Octavia's Choice [The Klawinken 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) (8 page)

“You can’t be serious. Her mother and father were killed in the name of preserving our species. We can’t kill again, and she’s just a child.”

“I’ve told you before, her parents’ death was truly an accident, regardless of what you seem to think. They were drunk and lost control of the car.”

“They were drunk because we drugged them. The accident would never have happened if we hadn’t felt the need to tell them both they were the parents of a monster child who would bring nothing but death and destruction to our race if she were allowed to live.”

“I didn’t force the alcohol down their throats that night.”

“No, but it didn’t stop you from adding something to it.”

“Listen, the past is past. They’re dead. There’s nothing we can do about that. However, now that Octavia’s twenty-one, the promise to her grandmother no longer exists. She knew her daughter was damaged, that Octavia was the victim of their mother’s genetics. We thought James was sterile, or we would have never allowed them to mate.”

“Just like they thought my husband was a safe mate for me. However, Tobias was born, and he’s a Beaucomp, too. Lucky for me he was a boy.”

“Tobias has the gift of healing, and that isn’t something we take lightly. Although, he hasn’t been called on to use it. Someday he will, and when that happens, we’ll all be glad he was spared. Octavia has become a very serious problem that has to be eliminated.”

Pierce shut his phone and placed it on his desk. Magda would come around. She knew they had no choice, and she would do anything to keep Tobias safe. The council had been so careful to make sure the Beaucomp gene was never allowed to surface, and yet it had, twice and in a very short period of time. For two Klawinken with that genetic disposition to mate and have children was the one thing they had tried so desperately to keep from happening. It was written that this would happen, and the Council had felt they could control it through the manipulation of dreams. Unfortunately, in Octavia’s and Tobias’s case, it hadn’t worked. He hated the thought of ending Octavia’s life, but to let her live now would be pure madness.

Luckily her sister, Evenela, had not been given the Beaucomp gene. At least he wouldn’t have her blood on his hands. The question was when and how Octavia would die. It would have to appear to be an accident. He would have to call a Council meeting. They had to be told.

* * * *

Tobias sat in his hotel room in Tokyo and took another sip from the bottle of scotch he had almost drained. He had a concert that night, and he didn’t care. All he could think about was Octavia. She was the love of his life, and he could never see her again. To do so could mean her eventual death.

His mother had never lied to him. When he came out of the jungle and saw her on the beach instead of Octavia, he had never felt such dread. He had just stood watching her, not moving. When she had motioned to him to come to her, he had wanted to run the other way. He knew something terrible had happened.

“Tobias, my sweet boy,” she had begun with tears in her eyes. “You know I wouldn’t be here if there was any other way.”

“What’s going on, Mother? Why are you here, and where’s Octavia?”

“There are things you don’t know. Things that I must tell you. I wish there was some other way.”

“Where’s Octavia?” His voice cracked.

“Come back with me to our home, and I will tell you everything. I’ll be waiting for you.” She twirled, and then she was gone.

When he walked into her study, she was waiting for him. She motioned to the chair next to her. “Please sit down.”

“I think I’d prefer to stand.”

“Please,” she said softly. “For my sake.”

He sat down in the chair, his body stiff.

“You know when your father died, I was devastated. He loved you so much, as he did your brothers. I knew we’d survive, but it was you that I was the most worried about. You were his favorite, right from the moment of your birth.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I want you to know how much you are loved. How much your father had prayed with me that you would never have to know that you weren’t like other Klawinken.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re Beaucomp, my darling child. You’re a throwback to earlier generations. We knew soon after you were born.”

“Beaucomp,” he said, startled. “I thought only women were Beaucomp.”

“That’s what the Council wanted everyone to think, that and it meant a woman was prone to mate with many. It doesn’t really mean that at all. It means that you have many gifts and are given many powers that a normal Klawinken can never experience.”

Tobias sat staring at his mother. “And you’re only telling me now?”

“It’s Octavia. She’s Beaucomp. For two Beaucomp to mate means”—she looked imploring into Tobias’s eyes—“that the female will die.”

Tobias just continued to stare at his mother, stunned by her words.

“Octavia is Beaucomp, as was her mother, as am I. It’s strong in her, Tobias. So strong that if she mates with another Beaucomp, it will at some point kill her.” She held up her hand to stop Tobias’s questions. “We don’t know why. We just know that it is true. I’m so sorry.”

“So that’s why my dreams were manipulated as well as Mathieu’s. He’s not Beaucomp and would have been an acceptable mate for her.”

“Yes. He’s also sterile. He can’t have children. The line would end there.”

“And am I sterile, too?”

“No. You can mate, Tobias, just not with a Beaucomp. The chance of a male producing a Beaucomp has never been documented.”

“She’s the love of my life, Mother. How can my love kill her?”

“She will die, Tobias. There will be nothing you, even with your healing powers, will be able to do to save her. You are poison to her. Every time you mate with her, she dies a little.”

Tobias’s shoulders slumped. “This can’t be happening.”

“I wish it weren’t. You don’t know how I wish it weren’t.”

“What about my sister? Is she…?”

“No. Thank God Elwina’s not Beaucomp.”

“Why me then? Why did I get it?”

“Your grandfather was a very powerful man who protected me. Our family gifts were also a consideration. I would not have been allowed to mate with a Beaucomp or even a Klawinken who was considered exceptionally gifted. Your birth was exceptional. But as a male, it was thought that you would be safe from passing the gene since it is only passed through the mother.”

“How long has the Council been controlling our dreams, Mother?”

