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Hope didn’t notice the birthmark until after they were home from the hospital—the little mark on the back of both of the twins’ right shoulder that outlined the shape of a pale crescent. She was getting ready to bathe them in the little infant tub that someone in Josie’s family had gifted them at the baby shower, the little girls squirming anxiously in Josie’s arms next to her.
“Who do you want first?” Josie asked her, once the tub was filled with slightly warmed water.
“How about little Andrea?” Hope requested, and her fiancée passed her the little brunette. She cried softly as Hope slowly lowered her into the water. Her blue eyes squeezed shut as her crying got louder—clearly not enjoying the water—but Hope’s attention was frozen on the back of her daughter’s tiny shoulder.
“Hope?” Josie interrupted. “What’s wrong?” She held Olivia close as she leaned forward and followed Hope’s eyeline. Then, neither of them could take their eyes off of the mark.
“I guess we shouldn’t be surprised,” Hope said, trying to sound calm even though there was an obvious shake to her voice. “They do have my DNA. That’s not just from the Mikaelsons… but from Labonairs, too.”
“Oh, Hope,” Josie whispered, “they’re going to be okay.”
“Yeah… yeah.” Hope nodded absently as she focused on the task at hand. She could feel Josie’s eyes on her, but she couldn’t say anything.
There were times when Hope loved being a vampire—when she painted through the night without tiring, when she ran so fast that the human eye couldn’t spot her, when she remembered that nothing in the world could kill her. There were also times that Hope hated being a vampire, and almost all of those were when she felt pain. Not physical pain, but grief, sadness, jealousy, anger.
Right now, it was the first two. She hadn’t thought much of the mark on the back of her shoulder in years. Thinking about it made her think of her mom—and thinking about her mom made her heart so heavy.
It was easier to think or talk about her dad—she was used to that. Everyone knew who the Mikaelsons were, who Klaus Mikaelson was. But that wasn’t the case with her mother. Hayley Marshall-Kenner, born as Andrea Labonair, sometimes felt like a secret, kept close to Hope’s heart. Few people had ever brought her up after her unfortunate death, and in the past seven years, Hope had only ever talked about her a handful of times—all with either Josie or one of her family members.
She’d learned about the Crescent wolf pack when she was a child, but she kept that knowledge close to her chest as well. Truthfully, she loved being a werewolf, even if it sometimes had made her life much more difficult. As a child, she’d never really planned to trigger her curse of course, but it had seemed inevitable, and eventually it had happened. As hard as it was to have had to deal with accidentally killing someone when she was so young, she had come to appreciate the catharsis that turning and wolfing out could give her.
Obviously, the thought that her daughters might have that werewolf gene had crossed her mine. It had been one of the first questions that came to her mind when they found out that the babies shared her DNA as well as Josie’s. During the past few months, though, the questions had been overshadowed by everything else going on—what with her and Josie having to adjust their entire life based on being expectant mothers.
Now, when she finished washing up Olivia and Andrea, Josie took them both and went to work dressing and swaddling them as Hope went to their office—the only free room with Josie’s parents both still staying with them and the nursery still in the works. There was a big armchair in the corner, and she curled up in it, wrapping a fluffy blanket around her shoulders.
She let herself stir around in her thoughts for a few moments before she finally grabbed her phone and dialed the only person she thought could maybe understand.
The phone rung two times before her Aunt Keelin said, “Hope?” Keelin and Freya and their son Nik had been here for the birth, but had gone home a couple of days after.
“Keelin,” Hope said softly, tears already filling her eyes. She squeezed her eyes closed.
“Hope? What’s wrong?” Keelin demanded, worry evident in her voice.
“Keelin—the girls… they have the Crescent mark.” She pursed her lips as silent tears escaped her.
“Oh, kiddo,” Keelin said softly. “They do have your genes. That means your mom’s genes, honey, you knew that.”
“I know,” Hope whispered, opening her eyes and blinking away her tears, “I know, but… the Gemini ancestors started all this, and I didn’t know what to expect.”
“Well, maybe the curse will be dormant in them. Freya said that’s usually how it is with witches, right?”
Hope scoffed. “That wasn’t how it was for me.” She sniffled. “I had such a temper… and once I triggered the curse, I—I—it just…”
“Sweetie,” Keelin interrupted, “listen to me. You are so strong, and your little girls are going to be strong, too. And they’re going to have you and Josie and all of us, okay? No matter what happens. And they might never trigger the curse, okay? Try to remember the good things. Your mom was Crescent wolf royalty. Think about that.”
Hope nodded, even though her aunt couldn’t see her. “Yeah,” she finally whispered. “Yeah, okay.” Blinking, Hope realized that she could hear feet coming down the hall toward her. “Listen, I should go talk to Josie.”
“Okay, sweetie. We’re here for you, okay?”
