Daughters of Creation

Chapter Five: Sidereal (Part One)

"Determined by or from the stars"
—Sidereal

  October 12

  Fog clouded her mind. She shouldn't have drank as much as she did, but she had wanted to forget about the hollow feeling inside her chest, of feeling incomplete. Vela groaned.

"Easy, you had a lot to drink." A husky voice warned her.

"No shit," she grumbled, holding her head.

Gripping the side of the chair, she pushed herself up and nearly blacked out from the movement. She should have a word with Steve about the drinks he's serving. As her senses began to return to her, Vela felt the missing presence of her friends beside her. Before she had passed out she could remember Rosalyn, Emrie Michele, and Dana standing in front of her, talking.

"Where's my coven?" she demanded, sitting upright. Screw the consequences of moving too fast.

"Did she wake up, Andre?" Hari's familiar voice came from the side.

"Yeah," Andre's tan face became clearer. "She's awake."

Hari's tall frame blocked out the light that came from inside. "Hey, Vela. Rena's asked us to bring you inside when you wake up on Emerson's orders."

"Why? What's happening?" panic seized her. Did something happen to her coven?

Comforting hazel eyes captured her attention as Andre offered his hand. "Your coven is fine, they're helping Rena right now. While you were out a murder attempt happened."

Ignoring his hand, she was on her feet in seconds, brushing past Hari. Inside Steve's apartment looked like a war zone: bar stools lay upturned beside the bar from people knocking them over, drinks dripped over the counter from being spilt, blood soaked the floor in a pool around a still body and Rosalyn, whose hands glowed a soft green light, knelt in the middle of it. Vela felt peace run through her, an effect of Rosalyn's healing magic. It took only a heartbeat to ignore the effects. Hari and Andre, on the other hand, took longer to shake off the drowsy feeling.

She paused to take a look at Hari. No one really knew what happened between them, but Vela knew it lay mostly on his shoulders for how things turned out. The dragon was more secretive than even Rena. At times she had a hard time believing he even had feelings for Rosalyn for the way things ended, but at that moment, watching him stare so fixedly at Rosalyn with only concern and adoration in his eyes and facial features, gave Vela pause. Whatever had happened between those two went more than just lying and secrecy like in Emerson and Rena's case.

"I never meant to hurt her." Hari said softly, having long since noticed her watching.

Vela shuffled a foot, embarrassed to be caught but not embarrassed enough to feel bad about it. "It's not me you should be telling that to."

He sighed, the sound carrying more emotion in it than she had ever heard a sigh contain. Pity trickled through her.

"I've spent hundreds of years alive and yet, I never felt like I was actually living until I met her. Came into my shop like some kind of whirlwind; plant tattoos bared to the world, curly hair a pastel pink that made me think of sunsets, and knees brown with dirt ..."

"Mother Goddess." She stared at him, a slightly disgusted look on her face from the sweetness dripping from his words. "Whatever the hell happened ... it must've been bad, especially if you're still talking about her the way you are."

Hari slowly pried his eyes away from Rosalyn, looking at Vela with immensely saddened brown eyes. "I have never wanted to destroy the Council, or even my own kind, until I was forced to end to my courtship with Rosalyn."