Defiance: The Hybrid's Tale

Cassandra Pope.

It couldn’t be. The chances were slim to none.

I sat on the edge of my bed while I rubbed my feet along the plush Persian carpet. I kept staring at my watch, counting down the seconds. The last minute could turn my whole life on its head with a complication I didn’t have the energy to deal with. How could I have been this careless? But I wasn’t. I was always careful and made sure I took them. Jumping off my bed, I walked up to my dresser and opened the top drawer. I grabbed the pink pill dispenser, checking to see if I missed a day in taking my birth control pills. But I didn’t miss a day... then how...

I walked up to the table and snatched up the pregnancy stick. Let’s hope I’m not pregnant...

I rechecked my watch. The dial had slipped past the five-minute marker. My breath caught in my throat. The time had come. Still holding on to the pregnancy stick with trembling hands, I struggled to look at the screen. Maybe I was being paranoid, I wasn’t pregnant, and all the symptoms I experienced throughout the week were just something that I ate which didn’t agree with my digestive system.

But I’m late...

“Cassandra?” asked a soft voice that caused me to jump out of my socks.

I dropped the stick and glared at the mirror. “Avy, you nearly scared me to death.” I clutched my chest, trying to calm down my stampeding heart.

Aveny’s eyes dropped to the pregnancy test. Sorrow filled her beautiful eyes. “Don’t tell me...”

“I can explain.” I bent down and snatched up the test, staring wide-eyed at the second blue line. Fuck! I shook my head and tossed the test across the room. “No, no, no...” I paced around the room with my head in my hands.

“Cassy... Calm down, I’m not mad.” Aveny tried to assure me, but I was mad at myself. I slept with the snake. Not that I had much of a choice with my father breathing down my neck.

My eyes narrowed on the stick that lay under the left leg of the vanity table.

He wouldn’t...

My heartbreak over the positive pregnancy test result turned into rage. The old man must have had his dirty, wretched fingers in this. He wanted an heir from me and Victor, and he didn’t want to wait until I decided.

I rushed back to the dresser and retrieved my birth control pills.

“What’s wrong, Cassy?” Aveny asked in a worried tone. She stared at the dispenser in my hands. “You think they had a hand in you falling pregnant?”

I nodded.

“There’s only one way to find out.” I walked over to my bedroom door. “I’ll be back. I need to visit Amy in the dungeons.”

I yanked open the door and rushed down the hallway on a mission to get to the bottom of my father’s latest scheme. It had to be. When Victor and my father forced the engagement into my unwilling hands, Victor took the opportunity of his good fortune and demanded sex. Normally, I would have cut off the snake’s dick and shoved it down his throat, but my father made sure I complied with his demands. What could I do? I was still waiting for the damned Elder to get back to me and I couldn’t piss off my father.

Now I was sitting with a child from an unwelcome union. Just my luck.

As I made my way through the mansion, the servants scattered before me. It was probably because of the murderous scowl burned into my face. Stepping off the stairs and into the foyer, I pushed open a set of doors under the staircase that led down into the dungeons. The damp atmosphere clung to my skin as I entered a long corridor. I strutted up to the last door at the end of the hallway and pushed open the door.

As soon as I burst into a rectangular room, an acidic smell assaulted my nostrils, burning them. All along the room’s walls were shelves filled with bottles, jars, and containers filled with plants and liquids of all magical kinds. A lone cast-iron cauldron stood in the middle of the room, bubbling away. Goddess, what was she cooking up now? I approached the cauldron to see white smoke dancing along the surface of a black, bubbling liquid.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” rang out a chirpy voice. “It’s highly poisonous.”

I turned to my left. An old lady in her eighties shuffled out of a side room carrying a massive jar filled with roots soaked in purplish water or such. The hair on the old hag reminded me of a dirty mop. She should really wash her hair one of these days... along with her filthy clothes. She wore a black, dirty robe.

With a strained huff, Amy placed the jar down on a rickety table and then opened it. “What can old Amy do for you, mistress?”

I held out the dispenser. “I want you to analyze these and tell me what they truly are. And don’t lie, because I will kill you.” I wasn’t kidding. The bitch had played with the wrong woman, and not even my father would protect her from my wrath.

The biddy’s black eyes lit up in shock as she took the dispenser from me. She stampeded out, “Your father will—”

“I don’t care what my father will do!” My voice pierced the room’s walls. I truly didn’t give a damn what my father wanted anymore. He took it too far this time. “By the time you are dust, it will be too late.”

Her spindly fingers tapped the corners of the box before she spoke again. “These aren’t birth control pills. They are cleansing pills.”

“What?”

“Cleansing pills made to resemble your birth control pills.” She edged forward and handed me back the box with trembling hands. “Your father made me craft them.”

I knew it!

Most alchemist worth their salt kept cleansing pills at arm’s length to eliminate all foreign contaminants like poison and chemicals not naturally produced by the body. This included the birth control pills I took every day.