“Thank you. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
As she hung up the call, the office door opened just enough for Josie to slot herself in between the door and the frame. “Hey,” she said softly, “you okay?” Hope felt her eyes fill with tears again, completely out of her control. Immediately, Josie was by her side, squishing into the chair with her and wrapping strong arms around her shoulders.
It was easy to let Hope collapse into her fiancée’s embrace, and surprisingly easy to let the tears roll down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she apologized, despite knowing Josie didn’t want her to, “I just don’t know how to talk about it.”
“It’s okay,” Josie assured her, her careful hands stroking Hope’s hair.
After a few quiet moments, Hope asked, “Are the girls sleeping?”
Josie shook her head but answered, “My mom is with them.” It’s silent for another few minutes, Josie just holding her and waiting.
Finally, Hope blurts, “I love being a werewolf. I love the feeling of running through the woods as a wolf. I love being a Tribrid, and the freedom that comes with it. Sometimes I even love the power… but I try not to, because I… I don’t want to ever become what my father was, as much as I loved him. But I love that nothing can really hurt me, physically, and that I can still do magic. I love it, Jo… and yet, I wouldn’t wish any of it on anyone.”
“I get it,” Josie responded quietly. “Having that kind of power comes with a lot of pressure… responsibility. Like being a Siphoner witch. Lizzie and I had to use our abilities from the time we were kids.”
“Like the first time you saved my life,” Hope whispered, to which Josie just hummed, her hand still stroking her hair. “I don’t want our girls to have to become vampires—not if they don’t want to. But I also don’t want them to become wolves, Jo. I never want them to hurt anyone—I don’t want them to know the pain that comes with it. Somehow, we all manage to deal with it, but I don’t want that for them.”
“Neither do I,” Josie promised, “but Hope, we can only do what we can do. We can’t change that these girls were born with the werewolf gene. We can’t just lock them up and never let them near another person to keep them from potentially triggering the curse. We can’t keep them from ever driving or living their life just because of that risk.”
“Well, what are we supposed to do?” Hope sobbed out. “Everything in me just wants to protect them, Jo.”
“And we will—by educating them. They’ll understand who they are—what they are. We’ll teach them to make good decisions, we’ll do our best to help them when things are hard. And even if they do trigger the curse, or if anything else happens that we don’t want for them… we’ll be there with them the whole time. We’ll love them unconditionally,” Josie explained, and Hope nodded. That made sense—her fiancée was so much better at this kind of thing. At making sense of it.
“Unconditionally,” she repeated, thinking of her family. “Always and forever.”
“That’s right,” Josie agreed. Hope turned her gaze up at the brunette, and Josie was looking down at her with eyes so full of love that Hope could practically feel it spilling out and into her. How one person could make her feel so safe, she had never been able to figure out. She’d given up trying, though, and was trying to just accept how lucky she really was.
“I love you,” Hope told her, as if Josie didn’t already know, “unconditionally.”
“I know. I love you, too, Hope,” Josie whispered, leaning down and pressing a feathery kiss on the tip of her nose. Hope scrunched it in response and leaned up to steal her fiancée’s lips in a kiss.
9 Years Later
Josie
“Hey!”
Josie heard the squeal from across the house just as her bath was starting to drain. It wasn’t unusual to hear the girls, especially Olivia, shouting from the playroom upstairs, so she didn’t bat an eyelash as she enjoyed the last of the hot water she was engulfed in. It was Friday, marking the end of a busy week at school, and Hope was cleaning the dishes from the dinner they’d ordered in—their Friday routine. Usually, Josie would help in the kitchen and then drag Hope into the bath with her, but today, her wife had insisted that she would take care of the chores. It was sweet.
“Give it back!” Olivia hollered suddenly, and Josie sighed. She tried to block out the sound, knowing that Hope would take care of it. She had only a few more minutes of the peace of her bath, anyway.
“I had it first!” Andrea snapped back. “Go play with one of your other stupid dolls, and leave me alone!” Josie squeezed her eyes shut, and then, unable to help it, she climbed out of the bath and began to dry off.
“Excuse me,” Hope’s voice could be heard from upstairs, “what is going on up here?”
“Andrea took the doll I was playing with!”
“I had it first, and you have like six more over there,” Andrea snapped.
Josie shook her head, and was quick to get dressed in sweats and a t-shirt. On her way out of their room and toward the stairs, she glanced at the calendar hanging up next to their front door. She froze as she realized that on the box for today, there was a shining silver circle—Hope always marked the full moon that way.
So that explained the worse fighting, and maybe also explained why Hope was resistant to relaxing tonight.
Josie was at the foot of the stairs when she tuned back into the conversation happening upstairs only to hear the unmistakable sound of a fist slamming into something—or someone, rather. She didn’t hesitate before using her vampire speed to reach the playroom.
Hope was holding onto a frantically flailing Andrea as Olivia sat on the floor with teary eyes and a red mark on her jaw. “What is going on here?” Josie exclaimed.
