To Find Another
“Curtis, glad you could join us. Have a seat,” One said from the large group. Curtis paused in the doorway and looked at the small group of people. He had brown hair and was of average height. In darn good physical condition, just like the rest in the room. His eyes were a darker blue, and he looked at them, raising an eyebrow, and then just looked defeated.
“Why do I feel a sudden nosebleed coming on?” Curtis asked, and there were smiles. The one who spoke pulled out a chair at the table. He was taller and more muscular as well; his black hair had tips that turned a kind of burnt orange. He just gave a smile. He and Curtis were rather good friends now, considering the past. Their children spent a great deal of time together.
“Nothing of the sort,” he said, and his name was Carson. His eyes were a kind of amber. It was daytime, and no lights were on in the house, but that was expected. This was Carson’s home, and he was an electromagnetic. An extremely strong and talented one. Normal electricity went haywire around him, hence why it wasn’t on in the house.
“Planning a trip, actually. We needed your opinion.” Curtis’s gaze moved to a taller, more slender man with dark golden-brown hair and amber-gold eyes. Andre was the one who spoke. Next to him was a man who looked exactly like him; he was smiling as well. The woman who had been standing before them moved. She had a kind of dark golden blonde hair color.
“No worries, we’ve removed a good amount of the magic. We can work around it. I’m here, so is Xie. We can monitor it, and as Andre said, we are simply planning a trip and need your advice.” Her name was Kyra.
When she said "Xie," his gaze shifted to the man leaning against the wall. His eyes were such a bright green, they looked almost glowing. Beside him was a woman with a wealth of brown-to-black hair and violet eyes.
“Such a relief to know, when you people keep giving me brain bleeds,” Curtis said. There was a bit of laughter this time. He smiled as well, came in, and sat down. There were others here as well, and none of them were normal. He wasn’t normal, but they were more so as they were what was known as shifters.
People who could take the form of animals. He was like them but called a hunter. Though he wasn’t one who hunted these people anymore. They were, after all, from the same bloodlines, the same past. They were deciding on what to call those like Curtis, rather than hunter.
A past that had caused a divide among their people because of one man’s inability to look past his own needs and desires. Adam was unable to let go of a woman who could only love him as a brother. Because of that, he’d let the darkness in. It had consumed him to nothing more than a demon. He’d hurt and killed so many, and was still going to.
Those in this room had all suffered at his hand one way or another. However, those in this room were more powerful than any other shifter; they were known as Atcuian. The other family from so long ago.
“We would like to go to South America.” Curtis looked at the man who spoke to him from across the table, Cole. His eyes a grey blue and his hair a black color with a swirl of white to it. It looked dyed that way, but it wasn’t. Just how his hair grew.
“Uh. Okay,” Curtis said, but he already knew what they wanted to know. He’d gladly tell them as well. However, he’d been under Adam’s control for a long time. He had magic locking things away in his mind that he was never to share, under penalty of death.
Adam didn’t risk things, didn’t leave them to chance. Kyra was a mage, one who could wield special magic and had been helping release him from it. She was on par with Adam now, but Adam had a lot more than just magic up his sleeve. Still, with her help and others, what was locked away with magic, they were learning to get around. So that he could share, and he knew a great deal about Adam and what he’d done.
“So, you have a favorite country in South America? A place you prefer more than others?” Cole asked. Curtis felt Kyra touch his shoulder, and he knew that Xie was listening to his mind to make sure that something didn’t happen to accidentally kill him.
“I always liked Chile, I guess,” Curtis said nonchalantly, and Xie moved forward behind Cole and looked down at the map as Curtis pointed. His finger landed a bit higher on the long, slender country.
Xie looked where he pointed and made a note of it, but said nothing. That would be too much like him telling secrets that were to be locked away.
“Have any idea the number that would live in this area? Populations can be annoying with our talents,” Xie inquired, and Curtis glanced up at him.
“Not exactly, but I know that some people there used to be as talented as I am.” Curtis smelled just a hint of blood in his nose. Kyra’s hand tightened a bit, and then the sensation stopped.
“Just a few?” Curtis looked at Carson, who asked.
“A family,” Curtis said carefully, and when he didn’t smell blood, knew it was okay to talk. They had to be careful and normally talked in roundabout ways about certain things. His tongue was tied about certain things. This group was looking for another Atcuian that they knew had to be in South America, one that could shift into the avian type.
“A hunter family. They were incredibly strong, but Adam killed them,” Curtis said, no blood. Good, he could keep talking. “Well, all but the oldest son, whose name was Ernesto. He’d be around seventy now if Adam hadn’t gone back and taken his life. He was from the old families. I can’t be sure, but seeing Adam pretty much told me that I was the last. He’d take my life to feed his, I kind of figured he took them all. That doesn’t mean he did, didn’t much talk about South America. Didn’t do much but use it to hold and breed shifters to use.” At that, Curtis leaned forward, putting a hand up, and blood dripped a bit from his nose.
“Don’t say more than you need to,” Kyra told him, and the others agreed.
