Connection - Golden Lycans Sequel 3/3 [in progress]

Discordance

***Ophelia***

It is Wednesday afternoon, and we are coming to the end of a grueling two-hour lecture on the biological changes that occur when a blending has occurred in a Lycan.

It was fascinating to hear, but for me, it was also a little painful.

"Anyway, let's wrap up for today. I think you'll find the next two topics quite exciting. After Christmas, we will cover the Fae. Clearly, they are an almost extinct species and there aren't more than a handful around, but this is about broadening knowledge rather than giving you pointers on medical treatment in the future. The likelihood of you coming across one is slim to none. They are a species that can heal themselves, but their ability to do that is determined by a multitude of factors you'll be learning about in due course."

I look sideways at Ares as he taps his stylus against his tablet, staring into space.

Coffee was definitely needed.

"...Finally...it's all confirmed and in place....in two weeks’ time we will have a speaker by the name of Atticus Katz," Dean says, causing a lot of excitement across the room at the mention of the name.

Even Ares jolts with surprise at hearing this, too. I had never met him, but I knew my parents had a fair few times. He had been sired by the vampire king himself, Augustus Katz, and served as their singular method of law enforcement. On the outside, it seemed daft having only one man do it, but from what I had heard from my parents, he was ruthlessly effective and highly feared among their community.

It had been assumed but never confirmed, that the older the vampire, the stronger and more powerful their mental abilities were, and Atticus Katz was known to be several thousand years old.

"Yes. The vampires are coming to this very lecture hall. This will be a heavily attended lecture, and it will be recorded and streamed, so I highly recommend coming, even though it is first thing on a Monday morning. How our VC managed to get this to happen is anybody's guess..."

Everyone starts standing up from their seats, and I am a little surprised when Ares just immediately bolts off without saying anything to me.

It is unusual behaviour for him, so I cannot help but wonder if he is alright.

...

***Ares***

I hurry out of the lecture theatre doors into the cold air, feeling quite irritated on two levels.

First, it baffled me how keen my classmates seemed to be to have a prominent vampire visitor when I recall the cruel jibes I had heard that members of my community had endured at school.

Before coming to Vale I had assumed that being homeschooled had been the best thing for me, that I was lucky to have been. But now, part of me wished I had been to a normal school, as perhaps I would not be as socially inept as I knew I now was.

Still, I felt like I had been doing a little better recently, though.

Maybe...?

Or, perhaps Lia and Ash were tolerating my oddities a little more. They definitely saw and treated me like a little brother. The way Ash shook his head at me at times reminded me exactly of my ‘brothers’ back home.

The other thing that was irritating me was that I wish my father had warned me about Atticus coming here.

I walk toward one of the quiet gardens between the library and the café and I take a seat on one of the wooden benches, pulling my phone out of my pocket.

"Atticus is coming to Vale?" I ask immediately oncehe answers, feeling a lump in my throat. I hear father chuckle a little on the other end.

"Ares, come now. You did not fink zat Ella Landry vud show me ze greatest kindness in providing our people viv procreation, zen give you free entry to Vale, und I vudn't do zumthing in return?" my father asks me down the line.

"I wish you had told me. Please remind him that I am human here...I do not wish him to reveal what I am. I think I have made friends; I feel...I feel happy and that I do feel I belong here," I implore him—annoying, sounding like a young child.

"Ares. You spent many years, alone in zat uzza realm, studying endlessly...so zat you could be accomplished und ov ze age to come to Vale now. Atticus vill not jeopardise zat. He knows vot is in your heart. He vill not give you avay. Have zum faith in 'im, please."

I nod to myself and sigh.

"How is she?" I ask, my heart feeling a little heavy.

"She is...good. Knowing zat you are happy und thriving gives her purpose each day. But, I fink she vud appreciate a visit," father replies. I nod to myself.

"Absolutely. I will. I miss her," I tell him before I say goodbye and hang up.

I check my watch, it is twenty-five minutes until chemistry. I head down the path out of the garden and down the route towards the basketball courts. Lia had definitely given me the bug for this. It was fast-paced; it involved a keen eye and I also just really enjoyed playing with her.

I am not at all surprised to see her there, now. She spots me entering the court, and she looks at me with a curious expression.

"Ares, are you alright?" she asks, spinning the ball around in her hands.

I pause for a moment, wondering why she has just asked me this. But, I guess I had exited the lecture hall rather rapidly.

"I needed to make a phone call," I reply, gesturing for her to throw me the ball, which she instead tucks under her arm.