“She hit me!” Olivia exclaimed.
“She wouldn’t leave me alone!” Andrea shouted, trying desperately to tear free from Hope, but obviously unable to do so. Their mom was, after all, the strongest supernatural creature in the world.
Josie met her wife’s eyes, and it only took a second for them to get on the same page. They’d been discussing this for a while anyway. It was time for a big talk.
“Okay, listen up, you two,” Josie said, causing Andrea to calm down a little. Hope lowered her to the ground. “You both know that yelling and hitting are not solutions to our problems.”
Andrea flushed, looking down at the ground and crossing her arms over her chest.
“Andrea, you didn’t deserve to be yelled at, but Olivia didn’t deserve to be hit either, okay?”
The little brunette looked over at her twin with narrow eyes before exhaling. “I’m sorry, Olivia.”
“It’s okay,” Olivia muttered back, rubbing her hand over her bruise. “I’m sorry for yelling at you.”
“There are my mature little girls,” Josie said gently. “Now, how about we have a family meeting downstairs?”
Olivia groaned. “I hate family meetings.”
“How about family meetings with ice cream?” Hope suggested, quirking up and eyebrow.
With that, it’s easy to get the girls downstairs and into the living room, big bowls of ice cream in their laps. They were both shoveling down spoonful after spoonful of the freezing dessert as Josie and Hope sat down on the coffee table across from their daughters on the couch.
“We already apologized,” Olivia said after a moment of silence, “why do we need to have a whole family meeting?”
“You girls are getting really big,” Hope told them, “you’re growing up really fast. And Mama and I have decided that there’s something really important you two need to know about.” Josie nodded in agreement, kind of nervous. She had no idea how Hope learned of the werewolf curse as a child, and she wanted to let her wife take charge here.
“Mommy,” Andrea murmured through her ice cream, “you’re making me nervous.”
“It’s okay, love,” Hope promised. “Listen, you know that Mama and I are both witches and vampires.” They both nodded along easily. “And you know that I’m also a werewolf.”
“We know, Mom,” Olivia said, rolling her eyes dramatically. It was something she’d started doing every now and then, acting years older than Josie would’ve expected her sweet little nine year old to.
“And you know that being a werewolf, it’s a curse,” Hope explained, waiting two little faces to nod. “It’s a curse that I was born with, and, once upon a time, I triggered it. I know I haven’t talked about it a lot with you, but you girls were also born with that curse.”
“That’s why we have the matching marks,” Andrea commented, like she already knew all about it. Josie quirked up an eyebrow as the little brunette shoved another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth.
“Well, sort of. We come from one of the first seven packs of werewolves ever, the Crescent Wolf Pack. And my mother,” Hope said softly, leaning toward to poke Andrea in the leg as she added, “who you are named after, was born to the Labonairs, which were considered basically royalty in the pack.”
Andrea’s eyes widened as Olivia gasped. “So, we’re like princesses?” the redhead demanded excitedly.
Josie couldn’t help but chuckle at that, and she and Hope shared a smile. “Sure,” Hope told them with a chuckle. “But that’s what our birthmark represents.”
“So, why’s it a curse?” Olivia asked.
“Because,” Andrea interrupted, “werewolves have to turn into wolves when the moon’s full.”
“So? That’s cool. Plus, Mommy doesn’t become a wolf once a month,” Olivia said firmly.
“You’re right, I don’t have to turn every month,” Hope confirmed with a nod, “but we can’t know for sure that that will be the case for you two. The reason I don’t have to turn every month is because I’m a vampire. And even before I was officially a vampire, I had vampire blood in my body, because my father was a vampire.”
“But you and Mama are vampires. So don’t we have vampire blood in us?” Olivia snarked back.
Josie hummed. “Not exactly,” she interrupted. “We don’t know that for sure, because Mommy’s blood didn’t help make you. We’ve talked about how mothers get pregnant with their babies, and I was the one who was pregnant with you two. Magic put Mommy’s genetics—including the werewolf gene—inside of me to make our two perfect little girls.” She poked their stomachs and both girls giggled.
There was a short pause before anyone spoke again. “So, we are going to have to turn into wolves every month?” Andrea asked quietly, looking up at them with concerned blue eyes.
“Not necessarily,” Hope said softly. “First of all, there’s no possibility of that happening unless you trigger the curse.”
“How do you do that?” Olivia wondered, tilting her head.
Hope sighed, and her eyes bounced over to Josie, a clear request for help. “You have to cause someone to die,” she said gently. The girls may have seemed young, but in the past year and a half especially, it had become so clear just how aware they were about these kinds of things. It definitely didn’t help that they overheard the older kids at school talking about all sorts of things all of the time. “For most werewolves, triggering the curse is an accident.”
The twins were silent now, their almost empty bowls neglected in their laps, as they listened. “And,” Hope said softly, “werewolves also have a lot more natural aggression. Do you know what aggression is?” The girls shook their heads, and Hope blew out a breath.
