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Nico’s eyes started glowing as he gathered power to him. “You swear that you have not interacted, spoken to, or heard from them in more than five years?”
Triston, Percival, and Riddick moved a step closer to me, their bodies tense in preparation of a fight.
I nodded and swallowed hard. “I swear.”
Nico sighed and his power dissipated and his shoulders sagged a bit. “Thank goodness. You had me worried a moment that this was a trap.”
“A trap?” I blinked in shock. “What in the realms are you talking about?”
“Your parents are the founders of the organization called, H.E. or Hybrid Eradication,” Caleb answered.
He was joking, right? This was some odd and elaborate joke?
“You’re lying,” I said sternly, growing angry. “My parents may hate mages, but they wouldn’t start an organization like that. They’d not want to kill people. If they wanted to kill hybrids, then why not me? Why send me to a mage school, buy me this place, and pay for me to live comfortably?”
“They aren’t your biological parents,” Nico said. “They likely adopted you, not knowing you weren’t human and since the adoption papers are traceable, they wouldn’t want to kill you as that would be easily followed to them.”
I shook my head and spun back around, resuming our walk upstream. “No, I don’t believe it.”
My parents, murderers? My parents, starting an organization that sought to eradicate all hybrids? I’d heard of the organization; everyone knew about them. They’d started growing in notoriety after Prince Caleb had been kidnapped by other hybrids and they’d started spreading fear about the hybrids. They couldn’t be part of that. They just couldn’t.
No one spoke again until we reached the spot Beatrice had attacked, where we’d originally found stones. Now though, there were none.
“What?” Triston asked and crouched down, inspecting the riverbank.
“What’s wrong?” Caleb asked.
“There were dozens of the stones here just a few days ago,” Percival said and stalked farther upstream.
“We should check the waterfall,” I suggested. “Percival, can you fly me up there?”
He shifted into his dragon form and Caleb whistled. “Whoa, that is a nice color. What do you call that? Holographic magenta?”
Percival flew up into the air and gingerly picked me up before picking Triston up and flying towards the waterfall.
Looking back, my eyes widened at the sight of Caleb shifting into a dragon form as well, but his was larger than Percival’s and his scales were iridescent shifting from blue to green as he moved.
Looking upwards, I said, “You do have very pretty scales.”
Percival made a purring, rumbling sound, which I took for thanks.
We landed in the same spot as before above the waterfall and found the stones gone from there as well.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I muttered. “There were hundreds of those magical stones. Who could have come and cleaned them up? And why, when they hadn’t before?”
“And when did they do it?” Riddick asked as Caleb dropped them next to us before shifting.
“I think a visit to the Council is necessary now even more than before,” Nico said and started heading that way.
“Um, don’t you need to tell them you’re coming?” Riddick asked.
Nico looked over his shoulder and said, “I’m King. They cannot stop me from entering mage lands and if they do, they’re sentencing themselves to death for being traitors. Plus, I’d like to see them try to keep me out.” He smiled wide and it was not a kind smile, but one full of the thirst for battle.
“Dad,” Caleb said softly, “I think you’re being influenced by Mom.”
“What?” I asked. “Your mom isn’t here.” How could she influence him when she was halfway across the country?
“They can influence each other’s emotions through their mating bond,” Caleb explained. He looked at Riddick, Triston, and Percival and said, “That’s something you should all consider. If you end up mated to a siren, they can cause your emotions to change based on their mood.”
