We Shall Rise (22 page)

The light show set off the smoke alarm in Reysa’s office. As Kaden pulled away, the sprinklers came on and flooded the room with ice cold water. They both laughed as they tried to gather their clothes. Kaden put on his soaked jeans and tried to shut the smoke alarm off. He jumped up and punched it, crushing it into silence. As his bare feet landed on the porcelain tiling, the water that had surfaced caused him to slip and whack his head on the ground.

Reysa ran over to help but she stumbled and fell her face landing directly on Kaden’s hardened crotch. Before she could get up, the door burst open and Christian and Broderick appeared with fire extinguishers.

Reysa raised her head and faced the two men at the door. The smirk on Christian’s face caused her to blush bright red. She tried to think of something to say to explain this away but there were no words. Neither man needed words. Their amused expressions said it all.

Christian broke the awkward silence “I guess things got a little hot in here. Maybe you guys need to cool off a little more.” He opened the tank and began spraying both Reysa and Christian with nitrogen. The usually stoic Broderick did the same as both men emptied their tanks.

II

An hour later, Reysa and Kaden had cleaned up in her room. She was still embarrassed, but she was also glad that Christian and Broderick handled everything so well, especially Chris. He still wasn’t a fan of Kaden’s but he loved her enough to accept him. That’s all she could ever ask of him.

“What’s on your mind?” Kaden questioned. “You seem distracted.”

“Those boys nearly ruined my relaxer.” Reysa joked as she combed her hair.

“Seriously?”

“I am serious. My hair is a mess.” Reysa joined Kaden who was sitting comfortably on her bed. She really loved seeing him there like that’s where he belonged. “Actually I was just thinking how relieved I am that Christian is handling things between you and I so well. I should have expected this from him, but I was concerned it may be too weird for him. I think it would be weird for me to see him with another. That’s what I want for him, but it’s been me and him for so long. It’s just odd.” Reysa knew she wasn’t explaining this well and the look on Kaden’s face confirmed that. His jealous streak was still very much intact and she had to do a better job of being aware of it otherwise it would lead to a misunderstanding and likely another pointless argument.

“Kaden, I need you to try and understand my relationship with Christian.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Reysa grabbed his wrist before he could leave the bed. “We need to talk about it. I listened to you when you needed to explain things. I need you to hear me now. This is important to me.”

Kaden knew he was being an ass. He was afraid that her words would somehow ruin what they were building. The foundation was still so fragile.

Everything had been going too well. The happiness was bound to come to an end soon, just as his father warned, but he wasn’t ready to let go. Despite his fears, he couldn’t ignore her plea. He owed her this. He leaned back down on the headboard and let Reysa explain.

“I have to start from the beginning. It’s the only way to help you see how Christian and I came to be.”

Reysa had told Kaden that she was born in Kigali, but she never told him the dreaded circumstances of her birth.

Her father, Ibrahim Masoonda, was born to a vampire family in Somalia. His family was distant relatives of the Gobroon Dynasty—a powerful ruling family that controlled Somalia until the British drove them out in the late nineteenth century. Ibrahim had been a general in his family’s army. His vampire skills allowed the Gobroon Dynasty to fend off colonial attacks for nearly two centuries, but everything changed once he met and fell desperately in love with an exotic European woman that irrevocably changed the course of his life and the lives of his family.

Falling in love with a European was forbidden, but Ibrahim could not resist the gorgeous French woman, Sybilla Marteaux
.

“I don’t know much about my mother, but from what I’ve been told she had this amazing beauty that ensnared any man that saw her.”

“I could believe that,” Kaden admitted as he twirled Reysa’s silken locks. “You must have looked so much like her.”

Reysa kissed him briefly on the lips. “My father was smitten from the beginning. His family disapproved. Even though the British were the main colonial enemy, they didn’t care much for the French either. My father was ordered to give her up by the Sultan and by his family. He knew that if he didn’t he would lose everything, but he couldn’t let my mother go. She was his mate. He walked away from his family and from Somalia to build a life with my mother.”

Ibrahim and Sybilla lived throughout Africa depending on which country was not in the midst of a bloody revolution. They eventually settled in Rwanda in the early 1900’s
.

“My mother wanted to have a child, but my father did not. He never wanted to be a father, but he could not deny my mother the family she craved. He gave in and she became pregnant with me. My father was right. That proved to be the biggest mistake they made.”

The pregnancy had been difficult for Sybilla from the beginning but she never let the discomfort dampen her excitement about the life growing inside of her. She knew it was a baby girl, what she secretly wanted.

During her seventh month of pregnancy, she awoke to an insufferable intense pain and uncontrollable hemorrhaging. A local midwife tended to her as she fought to keep her baby alive
.

“Apparently all she wanted was for me to survive. She didn’t care about herself. My father just wanted her. Unfortunately for him, I survived and my mother didn’t.”

Ibrahim held Sybilla’s lifeless body for days until the local clansmen convinced him to bury her respectfully. He finally agreed. The midwife stayed to take care of the baby. He allowed her to be named Reysa, the name his wife had chosen, but that was the only interest he showed in the child. He refused to touch or hold the squirming infant who had killed his mate
.

“He wanted me to go away, but he also wanted me to stay because I was all that was left of her. He couldn’t help but hate me. I felt it as a child. I didn’t understand his coldness. There were moments where he seemed to care and others where he would totally shut me out. I tried so hard to win his love, but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t what he wanted and he despised me for taking away the one person who mattered most. He deteriorated before my eyes. He rarely ate or spoke. He was just empty. One day he decided that he didn’t want to live in Rwanda. The memories were too strong, too raw for his fragile emotions. I was devastated. I begged him to let me stay even without him, but he refused. He told me that if he couldn’t be happy, neither could I. I knew at that moment he would always hate me. Yet despite all of that, I still loved him and I still wanted him to love me.”