“They don’t control the dreams of all Klawinken, only when a particular mating could have a negative impact on the whole of our people. Whatever they have done, it has been for our survival. You must understand that.”

“I understand nothing except that Octavia is lost to me forever. She’s my one true mate, and I will never find another. I thought our dreams were sacred. But nothing is what is seems, is it, Mother?”

“I know you’re angry, disillusioned, and brokenhearted. But you will get through this, and I hope you will mate. It a lonely life being unmated, but if it is the life you choose, then you will have to find a way to live with the loneliness.”

“Is that why you married Lawrence and had another baby? Were you lonely?”

“I will always be lonely. Lawrence was a good man as was your father. Both died too soon. I will never marry again.”

“What will become of Octavia?”

“She remembers nothing of your night together after the concert. I wiped it from her memory. She will live her life believing you were nothing but a dream.

“Then there’s nothing left to say, is there?” Tobias stood up. “I have a plane to catch.”

Octavia sat looking out the window of the train that was taking her to Boston. She had first taken a bus to Philadelphia and from there she had boarded the train. Her parents were upset, but not as upset as they would have been if she had told them she was marrying Mathieu. After all the time she had procrastinated and not told them the truth, she had found herself chomping at the bit to tell them the day after she and Mathieu had said good-bye. To her surprise, they handled the news a lot better than she could ever have anticipated.

“We knew it was only a matter of time before you knew.” Her father had looked down at his hands before he looked back up at Octavia. “We just kept hoping for more time, Octavia. We just hoped you wouldn’t hate us.”

“I don’t hate you. I love you.” Octavia put her arms around both her parents who were sitting on the sofa in their living room. Her mother was crying.

“Your real mother,” her mother choked out, “was my friend. We grew up together in the same neighborhood. “I loved her like she was my sister.”

“She must have loved you, too. She gave you her daughters to bring up as your own,” Octavia said softly.

“Marta told me that she was different, that her family was not like mine or anyone else’s. She told me she was Klawinken.” Her mother wiped her tears and took a breath. “I thought she was telling me she was Native American. I laughed and told her I was German and Polish. It wasn’t until after she married James that she came to me and your father. We had been married around the same time she married James. We had joked about having a double wedding. However, my family had little money, and they were only too happy to see me married and out of the house. Marta came from money, and her wedding to James was quite the event.” Shaking her head, she said, “Sorry, I’m getting offtrack here.”

“That’s okay, Mom. I understand. This can’t help but bring up memories. Some must be very sad for you.”

“Your mother told me that she felt something wasn’t right with her marriage to James. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but what she had hoped was a marriage that would be made in heaven was anything but that. They fought quite a bit, and she kept referring to dreams and gifts and things I didn’t understand. When Evenela was born, I thought everything was going to be okay for them. I loved your sister from the moment I saw her.”

Octavia’s father put his arm around his wife. “We had found out not soon before Evenela’s birth that we couldn’t have children. Your mother, Marta, knew this, and I think even then she was preparing us for taking her children.”

“We stayed close with your mother. However, your father, James, never warmed up to us. He was nice, but very distant. When she became pregnant with you, I was shocked. I expected her to tell me they were getting a divorce, not having another child.”

“So, it sounds like I was unexpected.”

“Yes, and yet when you were born, your mother practically never left your side. She was so protective of you. She only let Dad and I babysit. Not even her own sisters or her mother were allowed to sit with you. She became more and more withdrawn from her family. She said she felt they would never have her children’s best interests at heart.”

“Well, then I guess it makes sense that she wanted us away from the Klawinken. I can’t help but wonder if it had something to do with what Mathieu told me.”

“What did Mathieu tell you?” her father asked.

“He said my mother was something called Beaucomp. He said it meant whore,” she whispered.

“I’m not sure what was wrong with their marriage, but I can tell you this,” her father said, squeezing his wife’s hand. “Your mother was not a whore, and for Mathieu to say such a thing to you just makes me even more glad that you are no longer together.”

“Your mother was Klawinken. She could do things with her mind that made you feel like you were traveling through time. She took us places that we, even today, wonder if we hallucinated. Marta was not a whore. She was my friend, and I would have done anything for her, including signing the papers that would give you and your sister to us should anything happen to her and James.”

“I know this may be difficult for you to answer. But do you think their death was an accident? I mean, it was almost like she knew it was going to happen.”

“I wondered that, too, at first, but they were both drinking and I know they had been fighting. I think it all just became too much for them. She knew that she and James were on a destructive path. We were babysitting when it happened. From that moment on, you and your sister never left us. Your grandmother tried to talk us out of it, but we stood firm, and to our surprise, she backed down. However, she said that when you each turned twenty-one, you would have to come back to them. That you would have no choice. She was adamant about that.”

“I hope you understand that I need to go to Boston to Evenela. But I’m not going to live there. I’m Klawinken, there is no doubt about it, but I’m still my own person. I’ll choose where I live and with who I live. I’ll never desert you and you’ll always be my parents, but I have to see her.”

“I believe you,” her mother said, new tears falling down her cheeks. “I always knew that Evenela was only on loan to us, but you, I felt in my heart, were ours. You were always so different than your sister.”

Different was an understatement. Evenela loved being Klawinken, and she hated it. It had only brought her unhappiness with Mathieu, who now hated her. In anger, he had forced her to face the truth about her dreams. Tobias Morgan had used her body for some selfish reason that she could only assume was tied to his jealousy of Mathieu. She would make him tell her what happened that night after the concert. She wouldn’t let him steal her memory as he had her heart.