XXIX ||| Two Thousand Years || Oliver-Sean pov

"Hel is covered in them, Oli. We all saw it!"

Fuck. "Fuck!" All of us who weren't there cursed.

My brother didn't stop. "She didn't tell us that it was Meredith, or even her grandmother, but she mentioned that she was tortured. Not directly but we understood exactly what she said."

"What did she said?" I clenched my teeth.

"If we got the meaning of her words right, and she was indeed being fully and brutally honest with us," Elsa leaned over the table, "she never slept. Since the day her mother was murdered in front of her when she was 7, she's been unable to rest her mind. From the first second of her time in stasis until the last, ten years ago, only her body was unconscious, she was fully awake. Not just that, as she was also awakened once per month during those twenty centuries."

Irene's eyes widened in horror, "What?"

Yuliana gulped uncomfortable, "Not just awake."

"No. We believe that every time after she got the potion that helps awakening our special abilities, Meredith would get her drunk, and then torture her," Savannah clenched her fists. "Not simply torture but every time she would whip the girl entirely and everywhere but her face and neck, until her flesh was open, and then she would break all the bones in her body, to fuck her healing up, so it would leave scars."

I felt nauseous like never before. Just the idea of my mate suffering all of that shit before I was even born to help her, makes me feel helpless.

"And the whip and all kinds of different scars she has," Yuliana caressed her chin, "she had deep permanent marks of shackles on her wrists. We only saw her arms because she was showing the tattoos to us, clearly used to the scars, and it was bad bro. She brushed it off saying the tattoos were really old, but there was one or two there didn't look as old as she said it was."

All the mischievousness was long gone from Rio's face, "Why did she showed her arms to you? That doesn't sound like her."

"I don't think we know her enough to even say that," Irene gasped.

Dimitry pressed his lips together, "After she gave them the weapons Priya asked her where did she kept them, since she kept summoning them out of nowhere."

"She asked us if we… if we had phobia of scars," Elsa whispered haunted. "It was heartbreaking, seriously. Hel only showed us her arms when we assured her we had nothing against it. She was trying to show us her tattoos, that's when we saw the scars. Her tattoos are special and with spatial magic. She has countless small ones but perfectly detailed images of the weapons she keep in them."

"Shay's weapons are in her body?" Shiryu gasped.

"Yes," Priya mumbled, as haunted as the others. "And you know what's worse? She kept joking about the scars when she saw the horror in our faces, because it was impossible to hide. Hel grinned as if she was okay while saying that with time it stopped hurting after she got used to it!"

Yumi gulped, "One more thing. After all we learned, I feel like Hel isn't necessarily a descendant of Shay Miralanthor, but her daughter. I think she's her daughter. She definitely showed emotional attachment towards the weapons, buy she still gave them to us, saying that they are too precious to be kept hidden just because she can. That Shay would prefer if someone used them, and she also insisted that we named them. So, I may be crazy, after I was the one who doubted this the most, but if I'm right, it'll explain why she got so mad with me, and at Rio when he brought it up earlier."

Another enormous silence stretched over us.

"She's my sister," Nicolette whispered.

"We can't let this out of here," Agost exclaimed. "If the reason why they hid this was because grandma murdered Shayanne Miralanthor, then kidnapped her daughter and tortured her for two thousand years, she can't learn that we know her secret."

"We have an older sister!" Nicolette gasped again.

"Who has no idea your grandma hate you and might potentially try to kill you thinking that will hurt Meredith," Henrihk pointed out. "You better stay down and don't go to her. She will definitely do something to you two."

"Fuck," Dora cursed terrified. "Does Meredith think Hel's tamed?"

"Given how much of a self-centered psychopath she is? Definitely. And Hel must be making her underestimate her purposely!" Rio added. "But, guys, if she's friends with Felix, does this me we got him wrong? Could he also have been used and we didn't know?"

Shit. This is getting even worse.

"Did we ever gave him any opportunity to tell us?" Noah mumbled. "He clearly knows everything that's happening to Hel, guys. They probably met today, but because he gave her a chance to talk and helped her when she needed, she got together with him. He even screamed at us, which he never did!"