“You know that feeling,” Josie popped in, “when you just get so angry that you want to scream? Or hit something?” Two nods. “That feeling is called aggression.”
“Exactly,” Hope said thankfully, “and that feeling happens to werewolves a lot more than to other people. So it’s a lot easier to accidentally hurt someone, or to let that feeling take over and cause you to do something you didn’t mean to do. And if you hurt someone bad enough, and they die, it would trigger the curse.”
Andrea wriggled uncomfortably. “I don’t want to trigger the curse, Mommy.”
“Oh, love,” Hope said gently, “the reason we wanted to tell you this is so that you know to be careful. You know how strong and unique you are. When you fill up with magic, you have so much power. With that kind of power, if you’re feeling a lot of aggression, you’re going to have to be careful.”
Josie bit down on her lower lip, thinking about how hard it was for her and Lizzie without the added aggression that came with being a werewolf. They hadn’t told the girls about the Merge yet, or about the Gemini coven in general. That was a much harder thing to explain than the werewolf curse—that fate was going to demand one of them to absorb the other’s power and entire being. They’d decided already—they’d tell the girls when the were ten or eleven, and hopefully, they’d have some sort of idea of how to stop it by then.
“You know,” Hope continued, “how normal werewolves have to turn on the full moon every month?” Nods. “Werewolves who haven’t triggered the curse, or for me, we don’t have to turn, but we feel a lot more aggression on the full moon. And today is the full moon, which explains why you two have been feeling very angry today. And explains why your playing upstairs escalated so quickly.”
Andrea and Olivia shared interested looks. “So,” Josie said softly, “we wanted to explain this to you, so you girls know where that comes from. And hopefully, you’ll be able to use your knowledge to make really good decisions. Does that make sense?”
“Yes, Mama,” they both chorused sweetly.
“And you know, if you have any questions about it, we can talk about it,” Hope assured them. “It doesn’t have to be a whole family meeting, either. You know you two can talk to us about anything, always, right?”
“We know, Mommy,” Olivia promised.
“Okay, good.”
Josie smiled at the twins. “We love you, girls.”
“Always and forever.”
They both nodded back. “Always and forever.”
8 Years Later
Olivia
“Come on,” Opal whispered, her hand wrapped in Olivia’s as she glanced back at the three of them—Olivia, Andrea, and Taylor. The four witches were all pressed against the wall, just ten feet from the door of the school that exited out toward the woods, which was where they headed.
“Shh,” Andrea hissed.
“I whispered!” Opal huffed, and Olivia just squeezed her hand and shook her head slightly. Considering that half of the staff at the school, including her and Andrea’s mother, the headmaster, she knew why Andrea was insistent on being quiet. They were supposed to be up in Taylor’s room, watching movies. At least, that’s what they’d told their moms that they were doing.
Opal gave in and shrugged off the issue, before peering around the corner and then tugging Olivia after her as they bolted toward the doors.
The school was sort of on lockdown on the day of the full moon every month, so sneaking out was pretty difficult. Usually, Olivia and Andrea would hang out with their friends until their Mama was finished making sure that everyone was accounted for, and then they’d go home. In the meantime, their Mom would stay in the woods to monitor the wolves turning and make sure everything went smoothly.
Tonight, though, Olivia had let herself be convinced by her best friend to sneak out and camp out in the forest, just about half a mile away from the magical border that would keep them safe from the wolves. It had been surprisingly easy to convince Andrea to come—she had always been a lot more fascinated by the werewolves than Olivia was, even if she wouldn’t admit it. Frankly, Olivia forgot on most days that there was even a possibility that she could become one herself. Taylor had easily agreed once Andrea had, and now they were here.
The four of them were pretty close, but they were easily split into distinct pairs when they were all together. Taylor was Andrea’s closest friend besides Olivia, and didn’t have many other friends. She was a sweet, freckled, brunette who was a year younger than them and definitely looked up to Andrea, and they’d only really become friends in the last year or so. Meanwhile, Olivia and Opal, a tall, charming blonde in their same year, had been inseparable at school since they were kids. Besides Andrea, Opal was her best friend.
Opal was also one of the most popular girls at school, and when she got an idea in her head, it seemed like it was easy for her to get what she wanted. Olivia hadn’t taken much convincing, honestly—she needed a little rebellion in her life. She and her twin both were always trying to be perfect. Trying not to have a meltdown, trying not to get too aggressive. Sometimes, the best way to balance that out was to break some rules.
A little while later, it was fully dark outside, and the four of them had trekked through the woods to a clearing. They dropped the bags they’d been carrying and spread out sleeping bags and blankets. Opal had brought a tent, and she and Olivia started putting it up together. “You’re unusually quiet,” Opal commented as they did. “Don’t tell me you’re scared?”