“I’m fine, you need the others anyway. I want to see this son of a bitch die for all the things he did to me and others. To my family, a nosebleed isn’t that high a price to pay for it. Others have paid more.” His gaze went to Xie first, but then moved around the room a bit.
“You have years of built-up magic, and only a few with us. Just give what you can and no more,” Xie told him, and he just nodded. The bleeding stopped, and Carson handed him a cloth.
“This family was damn good at hunting,” Curtis commented, “Ran a… good business.” He figured he couldn’t talk about the facility, really. Not without pain, so he picked a different way to say it.
“Adam left them there, and when they figured they had a shifter who was bred stronger and better,” He put the rag up to his nose again, but a bit came from his ear. Kyra touched his temples, and she motioned for a man with piercing silver eyes to come forward to help her. It stopped again. Jason had a different kind of magic to add.
“So all the more reason to go there and take care of the place. You said that Alistar told you that the Aves were still alive there. Just one, maybe, and we need to go before that other part of Adam realizes it.” This was Jason, who spoke, his silver eyes shifted from Curtis to Xie.
“Yeah, but we don’t know where this avian is. If they have them at the facility or perhaps just around there. He did say that they were in South America, just not where,” Xie commented as the statement was for him.
“I know someone,” Curtis started carefully because what he knew this time was a dangerous bit to share. He wasn’t sure if Kyra or Jason could counteract the magic fast enough if he misspoke.
Anything about the Atcuians, Adam swore him to secrecy. Either because he didn’t want others to know what had been done, or to track the rest down. Curtis’s family had been kept very close to Adam as their blood was pretty much pure. Not much hope there, and Curtis had gotten very lucky to escape alive.
“Someone?” Xie asked.
“Yeah, someone who really liked to keep birds,” Curtis said slowly, and the rest were quiet. Curtis just kept his mind on something other than the avian Atcuian. Anything else would do. Had to do this in a roundabout way that wouldn’t get him in trouble. “He wasn’t very kind to them, kind of like catching birds and putting them in cages. Watching to see if they could do what he wanted.” A headache started, so he took a breath, and no one rushed him.
“He found a small flock of them once. Unfortunately, my friend had a horrible temper. Kind of killed them all, he ordered those with him to go out. Bring any they found back to the cages.” Curtis had to take a second to breathe. He felt them working at the magic, but it was okay so far. He hadn’t used names, nor been specific. They knew what he was saying. A story that had been repeated a hundred times.
“Doesn’t sound so good,” Cole commented.
“Not really. I wasn’t able to see what kind of birds they collected, if at all. My friend received a call before that. About a different type of rare animal that had been spotted somewhere it really shouldn’t be.” Curtis’s gaze went to Xie.
“We left, told the others to bring them back and keep them there until he was able to come back and assess the… birds for rarity.” Curtis hoped that they were following. It seemed and felt rather dumb to have to speak like this. Really, he didn’t want to keel over and bleed out all over the floor for something so simple as mentioning a name.
“Okay, so we have a group of hunters that went out and probably caught the last one. He said one was left, right?” Andre asked.
“Yeah, that’s what I got out of it,” Xie told Andre, who spoke, and he nodded. “We have a very short amount of time, I’m guessing, before your friend goes back to check his aviary.” Curtis just gave a nod.
“I’m surprised that he hasn’t yet,” Curtis said.
“I’m not; he’s been damn busy coming after us that he knows are alive. We’ve been doing a great amount of damage here. Those in South America probably haven’t called to say that they found anything odd with those they are keeping. How long ago was your friend collecting birds?” Xie asked.
“Oh, say twenty-three years maybe?” Kyra tapped her lip, then looked at Xie.
“That would have been around the time we attacked the facilities for the first time. Apparently, he was traveling quite a bit. No wonder he was draining the hunters so fast. His magic wasn’t holding up,” Kyra said, looking at Cole.
“Nor was I cooperating very well. He didn’t trust the collar would keep holding up,” Cole said, and Cole had been a captive of Adam’s. He was able to traverse space with a thought, and it didn’t drain his life away like it was doing to Adam with magic.
Adam had wanted to know how Cole managed it because that would be a damn good weapon to have at will. Not by magic or potion, but by psychic ability.
“I’d say that plan to attack so long ago might have saved a lot more than we realized at first,” Adrian commented, Andre’s twin. “Saved Cole and Mercedes.” He gestured at the violet-eyed woman, who gave a smile.
“Saved this last Avian from death. Hell, Troy was released from his brief stay too that night.” Though Troy had not been at their facility, they attacked, but the African one. It had been a massive attack by shifters who had decided not to take it lying down anymore. Looked like it had been a pivotal moment in their world.
“Extremely. I, for one, am glad for it,” Mercedes said, and Cole nodded. There was no doubt that Cole would have been killed, seeing that he was Atcuian. Mercedes was Adam’s daughter; she’d have been used up or killed eventually, too. Though her worth was also a plus because she was Xie’s mate. The only one in this room that Adam hated more than the rest. All part of the very long, complicated story, and Xie was more than ready to take Adam’s head.
