Page 286 of The Broken Aztec Princesses

I walked into my room and lay down. It would be a few hours before Vesta was off duty, and I could speak with her.

“He’d be twenty-five today. Why is this still so hard?” Mom cried to Aunt Violet. They looked a little different than I remembered now. Mom’s curls were not as tight and there were lines around her eyes. Aunt Violet’s hair was in a bob, and she didn’t look as sad as I remembered her. “I should have found him by now, Vi. I promised him.”

“I’m right here, Mom,” I told her, but she couldn’t hear me. She never could. “I’m looking for a way to get back to you, too.”

Aunt Violet grabbed Mom and hugged her, letting her cry. I tried hugging them both, but it was like I was a ghost, unableto affect anything in my dreams. The door to the room they were in opened, and Dad walked in. At least, that's what I called Cade in my head. Though he’d left before I was taken, in my dreams, they’d gotten back together, and had the twins and more brothers and sisters. They were happy together. Just how I wanted them to be when I was little. Together, and happy—a family. I still wanted that for them, even if I wasn’t a part of it anymore.

“Come on, My Queen. The kids are ready.”

I followed behind them, wondering what new shit my dreams had conjured. I dreamt of them often enough, and I was always confused by the shit my brain came up with. Sometimes I found myself spending two hours in my dreams, watching a weird movie I’d never heard of with my parents and made-up siblings.

Today, Dad led us to the kitchen of their house. Uncle Chris, Uncle Cory, Aunt Evie, Uncle Adrien and his mate, and their two other siblings along with all of their kids were gathered around a table. A cake was in the middle, and I felt stinging in the back of my eyes, when Mom burst out crying at the birthday cake on the table.

They sang Happy Birthday, and I could feel my heart hurting when I realized they were singing to me. Why did my brain like hurting me like this? Showing me things that could never be. Things that could have been.

A slammed door brought me out of my dreams. I’ve had them since I was like six. A part of me hoped they were some kind of view into Mom and Dad’s life without me, showing me they didn’t forget me. I sure as shit hadn’t forgotten them. I still wore the dog tags around my neck. Vesta had traded something to have them spelled, so the chain didn’t break and it shifted with me. Some of the etched lines were a little worn down, but I couldstill see the three images. One day, they would fade completely, but they were burnt into my mind and heart.

I stood and walked into the kitchen. I’d grown up under Vesta’s guardianship. She wasn’t a bad person, but she also wasn’t the warmest. Life in the Forsaken Plane wasn’t easy, so I didn’t blame her for it. I probably wasn’t the warmest at this point, either. I’ve had to fight to survive since I was young. I learned death was a part of life here. If I hadn’t learned to kill from an early age, I wouldn’t have survived this long.

“The meeting is being held tomorrow. Are you coming?” I asked without preamble.

We’d been arguing for the last year and things were getting tense between us. She hated that I’d been risking my life to sabotage Tezcatlipoca’s attempts to break through the barriers. Her argument was that the fight to come had been prophesized. I wouldn’t be able to stop it, and I was being careless with my life. She’d made a promise to Mom to keep me safe, and I was making her work harder than it already was.

But just because something was prophesied to happen, didn’t mean I couldn’t try my best to make sure they couldn’t attack my family at their full strength. I made a promise to Dad and Uncle Chris that I would do whatever I could to protect Mom and Aunt Violet. It was a promise I still took seriously.

“Yeah. I’ll go with you,” she sighed, sitting down at the kitchen table.

“Long day?” I asked a little nicer, seeing how tired she looked.

“A tear opened, but it’s too far away. We won’t get there before it closes,” she answered.

Over the years, we’d been trying to sneak me out of the Forsaken Plane. Except, no one would help us. Once you’re in the Forsaken Plane, you can’t leave. It was a one-way trip. The guardians didn’t care that the only reason I was here was so Vesta could save my life. Rules were rules. Our only optionwas to find a tear, and sneak me out before a guardian could close it. The problem was that tears didn’t happen very often, and the Forsaken Plane wasn’t a small place. Outside of the quadrant Vesta helped monitor, there were hundreds of other ones surrounding us. Without the help of the other guardians, we had to luck out in Vesta sensing where they opened before the other guardians did, and getting there before the guardians closed it. So far, that had proved almost impossible. In the last three years, there’d been five tears she’d sensed or heard of, and none of them were close enough for us to have a hope in hell of getting to in time.

“That’s too bad,” I mentioned.

At one point, this would have frustrated me, but now I had a fallback plan. Tezcatlipoca needed to open a tear to push all of these rogues and creatures out of the plane before attacking my family. I simply needed to bide my time and leave behind them. It was risky, but if I was right in the number of rogues that would be leaving, it wouldn’t take too much for me to blend in with the crowd. I’d made a friend or two over the years with enough magic knowledge that worked in this plane, to ensure anyone who knew of me, couldn’t see me or remember me for twenty-four hours.

Vesta looked at me, analyzing my attitude. Eventually, she sighed and walked over to the fridge.

“Happy birthday, Adam,” she said, pulling out a cookie cake.

“Thank you,” I smiled, hugging the woman who'd taken care of me over the past twenty years. I loved her like an aunt, though she called herself my sister, because aunt made her feel old. For the first ten years, whenever I felt alone, she would tell me stories she’d heard while accidentally captive in Redmon Moon, and told me how much Mom loved me, and that I shouldn’t give up.

Iheld myself closer to a small crevice above the cavern entrance. As long as no one looked up, I should have no issues. It wasn’t the most comfortable place to be, and Vesta had to leave because we couldn’t both fit, but it was our best bet to hear what was going on.

“Recruitment has been slowing at a critical time. Tezcatlipoca isn’t happy. Our enemies have been preparing for years. We need volume. This quadrant has been particularly low on recruitment numbers. What the hell is happening?”

“The guardians have been meddling. They’re hindering our efforts,” one answered.

“There’s a shifter who’s been scaring people from joining,” another shouted, making me smirk.

It was me. I was that shifter. Having a healthy wolf meant I had a much better handle on my strength and healing abilities. It made it easier to intimidate rogues.

“Deal with it. If the guardians are the issue, kill them.”

There was a chorus of complaints at his words. Guardians had too many gifts to take them down easily. For a reason. The guardians were chosen by the gods. No one knew where they came from, or who they were before they agreed to take the position. They simply showed up with the armor and the gifts to keep their quadrant secure. Vesta couldn’t remember her life before becoming a guardian. She only remembered being in a room and being informed of her duties and gifts, before beingdropped into the house we currently resided in. She couldn’t even remember the face of the person who talked to her.

The meeting went on about other shit I wasn’t interested in, and I was struggling to stay inside the crevice. My arms were sore, and I was getting tired of holding myself in the same position. Thankfully, I did manage to get some useful information before the meeting finished.

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