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Growing too close to humans in her current life was an obvious trap, but it was one Maerlin repeatedly fell into. The Mosiers had been kind and welcomed her into their lives with open arms when she’d met them. Brian and Melinda had been her family for a time, a refuge from the ravaging effects of a long life spent alone.
Maerlin possessed incomprehensible power and could conquer any foe, but her weakness was loneliness. Maerlin hadn’t birthed a child in millennia, but the decision to use her magic to spark life in Melinda’s womb had been inevitable.
It had been love at first sight. Maerlin had adored Ash from the moment she was born through her first two years of life. Sealing the toddler’s soul to bind her powers and walking away had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done.
Ash was special in a way none of her other children had been. She had birthed the others herself, and those children, the Titans, had risen to claim the Earth. Later, she had borne twelve children to a Mediterranean man, and they had become the legendary Olympian pantheon.
While all her children wielded phenomenal powers on a cosmic scale, they often lacked humanity. Ash had been born human, though the power within her had overflowed before she could walk. Maerlin hoped the extra layer of humanity and the delayed powers would help Ash retain the open, loving heart she was sure any child raised by her friends would have. The others had fallen prey to the hubris of limitless power, but Ash had the potential to be the best of them, the perfect combination of humanity and Maerlin’s Abyssal magic.
Maerlin sighed. The last seal breaking meant Ash had died and risen in her true form, which she couldn’t understand on her own. Something in her rebelled at leaving Ash to navigate that traumatic transformation alone. Squaring her shoulders and taking a deep breath to steady herself, Maerlin walked up the sidewalk and knocked on the Mosiers’ door.
She heard footsteps approach, and one of the Therians opened the door. Maerlin dropped the magic that disguised her power, and Uuka, the panther Luca had left in charge of defending the Mosiers, stared at Maerlin in shock and dropped to his knees.
“Oh, please don’t do that. Get up,” Maerlin urged.
“Who’s at the door, Uuka?” Melinda asked, stepping around the corner. She stumbled a step when she saw her old friend, sending one of the family photos on the wall crashing to the entry steps. “Maerlin?” she whispered.
Rapid footsteps moved down the hall, and two more Therians ran into view, along with Brian, who skidded to a stop when he saw their guest. The color drained from his face, and both Mosiers looked like they’d seen a ghost. In a way, they had. They’d mourned at Maerlin’s funeral, visited her grave, and missed her for twenty years. Thanks to the Therians, they knew what she was and that she was still alive, but seeing her made it real.
Melinda recovered first and charged down the short stairway to throw her arms around Maerlin’s neck, sobbing with joy from seeing her again. Brian wasn’t far behind, and he wrapped his arms around them. When they stepped back, Maerlin wiped away Melinda’s tears, beyond relieved that they didn’t automatically hate her for disappearing.
“I’ve got some serious explaining to do,” she admitted sheepishly.
Melinda laughed, wiping away more tears. “You could say that. There are some pretty big holes in the story we know, and you may be the only one who can offer answers.”
“Please, come in. We’ve got some news you may want to hear as well,” Brian added.
Maerlin stepped in, picking up the broken picture frame and looking at the photo of Ash and Dani with wonder. She repaired the glass with a wave and ran her hand over the smiling blonde woman in the picture. “Is this her?”
Melinda led the group to the living room, and Maerlin carried the photo. “Yes, that’s Ash, with our adopted daughter Dani. They’re going to be so upset that they missed you.”
Maerlin sat on the sofa and looked at Brian and Melinda in turn. “You don’t hate me?”
Melinda laughed. “I’m a little pissed you faked your death, and it hurts that you didn’t trust us to accept you as you are, but no, we don’t hate you.”
Maerlin didn’t know what to say. “Don’t you understand what I did to your daughter?”
Brian shook his head, “Not really. I know you gave her the spark. We assumed that’s how we got pregnant. When Ash met Luca, we think that was the first crack in the spell you put on her.”
“Do you have any news about the girls?” Melinda asked hopefully. “We haven’t heard much from them since they left. Dani sent a text to say they had survived the battle and Ash killed Nadya.”
Maerlin’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know. It’s taken everything I had to resist watching her, and I bound myself to wait until the seal broke, or I would never have been able to stay away. Now I must approach Ash to help her work through the changes she’s facing, but I don’t know her or how she’d react.”
Melinda caught her husband’s eye, and he nodded in agreement with her silent question. “If you’re going to see Ash, we want to go with you. The Therian king extended us a permanent invitation to the palace, and I can guarantee they would welcome you like a visiting goddess. Seriously, you should hear how they talk about you.”
Maerlin smiled. “You know how legends are. I’m sure it’s a lot of ridiculous tall tales. How do you know the Therian king? I met his mother while she was pregnant with him. I hear he’s a rather special dragon.” She’d stayed away from Ash, but she had heard about the former king’s death.
It was Brian’s turn to look stunned. “You don’t know? The dragon king, Luca, took Ash as his mate before he ascended to the throne. It’s been a whole dramatic thing. They had to kill King Nikoli because he lost his mind and was slaughtering people right and left. It was pretty bad, but they made it through together. Ash had to become a vampire to save Luca and keep Nadya from turning him, which she accomplished. It’s been a whirlwind for a few months, but we’ve been preparing.”
“Yes, we have,” Melinda added. “We don’t want to live on the other side of the world from our girls. Nothing is holding us here. I think we can help Ash retain her humanity if the realities of being a vampire overwhelm her.”
Maerlin held up a hand to stop them. “First, I grievously underestimated the two of you. You seem to be taking all this in stride. Does nothing rattle you?”
Melinda and Brian shared an amused, loving look and another of their silent conversations and laughed.
“I don’t deny there was some initial shock, but we learned to roll with the punches and adapt to whatever life throws at us long ago. You might have bound Ash’s powers, but she was an amazing child, and no one could say she wasn’t a handful. Then, after everything with Dani’s mother and the murders, Luca saved Brian’s life and healed him from a stroke. Then we learned he was a dragon and vampires attacked Ash. Accepting the weird was a lot easier after that,” Melinda explained.
Emotions rose within Maerlin, and tears stung her eyes. They knew what she was, or the Therians’ idea of what she was, and they weren’t batting an eye.