“I don’t know numbers, but I know a damn lot,” Curtis said into the silence. “You need a place to train others, right? Before you send them out,” Curtis stated.
“This is a training ground, too? Thought he was low on hunters.” Curtis didn’t respond to Adrian, too much to share at once.
“That might be a problem. Second, as we get stronger, Adam will want hunters moving double time now to gain power and strength. Probably shooting them up with whatever serum, too. More hybrids to deal with, goodie.” Andre said, and there were smiles at his comment, but it was a very real one. They all knew how dangerous hybrids were.
“This is going to be a very long trip, and we have to plan everything down to a T.” This from a woman who hadn’t spoken yet. She had white hair and ice-blue eyes. Oxana sighed, closed her eyes for a second, and looked defeated.
“That good, huh?” Carson asked her, and a few smiled.
“At least it’s her. I hate when Zavid is in the room, always a chill following him around,” Andre said, and the woman and her brother were sightseers. Oxana gave a half smile to Andre.
“I’ll let him know you said that. He’ll just hang around more to piss you off,” Andre smiled, showing a flash of teeth. However, she looked at the others and spoke. “It is a massive facility. I can see that now,” Oxana said with a growl in her voice. “They aren’t letting me see the who or what yet. Clearly, something must happen first before then. But we should be able to look at this facility and plan, but I get an urgency, time is very short.”
“Able to pinpoint a more specific location that we could go sightseeing?” Cole asked Curtis. Curtis just stared at him in a rather deadpan way.
“Alright, guess not,” Cole said, raising an eyebrow at his look.
“You need to work on that personality, Curtis, it’s really dry,” Adrian said with a smile.
“And you need to work on keeping your asinine comments to yourself, guess we can’t all get what we want, can we?” There was a bit of laughter to it. Curtis leaned forward and pointed at Chile again. “As I said, Chile’s a very good place to go.” Xie got a slight glimpse from the man’s mind, and Curtis didn’t know it. Plus, he pointed to the same spot on the map again.
“I think we can work it out just fine,” Xie commented, then looked at the rest. “I suggest that half work on the ins and outs of this facility that we are going to burn to the ground. The others work on getting other shifters up to speed.” Xie’s bright green gaze met all of theirs. “I mean it too, we are going to burn it to the ground. Nothing to rebuild, we aren’t just attacking anymore. This time, we are making it known. We want to take China, can’t have someplace they can run.”
“Xie you, bloodthirsty monster you. I like it,” Andre supplied.
“Yeah, kind of a turn-on,” Adrian interjected. Xie just gave him a slight lip curl, but there was humor in his eyes. Something that didn’t happen much up until recently. Mercedes moved up, wrapping her arms around Xie from behind.
“Back off. Kyra, control your mates. They are trying to mate poach again.” There was laughter around the room.
“Uh, no. I’ve decided they want to mate poach, good riddance. They can be someone else’s problem. If they aren’t around, I can’t be cursed with ungodly amounts of children anymore,” Kyra said seriously, which the three of them now had twenty of, well, nineteen because they had lost a daughter. On their backs, starting low and moving up their spines, were small circles. Mating marks that appeared for each child conceived. There was more laughter.
“Sorry, babe, you’re stuck with us. Besides, Mercedes is the only one weird enough to want the living dead as her mate. Who knows if he even works properly or picked something up on the other side,” Adrian said. Xie had actually died once. Through quick thinking, sheer luck, and the grace of the dead, he’d been given a second chance. Xie looked at Kyra.
“No one would blame you if you killed them,” Xie said. More smiles. Kyra sighed.
“Yeah, I think about it, but then I think, who will I have to be my bitch to watch the kids?” Even more laughter and smiles as they moved. A few moved closer to the table to look at the map. They had a lot to plan.
“She treats us so amazingly, no wonder we mate poach,” Andre said, moving toward where Kyra was standing and smiling at them.
“What are you smiling at, boy?” Adrian demanded of Jason, who had an odd light to his gaze, and he just shrugged.
“You’re so whipped it’s funny,” Jason said. Adrian moved by him and smacked him hard alongside the head. Jason ducked a bit but was still clipped.
“Not as badly as our daughter has you whipped,” Andre said.
“Just an act, she thinks she’s in control, she’s happy. A happy woman is far more willing to…” Jason was cut off.
“And you will stop that sentence right there,” Andre said, pointing. “Ignorance is bliss.” Jason just smiled. He and Havana had four children of their own at the moment.
“Children,” Xie spoke with a snap of his fingers, and they looked at him. “Either pay attention or get out.”
“Yes, Father,” Adrian said with a slight bow.
“You mean grandfather, throw a few greats in there. Not sure how old he is,” Carson added, and Xie looked over at him.
“You know, I’m starting to like you less every time you open your mouth, Carson. Don’t think I won’t kick your ass to prove a point,” Xie said. Carson just gave a flash of white teeth, but it was all in good humor.
Their community was growing as were their family bonds. Xie started to speak again. They were silent, trying to decide how to attack. All were back to serious tones about how they would find another member of their line. Come hell or high water they would get to them first before Adam.