"But...is everything alright?" she asks again, her eyes sincere.

I know she is not prying by asking this, and she genuinely wants to know. At times like this, when it was just Lia and me, I wondered whether I could tell her what and who I really was. It had been several weeks, but I felt that I could trust her. Her previous friendship with a natural-born was a testament to her acceptance of my kind, at the very least.

"I worry about my mother," I reply honestly. There was no need to lie about this, I could be honest and not reveal too much.

"Oh no, is she sick?" Lia asks, stepping closer to me. Her aura shimmers into view. I wish I had a book for this, I think to myself. I make another mental note to hunt one out some time.

"Essentially. Nothing life-threatening. But what she has...it affects her mentally. Significantly," I tell her. It feels good to voice it out loud to Lia, even if I have been purposefully light on the details. She looks at me for several seconds, the colours in her aura shifting around as she does so. I believe she is feeling sadness about what I have said.

"She is why you are here," Lia states simply... correctly, realisation dawning on her face.

"Absolutely. She was always around for me when my father wasn't, so...I owe her that," I admit.

"Your father is a busy man?" Lia asks. I nod and chuckle a little.

"Very busy. But, please do not think he has not cared about me. He was incredibly thankful to have me, but...things have not always been straight forward," I explain. Lia nods in acknowledgment and throws me the ball.

"So...Fae and Vampires, huh?" she says brightly, evidently changing the topic.

"I am very keen to hear more about the Fae," I reply, turning towards the hoop and throwing it from where I am standing. It goes through the hoop and Lia shakes her head as she laughs lightly.

"I am very keen to hear anything about the vampires," she says before she goes to retrieve the ball, "are you not curious about them?"

"Why are you curious?" I ask her, because the Fae were far more compelling.

"Because they're people too?" she shrugs, "I'm really curious. They've purposefully been so mysterious, it feels. I mean...we've almost finished learning about all the things Lycans go through, with blending and instinctual behaviours etcetera. We've heard what it's like to be someone of every rank, as psychologically it really varies. So...I want to know what it's like for someone to be a vampire. How it feels. How it all changes to be something one minute, and something else entirely the next. Does it change who someone inherently is? To become something else? What do they gain, and what do they lose? Or...what is it like to be born like it?" She shoots the ball, and it bounces off the edge of the hoop, causing her to scowl at it as she continues.

"All Ezra ever told me was that he didn't have his fangs yet. Which suggested to me that in the natural-born, traits develop at a point of maturity, just like the rest of us. It's...just intriguing, do you not think?" she adds brightly.

I just smile back at her.

She is always so genuine and with an open mind, and I appreciate this about her so much. She did not view my people as being bloodthirsty, murderous savages like so many did.

"You are a good person, Lia. Truly," I tell her, before I go to retrieve the ball.

"Not good enough," she mutters, with an audible sigh.

I am not sure why she has said this, but bringing her aura into focus, I can see dark, muted colours amongst the streaks of gold that were ever present in her. She is feeling sad, feeling loss. Again.

Why does she feel such loss?

What has she lost?

"What question do you think you would ask of the Fae? If you could?" I ask her. She snorts with laughter for a moment and makes a strange expression.

"I would ask them why they won't come through, why they won't come back here. The world really needs them."

"Really? That is what you would ask?" I reply.

"What would you ask?" she now asks me in response. I laugh.

"What is it like to be able to fly. I think that must be incredible," I suggest. She needs slowly in agreement.

"I really want to get my bio and chemistry essays out of the way," she then says with a sigh, shifting the ball around in her hands.

"I've finished both already," I tell her casually. She looks at me in surprise.

"How? We only got the chemistry one yesterday, and you watched TV all evening!" she exclaims.

"I went to bed late," I half lie, wishing I had not said I had finished it.

Truthfully, I had gone to bed late, but I had completed my essays in the other realm. As an hour went by here, I had many more in the other realm. I didn't want to do this too much, but I really wanted to try and get more socially acclimatised whenever I could, and sometimes that meant watching TV with Maddy or Ash.

"Anyway. I think we have just enough time to grab a takeaway coffee. I know that you're in desperate need of one," she tells me before she goes to put the ball back in the storage box.

"I do need one," I reply, having not slept much due to doing my essays, "how do you know that?" I ask her as we pick up our bags off the floor.

She chuckles a little and smiles at me,

"I hate to break this to you, Ares, but spending day after day with you for several weeks now? I've actually gotten to know you a little. That's how I know," she replies.