"We had no idea," Sabrina clenched her jaw. "How would we know that something was wrong if he never told us?"

"That's the point," Kalisha gasped. "We never gave him a chance."

"Hel made it clear that she wants nothing to do with any of us after all that happened today. She said that no matter if she gave us the weapons or not, we are not friends, she has no intention in being our friends," River passed his hand over his face. "She doubts we are ever going to believe her, precisely because we never believed Felix, and she said that she will not waste her time on us. That she has more important things to do."

It can't get worse than this.

"She has no other option," I clenched my jaw, their eyes on me. "In the audio she said she need to gather the strongest kids of the school. We are already gathered in here. We are the strongest. Plus Felix."

They shared a look and Dimitry turned to me, "There's also one more weird part, Oli. Hel seems to be specifically looking after someone with this aether manipulation, and Felix seems to be now on part with her plan. If it matches with the audio, it's something her mother and this Naël spirit told her to find, and to find in a student in BABS."

"And that's when it gets weirder," River cracked his knuckles. "It seems like her Wolpertinger suggested that she was the one with this. Which is apparently a power similar to that of a God. That's why she got all angry and ended up losing control of her purple flame."

Dimitry nodded, "We couldn't hear the animal, of course, but she seems unable to ignore what it says. She began saying that if she was the one with it, she would have murdered Meredith when she was locked up, and popped her like a balloon. That it was insane for it to suggest that it was her. But when Felix asked it, and she complained, he said that it wouldn't be so weird because she is different."

"And when we asked her what she was, she told me we wouldn't believe her even if she did, because we would call a liar. She said we would say whatever kind of being she is, is nothing but a legend of the old world."

"But if she's dad's daughter with Shayanne Miralanthor, both who are dragons," Agost frowned, "how is it that she isn't a dragon?"

"That my be precisely the reason why Meredith kidnapped her to begin with," Savannah pointed. "She is old, but not ancient from the old world. If Hel is something that we thought to be extinct, Meredith wouldn't know about it either. We know she hates not having control over things, she would definitely go this far to try to tame an ancient creature from the myths if that meant it would be under her."

"Ivy told me something else before I came here," all eyes on me.

"What did she said?" Rio questioned curious.

"Her exact words were; 'She's ancient. Her kin long gone, only the legends remaining. Born of a recessive gene, she's a miracle by herself. A sign that times are changing, that change will come. And she is powerful, Oliver.' That's all she said."

All my friends and brother from the Circle slapped their hands on their foreheads, "What are we going to deal with?" Irene asked exasperated.

"I don't know, but we need to get her on our side, even if that means bringing Felix-Gabriel damn Moore in the package. I can't let her stay out thinking she's alone, when she isn't. She needs to be here," with me!

The ones who don't know shared a confused gaze, and my brother frowned, "What aren't you telling us, brother?"

"I touched her face when we fought during dinner," it was all I said.

Slowly, like it happened to the others, understanding took over their features, but this time, they all acted as if there was something extremely wrong in this. "Fuck. She's was talking about Oli!" Dimitry cried.

I blinked, now high alert. "What do you mean? What did she said?"

My brother closed his eyes, "When we got to the their dorm, she was fighting with Felix because she was trying to know a way to…"

"To what?" I asked, a dreadful feeling taking over me.

And before continuing, they shared one more look, the my baby brother turned to me again, lips pressed on a tight line. "Break it!"

"THE MATING BOND?" Rio yelled in horror. "Has she lost her fucking mind? That's impossible. Everyone dreams with getting mated, why would she want to do that?"

"That's why she fought Felix," Yumi mumbled. "But she wasn't having. After threatening to ouch his mouth so hard that she would break all of his teeth and jaw in the process, Hel said that she would do it one way or another, and that if there wasn't a way, she would make one!"

"In hell she will," I busted. "I won't let that happen. We are mates, she liking it or not. She's stuck with me, and I am not letting her escape now that I finally found her."

She's mine.

Mine!