© 2014 SilverStream22. All Rights Reserved.

Wonderful banner made to the side is the reason this chapter is dedicated to khanlahore123

Merry Christmas you guys, (depending on when you end up getting the time to read this update) so I have a special Christmas gift for you at the end. If you are confused, please don't be afraid to inbox me! I'll be more than happy to explain since this story has a lot of "read between the lines" moments and it might be harder for readers who skip over details or don't read consectutively or even if you are reading multiple stories at once.

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~STARK~

As a Lycan, the ability to sense danger levels of a person is a natural thing, and right now- trying to determine which of the two women were more dangerous- was an extremely hard pick. A raging she-wolf out for blood or an annoyed powerful witch?

Deciding against the idea to see who would win out, I grabbed Kendra's arm, pulling her back to Jazz and Draver as we walked in the small room that consisted of a hammock and a mahogany circle table.

"Jeez, what did you tell her about my sister?" Kendra muttered.

I ignored her, stepping forward cautiously so that I wouldn't set her wolf off. I felt a familiar shiver run down my spine as my pupils dilated into that of a wolf's. Locking eye contact with her, I let a snarl rip from my throat to warn her to back down. After hearing the slightest of a whimper, she jumped across the hammock, shifting halfway until she hit the bed.

I glided forward, wrapping her quickly in the sheets- that is until the smell hit me. My hands twitched at the iron smell of blood flooded my nose.

"What did you do to her?" I growled, pulling down the sheet as I held her like a child with her arms limp over my shoulder. Looking at the rising ridges on her back, I began to brew with anger.

"You cut up her curse?"

"I'm trying to remove it!" Kendra scowled, stepping forward with the salve in her mortar and pestle. She snapped her fingers next to my ear when I growled at her, causing me to flinch back as blood dripped from my ear due to the high frequency. Her eyes were liquid fire. "Shut up and hold her still if you don't want your mate to bleed out on my Egyptian cotton sheets."

Muttering curses under my breath, I let Kendra apply the green salve with her fingers onto Katya's back.

The past two months have been...difficult. Sliding my eyes to Katya's face, pressed against my chest, I decided that not letting her know about my slaughters was for the best- even if it was just low ranking vampires that Orion sent throughout the time that Katya was put under Kendra's spell in order to mask her prescence.

"How is it coming along?" Draver asked impatiently, Jazz appearing on the other side of Kendra.

"I'm trying. I keep cutting them open in order to figure out how to remove my sister's curse- you two!" she hooked her thumb over her shoulder where Alric and Castor stood at the doorway. "You were supposed to keep my sister's obsession away from here!"

I frowned. "Can you not refer to me as something of Kaleesi's? It sickens me."

Feeling her stir beside my shoulder, I leaned her small body back as Kendra wrapped her back up.

"Ugh..." she groaned, a cold sweat breaking out on her forehead as she drifted in and out of sleep. "Where's that smell coming from?"

I adjusted her so that she was laying on her side on the hammock. "I'm afraid that's you, mea lux. Or, at least the salve on your back, that is."

"Huh," Kendra mused, tilting her head to the side. "She looks like a burrito."

"Alright, enough of this. Xerxes, we need to talk." Jazz broke through the silence. "Give her some time to heal up her wounds again." he amended. "I've seen her go through this process for a quite a while. Your mate wakes up, notices the scars, says the words to reveal them, and it all happens around the same time that she walks in with the healing salve. Trust me."

I grimaced, glancing once more at the trouble crease between her eyebrows and the worrying twitch of her fingertips.

"This conversation does not leave this room. I want to be beside her."

"Very well." Draver nodded, leaning against the wall next to the door. Opposite him, Jazz did the same. Alric and Castor moved towards the table, taking a seat on the floor with Kendra. I remained standing, holding onto Katya's hand.

"What's happened over the past two months I've been...away?"

"Lorena is...dealing." Kendra choose her words cautiously, and as would I if we were in the same postion. Constantly throuhout the first week that I had stayed at her home, memories flooded my mind of Iris. The day I named her, the first time she discovered her affinity, the day she shifted, the moment when she became a Lycan.

It was painful, so painful that I had to drown it out with my old ways- slaughter fests with Alric and Castor as my guides once my senses were overloaded with blood lust. I wouldn't have gone back to my ways without the suggestion of the slaughter fests from Kendra in the first place.

