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Trinity
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"Both sides of my family?" I was confused. When Gabriel and I had been talking about this before, I don't remember him saying that he was going to investigate and research my mother's side of the family. I thought he was just going to research Edmond and his side of the family. "Why did you check both sides? My mother's family are nothing, but wolves. There is nothing to discover there."
"That is where you're wrong, Queen Trinity. There is something that I discovered on your mother's side of the family that you should know. In truth, the investigation into that information is what has been taking me so long. I will not give up until I have all the information that you seek. The trail is there, it is just buried."
"What trail?"
I felt like the world was about to explode around me. What was he telling me? If my mother's family was not just wolves, then what were they? Was my family even my family? What am I?
I felt like I was losing connection for a moment. I was about to spiral and lose all sense of what was real for a moment. But I couldn't let that happen. I had a family of my own now, a baby in my arms. It was Rika's warmth and the gentle weight of her in my arms that brought me back to my senses.
"Shhh." I shushed the baby that was beginning to fuss in my arms. Once she was readjusted, she latched on again and continued her meal.
I stared at Rika's sweet face for a few minutes, taking in the cuteness of her little features before I looked back to Gabriel.
"Alright, tell me what is different about my mother's family." I nodded at him to let him know that I was ready.
"My lady, during the course of my investigation, I found no anomalies on your grandfather's side of the family. As far back as I have researched they are all purebred werewolves. However, your family began to change a couple generations ago. I followed your mother's family as I said, and from her I followed her parents. And so on. As I said, going from the line of her father there were no changes, but from her mother there started to be some things that I couldn't ignore. Your mother's father, Gordon, died before your mother could meet him. He had married his wife and had a baby on the way when he was deployed and sent to war. He never returned from that deployment."
I knew all of this. I had learned this much from family stories from Uncle Wesley. He had told me that his grandfather was a man of mystery to everyone, but that he was viewed as a hero.
"What about him, Gabriel? What do you think was so different about him?"
"He seemed to have been born long before he met his mate. And a true mating it seems to have been. But the information that I found for Gordon Underhill shows that he was born sometime in the mid eighteen hundreds, though those records are inconclusive."
"Wait a minute. How is that possible? Wouldn't my great grandmother have been born around the early nineteen thirties? How is it that my great grandfather was born almost eighty years before her?"
"That is what I am trying to tell you. Gordon's mother, Jazmin, passed on just after the turn of the century. She apparently kept many journals, but I am having a hard time getting my hands on them. The thing is, she apparently met a man when the wolves were called on to assist another race in a war. It was the last time that the wolves had helped them until recent times. The connection between the two races seemed to have died out after that war."
"What war are you talking about? The only one I know of at that time was the Civil War."
"The Civil War happened after this one, and this war was not visible to human eyes. It took place in the last remaining city of the Faerie plane."
"The Faerie plane?" I was getting more and more confused with every word that he spoke, but I needed to keep listening. I also needed to cover my breast and pat my baby's back so that I could ease the pressure in her belly.
"The Faerie plane, my lady, is where all the creatures that are Fae used to live. It was their hidden world away from humans. The lands are still there, however, they are no longer occupied by the fae. When the wars started, it tarnished the lands and left them scarred and uninhabitable for more Fae creatures."
"What lives there now, Gabriel?" I wasn't sure if I wanted to know.
"Well, the creatures are still considered Fae, but they are the darker versions of them. Goblins, babadook, orcs, banshees, kelpies, Dullahan, Fachan, the Dearg Due, the Caorthannach, all the dark parts of the Faerie plane still exist there."
"I have heard some of those creature names before, but I don't know all of them."
"They are not pleasant, and many of them are quite terrifying, my lady. I do not recommend you going anywhere near them." There was genuine fear in his eyes now as he spoke.
I was trying to imagine what those creatures might even look like, what they might be, when I was interrupted.
"I will take her now, Trinity." Vincent was reaching for Rika so he could take her upstairs. I hadn't even realized he had come back into the room yet.
"Th..thank you Vincent." I handed my baby off to him and made sure? that my clothing was completely back into place.
Once Vincent was gone again, and it was just me and Gabriel, I looked at him and asked him something, something that I needed to know.
"Gabriel, are you trying to tell me that my great great grandfather was a Fae? Are you telling me that I am not a hybrid, two species in one, but I am in fact a tribrid?!"
"Yes, my Queen, that is exactly what I am telling you."
I think my heart stopped right then and there. How could I be part Fae as well? How come no one knew about this before I sent Gabriel to research it? Where was my great great grandfather now? Who was my great great grandfather anyway? And why couldn't I find out about this before I went to visit the Fae? Could I have met him there and not known it?
This was a lot to take in right now. I needed to process it. And I needed to explain it all to my family. They had to know about this as well. They needed to know who and what we really were. This didn't just affect me; it affected Noah and Carter and their children. This was something that could have larger ramifications for all of us. We needed to figure it all out and quickly before something bad were to happen.
After Gabriel excused himself and left, Reece came down to talk to me. He slid onto the couch next to me and put an arm around my shoulders.
"Vincent told me that you have something you need to tell me. What's wrong, Little Bunny?" I loved it when he called me that. It was the pet name he had for me, and despite everything that we have been through, and all the changes to our lives, that name was still there for me.
"I found out something pretty bizarre today, Fido." I grinned at him, giving him the first name I ever called him.
"You can tell me, baby, I am here to listen to you."
"Well, for starters, we need to call my whole family here for a meeting sometime really soon. This news affects them as well."
"OK, done. We will do it. But what is it, baby? What is this news?"
"Well, I am not a half witch and half wolf like we thought." I grimaced at him.
"OK, then what are you? It's not like it matters to me. You could tell me you were an alien, and that I've never seen your true form that has six arms and whatever else is different. I would still love you for who you are. I didn't just fall for you because of the sexy little vixen that you are; I also fell in love with you because of the way you think, the way you keep me on my toes, and the way we bicker back and forth. I fell in love with your compassion, your generous heart, your bright wit and your brilliant mind. I love you Trinity, not what species you're made out of. You're my mate, my wife, and the mother of my children. I don't care what you tell me that you are."
"I love you, you know that?" I smiled at him after his little speech.
"Yeah, I do." He kissed me gently. "Now what is the problem? What are you?"
"I am a tribrid, at least I hope that is all. I am part witch, part wolf, and part Fae."
"Well, that's new, and cool. I wish we knew sooner, we could have told Queen Gloriana when we went to visit her." I loved that about him; he really didn't care that I was not who and what he thought I was.
"Yeah, I guess we will just need to go back sometime soon. I think she will like that, don't you?"
"Yeah, and she will love the babies."