I cussed out, blasting the cauldron and its vile content out onto the witch. She screamed and thrashed around, running into the table. The piece of furniture crashed to the floor with her. Plumes of red smoke billowed up from her body as the poison seeped into every pore of her body. She cried and whimpered as she slowly died before my eyes. Did I care about her dying? No, I didn’t. The old bitch deserved to die for aiding my father.

The withered witch’s hand reached out toward me. “Please...help...me.” Her crackly voice lowered to a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

I strutted up to her, bending over her poison-drenched body. “Too bad. You should have thought about that before you screwed with me. Now die.” I turned around and walked out of the chamber.

The alchemist’s broken breath stilled before I slammed shut the door behind me. She could rot in her cramped dungeon room where the rat belonged.

***

I strutted back upstairs to where my father was. Entering the foyer, I made my way to the closed-off livingroom. With a wave of my hand, the sliding doors slid open with a crash. A young man, no older than eighteen, popped his head over the couch where my father sat. The young man was busy giving my father head. How gross! My father was truly a twisted fuck. He didn’t have the decency to fuck his twinks in his room.

“What can I do for you, daughter?” He reached over and grabbed the young man by the hair and shoved him back onto his dick. The twink moaned and choked for a second before he continued blowing my father. Luckily, I saw little.

I threw the dispenser over to him. “Who gave you the right to mess with my birth control pills?”

There was no hint of remorse in his wrinkled face, only a shit-eating grin. “Congratulations, daughter. It will thrill Victor to hear the joyous news that he’ll be a father in nine months from now.”

I shook my head. “If that’s ever going to happen. I’ll make sure this thing never sees the light of day.” The words barely slipped from my lips when my father blasted me into one of the leather couches. An invisible rope slithered around my body and neck, slowly squeezing the air out of my lungs.

My father rose from his chair, tying his robe around his naked waist. The twink had already fled the room. He strutted up to me. “Go ahead, Daughter. Kill my grandchild and I’ll wipe you off the face of the world, along with your treacherous bitch of a sister and her bastard offspring.

“If I had waited for you to make up your pretty little head, I would have been dead of old age. Be happy, my child. You carry the future heir to the Von Drake fortunes and my successor.”

I laughed. The glob of coalesced cells in my womb would never be his successor. “You forget, Father. As long as Nathan’s still alive, this thing inside me will never be.”

My father raised his hand in the air to punish me for my outburst, but he halted. “He’ll die soon enough... As far as you’re concerned, you will accept your pregnancy with a smile. My plans are finally coming together, just a few ties to cut loose.” He turned around and freed me of his spell. My body sank into the leather seat. “Be happy, Daughter. I did what I had to, for the wellbeing of this family. It’s time you saw it my way.”

“For this family?” I rose from my seat, just as my father’s shadow sauntered into the room with a snake at his heel. “Everything you’ve done is for your own gain, not ours! I’m not Ethan who’s easily manipulated.”

“Be careful... I might see your defiance as an act of treason.” He moved forward and cupped my cheek. I jerked away from his touch.

“And we both know how that would end, don’t we, Father?” I glared at the two weasels. “Just stay out of my way. I’ll do my duty to this family, but don’t act if you care about anyone but yourself.”

I walked past my father. He grabbed my arm. “That’s where you’re wrong, Cassandra. I care about you, but I won’t see this family’s reputation ripped apart by having half-blood and weaklings in our midsts. We are the Pope’s. One of the most powerful magical families in existence and I like to keep it that way as my father once did.

“My actions may seem cruel and underhanded, but I know what’s best for you. You’re thirty-eight and have never married. Such a waste of youth. With my guidance, you and Victor will bring in the next generation and usher in greater times for the magical community.”

What an arrogant asshole...

I said nothing and walked toward the door. Just as I landed a step on the staircase, a hand grabbed onto mine. Victor.

“Where are you going, my dear?” his oily voice slithered down my spine, making me nauseous. “I just heard the wonderful news. We’re going to be parents!” He reached out to touch my belly.

I grabbed onto his wrist and said, “Touch me again and I’ll flay you alive.” I pushed his hand away and walked up the steps, with Victor following me like the dog he was.

“Come on, love.” I clenched my fists. “What do I have to do to make you love me as much as I love you?” he asked.

I twisted around and pointed a finger toward his crooked nose. “It will never happen. Get it through your head. Do us both a favor and fly off to another country and never return.”

“That’s never going to happen. Our wedding is in two weeks and your father’s announcing your pregnancy at tomorrow’s dinner party. Accept the fact that we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together. The quicker you give in, the better.”

I ignored his rant as we made our way toward my room. Once I reached my sanctuary, I slammed the door in Victor’s face and locked it. The time had come to finally free ourselves from these fools. I would not end up as a trophy wife to an arrogant asshole, and a pawn to a tyrant. I was determined to force Vance to give me the information I needed. Then I would free Aveny and get the hell out of this forsaken place by first light tomorrow.