The New World

“We have a problem.” I snickered at that as I looked out the window from my business. There were all kinds of problems that had come up in the last five days that Demoino had paid a visit to Mariana. She hadn’t gone A-wall on us, but she was in hiding, at least for the moment and even I wasn’t sure where she was. There were more attacks on our species, more turning to demons. There was also the fight that Grayson and I had gotten into which left us not talking to each other over the last 36 hours, so not exactly the happiest of homes.

“Please enlighten me Elric, what’s one of the many problems we have developed to top of the others?”

“Fighting.” I wrinkled my brows as I turned around and looked at him.

“What do you mean fighting? They are fighting what, whom, themselves? Or other creatures?”

“No,” Elric said, taking the seat in front of my desk. “It seems the news is spreading about these demons, and wolves and vampires alike, are asking what they are doing, why are they fighting these creatures? Or rather, why are they being trained to fight? So they are fighting us, so to speak.” I sat down in my chair and hung my head.

It was getting harder to keep these creatures on task without explaining who we were and why we’re saying it. We were relying heavily on people like Elric, Anna, and Tessa to control their species, but it was obvious that it wasn’t working anymore. Sadly, the Gods hadn’t bothered to make an appearance either to explain to us what was going on with our coronation, if that was even happening. I had to admit, at this point, I was curious myself.

I finally lifted my head and leaned back, looking at him. I had no answers for this problem, just like I had no answers for any other problems that seemed to have landed on my desk. The weapons were being forged and we were training with them, not that a lot of us needed it; after all, all of us were born and bred to fight, it was our nature. But our lifelong skills wouldn’t always apply to what we were on the brink of facing.

“Do you think me talking to them would help?” This time it was Elric’s turn to snicker and I lifted a brow.

“Most of the vampire covens don’t trust you, let alone the wolf packs and you think you stepping in front of them to discuss what is coming will help?” I couldn’t help but laugh. Put like that, yeah, I don’t think it would be a warm welcome.

“I need to do something. My hands are tied until the God’s decides it’s time. And to be honest, I’m not even sure when that is.”

“The next full moon,” Elric said and I wrinkled my brows.

“How do you know?”

“The book. I overheard a comment made from Tessa about waning strength of a supernatural before this one particular event. The book said that all three creatures grow weak hours before the event but they never pieced together what it meant, but I did. Because the event is always the blood moon and that is to come up within two weeks. That part in the book was talking about a crowning of sorts, but nothing more. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out the rest.” I watched Elric, quite impressed with that. Over the span of my very long lifetime, I had seen quite a few blood moons, and for us supernaturals, it was different than what humans saw.

To them, it was a slight changing of color, but for us, it was, in fact, a blood moon. It was dark, intense, and magical and it took our strength for the first few hours before it reached its peak because it gave it back to us threefold when the moon appeared. It rained down, on all creatures, the magic to make us stronger, faster, and more powerful, but it was only for that one night. I can’t say it was odd that it was discussed in Sol’s book, that book held many secrets it seemed. But it was odd that it wasn’t discussed with us. If that was indeed the event, it was just mere weeks out and how did they think they could swing a whole coronation in just a few weeks?

“I don’t like this,” I mumbled and Elric lifted a brow. “Not knowing. It makes me question things and I don’t care for it.” He chuckled as he stood up.

“Why not find your mate and play nice with him? I think you two need it. Everyone heard you two fighting. What was it about anyway?” I leaned back yet again and shrugged.

“Mariana; not something I wanted to fight over. He said I was stupid and irresponsible doing what I did and not only did I put her life in danger, I put mine. What he fails to see is that sometimes, risks need to be taken in a war that we can’t always sit on the sidelines and wait. That for sure will be the death of us all.” Elric put his hands on the back of the chair and leaned forward to look at me.

“You and Grayson are opposites, you lead in opposite ways. However, you two are a fierce duo when you are on the same page. Fire, in order to win, in order to make us all a united army, you two need to be on the same page. Infighting won’t win favors with anyone. I’m not sure why the God’s granted the two most stubborn people I could think of to lead, but they did and oddly enough I trust them. I trust you, and I trust Grayson, to lead us and protect us, to show us what’s the right thing to do. But you both need to remember that it’s you two, not just one. It’s you and him that are meant to rule.” I bit my lip and nodded. Decisions need to be made together, not separately. We needed to talk, work together, and fight together, to win this war. Sometimes I hated when others were right. Elric shrugged and left the room, leaving me alone with my spinning thoughts.

-----

I walked into the room, letting out a breath. I had stayed at the office for a little bit before I went for a walk to cool off; probably going to hear about that as well.

“Mama,” Rayne said, running through the little living room and latching onto my legs. I picked him up and kissed his cheek, smiling at how happy of a little boy he was. In fact, both of them were pretty happy kids.

“Hey baby, how are you?” He grabbed my cheeks and looked me in the eye, a smile tugging at his lips.

“Good. Hows ’ork?”

“Work was busy. Is daddy in the room?” Rayne frowned but nodded.

“You no ’ight?” I shook my head at him.

“No Rayne, I just need to talk to him.” I looked over as Grayson walked out of the room and I felt my breath catch. He was such a good-looking man and it always sped up my pulse when I saw him. It seemed even worse when we got into fights.

“Talk about what?” I put Rayne down and sat down on the couch, Grayson following suit.

“I know you don’t agree with my decision on Mariana, that you felt I put us in jeopardy...” Grayson roared as he stood up and rammed his hand through his hair.

“I don’t just feel, you did. And you didn’t discuss it with me!” he yelled and I bit my tongue to hold back my temper, literally because I felt the blood on my tongue.

“You are welcome to your thoughts; I just feel you are wrong about them. But I’m not getting into this again. I’m here to tell you that you and I are both right, and both wrong.” That had Grayson frowning as he sat back down.

“What do you mean?” I took his hand and sighed.

“You are a careful fighter; you size up your opponent before you strike. You look and clock their weaknesses, figuring what’s the best means to take them out and that’s a great tactic. Me, on the other hand, I like to take risks, and get in there and under them before striking. I learn from the inside, rather than the outside, on how to take my enemy out.”

“Which is impulsive and dangerous. You are more likely to get yourself killed that way, and in the process have others taken out.” I just lifted a brow that.

“Compared to waiting, watching, learning, and losing many members along the way while you wait for the perfect moment to take out your enemy in one kill?” Grayson opened his mouth and shut it just as quickly. “There is my point. There is no right or wrong way while fighting, it’s what’s going to do us better.” Grayson growled at that and I saw that it wasn’t just Grayson who didn’t like that, it was Midnight as well. Hell, that was a first, fighting with a wolf as well. Did that go two against one, I wondered.

“Fire, I disagree with you. We are dealing with a God, one that we don’t know anything about and you sent a snake into his territory! Mariana could have betrayed you.”

“Do you think I didn’t know that? That it took everything in me to trust her? But what you are failing to see is that I needed someone close to The General who would be on our side!”

“You didn’t need anyone; you didn’t need to send someone in! That was reckless, dangerous, and straight out fucking dumb!” I stood up and glared at him, annoyed that he wasn’t trying to listen to me.

“Grayson, you aren’t paying me any attention, you aren’t giving me a chance to explain!”

“You can’t explain why you were foolish!”

“Daddy, don’t yell,” Rosemina said, glancing between the two of us, but I shook my head.

“That won’t help; your dad is too hard-headed to hear me out!”

“I don’t....”

“That’s enough, Grayson,” a voice boomed out and we all turned to the door as Sol stood there, arms crossed and looking at us. I swallowed hard as I saw the Goddesses step up next to him. “Time to talk.”