Kaden wiped the tears that had escaped. The desire to kill her father was even stronger than the desire he had to kill his own. “It wasn’t your fault your mother died.”

“It doesn’t matter. In his mind it was and that’s why he couldn’t love me. I always felt bad for causing him such pain. To see the loss on his face every day broke me.”

Ibrahim moved Reysa across the world to Rio de Janiero. He wanted a fresh start far away from the painful memories of Africa. But there was no escaping the loss of his mate or the child who reminded him of that loss daily
.

“He sank into this depression of sorts. He would just sit there and stare into space for days, completely unresponsive to anyone. He would come out of it briefly and for a moment he would be my father, but then he would be lost to me again. I hated his silence. I would rather have him yell at me than be so silent. The days of silence lasted longer and longer until there was nothing but silence. I was so desperate for his attention that I thought if I did something dramatic he would snap out of it. On the day of my birthday, or more importantly the date my mother died, I went to his room and I gave him a choice, come back to me or I’ll leave.”

Reysa approached her father, his dark skin so disturbingly pale from hunger. She climbed into his lap and touched his cheek. “Papa, I’m sorry I took her away. I’m sorry you’re unhappy cause of me. I’m sorry I can’t bring her back.” She kissed him on the cheek but no response. Her green eyes watered. “Please talk to me, Papa. Don’t be quiet anymore. I don’t want the quiet anymore.”

Ibrahim sat there in silence, never acknowledging his daughter’s plea. Reysa wrapped her tiny arms around him and then jumped off his lap. She went towards the window of his bedroom and sat on the frame for what felt like hours hoping that the silent stalemate would end, but Ibrahim never acknowledged her. “Do you want me to leave Papa?” she asked as she peered out the seventh floor window. “Tell me you want me to stay Papa.” Reysa wept pleading and begging her father just to see her, one time. She would have welcomed his anger, in exchange for some sign of life—some recognition that she existed.

No response. Reysa looked down one last time. “I’m sorry, Papa. I love you.” And with those final words she jumped
.

“I still can’t believe I did it. I don’t know what possessed me to do it. I didn’t want to die, but I wanted to know he cared. I wanted him to care, but you know what, he didn’t. I hit my head on the ground and I felt the blood draining from my skull. People started to surround me and tell me I would be ok, but I wanted to see him. I looked up to that window hoping to see him, but all I saw was a curtain blowing from the light breeze of that autumn day.

“My nurse found me and patched me up, but she didn’t bring me back to the apartment. She told me that I needed to get away from here. There was a better place for me. A few days later she gave me some money and put me on a boat headed towards Caracas. That’s where I met Christian, or rather, Cristiano.”

One of the crewmen was the cousin of Reysa’s nurse so he had agreed to look out for the child making sure she was safe
.

“I had food, water and all the basics, but I felt so excruciatingly alone.”

Several weeks later they ended up in La Guaira Port. Reysa’s was dropped off and left standing there with no place to go and no home
.

“I didn’t speak the language and I knew no one. I wanted to jump in the sea and swim away. I ended up walking and walking and walking until my legs gave out. I collapsed in a deserted alley. I woke up to a pair of beautiful golden eyes and a heartbreaking smile. I didn’t know this child who looked no older than I, but for some reason I felt safe with him. I’ve always felt safe with him.”

“
Habla espanol?” the boy asked.

No response.

“
Habla ingles?”

Again nothing.

“
Habla?

Reysa couldn’t understand a word he said, but she hoped he could understand her. “Do you speak English or French or Kinyarwanda?”

“
English, no French and I can’t pronounce the last thing you said.”

Reysa smiled for the first time in weeks. “My name is Reysa.”

“
My name is Cristiano or Christian in English.”

“
Which do you prefer?”

“
Christian.”

“
Then that’s what I’ll call you. You will be my Christian.”

“
As long as you’ll be my Reysa.”

Reysa and Christian sat in the alley talking for hours about how they both ended up abandoned. Christian explained that he was born in Peru and had lived there with his mother until a few months prior. He never knew his father, but he was told he was from New Zealand. His mother woke him up one day and told him they were taking a trip to Venezuela. He was so excited, but Leila Castillo didn’t share the enthusiasm. Once they arrived in Caracas, they visited a beautiful cathedral. Christian was fascinated and wanted to go inside. His mother encouraged him to go explore. When he turned around to point something out to her, she was gone. He looked everywhere for her, but she vanished without a trace.

All he had was the small bag she packed for him. He opened it up and found eighty-five Peruvian Nuevo Sol and a note explaining that she was sorry
.

“He had such an amazing positive spirit. After what he had been through, he could have and should have been a mess, but he was so calm. He later told me that he was glad she left him; otherwise he would never have found me.” Reysa turned to Kaden imploring him to understand. “He saved me, Kaden. I was afraid and lost and confused, but he took care of me and the fear went away. He turned every day into an adventure for us. We jumped on boats and travelled anywhere and everywhere. He always made sure we had plenty to eat and drink. He made sure we survived. If anyone tried to hurt me, he attacked them. Even at six years old, he possessed an uncanny strength. I watched him easily take down three boys twice his size. I knew he had to be different. He didn’t know what he was. His mother was a vampire, but his father was unknown. As you know, vampire abilities take longer to develop. He shouldn’t have been that powerful at five. I was part vampire and I had a fraction of his strength. I didn’t see much vampire in him. One day we ran into a seer. She took one look at Christian and said that he was the child of the wolf and that one day he would be the most powerful of lycans.”