Forging Family Read online

  Forging Family

  Amazon Edition

  Published by Bob Dattolo

  Copyright 2020 by Bob Dattolo

  All rights Reserved

  Cover design by rock_0407 at Fiverr.com

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  This book contains violence, cursing, nudity, and sex and should not be read by anyone under the age of 16. If you are offended by any of these, please consider another ebook for your reading pleasure.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BACK PAGE SUMMARY

  Chapter 1

  The crazy whirlwind over the past week floated in front of my eyes as I showered. What a week. Not in a bad way. Not really. It was a good week. It’s just that the few days before that were sort of iffy.

  In that I nearly died.

  And my Mom did die.

  And a friend from school did die.

  A bunch of others also died just after those two died, but I’m okay with that. After all, I killed them. That’ll teach them to attack my friend, my new mom, and me.

  My phone on the counter buzzed, and I knew it was Mom trying to push me along. What can I say, I’m not entirely sure that I want to go to school today. Like I said, it’s been a heck of a week.

  And…yeah. That’s probably Mom texting me. As in not from the afterlife. She’s alive again. As is Stacey.

  I managed to bring both of them back to life with a bit of magic. Far, far more for Mom. As in nearly all of it from me and various magical items I had been holding at the time. Yeah…that’d be the start of the whirlwind. Mainly because I nearly didn’t survive. It took a few days to get the use of both hands back. Mom had hit me countless times with insanely powerful spells to regrow my fingers…and a ton of muscle from various places. Oh, and broken bones. Can’t forget those, even if they weren’t much of a concern for us.

  The people that captured us were not happy that Stacey is a necromancer and were even more upset that I’m the goddess of death.

  I know, right?

  And to think, a month and a half ago I didn’t even know that I had magic.

  The world is a wide, strange place, and I moved from a secure compound where my parents kept us locked away from the evil supernaturals, all the while planning on sacrificing us when we turn 17 and suck away our growing magic. Magic they’d been hiding behind barriers so that we didn’t know about it. Think holy warriors against the evil of the world, and you’d be part of the way there to getting a picture of my parents.

  They’re gone now, running from the FBI, and I’ve been adopted by a more than 7,000-year-old fey that is world famous for being, well, her. She’s the goddess of battle, although not many know that. She’s also a secretary for the FBI while also working with the king of the fey in the between lands.

  Another incoming text had me turning off the water and hurrying out. “Ugh, Mom!” I can picture her laugh if she knew that I said that, so I just texted back a K to her and kept drying. She knows me too well, even after such a short period of time.

  So, yeah, this week has been a bit tough on me.

  Physically, I’m back to where I was. I may look human, but I’m not. Not really. I sort of represent every type of being out there that can die and have characteristics from all of them in some way. Such as with my black eyes. And I mean that. They’re black all the way across. It seems that’s how vampires look when they’re angry or hungry. Live and learn, right?

  Most of the week has been spent trying to recover my magic. I have tiny bits of it. Or, more than tiny bits, just not what I should have. It’s worn away, if that makes sense, and it’s taking time to come back.

  Not that I’m not protected. Mom gave me magical rings of protection that should help me stay safe from actual attacks. Especially since my portals don’t work any longer. Or, for now. I hope.

  Portals are sort of like windows. If you’re strong enough, you can open one and see other places. I can open them and then step through them. They’re pretty cool.

  Now I can’t open one no matter how much I try.

  I was able to raise a dead mouse yesterday, but I can’t do anything bigger than that right now.

  I can’t even create any magical items. That’s…sad, actually. I had some nice magical multiplier rings that I made, but they were destroyed when I tried to bring Mom back to life. That’s rather what took my fingers off.

  Yeah, it hurt.

  Just not as much as the healing did. Partially because I had been in total shock when the rings blew up while melting off of me. And I thought I was well on my way to being dead. The pain seemed pretty immaterial at that point, you know?

  The past week was spent healing and setting things in order. At least somewhat. Two new friends that I tried to coordinate schooling for had to be moved to a different supernatural school since they closed the one I had been at. Mainly because many of the teachers quit, but partially because my fight with them destroyed one of the main buildings. Mostly.

  They’re set up with another school that actually sounds better to me, and they seem happy based on the emails I exchanged with them this weekend.

  I have three other friends that I’m really close to. Well, four, but Steph won’t talk to me much. She’s a bear shifter, and we roomed together and shared more than a bit of sex. Yes, we’re two girls, but supernaturals don’t care about that. She won’t talk to me because she was under a spell from a classmate that caused her to treat me like shit towards the end. She’s pretty broken up about it even though I understand what she was going through.

