Page 27 of Pet: Torment

Remus

“What has you so distracted you don’t even acknowledge my arrival, Remus?” I ignore Xion’s entrance as I continue to study the source of my attention.

Iris.

She’s in the courtyard, leaning over the edge of the railing as she takes in the city below. A small smile graces her lips as she studiesXyrannisin awe. The breeze is light, causing her dark hair to bristle slightly now that it falls past her shoulder blades. It’s grown so much since we first encountered one another—we’vegrown.

It’s interesting getting to know a new side of her. On Earth, her one goal was to fight me for her planet. Now that those obstacles have been removed, and she is forced to acclimate to this world, she is showing a side of herself that is full of curiosity. And that curiosity has been directed toward me. She is trying to humanize me in any way she knows how, including asking about my childhood.

I laugh aloud at the shock on her expression when I gave her my response. Her subconscious has refused to accept that I am nowhere near human. I’m not even Leviathan. There is no comparison for the lives we’ve both led. I’ve lived much longer than she has, and now, thanks to the bond, she will live much longer than her biology originally intended, though I won’t tell her about that until the time is right.

Even if the malice between us has calmed a little, it’s too soon to reveal the life-changing news to her about anything involving the bond.

Xion comes to stand next to me, scoffing in irritation when she sees Iris. She doesn’t like Iris. She doesn’t like any human, for that matter, not after what they did to her and the man she claims as her own. It didn’t help that Iris had a hand in sabotaging Xion’s arrival on Earth. It will be a while before she warms up to her presence, just as Ezra and I have yet to warm up to the man she brings around.

I turn away from Iris to face Xion as she speaks.

“How are you feeling these days? You look better,” she says, pressing her hand against my cheek. I swat her hand away as I move to the other side of my desk.

“I told you I was fine,” I say, shifting my attention to the screen that projects the schedule for today. Today, the council will decide on Iriel’s trial date and all that it entails. And asAureon, I will be there. If it were up to me, Iriel would have died on Earth. Seeing him drag Iris away and threaten me with her life, twists the emotions within me to more extreme than before. It makes me want to disregard all the laws I swore to keep in check.

But I could never act on my own. It would go against my role asAureon.

“Fine doesn’t mean shattering tables, Remus. You can’t just say you’re fine when things like that happen. It’s dangerous for all of us,” Xion says, plopping into the chair across from me.

I take a deep breath, shifting my attention to the window. Iris’s questions on the way in come back to me, and for once, my curiosity about my past is peaked. My childhood is something I never thought about. I’ve never bothered to want to think about it for some reason. And with Iris’s questions, I find myself wondering about it. And why there is nothing about it in my mind except for visions that I don’t recall ever happening.

“Do you remember our childhood?” I ask.

“What do you mean?” Xion responds.

“It’s all very…fuzzy. Like it didn’t happen. But lately, I’ve been having these visions, and they feel so real. Like they’re memories,” I say.

Xion’s frown deepens, and she stands.

“Like what?” she asks.

“Me. As a child. Unable to control myself…massacring hundreds,” I say.

Xion’s expression shifts.

“You never went anywhere alone. We were raised in our mother’s dimension and weren’t set free until we could control ourselves,” she says.

I raise a brow.

“Is that all you remember? Is there nothing else? Nothing deeper? Maybe more specific?” I ask.

I can tell by her expression that she’s beginning to realize the same thing as me: we don’t remember our childhoods at all.

“That’s normal, Remus. We’ve lived a long time. It’s natural for us to…” she trails off, experiencing the same confusion I did.

We’re both at a loss.

“Have you spoken to mother about this?” she asks. “She could probably explain it better than our speculating,” she says.

I pull in a deep breath. “Something in me is telling me not to.”

Something is off about this return. Our mother would have come to one of us by now, especially Ezra. But she has not. And I think it has something to do with the strange visions I’ve been having. The other day, I left to try to find her, but once again she was nowhere to be found. Not even in her own dimension. I couldn’t even follow a trace.