Billionaire Quadruplet Alphas

Sunday 27th September, 2020.

Noah

I scrambled to my feet and backed away until I was against the wall. I was panting. My heart was racing. I pressed myself against the wall as if I could somehow sink through it to get back to the snow globe room. The infinity symbol had not represented Star at all. I was back in that castle in that chamber with Georgianna. She seemed worse than before. Her hair was a mass of tangles, her skin was paper-white. There were dark circles under her lifeless eyes. She crawled towards me. She moved slowly but I leapt at werewolf speed to the other side of the room.

“But we fixed it…we…we helped you! It’s over!” I shouted. “We broke the curse, remember?!” I pleaded.

My mind cleared a little. I reminded myself this was the ghoul and Georgianna had in fact let me go once she had met Alto in the afterlife. This was a fear of mine. An eternity with Georgianna. An eternity away from Star. Something worrying dawned on me. There was one symbol in that room that represented the exit and my future with Star but all the others probably represented my fears.

Harper

I found myself in a darkness so dense I could barely see anything even with my enhanced vision. There was movement in the distance. I walked over to it cautiously. My footsteps seemed to echo in this seemingly endless, high-ceilinged room. While my eyes adjusted to the almost pitch-dark room, my nose was working perfectly fine. I smelled two scents I recognised. Three actually. Holly! And…my Dad? And the smell of burning flesh!

I broke out into a run. This dark room was impossibly vast. It seemed to stretch on and on. I could just make out two figures moving within some contraption. A cage! Burning flesh? I got it. The cage was silver. I put two and two together immediately.

“DAD STOP!!!” I yelled, running towards the cage at werewolf speed now.

My Dad was inside, gripping the bars, slowly widening the gap between them, using all of his strength, as his skin and flesh were burnt by the silver. Holly was standing behind him, trying to stop him also. At the sound of my voice, he paused. He stumbled back a bit but found that the flesh of his palms were now stuck to the silver bars.

“Oh my God! Dad!” I cried.

I grabbed the bars.

“Don’t! Harper! No!” Yelled Dad.

“Harper!” Shrieked Holly.

I did not listen to either of them. I touched the silver and just as I suspected, nothing happened. I was half Fae and half Werewolf. It looked like I had lucked out with some immunity where it counted.

“Holly! Help me! Can you conjure some water?!” I asked.

She focused on my Dad’s hands, understanding what I meant for her to do. She managed to make some droplets condense on the silver bars. More and more droplets appeared until a stream of water ran down the two bars, helping me to slide my Dad’s hands off instead of prying them off which could have ripped his flesh. My Dad had done most of the work already. The bars were wide enough for Holly to slip through but not for my Dad. I gripped the bars and pushed them further apart. Holly got back into the cage and helped me to turn my father sideways and pulled him out of the cage. We had each of his arms flung over our shoulders as we supported his weight. He was breathing heavily. Silver was toxic to werewolves. I put him to lie down on the cold floor. I grabbed his hands on focused on healing them, detoxifying them as best as I could. My magic was powerful but my harnessing of it was poor. While I was trying to fix his hands, I noticed his hair grew a little longer. I hadn’t meant to do that.

“Let’s do it together!” Suggested Holly.

I held one of my father’s burnt hands in my hands and Holly put her hands over mine, eliciting tingles that ran through me. She helped me to focus. The hand began to heal slowly. My Dad was so diaphoretic, his shirt was drenched with sweat. I was sure he had a fever. I looked at him anxiously.

“Close your eyes,” instructed Holly softly.

I listened to her. In a few minutes, the burnt flesh formed a thick scab that soon peeled off while we continued focusing on it. Underneath the scab was delicate pink new skin. I grinned at Holly in gratitude and disbelief.

“We did it!” I said.

“You did it, Fae Prince. I am not nearly as powerful as that,” she said, looking at me in awe and then gesturing to the healed hand.

My father’s quick shallow breathing had become more even. He was sweating a bit less but Holly still ripped her sleeve off and conjured some water to make it damp so she could use it wipe his forehead. She left the cloth on his forehead to help cool him down as we focused on the other hand. We managed to fix this one much more quickly than the last. Holly marvelled at the new skin.