“I’m not scared,” Olivia insisted with a scoff. “We aren’t vampires, and my mom is the Tribrid. I have no reason to be scared of some wolves.”
“Are we going to get closer when the moon hits its apex?” Taylor wondered from behind them. “They can’t come past the boundary spell, right, and we can’t get in. So would it hurt to go look?”
“No, we’ll get closer,” Opal agreed easily. “Otherwise, what would be the fun?”
“We just have to be quiet,” Andrea reminded softly, “because Mom is going to be out here all night.”
“She’ll kill us if we get caught, won’t she?” Taylor asked, the sixteen year old wincing a little as if imagining death by Tribrid. Olivia rolled her eyes.
“It’ll be fine.”
Olivia wasn’t completely sure that she believed her own words, but she’d already made the decision. Sharing a look with Andrea, she knew that her twin felt the same way. Maybe they were scared of getting caught, but they didn’t regret being out here.
They pulled their sleeping bags around where Taylor had started a fire with a whispered, “Incendia.” When it got later, they would retreat into the tent and have a proper night camping, but right now, they just gathered around the fire and listened to the sounds of the forest. Really, they were all listening for the telltale sign of werewolves turning—howls.
Taylor whispered something to Andrea, who chuckled, and they continued to whisper back and forth between each other. In the meantime, Olivia looked over at Opal, who smirked back at her. “Moira would be so pissed if she knew we were out here,” the blonde asserted.
Olivia snickered. Ever since she turned Moira and Lily green a few months ago, there had been somewhat of a rivalry between the witches and vampires. They were in an unspoken competition to one up each other in everything, and since the vampires were known for shrugging off school rules, maybe this had been Opal’s idea to one up them at that, too. No vampire would dare sneak out on a full moon, even if Olivia’s Mom possessed the sole thing that could heal them, it was well known how terrible a wolf bite experience was to a vampire.
Witches, though, were only as vulnerable as a human, and at least they had the ability to defend themselves.
“She probably shouldn’t find out,” Olivia reasoned, “because if she tells either of my moms, we are in so much trouble.”
“First of all,” Opal said, “there’s no way Moira would tattle—that’s not her style. Second of all, since when are you so scared of getting in trouble?”
Olivia sighed, glancing over at Andrea, who was still absorbed in conversation with Taylor. Not everyone at school knew about Olivia and Andrea’s family history. The Mikaelson history, of course, they were familiar with, but the story of the Gemini Coven wasn’t something that was taught. Considering how many covens there were in the world, it wasn’t like one that was basically nonexistent at this point deserved coverage in their history books.
Olivia and Andrea had made a pact when they were younger that they wouldn’t tell people about the Merge—in case their peers decided to pick sides or try and drive them apart. They’d made a few exceptions, though, and Opal was one of them, considering that Opal and Olivia had been best friends since before even Olivia had found out about the Merge.
“You know my parents are pretty hard on us about responsibility and all that stuff,” Olivia muttered, knowing her friend would get the point.
“It’s not like you’re even using magic,” Opal reassured her softly.
Olivia smiled, about to agree when she was interrupted by the sound of howling unsurprisingly close to them. The four witches all sat up at attention. “We should get closer!” Andrea said, the excitement clear in her eyes. Olivia smirked—her quiet twin sister had always been fascinated by werewolves, ever since they first learned that they had the gene.
It wasn’t too bad for them on full moons, though, as long as they stuck together and calmed each other down if there was ever anything making them angry. Interestingly, Olivia was pretty sure that the full moon was the day that Andrea seemed the most relaxed—maybe it was the one day of each month where she didn’t feel like she had to feel guilty for having so many strong emotions. Olivia wasn’t sure, but she liked seeing her sister so excited tonight instead of stressed.
They all stood, but the sound of bushes rustling made them freeze. Coming from the direction of the boundary, a man in a big coat, with some sort of rucksack and a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. He was clearly human, and his eyes were wide and wild.
“The hell are you girls doing out here?” he demanded. “This is not the kind of night to be camping.”
Silence—none of them knew what to say. If they’d imagined being caught, it was definitely not by a human. “Says the man wandering around alone,” Olivia forced out finally.
“There are animals in these woods on nights like these,” he hissed. “I’ve just seen one—a great beast.”
“All due respect,” Andrea said carefully, “but I think that’s the case every night.”
There was a glint in the man’s eye. “I’m not so sure about that, sweetie.” Olivia scoffed at him calling her sister sweetie. “I’m going to have to call the police to come pick you girls up, this is no night to be out here alone.” He grabbed his phone, and all four of them tensed until he cursed under his breath and said, “No signal.”
Olivia was pretty sure that was intentional—that it was part of the magical protective measures, along with the boundary spell, to keep the werewolves from being exposed.
There was another howl, and the man immediately turned around, slinging his rifle around and holding it up, pointing it in the direction of the boundary spell. They were too far away for any of the wolves to get close enough for him to see in this lighting, but all four witches exchanged worried looks at the fact that he had a gun out.