  The other three? Christine is a new follower of the goddess of death. Basically, a convert to being a necromancer. I set her up with an apprenticeship with an ancient vampire that is also a follower. Mr. Reynolds…he’s the one that helped me stay alive to transition into what I am. He’s loyal and so, so excited to help her learn. Stacey is also in with them, and she is beyond excited.

  Leticia is a wolf shifter, and she’s back in her territory in Hawaii. Her parents sent her off to school because they have a lot of work in the pack taking place and no time to tend to her. She wants to be near me and be best friends, and we have an offer out to her parents to house her and have her go to school here, but they’re sitting on a decision right now. I may fly out and see her at some point and see if I can convince them.

  Rachel…she’s so upset that she’s not with me. She’s a vampire but has only been one for something like eight months. She and I connected through a bond that I can’t even explain
. I can feel the dead all around me and they respond to me, but something about my connection with her is so tight… When someone sort of prays to me, I can feel them connecting and see them and what’s happening around them. I can sort of hit them with a shaft of golden light in response and sometimes give them messages. When I connected with her with the light, she sort of sucked into my head, and me into hers, and we lived each other’s lives. Not in full, but a ton of it. There’s nothing either of us have done or experienced that the other hasn’t lived through in the first person.

  Explosive diarrhea? Yes. Periods? Yup. Sex? Definitely. Shaving our naughty bits? Yuppers.

  She might as well be a twin of mine. As much as I still get a tingling of fear being naked around someone, even though I still do it, I feel nothing like that with her now. We’re not romantically connected, it’s more than that. I don’t get it, but it’s true.

  She wants to be with me so badly, but her parents want her to be at home for a bit. They’re going to try to get her into a local school, even though they’re sending her brother off to a different private school.

  We’ll figure out what to do at some point.

  As it is, I’m sending a near constant stream of golden light at her, and she basks in it just as I do the same in the connection coming back at me. It’s delicious, for lack of a better word.

  Dressed and ready, I still have to take deep breaths before leaving my room.

  I spent most of my life being home schooled. Very well home schooled, it turns out, but still not with anyone that wasn’t a brother or sister. They’re now dead. My parents killed all of them. All 14 of them. Eight in sacrifices and six when the FBI raided the house.

  God, I hope my parents are caught!

  I spent a month, or just over it, attending Lledrith Academy. It’s a boarding school for rich supernaturals. Or pretty much. Very few humans have attended, mainly because it’s so crazy dangerous for them.

  Why?

  Because supernaturals are all about the hierarchy, at least many of them.

  Shifters think nothing of fighting to be the first in their group or in the school. Most mages stay out of it. Vampires can rule, but Rachel’s too new in her abilities to feel comfortable with that. As for the other types out there? The fey? Angels? Demons? Orcs? Goblins? And so many others?

  We didn’t have any at school with us.

  Not that angels and demons need to attend. There’s no law against it, they just don’t. Not that many of the others do, either. The school was all human-based while I was there. Except me, it seems. Not that I knew that at first.

  And now I’m going to a public high school.

  I know, going from a place that is more than a million bucks a year to go to a public high school? It seems weird to me, but it was actually my decision.

  Mom floated the main options to me. Leave school entirely, which I said no to quickly. Then either attend a private school that caters to the rich and powerful, with a focus on being politically powerful, or the local high school. The local school is one of the best in the country and actually has a decently mixed population that way. From what I saw online, there are kids there that aren’t just human. Some orcs, goblins, and possibly a fey. Mom mentioned it, it wasn’t in the school information. I haven’t met many beings that aren’t human-based or fey, so I’m curious to see what they’re like.

  As I climbed into my Mercedes SUV, I sent a tiny wisp of power inside and smiled at the screams and weeping that came back.

  I can’t help it. It seems when I killed the people that killed Mom, I sort of took in everything from them. First their power and their life energy, then their souls. For lack of a better word.

  I can feel them inside of me, and it’s endlessly entertaining to touch them. Especially since I can’t do much with my magic right now. Or, I can do a lot from a normal person’s perspective. When your reality is not being able to do anything, being able to do a simple spell is pretty spectacular. It’s just that I can’t do much at all. I certainly can’t do anything powerful. Since I thought I was dead, I can’t complain.

  Much.

  I did find out that my watcher spells are still on Stacey and Mom, although I can’t respond to them by going through a portal. It’s still a plus, just not a huge one, you know?

  I know, it’s like looking a gift horse in the mouth. Oh, your gold is too shiny and heavy? Cry cry. I don’t really feel like that, but the comparison between what I have now and what I had is so huge that it’s hard not to sit back and wonder if it’s worthwhile going on.

  And then I think of Mom and being with her, and I know it is.