“He might not be pleased with his baby soft hands but he’s alive,” I said breathlessly.

Holly giggled. Dad g*****d and slowly opened his eyes. He spotted me. He sat up at lightning speed, startling me.

“Harper!” He said, grabbing my hands and turning them over, looking at their dorsal and palmer surfaces closely.

“I’m ok,” I said in earnest.

He pulled me into a hug. I could hear him sigh with relief over my shoulder.

“I figured I might not be allergic to silver,” I explained.

“How could you have known for sure?!” Snapped Dad. “You still have to be careful! I’m glad you’re not hurt!” He said, in a rare show of raw emotion.

He cupped my face in his hands. He sniffled.

“This dusty place…my allergies,” he mumbled.

The place was spotless. Darkness personified but spotless.

“I knew I probably wasn’t allergic because I had never been allergic to iron either,” I said offhandedly, pretending not to notice him crying quietly.

“Oh!” Said Holly in amazement. “Iron burns Faeries and Silver burns werewolves and you’re not allergic to either of them!” She exclaimed.

I nodded.

“Where is this place?” I asked. “And how did you two get here?”

“We don’t know,” said Holly softly, her eyes downcast.

Huh.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“How could you not know?” I asked, confused.

Holly and Dad exchanged a glance.

“I had my suspicions about the Queen’s identity,” said Holly hesitantly.

I knew Holly was a mysterious sort of girl and I was eager to finally learn more about her. I waited with bated breath for Holly to continue her story.

“Holly?” I said after she was quiet for too long.

My Dad huffed impatiently.

“Holly’s grandfather is the doctor who smuggled your sister away from here by passing her off as the afterbirth and Holly has his diary or something like that,” said my Dad quickly, getting to his feet.

I scrambled to feet too, grabbing his arm in case he was not steady yet.

“So Holly thought the Queen was an imposter also based on her grandma’s writings,” said Dad.

“Grandfather. My grandfather’s journal,” corrected Holly.

“Right,” said my Dad, his eyes half-closed.

He was still a bit droopy. He would still need proper medical attention to make sure all of the toxin came out.

“So the Queen really was an imposter then?”I assumed. “And she threw you down here?”

They nodded. My heart plummeted. I knew it was silly of me but I felt devastated like I had lost another relative.

“Yes, he was an imposter. He’s impersonating your great grandmother,” snarled Dad.

“Who is?” I asked.

“Holden,” said Dad as if it pained him just to say the name out loud.

I looked at him blankly.

“Who’s Holden?” I asked, wondering if I had missed something.

“Your mother’s cousin. The fiend who tried to marry her eighteen years ago,” growled Dad.

My eyes widened.

“So where is my real great grandmother? The real queen?” I asked.

“We do not know,” said Holly with a sigh.

She caressed my cheek gently. I held her hand there. I closed my eyes and let the tingles from my mate’s touch sooth me. I sighed.

“Ok, what now? How do we get out of here?” I said, looking up.

I could not see a source of light. There should be something to indicate the point from which I jumped.

“We don’t know. We were unconscious when that son of a b***h put us down here,” grumbled Dad.

“Well, I was conscious but I did not see anything either. Just darkness. He used magic to transport us here,” said Holly.

Alarm bells went off in my head.

“Magic! He knows magic?!” I asked.

“His father cheated on his mother with a witch and that union resulted in his birth. The she-wolf raised him as her own because she was barren and wanted a child,” explained Holly.

Oh. Holden was half wizard, half werewolf, similar to Star and me in a way.

“How did you get in? That would help us get out,” prompted Dad. “We shouldn’t stand around here. Star and those pea-brains could be in danger!” He said anxiously.

I snickered a little. There was a bit of affection in his voice even though he called the Quads “those pea-brains.” They were growing on him, winning him over.

“Helena alerted me to the fact that Holly was missing. She flew me to the tallest tower of the castle. I entered and descended to the Queen’s chambers. No one was in there. I ended up checking everywhere I could think of including the walk-in closet and one of creepy mannequins in there was posed differently. I fixed it to look like the others and that opened a trap door in the floor. I jumped down directly into here,” I explained.