Olivia reached behind her and grabbed Opal’s hand, siphoning for just a second. Right as the man turned back around, lowering his rifle a little, she said, “Corporis impetus!” and the man froze, completely unmoving. “That’s not going to hold long, what are we going to do with him?”
“We have to take him back to school,” Andrea insisted, “so Mama can have one of the vampires compel him.”
“But where are we supposed to say we found him?” Olivia demanded.
“It’s over, Liv, we’re going to get in trouble one way or another at this point,” she insisted. “Not only because this guy obviously suspects the wolves, but you just used magic in front of him!”
Even though the man was frozen in place, the spell didn’t keep him from hearing what they were saying. But Andrea wasn’t wrong—it was too late anyway. He needed to be compelled.
“Maybe we can find your Mom instead?” Opal suggested. “She can compel him, and then maybe she won’t get as mad?”
Taylor make a doubtful noise. “Mrs. Mikaelson being less mad than Dr. Mikaelson?”
Actually, Opal was probably right. “She could be anywhere—she might even be inside the boundary,” Andrea argued. “We need to take him back to school.”
“Fine!” Olivia exclaimed. “Fine, okay, we just need to hurry—”
The man suddenly gasped as he regained control of his body. Olivia groaned, realizing she hadn’t siphoned enough from Opal to hold him for longer. “What the fucking hell?” the hunter hissed. “How the hell did you do that to me?”
The next moments happened in slow motion—at least to Olivia.
First, she reached backwards to grab Opal again—hoping to siphon more and freeze him once again. Before she could, the man raised his rifle and pointed it right at her. Her jaw dropped and her mind went blank—she nearly missed Andrea, out of the corner of her eye, grabbing Taylor and her hand glowing red.
“Motus!” She yelled, and at the same time, Opal shouted, “Scutum!”
Opal’s spell deflected the bullet that the man had fired toward Olivia, and Andrea’s spell sent him flying away from them. Olivia could hardly absorb what was happening as silence seemed to hang in the air, until the man slammed into a tree and then fell to the ground, a sickening crack heard from his body.
“Oh my god,” Taylor said anxiously. “Oh my god—is he… is he, um, okay?”
Eyes wide, Andrea took a few hesitant steps toward the hunter. Olivia could feel her anxiety as if it were her own. “Andrea?” Olivia prompted softly. “He’s okay, right?”
“Um…”
Olivia felt a pit in her stomach immediately before she felt the burning pain through her whole body. She gasped as Andrea cried out.
“What’s happening?” Opal exclaimed in a panic, grabbing Olivia’s arm. But it wasn’t Olivia who was really in pain—she was feeling twin pain. She tore away from Opal as she approached her sister, who was crumpled down on the ground.
“Andrea,” she said softly. “It’s going to be okay.”
Andrea cried out again before she turned her head up, her eyes glowing gold and her mouth filled with fangs. “Holy shit,” Opal breathed out behind her. “So it’s true…”
Olivia couldn’t say anything in response as more twin pain suddenly shot through her and Andrea’s bones started to crack. “It’s the full moon,” Olivia said, panic setting in. “She has to turn—it’s her first full moon—oh my god. You guys need to get out of here!”
“What about you?” Opal demanded, as Taylor began to back away from Andrea.
“I can’t leave her!” Olivia exclaimed. Andrea screamed out in pain again. “I’ll keep her down—I’ll siphon her or something. Just—you need to go and get out of here. She’ll have more control than most wolves would, but it’s her first time, who knows how she’s going to handle it. You need to go! Now!”
“Should we tell Dr. Mikaelson?”
Olivia nodded, knowing there was no other option, as tears filled her eyes. Her sister was transforming before their eyes. Thankfully, Opal and Taylor finally took off running back toward the school, and Olivia slowly approached her sister, whose bones were still breaking and realigning.
The twin pain was becoming just a dull ache, but what Andrea was feeling was clearly much worse. Olivia rushed over to her, pressing her palms to her sister’s shoulders. “You’re going to be just fine.” She started to siphon away some of the magic. It wouldn’t stop her sister from turning, but it would slow it down, and since the full moon had already reached its apex, it would possibly even keep Andrea from fully turning into a wolf at all.
But then Olivia felt the magic leaving her as fast as it had entered—Andrea was siphoning it back. The brunette cried out and jerked away, Olivia stumbling back onto her backside.
“Oh god, oh god,” Olivia whimpered, before realizing there was no other option. “Help! Help—Mom, help!”
She screamed for about a minute, Andrea continuing to turn in front of her, until she heard something like wind whipping through the bushes and trees around her, and then her mom was standing before them.
“Olivia? What is going on?” her mom exclaimed, her attention falling on Andrea. “Oh my god, Andrea! What happened?”
She wasn’t waiting for an answer, though, which was good since Olivia was sobbing now—the dull, twin pain keeping her from focusing on anything other than her sister turning into a wolf in front of her.
