Lone Werewolf Duology (bxb)

11. It Was All Lydia's Fault

With the translator app primed by their rapid-fire banter, Liam started the tale while the three of them walked back toward the main house. He started it from far back in time. Really, really far back in time.

"Lydia had always been intrigued by the reincarnations, the occult, the rare folk beliefs. And she'd always had these elaborate dreams, almost like costume dramas."

Volya met the woman for five minutes, but he believed it. Lydia had that air about her.

"When I was young, she drove me nuts retelling them," Liam complained. "Then she met daSilva at some black-arts-meet-science-conference and it got out of hand."

Volya involuntarily cleared his throat into the looming pause. DaSilva, with the white streaks in his hair, passionate face, and the good looks of a circus magician... yeah, he smelled of a charlatan ready to take the aging divorcée for all her money.

Anabelle clip-clopped right next to him, an actual living and breathing centaur. How could he forget about her? He wished he could forget about her!

Reading his mood, Liam snorted, and so did Anabelle, an unnerving sound given her equine form.

"We didn't trust Renato at first either. So, I had him checked out. His credentials were rock-solid, believe it or not. He was—and, as crazy as it sounds, still is—an accomplished geneticist. This occult stuff is like a secret identity for him."

Once the translating app conveyed that last bit, Volya pictured daSilva as a sleek super-villain. A professor by day, a monster who turned teens into centaurs by night. An updated Dr. Moreau, but Liam seemed to like him. Weird.

"You were how old exactly when daSilva came onto the scene?" Volya asked.

Okay, maybe cynicism was strange coming from a seventeen-year-old, but a few days of comfortable living didn't erase Volya's memories of familial discords that resulted in kids dumped into his orphanage. Childhood trauma made people do twisted things, love horrible people, or simply go mad.

"I was fifteen," Liam replied. "My career was just taking off, so I had no intention of losing Lydia to some old fart's mumbo-jumbo. I needed her to help me, not waste her time on the Beyond."

"I get it."

"Our relationship was rocky, not going to lie, even after my mom had moved to the East Coast and everyone stopped trying to tear me in two. Lydia wasn't winning the Mother of the Year awards when I came to live with them."

"Hey!" Anabelle put in and Liam darted an exasperated glance at her, but didn't argue about the differences of their parent-child relationships with Lydia and the interpretation of their family structure.

"But!" Liam overrode his sister's objections, "but Lydia had a ruthless eye for talent, always pushed me toward music, even when I wanted to rage-quit. Without her, me and the gang would be still playing in the garage. Or I wouldn't even have the band by now."

Volya had a hard time processing the whole thing, even with waiting on the translating app, but Liam sounded sure, so why would he question Liam's judgment? Liam lived all that, had two feuding mothers, while he, Volya, had zero parents willing to mess with his life. He didn't say lucky you, just nodded curtly, to show that he was following so far.

"Anyway, yeah, I reconciled myself to daSilva so long as Lydia worked for me. Let her have her fun, and all that..." Liam gave an expressive shrug.

"Plus, you were fifteen."

"Plus, I was fifteen," Liam agreed. "Anyway. DaSilva ran a closed chat group of like-minded scientists who pursued theories that would have been mocked by the broader community."