"Iris is still in incubation. Lorena hasn't moved from there in weeks. Her hand is still pressed against the glass coffin her daughter is in." the Nymph informed. "I preserved as much of her life force as I could. You are lucky she didn't shrivel and die the moment she was hit with the wraiths. If it was anyone but Iris, you would've been dead-"

Castor slammed his fist down on the table. "It should've been anyone but Iris."

"Believe me, I know-"

"No! You don't!" he growled.

Those liquid fire eyes hardened into something dangerous. "Watch your tongue with me, boy. I know legions more than you do about pain and suffering, about the spoils and consequences of war. I'm all too familiar with the unfairness of it all. And right now, you need to put Iris in your past. In the time that we've spent reversing my sister's curse and the slow and nearly impossible restoration of your friend Iris, Orion has gained complete control in the vampire hierarchy. And until you get back on track to defeat Orion before he fulfill's his obsession to kill Katya, you are dead. Do you hear me? Dead."

"You think...you think that we are unaware of our situations, Nymph?" Jazz whispered slowly. "We know of all that. We know what's about to come. It is difficult to adjust without having Little Morrisey with us."

Kendra's sigh deepened. "I hope you know that there is only so much that I can do as we fight them. If my prophecies are right..." her eyes slid to the conjoined hands of my mate and I. "I will be busy with my sister, Stark will be in an indefinite position with Orion. And Katya, the one girl you are all so devoted to protecting, will be reborn."

"Reborn?" This was unpleasant news for me. "What do you mean, reborn?"

"My sister is childish." Kendra explained. "The powers of prophecy switch between us; one to say it, one to interpret it. Without each other, deciphering prophecy will be difficult. If one interprets it the wrong way, the outcomes could be disastrous."

"Then what are we expected to do?" Alric muttered. "Wait for Katya to be reborn?"

"I'm not sure what the prophecy means. And it's not as if we can ask my sister considering that she is on the opposing side now. Hell, that damn Siren would do anything to be pinned against Stark, no matter how good or bad the cause is."

I clenched my jaw, removing my glasses. "I don't need these."

The others blinked. "Why not?" Draver asked. "I thought you got them for your sight-"

I crushed the glasses in my open palm, careful not to exert the same force on my left hand that held Katya's. "I don't exactly want Kaleesi's bloodstains on my glasses. Besides, I require new ones anyways."

Castor sighed, a slight smile on his face. "You just can't fold your glasses and set them aside normally, can't you? What was that- your fiftieth pair?

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~LORENA~

Iris was in front of me, her lips still pale pink, her hair a fiery red just like my own. And her eyes, the true color of her eyes, hidden behind ghostly eyelids. Prominent veins were a result of her malnutrition and her faint link with life.

I thought of her middle name at the moment as I closed my eyes, picturing her healthy face- Persephone. Iris Persephone Morrisey. My daughter.

Where was the Moon Goddess throughout this? While I suffer watching my baby, she's hidden.

Anger swelled in me once more, but I didn't cry out- just like how it has been over the past few weeks.

An arm wrapped around my shoulder, and this time I could feel my anger implode. In a second I released it all, then she hugged me tighter as she absorbed all my sorrows. I was numb, though somewhat elated to know that Katya was through with the trials and attempts on her curse.

I lifted my head, opening my eyes to spill everything about what happened over the two months that she was under Kendra's spell, but instead a cry ripped from my throat when I realized it was Iris- my precious Iris with her warm glow and red hair. But it wasn't truly Iris- I knew the moment those silver eyes opened until the silver took over the white.

The Moon Goddess had possessed my daughter's body.

Iris cupped my face, pressing her forehead to mine. "Your daughter still lives in me, Lorena Bestia Morrisey. Fear not. I've heard your cry, I've seen and counted your every tear. Iris will serve as my vessel in this fight against Orion. But know that I am not the only deity whose joined this war. The Vampire King, Erebus, seeks to obtain his vessel as well."

I grabbed at my daughter, holding her too me. "Please. Please no. She'll die."

"She will not be the vessel in the final episode," the Moon Goddess amended, basking both of us in her moonlight. "The one who shall become my ultimate vessel has yet be become an ultimate form of herself. Rest easy, your daughter shall be revived through me, but only during the day. At night, when the moon reigns, her body with serve as my vessel. It is the only way for Iris to live, and thus it shall be as such for definite time. That I promise you."

As the unerving eyes faded to a glinting silver, my daughter collapsed in my arms, the patch on moonlight now gone as the sunlight filtered in through the trees.

Iris, my daughter, my child- she was back- she was ALIVE.