Her mom immediately enveloped Andrea in her arms, and then suddenly the two of them were gone. Olivia sobbed harder—at the pain, at the death her sister had caused, at all of it. Andrea had triggered her curse to protect her, and she didn’t even get more than a second to process that before she was being forced to turn all of the sudden.
A few seconds later, her mom appeared next to her again. “Olivia, are you okay? Are you hurt?” she asked urgently.
“I’m okay, I can just feel her,” Olivia sobbed out. “She’s hurting so bad, Mom.”
“I know, love,” her mom whispered. “Listen, we’re going to talk about this tomorrow. I don’t know what happened, but I need to deal with this. So I need you to go back to Mama, okay?”
“I’m so sorry,” Olivia whimpered out.
“Go back to the school, okay?”
Olivia nodded, barely managing to scramble to her feet.
When she finally made it back to the school, her mama, Opal, and Taylor were bursting through the doors. Her mama looked panicked.
“Olivia!” the older brunette exclaimed. “What happened? Where’s Andrea?”
“Mom took her into the werewolf area,” Olivia sobbed out. “Mama, she didn’t mean to, and it wasn’t her fault!”
“Come on, baby, let’s get inside,” her mama said, worry in her eyes. “If Andrea is with Mom, then the most important thing we need to do right now is get all three of you inside and safe.”
The night passed so slowly. Her mama left her with Opal in her room and told her to stay put until morning. Opal managed to fall asleep in the meantime, but Olivia couldn’t. At some point, the pain stopped, but her heart pounded all night long—another twin sympathy symptom, she was sure. As difficult as that made it for her to rest, she was so glad she could feel Andrea—she was okay.
She had triggered her werewolf curse, but she was okay. And that was enough for Olivia right now.
Andrea
Andrea woke up spread across a patch of scratchy grass, shivering thanks to the cool air blowing over her naked body. Her eyes flickered open and stared up at the treetops and the light blue, morning sky. She could hear activity around her—in the distance, there were people talking. Voices the recognized—the school werewolf pack. It was the morning after the full moon, and everyone was waking from turning back into humans.
“Holy shit,” the pack leader—Nicholas West—said, much closer to her. Andrea quickly curled away from his voice, covering her front, but when she peered over her shoulder, he wasn’t looking anyway. “Andrea Mikaelson? What are you doing here?”
“I… I…” She couldn’t get her thoughts out. Wasn’t it obvious enough? Why was she within the werewolf area, the morning after a full moon, naked? Well, obviously, she’d turned!
“I don’t have any extra clothes,” he said, “but you can have this blanket, here.”
He tossed the blanket and it landed right next to her despite his eyes being pointed anywhere but at her. She quickly took it and sat up, wrapping it around her body. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“What happened?” he asked, looking down at her now.
She looked up at him with wide eyes. “I… I triggered my curse.” Suddenly, the whole pack began appearing around her.
“How? When?” Nicholas asked, shocked. “I didn’t even know that you had the gene. I mean—I know your mom is the Tribrid, but…”
“I know,” she muttered, shaking her head. She knew how these things went—the pack had to know how she had triggered her curse. It was part of the pack rules—had been for as long as the pack had existed, when the school had been founded by her Grandpa forever ago. “A few of us snuck out last night, we were in the woods. There was this hunter. He had a rifle—he was going to try and go after the wolves, but then he shot at my sister after she did magic. I just did a motus spell… I just wanted to push him out of the way so that he would miss. But it was too powerful and… and he…” Her voice shook, and she pressed her eyes closed, tears squeezing out of them.
She barely remembered what happened after hearing that terrible crack. Even before Taylor had asked, she knew that he was dead.
“Out of the way,” the voice of her mom broke her out of her thoughts. “Nicholas, take the pack back to school.” Her voice softened when Andrea looked up at her anxiously. “Andrea, love, come with me.”
About fifteen minutes later found Andrea wearing a spare Salvatore Boarding School uniform and seated in the headmaster’s office with her mom. Her mama and Olivia were nowhere to be seen.
“Okay, love, how about you tell me what exactly happened last night?”
“We thought it would be fun… to sneak out and try and watch the wolves. And camp out. We all agreed to go out there. But there was this man—a human hunter. He was trying to call the police to come get us, and Olivia cast an immobilization spell. When he unfroze, he turned his rifle on her and he fired and I just—I couldn’t stop myself from doing something! But it was just a motus spell, I just wanted to knock him down, b-but I sent him flying. And Opal put up a shield spell anyway—she protected Olivia. It all happened so fast. I—I… I didn’t mean to kill him, Mom.”
“I know, love,” her mom whispered, “I know you didn’t mean to. It’s okay. You were trying to protect yourselves.”
“But it was our fault we were out there in the first place.”
