The Vampire’s Hybrid / Book Four ✔️
Chapter Seventeen: Hope in a Slipper

Her hands shook as she felt sweat pool down her face. Her breath hitched in ragged intervals while she tried to clear her mind and see Mackenzie’s face. Mackenzie and Zachariah’s room recked with their scents and their mating from months ago and that should have helped Ava with being able to connect with at least one of them but it wasn’t and after two days, she was slowly losing hope.

It shouldn’t have been this hard, she should have been able to connect with Mack a long time ago but she failed and failed and failed and now she was failing again. Ava wanted to scream, she wanted to cry. She wanted to tell Lucas that she was hopeless and a failure but then she would contradict her own words and have him tell her that she was everything but a failure in his eyes.

She tried to think about what he had told her. The mermaids that they saw on the island were connected to them because their future children would be together. Hearing that, and seeing the excitement in Lucas’s eyes as he talked about their future child drove her to dig deeper into her power. She had always wanted to be a mother and now that she knew that Lucas wanted to be a dad warmed her heart and wrapped a coat around her body that made her see that her future was brighter than she would ever thought possible.

“Ava, baby. Take a break.” Gene said as he popped his head into the room. “It smells like sex in here.”

She breathed out a laugh. “I will take a break soon and the smell helps. It stinks but it helps.”

“Do you think the castle smells like this?” He questioned with a wrinkled nose. “Between Zachariah and Raphael, that castle would be filled with hormones and bodily fluids.”

Ava didn’t want to think about that but now that he painted that picture, she couldn’t un-smell it. “Hopefully the new baby smell has taken some of that away.”

Gene’s dark eyes widened. “Oh yeah, I forgot about the kid. I miss that new baby smell.”

She gave him a warm smile. “They will let you hold him, I just know it.”

He nodded. “Do you need anything before I stop bugging you?”

Ava thought about it, her lips pulling into a thin line before her eyes brightened. “Actually, yes. Can you ask Lucas if he can come in here? Maybe his scent will help me replace his brother.”

“On it.”

She went to say ‘thank you’ but he was already gone before she got the chance to open her mouth. Gene and Cole had fallen into a routine of retirement. They were excited to finally see the kingdom and start a new life for themselves they were already talking about how their new house would look and where it would be placed. Lucas had offered a spot next to Zack’s second hand’s house and they decided to think about it but she knew they would agree. The spot looked towards the ocean and faced the entire kingdom, they would never say no to views like that.

Ava re-closed her eyes, the slipper feeling heavy in her hold. It was basic and worn out with its simple brown leather design but it would do, it should do as Mack’s scent was all over it. She tried to picture the castle but she came up empty as she didn’t know what it looked like. Ava had only ever known her pack and the Shadow Pack. The Thieves, despite being a single bridge apart from her side of the islands was visible but she was never brave enough to explore the small village. Despite them being a city, she never saw it as a city. The islands that connected made the thieves look like broken villages but Ava wasn’t going to say her thoughts out loud and get murdered for it.

“You needed me?”

She opened her eyes, her smile already forming on her face as she looked up at Lucas. He had been so generous the last four days and dropped everything he was doing to help her whenever she needed him. He had offered her a room to stay in as well but her guilt caved in and she asked if she could stay with him instead and she didn’t regret doing so. The way his eyes had brightened and the hope in his smile had caused her heart to stutter and her gut to flip with nerves. They had only slept but it was getting harder for her to just sleep when he was so welcoming at night and had the morning voice of a Greek God. “Was I interrupting anything?”

“I was stuck in the middle of two of my men arguing with Cole because they were being too friendly with Eugene so, no. You saved me.” He chuckled before he sat down on the floor in front of her. “Having trouble?”

She nodded as she composed herself from her laughter. Cole was always overprotective towards Gene, and she figured that he was going to have a hard time adjusting to Gene and his natural ability to talk to everybody without any issues but it seems as if their new start has started to be just like their old lives. “I need a description of the kingdom…maybe the castle as well. I can’t seem to connect with her, and the closer we get to the kingdom…”

“You fear that our plan to ambush your Alpha will backfire?” He finished for her with a soft smile and a reassuring look. “There isn’t much to talk about. The castle is surrounded by mountains and trees. It is a little higher up than the village so the walk is quite long.”

