it was, Delphine's death so early in Kaena's life hed left her with just a vague, painful memory of the woman and a loose grasp on her ancestry, the dogs that had spawned Delphine's mother and the vicious coyotes that had spawned Delphine's father. "Part of you will always belong to Vitium, just like part of me will always belong to him. He's family, closer to us than any outsider can ever be, no matter how far away we push him," she continued, pausing at length to consider her words. She sorely wished there were some magic phrase, some panacean mantra she might whisper into his ear to whisk the pain away. "Nothing we can do to change it," she said, disappointment again creeping into her voice. Anymore, she wasn't certain how to feel about Vitium—surely, she still loved him; he was still her child. Yet there was that lurking emotion, that quiet, creeping feeling that filled her heart. It was fear; she was afraid of Viti. He was her child, her flesh and blood, sewn together in her very body from nothing, and she would see him again, someday, somewhere—she hoped when she did, she would be wary enough of him. She could not let her guard slip just because of who he once was. Her child was gone, Kaena realized, and she mourned him, that same endless ache replacing that slithering, foreign feeling of fright. "There aren't many I'd wish rape on," the Lykoi stated, though her thoughts glared pointedly at Salvaged. She'd have to think hard to add to that list. She wasn't sure what to say next—any phrase she could think of made it perfectly clear that Jael was a product of a filthy, immoral act, and this was not something she wished to remind him of. "But maybe someday, you'll be able to square it with him," she finally suggested, though cautiously. The last thing she wanted was to see either of them die, but maybe Jael's idea of vengeance wasn't quite so extreme as sending his father six feet deep. |