Her mom sighed, running a hand through her auburn hair the way she did when she was stressed. “I’m going to let your Mama come up with your school related punishment, Andrea. For all four of you. But what happened with the hunter… it’s not your fault. I recognized him—he’s been there on a full moon before, trying to hunt the wolves. I’ve compelled him away before, but maybe he takes vervain—I don’t know. Regardless, you were using self-defense, and we are going to protect you. I’ve already contacted the sheriff and explained what happened, and as far as anyone knows, he was out hunting and he saw a wolf, tripped, and fell wrong.”
Andrea felt bile rising up in her throat. “I didn’t mean to kill him, but it was my fault,” she insisted. “I killed him, mom! He probably had a… a family, kids, maybe. I took him away from his family, I k-killed him, I—”
The doors swung open, cutting her off. Before she knew it, she was wrapped up in Olivia’s arms. “Thank god, you’re okay,” her sister cried, and Andrea felt tears landing on her neck as Olivia hugged her tightly. Andrea buried her face in her sister’s auburn hair. “I’m so sorry, Andrea. We never should’ve been out there—I shouldn’t have used magic on that hunter, or I should’ve just listened to you right away when you said we needed to take him back to the school. I couldn’t protected you from this, I should have—”
“Hey, let your sister breathe, Liv,” their mama whispered gently, carefully pulling Olivia away from Andrea.
“I’m so sorry, Mama,” Andrea breathed out, tears in her eyes now after seeing her twin crying. “It was my fault—I was just so scared, and I just wanted to protect Olivia!”
“But I was the one who asked you to come out with us,” Olivia argued.
“I went because I wanted to, just like you did,” Andrea said back. “And it wasn’t your idea.”
“It wasn’t yours either!”
“Girls, please,” their mama interrupted. “It doesn’t matter how you ended up there, and while yes there will be consequences for you four sneaking out, that’s not what we’re here to discuss right now.” Andrea and Olivia both went quiet. “Andrea, are you okay?”
Andrea swallowed thickly. “I… not really.”
“That’s okay, love,” her mom assured her.
“Consequences for what happened are going to be put off for now,” her mama added, “and for now, we think what you two need is a few days to process what happened. So, Mom is going to take you both to New Orleans, to meet the werewolves there and see family. I think it’ll help you both process what happened these past few days.”
Andrea nodded slowly. She wanted to believe that she could feel better, but in this moment, all her mind could do was replay the way that man had slammed into the tree, and then fallen to the ground. That terrible crack she’d heard, and the way his neck had looked when she’d peered at him just for a moment before the curse awoke inside of her.
She squeezed her eyes shut and felt Olivia’s hand wrap in her own, squeezing reassuringly. “You’re going to be ok, sis.”
Andrea really hoped that was true.
They spent the rest of the week in New Orleans.
They went out to the bayou and their mom told them stories about the Crescent Wolves, and they met a few wolves who were around as well. They also spent a lot of time with their Great Aunts Freya and Keelin—who always appeared surprisingly young despite age creeping up on them. Andrea and Olivia knew how, of course—their Great Aunt Freya was one of the most powerful witches in the world. That’s how Mikaelson witches were, anyway.
They also got to see their mom’s cousin Nik and his young children, and their Great Aunt Rebekah also happened to be in town. It was a good distraction, all in all, and when they got back to school, Andrea felt a little more normal.
It was helpful, of course, that she didn’t feel all that different. Sure, she didn’t know her own strength, and every time Moira and her goons walked past her in school and called her “super-unnatural freak”—the dumb term they decided to use to rile her up—her eyes glowed yellow and she felt fangs appearing in her mouth. But besides those two things, things weren’t that much different.
After a few days of detention with Olivia, Taylor, and Opal for sneaking out on a full moon, Andrea got a few of her classes switched around so that she could have gym with the wolves. It was weird, but she found that the pack didn’t seem to judge her for being the first Siphoner Witch Werewolf hybrid in existence. Besides her family and maybe Taylor, they were the only ones who seemed to just remember her as Andrea Mikaelson.
Things were going to be okay, she was sure of it.
Especially after the next full moon came and went—and despite being out in the wood with the rest of the wolves, she wasn’t forced to turn. It had been her biggest question, one she hadn’t posed to anyone considering that no one would know the answer. She was relieved when she wasn’t forced to turn.
She knew her life had drastically changed, though, and there was one thing looming over her. She wasn’t even sure if her twin had thought about it.
With no solution having been developed for the Merge as of yet, she and Olivia were still technically five years away from having to go through it. Of course, there was the option of turning into a vampire before that could happen, but as of right now, Andrea was technically much stronger than Olivia. And with all of her newfound power, along with the intensity with which her emotions could hit her and the episodes that her genetics had cursed her with, she was more dangerous than ever.
And the last thing Andrea ever wanted was to hurt the person most important to her in the world—Olivia.
That was going to be something to deal with another time, though, because right now, Andrea had enough on her plate.