I smile back, noting the appearance of more joyous colours within her aura; she is happy, which is good, because I want my friends to feel happy around me.

...

***Austin***

I drum my fingers on my desk, anxiously awaiting the mid-afternoon video call that was about to begin. I wish I'd had time to nip outside to my coffee guy, but it'd have to wait until after this meeting, now.

I had two big topics to discuss. Obviously, the biggest issue was the rapidly escalating issue of the increasing number of severe injuries and deaths of high-ranking female Lycans, resulting from ill-conceived attempts to mark by male alpha heirs and betas. The second was that this problem was only adding to an existing problem; an increase in the number of rogues that were around.

The computer starts chiming and the continental Council leaders, as well as the head of the UN, all start arriving for the video meeting. I take a deep breath in and exhale long and hard before I turn my microphone on.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, I wish this meeting wasn't an emergency meeting, but there are problems that we can no longer ignore or hope will improve on their own. The Lycan community is in disarray, and we need to take action," I say to the camera.

"It is not just the Lycan community, Mr Landry," someone pipes up. It is the North American leader, Axel Rogers. I look back at his face on the screen.

"Do tell," I tell him, wondering what else we were going to have to deal with.

"Increased aggression, more discordance, more dark warlocks...the Lycans definitely have their own issues right now, particularly with the increase in higher-ranked rogues. But, across the board...something is happening. It's not even just Lycans experiencing problems with marking. We've had some powerful witches injured in the same manner. Luckily, they've used their magic against the Lycan in their human form before anything drastic could happen," Axel says.

On the upside, they're becoming more accepting of bonding to other species, Atlas says, darkly.

Not quite the kind of union the Goddess was hoping for, though, I reply.

"Agreed. It feels like something is in the water, recently. Suddenly affecting various species," Circe, my successor at the European council, says with a concerned expression. She is an elven-witch hybrid, and a highly intuitive one at that.

"My Seers are concerned. They can't See a damn thing!" says the Asian representative, Kaede Ren, also Lycan. Upon hearing this, all the other Council leaders start muttering their agreement.

"They're not alone. My Seer can't See much ahead either. By the day it becomes less and less," I reply with a sigh, having had another discussion about it with Amoya a few days previously.

"What are we going to do? Should we make the issue with the Lycans more public? Do we start to warn the community?"

"Honestly, I am not sure. I will consult some advisors about this and make a decision sometime soon. Meanwhile, we need to figure out what to do about all these rogues..."

...

***Ophelia***

As Ares and I exit the lift outside our flat door, I can hear loud voices from inside.

"What on earth?" I say to Ares as he looks back at me with a similar expression to my own. He presses his finger against the reader and the door unlocks.

"—no! That's no excuse, you need to grow the hell up, Mads. Honestly. You're an adult! You're here, about to study medicine and have a HIGHLY niche qualification that could take you anywhere in the world, but NO! You'd rather spend the group session throwing balled-up notes to some guy on the next lab station over. Do you even realise how much that all impacts you?" Ash shouts at Maddy, both of them standing a few metres from each other in the living area. They haven't even noticed that we've entered the flat.

"What do you care? It doesn't impact any of you! I haven't brought any of them back here, have I?" Maddy retorts angrily, her blue eyes fierce as she stares across the room at Ash.

"Are you KIDDING?" Ash says, noticing Ares and I standing there as he gestures towards me, "your roommate was ATTACKED in a car park two weeks ago. What did you do when we got back here? You went straight to Seth's bed. Did you even ask if Lia was okay? You didn't. You didn't even say a single word to her when you sloped back in the next morning. Ask yourself: had that been you, what would Lia have done? What would ANY other woman have done?"

Maddy looks quite ashamed, right now, at Ash's mention of this. I don't particularly like being used to illustrate Ash's point, but it clearly has an effect.

"Excuse me," she mumbles, hurrying off to her room and shutting the door behind her. Ares and I exchange a quick, awkward glance, before Ash comes up to us.

"Sorry...umm...just getting a bit tired of her attitude. She hasn't contributed anything to that group presentation for chem," Ash says with a sigh.

"I have never seen you even slightly irritated, Ash. You are unexpectedly intimidating," Ares says brightly.

I can't help but laugh at this, as he isn't wrong, but he sounds almost delighted. Ash laughs too and sighs.

"I should probably see if she's okay," Ash says.

"No, don't. I think your point will be clearer if you leave her to consider her actions. You are right," Ares says before looking at me, "she did not consider Lia. That is not a behaviour that I appreciate in someone whom I share space with."