Ava frowned. “Do you know how to describe anything?”

“I’m trying!” He exclaimed before he settled himself and closed his eyes as if he was trying to think. If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought he was the one trying to summon himself into Mackenzie’s brain. “I never paid attention to it all. I just lived there and did whatever my parents wanted me to do.”

“Then talk about what you did when you were a kid.”

He was silent for a moment before he hummed. “I can’t say that….or that. That was a rough day….I definitely can’t say that-“

“Lucas!”

He only smiled wider which resulted in an eye roll from her. “I was eight, and I was being tortured by my literary teacher. Because I look more like Raph, she often mistook me for him and would scold me for cheating in my studies because I was way ahead of where I should have been. That day I got tired of it, we were in the dining hall, and a few of our maids came in and served us our lunch, and she told them to send it back because I didn’t deserve it. Once she slapped my hand for the fifth time that morning, I jumped onto the table, stripped down naked and screamed.”

Ava’s eyes widened as she suddenly snorted out a laugh. “Why?!”

“Because I was tired of being compared to my brothers. Zack is the faster thinker, he can organise an army and form treaties in seconds. Raph is the rebellious one who hunts and has the verbal wit of fae who can read minds and manipulate. They both outranked me in everything, and I had to beat them at something so I taught myself to read. I know how to read maps, I can read faces and body language, and I can read a lie from a mile away. I might have lacked in the training and strength department, but I learnt how to use my brain, and my literary teacher hated me for it. She knew that if my parents found out that I was self-taught, she would be punished for it but at that moment I stopped caring. I tore my assignment apart and poured her goblet of blood all over her dress, and then I told her the answers to that assignment before I left. Luckily for me, Raph was next to be tutored by her and was trying to replace an excuse not to go so he took me back to my room, helped me dress and then he took me to the training grounds where we fought until I broke and cried. He never judged me for it, and we haven’t talked about it since.”

She leaned forward and took his hands. “Remind me to thank him for being such a good brother.”

Lucas gave her a snort of his own. “I wouldn’t. He doesn’t like people knowing that he cares.”

“Oh, gotcha.” She laughed before she pulled back and picked up the slipper. “Can you describe the dining hall?”

He nodded and started talking. Her eyes closed, and she evened out her breathing until the only thing she could see and hear was Lucas. She concentrated on him and only him as she felt her body sway and the slipper suddenly felt like the only solid thing on her entire body. Ava recognised this feeling, she wanted this feeling as she felt herself smile and tried not to get too excited.

The darkness shifted, moving past her eyes like a sandstorm as she stood and tried to look around but she found nothing but the distant descriptions of the dining hall. It was empty and she wondered if maybe she was doing something wrong until the main entrance door opened and a blond woman entered.

The female looked no older than Ava, her grey eyes staring directly at her before she smirked and crossed her arms. “I figured something was wrong. Zack has been acting chaotic since he received those letters.”

Ava’s eyes widened. “He got the letters?”

She nodded. “He got them Ava. Don’t worry about us, just make sure you get our boy back home safely.”

Ava smiled, her heart leaping inside of her chest before her smile suddenly faltered. “I’m sorry but…I was trying to get to Mackenzie…”

“I know.” The female said with a shrug. “She doesn’t know how to use her power yet, and I felt you coming instead, so I answered your call.”

Ava nodded. “Thank you…”

“Abigail, but you can call me Abby. You can’t sense me because this is how the shadow realm works, even for witches.” Abby said with a smile before she lifted an eyebrow. “Might want to come back to our Lukie-Bear. He’s freaking out and shaking you.”

Ava jumped, her eyes closing and reopening to replace Lucas’s panicked face. “Ava, you stopped breathing!”

She blinked, her eyes moving from Lucas’s eyes to the slipper in her hands. “I did it. I was in the dining hall, and Abby came to me. They got your letters and are waiting for us.”

The relief in his sigh made her look back up as he answered. “That is good…please don’t do this again. I felt the mate bond faultier.”

Ava cupped his face. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.”