  She waited for more than 7,000 years for me to be in her life, working and pushing herself to be the kind of person that I would connect with…and it worked. We’re together, and I couldn’t be happier with our little family.

  Granted, the fact that she’s dating a former teacher, Ms. Darvel, is kind of weird, but I’m okay with it. Yes, they’re both women. Mom has…issues, I’ll say. Issues with people treating her like she’s dangerous. Granted, she is, but it still bothers her. She wants to be treated like a normal person most of the time, and Ms. Darvel, or Jen, I guess, does that.

  I got to see them together when Jen came over for a cookout this weekend, and it’s adorable. Yeah, they were naked at the time, but they’re supernaturals and they don’t care. Definitely not Mom. The fey think nothing of it at all. Jen is exactly the same. Like I said, I struggle with it, but then I’m okay. Not that they did anything wrong. We were just swimming and hanging out.

  I went inside when they decided to get frisky.

  Sumi waved a huge paw at me from the woods near the driveway, and I honked at her, getting a soft laugh coming back, and I was off to school.

  Yes, that was my cat. Just not a normal cat. She’s a sabre-tooth tiger that I brought back to life at one point. She could talk to me before, sort of in mind-speak, but I made her smarter and able to change into a slightly larger than normal size cat with a magical item. She loves it, and she’s been so much fun to hang out with. While she’s a cat with cat sensibilities, she’s also very nearly human-level intelligent. Mom managed to get her set up with her own computer, and she’s learning how to surf the web. It’s pretty cool, even if she does have to use two different things as a mouse since she can’t click the button well with her paw.

  Aaaaand I caught her watching some animal vides the other day of cats having sex. I’m not sure how she found them, but she was enjoying them, if you know what I mean.

  I never knew a cat could do that.

  School…that’s what I was thinking about.

  Ugh, I don’t know what to expect here. I’ve never been in a normal school. My introduction to the academy was Steph telling me that I should expect to be raped before the end of the first weekend and then getting attacked by Corey when he was trying to force Rachel to have sex with him. Again. I stopped it and put the powerful shifter mage into the infirmary…and that was my baptism by fire, so to speak.

  I’m doubting that will happen today. At least I hope not. If it does, I’ve seriously missed news stories about the level of violence in American schools.

  Then again, I’m sure some of the supernaturals are lords of the school or something like that. I’m not about to try and buck whatever system they have. If they want to be first, they can be first. That’s how it was at the academy, too. I don’t care about that, just don’t think that means I’ll take whatever they dish out.

  Except I’m not sure that I can survive a fight with a shifter right now. With my magic so low, I’m not sure what that means for me. It could be huge and mean that I’ll die with the first attack…or maybe I won’t.

  We’re not about to test it, but we probably should have.

  Let’s hope no one decides to attack the new girl.

  It’s funny, I’d say that I’m always the new girl, but that’s not true. I’ve been the new girl once in my life. Other than when I was born. Since I don’t re
member that happening, I can’t say it was a bad experience.

  Even if our parents did number us and solely called us by that number.

  We were nothing but growing batteries to them. I still don’t understand why they didn’t just cut our arms and legs off and keep us in boxes until we turned 17 and our main powers came in. That doesn’t make sense to me. Instead, they’d turn us over to the older kids and the kids raised us. Fed us. Changed us. Until the religious stuff started. Then even seeing someone in a bra was time for torture.

  I mean that.

  One of my sisters was forced to seal her vagina shut with a white-hot piece of steel because some of us saw her by total accident.

  My parents are monsters.

  Ugh, I’m getting side tracked again.

  I’m not always a new girl. I’ll be one again, but now my reactions are thrown off. Mom warned me about it, because I’ve been sort of trained to react as if people are supernaturals. Now I have to tone it down, because not everyone that is rude to me is trying to dominate me. Not everyone is going to follow up with a magical attack or a swipe of claws or something like that.

  I’m praying it doesn’t cause me to do something weird. I just want to be the normal Ceri. Not even Ceri Nawfed Driscoll as I was born, with Nawfed meaning “ninth”. I want to be the new Ceri Raph Pennaeth. Thanks to Mom’s adoption and a name change, I’m now named partially after her. Pennaeth is her last name, although she doesn’t actually have one, per se. Many fey don’t, especially those as old as she is. Pennaeth means commander, while Raph is a nickname she uses for herself. Her name is Rasphael, and people know it. There have been movies made about her. Songs. TV shows. Comics. You name it, they’ve done it. She single-handedly saved the fey kingdom from attack centuries back, and her name is out there something fierce.

  People treat her like she’s a ticking time bomb all too often, and she loves to fly under the radar.

  I can see that. My one big interaction with kids at school had them acting weird when they found out what I am.

  But that’s over now. I get a chance to make a fresh start.