Ash looks a little surprised at Ares for saying this, but he nods and appears to agree with him.

"Good point. I'm going to start prepping for that curry I've been threatening to make everyone. It'll calm me down," Ash replies.

"Well...I'm going to make myself a coffee and then work on one of my many essays," I say awkwardly, wanting to stop them talking about what happened in the car park at the bowling alley.

..

Around an hour later, there is a knock at my door. Before I can say anything, Maddy enters the room and shuts the door behind her.

"Ash is cooking," she says with an excited look on her face, "just when I thought he couldn't get any hotter when he was telling me off, he's now cooking."

"Yeah, he offered to this morning, or did you forget?" I laugh, shutting the lid of my laptop.

Maddy shrugs.

"We haven't really hung out, have we?" she says, biting her lip a little as she looks curiously around my room,

"No. You have been a little busy most evenings, and we don't have any classes together," I point out, not that I'm sad about this, I feel more comfortable hanging out with guys anyway. Maddy looks uncomfortable for a moment, before she takes in a deep breath.

"Ash was right. I was not a good roommate to you. You were attacked...having been the one who drove us there in the first place because I had been out drinking at lunchtime. I didn't see if you were okay when we got back. I did go straight to Seth's bed and I didn't pay you any thought. The next day I didn't even see if you were okay, and that was pretty lousy of me on several levels," she says thoughtfully.

"He was right again, because you would have absolutely ignored a guy, even for me, and you'd have done everything you could to see if I was okay. Because you're a good person, and you care, even when I don't deserve to be cared about. I...do have some growing up to do. I know that. I am super lucky that I got a scholarship here, and that I got given a room in this building. I mean, I don't have to pay rent here, it's all included, and it's amazing compared to the larger accommodation blocks where the rooms are smaller and there are more people in a flat. I do need to do better. To be more grateful," she sighs. Maddy is ridiculous, but she is still young, just like me. Ash always comes across as being more mature than anyone else in the room, but I didn't think that necessarily meant that Maddy was being immature.

"Be kind to yourself, Maddy. I can tell you've not had the easiest time getting here. You're young, and you're so pretty. Guys really like you, and I can imagine that's quite emboldening. But you must've worked your ass off to have been given a scholarship, I know that much, so...don't worry about it," I assure her, knowing there hadn't been any scholarships as such; just kids my mum wanted to come study here, who couldn't afford it.

She evidently saw something in Maddy that others couldn't, and probably not even Maddy herself.

"I'm gonna do better, and that will start with the hottest costume that I have in mind for you, for my party," Maddy says with a cheeky glint in her eye. I clear my throat, not really enjoying this idea.

"What costume would that be?" I ask her, apprehensively.

"You'll see," she smirks, "but you'll need nude underwear. You've got some, right?"

"I think so? I'm not sure," I reply offhandedly. She immediately slides off my bed and heads over to my dresser, pulling drawers open.

"Oh! HELLO!" she says loudly, extracting a glossy, bright pink bag that I recognise after several seconds...it's what my Aunt Freya got me for my birthday.

"Ugh, please don't-" I begin to say, but it's too late, she has already opened it up and looked inside.

"Oh my GOD. You've been holding out on me, Lia. Who knew the quiet, sweet, studious one of us girls had a s*x toy in her dresser," she says, extracting a box. I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh in annoyance.

"I've never even opened it. You can have it if you want it," I tell her, feeling my cheeks burn.

"Whoa. No, this is staying in here, Lia, You need to try it!" she says, sticking her face in the bag some more, "wow. Did you buy this stuff?"

She starts pulling out something sheer and cobalt blue. I sigh, getting up off my bed and going over to her.

"No, my Aunt got it for me for my eighteenth birthday."

"Well. You do have some nude underwear in there, but I'm saddened that they've all got TAGS on, Lia. Why aren't you WEARING these? They're so cute!" she says.

"I...don't see the point," I say honestly, taking the bag off her and stuffing it back in my dresser.

"Well, actually...I think you do, Lia," she says knowingly, clicking her tongue at me. I turn to face her.

"Oh, I do?" I challenge her, a little bluntly. She approaches me, smiling sweetly.

"Yes. Because, honey, you decided to bring it all with you," she says, arching a brow at me and looking a little smug. I flare my nostrils a little in annoyance, as she has an annoyingly good point. I didn’t leave it at home…

“Maybe you’re just afraid?” Maddy says quietly, her expression softening, “you’re a virgin, aren’t you?”

I fold my arms and look at her bluntly, “No, I’m not, actually, as of about eight months ago.”