Holly and Dad were listening intently, the gears in their minds turning.

“But…I can’t see the exit from here,” I said worriedly as I craned my neck looking up, searching for a light. There should be light streaming down from the room above.

“It is some strange expansion enchantment among other enchantments,” said Holly.

“Let’s try to teleport out of here,” she suggested.

“Before Harper came, you told me your magic was working well down here. Holden was blocking it somehow,” muttered Heath with a sigh.

Holly smiled brightly.

“What?” Asked Dad.

“Harper and I used magic to heal you just now!” Exclaimed Holly.

Dad looked at his palms as though he had only just really noticed them.

“But…” he began, turning them flipping his hands back and forth as if expecting the result to be different eventually.

“Harper’s presence allowed me to evoke magic and Harper had no trouble at all from the time he arrived,” said Holly, beaming with pride.

My heart leapt a little at the sight of her smile.

“So what does that mean?” Asked Dad., finally turning away from his palms.

Holly smiled slyly.

“It means…,” she said pointedly, “…that Harper is much more powerful than Holden already even if he can’t harness it properly yet.”

Noah

I could not keep just scrambling away from Georgianna as she crawled after me. She moved so strangely as if she was a contortionist and every joint in her body was double-jointed. She seemed to move more and more quickly the more I ran away from her. When she got to her feet with a jerky movement, I heard a loud crack as she straightened out her own bones so she could stand. How did I get out of here and back to the snow globe room to pick a different object? I was still inside the arena technically. This all had to be an illusion. So all of this was Prudence. What was the right decision to make now?

I looked around the room. I could not believe I had missed the fact that the bodies of Georgianna and Alto were lying motionless in the canopy bed at one end of the chamber. I was so busy scrutinising the bodies, I momentarily took my eyes off of Georgianna’s spectre. She charged at me, tackling me to the ground. Her putrid breath made me nauseated. She smelled of rot. Her fingers were almost down to the bone, the flesh hanging off, the tips digging into my arms. I shoved her off of me and dove across the bed to the other side of the room.

I came here with a snow globe portal. So where was it now? The snow globe itself had just vanished. I looked back at the bodies. They looked like they were peacefully sleeping. The beautiful lifeless Georgianna was worlds apart from the rotting depiction of her vengeance that was tormenting me. The thing cackled and began to creep towards me slowly again. It was playing with me. I shivered.

Eternity, I thought to myself.

Georgianna and Alto had been meant to spend eternity together just like Star and me. I pulled down the covers and looked at their hands for their wedding bands. The corpse-like Georgianna roared in anger at this, charging at me again. In reality, Star had married them but in this illusion Alto was wearing his wedding band but Georgianna wasn’t. A chill crept through me. I turned back to the corpse who was almost upon me with her hands outstretched, intent on grabbing my throat. There on her finger was the wedding band. I knew what I had to do.

I let that thing knock me over and clasp its tattered hands around my throat. It was surprisingly strong but I was an Alpha. I could knock it off of me again but I didn’t this time. I went limp, pretending to lose unconsciousness. The thing removed its hands from my neck. I snapped my eyes open and grabbed its left wrist, I grasped the ring with my other hand.

It would not budge at first. The creature opened its jaws wide. The smell was shockingly offensive. I held my breath to hold back my own vomit. The creature did the opposite. It spewed vomit all over me. I yelped as I was hit with a deluge of tarry black substance.

The vomit actually helped to lubricate the ring finger when it had splashed onto its hand. The ring came loose suddenly, causing me to fall backwards, hitting my head on the floor. The creature loomed over me but I kicked her with both legs as I jumped up to a standing position, sending her flying across the room. I slipped the ring onto Georgianna’s ring finger. She and Alto opened their eyes. I stumbled backwards.

I heard the creature shriek. I jumped around. The room was filling with light and a beam of it hit the creature square in her chest. She burst into an eclipse of white moths. They flew away, vanishing into the beam of light. I looked at the spot where she had been and sighed in relief. The snow globe was back and I still had three more tries to get this right.