[Rewritten] The Family Secret - Voices of Beasts (Book 1)

Chapter 13

Another three weeks had flown by, I'd settled in my apartment, started back up the blood bank, and my place was packed. Hel, Fate, Az, Elise, Jensen, Maxus, Ivan, and Quinn were all squished inside my tiny living room, everyone slowly taking turns getting ready both in my room and my bathroom for the ball. Ivan and Jensen were ready, Az, Maxus and I just had to have our shaggy hair prepared. Hel, Fate, Elise, and Quinn were touching up makeup and getting into corsets and dresses, adding accessories, and doing hair.

Quinn was the first to emerge, in a beautiful short brown and gold short steampunk style dress. She quickly pulled back Maxus' hair into a ponytail with a blue ribbon, straightened his, mine, and Ivan's tie, gave Jensen and I each a hug, and the three of them took off in her camaro. Jensen, Az, and I waited in the living room, pretty silent between one another. We hadn't spoken much since I was changed, Elise told me he blamed himself for not keeping me right by his side, and letting me wander off. 

"You do realize I'm not mad at you, and this wasn't your fault right?" I said, breaking the silence.

"My brain is well aware of that. My chest on the other hand..." He grumbled.

"You didn't know they were going to jump me. You didn't know I was going to be such an insufferable asshole towards them and provoke them, beyond all reason. You didn't know I'd get yeeted across the street and through a window. You didn't even know I'd wandered off until it was way too late for you to do anything."

"I shouldn't have let you wander off. Seeing you like that scared the absolute fuck out of me. I still haven't told Elise I helped you into the car with Fate. She doesn't know that I was helping pick glass from your body and sobbing, hoping you'd be okay." Jensen replied, his head in his hands.

"She doesn't have to know now, but someday you've gotta tell her. After she's turned would probably be best." Az said, cutting into the conversation.

"I gotta say he's right, cause well, he's been right since I met the guy." I chuckled, putting my hand on Jensen's shoulder. "Just don't beat yourself up about this, okay? This wasn't your fault, and I'm okay."

"If you hadn't made it, she'd never have forgiven me, I couldn't ever have forgiven myself. I almost got you taken away from our family." Jensen mumbled, his Russian accent thick. He had all of his brunet hair pushed back by his mask, which resembled an ermine. He pulled his hands from his face and he turned to look at me, his neon green eyes full of regret.

"You did everything you could the moment you could, that's all I could ask for." I smiled. The girls came out a second after, and I quickly darted in front of him to grab Elise's attention. She was the only one I hadn't seen yet; I was with Hel to choose hers, I'd seen Fate's beautiful gold Victorian leaning dress with white trim when it arrived at the house, but Elise had went complete Gothic Victorian and her dress almost perfectly matched my suit. Her corset was black and trimmed with red, her bow was red, and her sleeveless dress went well with the black shawl she had clearly crocheted. Her mask was designed identical to mine, even though mine was almost a plague mask and hers was definitely fox like, but with grey blue accents instead of red. I was holding her hands when I noticed she was wearing her bracelet as well.

"Helaza gave me the mask, it looks just like yours!" She exclaimed, her eyes clearly excited. I flipped mine down and nodded.

"She knows a guy." I smirked.

"Jeez, you sound like Mary." She giggled.I chuckled and spun her around, her completely fish netted where any skin showed. Jensen had thrown down his mask over his face and I spun her over to him, her perfectly tripping, falling, and landed in his lap.

"Hel's gotta do my hair, and fate's gotta fix Az's. Gonna take a few, meet you there?" I inflected, winking to them both.

"Yeah, we'll see you there, Dahn~" She purred her eyes focused on Jensen. Hel pulled me back into the bathroom and sat me down, Fate sitting Az next to me. We were all cramped, but he and I could both look and see in the mirror. Since my hair was short on the sides and back but long in the front, Hel decided that braiding it back into a viking style, gear beads and all. Fate had a similar idea for Az, braiding back his Mohawk and adding viking rune beads into his. They simultaneously pulled off our masks and got to work.