“Oh, honey,” she replies, now looking sad, “it can’t have been good. Someone didn’t take care of you, because otherwise, you WOULD have opened that box.”

She throws me another expression of pity before she leaves my room, shutting the door behind her.

Annoyingly, once again, she has just made a very good point.

..

"Okay, so I don't claim to be a chef, but people have been known to make some very interesting noises when eating my mango chicken curry," Ash says, putting four plates down along the breakfast bar. It is times like this when we eat together, when I wish we had a proper dining table that wasn't on the balcony.

"Ash, you had me at interesting noises," Maddy says with a short laugh as she gets a large pack of poppadoms from the cupboard. Ash then puts down a large pan of rice and another large pan of his curry.

It smells amazing, and I feel my stomach growl happily.

After what had been a very tasty dinner, I was back on the balcony, tending to my new plants.

They were doing well. They were ideal for shade and they were hardy plants, but they looked much healthier than they had when they'd arrived.

"Plants look to be thriving..." I hear Ash ask behind me.

Thankfully, the door is shut so Ares and Maddy can't hear from where they're watching TV on the sofas.

"They are, which is great. I have grown up around an abundance of plant-life, so...this is me trying to recreate a little bit of that here," I reply, taking off some of the dead leaves to show the lush leaves a little more.

"I want to suggest going to a zoo this weekend, but I wanted to see how you felt about that, given what happened at the bowling alley," Ash says, sitting down next to me.

"That's kind of you, to think of me before suggesting that to the others. I think if its a busy place during the day, I'll be okay. Last time was at night, near a full moon and it was just me. I feel fine about going out to the zoo," I tell him, liking the idea.

"That's great. We've had so many essays piled onto us in only the last week, I figure we need to get out and do something fun. It's meant to be sunny this weekend, too," Ash says.

"We have a lot of essays, and yet...Ares never seems to be working on any. Somehow, he always has them done on time, I don't get it," I comment with a frown,

"I heard him go to bed around three in the morning last night. Maybe he's a night owl?" Ash suggests. He shifts a little on the floor and leans towards me, "so...how do you feel about the fact we are learning about the Fae after Christmas?"

I shrug as I place a stick in the middle of one of the pots, for the plant to climb around as it grows.

"Similar to how it's felt learning about Lycans, Ash," I reply wistfully. He makes a noise of agreement.

"Yeah. So...do you...feel like an alpha?" Ash asks, dropping his voice. I look back at him oddly.

"What do you mean by that?" I ask, a little confused by the question.

"I mean...do you get the same kind of urges that they normally do?" he asks, clearing his throat awkwardly as my expression demonstrates that I know what he's actually asking, "and you know, feeling like a leader...all that kind of stuff?"

I tilt my head and look back at him with a bit of a pissed off expression.

"No Ash, no urges like normal alphas," I say in an annoyed tone before I get up off the floor, "and I definitely don't feel like a leader."

I go back into the living room, feeling quite irritated that Ash has asked me those things.

"You okay, Lia?" Maddy asks, noticing my expression, I'm sure. I nod and sit down, wondering what on earth they are watching. It looks like garbage.

"So, the premise of this show, is that this family have people with cameras....taping everything that they do?" Ares asks, looking entirely perplexed as he gestures towards the screen, "why? Why would anyone want that? It seems incredibly intrusive. Not to mention boring for the viewer if you think how we all spend our days."

I laugh before I can answer Maddy, finding it funny that Ares has decided to watch reality television with her.

She had been huddled on the sofa after dinner, hugging a heated pad around her tummy. I was glad that endometriosis wasn't a 'thing' for neither Lycans or Fae.

"Because they're rich, they don't have to work, and they're all gorgeous," Maddy says, as if Ares ought to have known this.

"Ridiculous idea. They're not that rich," Ares mutters, frowning at the screen, "their house is moderately sized at best. No helipad, their car collection is quite basic and that is not real marble on their worktops."

"Compared to who?" Maddy asks, looking at him strangely, now. Ares looks a little as though he has said something he shouldn't have, and now I am wondering once again, who his father might be.

"Yeah, I mean, my parents are definitely a lot wealthier than this family on TV," I decide to add, to throw Maddy off of Ares. It was true, after all. We didn't need a helipad, though, particularly when my mother had her own wings.

"What? Are you serious? But you drive an eight-year-old, dented Nissan!" Maddy exclaims, her expression dumbstruck.

"The truly rich, don't need to ever look rich, Mads," I tell her with amusement, giving her a wink as I walk past.