Jo’s mouth opened and closed repeatedly, but not a single word came out.
She desperately wanted to defend herself, to defend her parents, to justify the choices they had made to protect the coven.
But staring into the absolute, unforgiving truth in Aleksander’s eyes, she had nothing.
The heavy mental dam she had spent nearly twenty years building inside her mind suddenly shattered.
The repressed memories rushed back with full, violent force.
She remembered Kai’s terrified screams when their father locked him in the dark.
She remembered the cruel taunts from their siblings.
She remembered looking the other way, walking down the hall, and pretending she didn’t hear her own twin begging for help.
Her legs gave out.
Jo collapsed onto the hardwood floor, burying her face in her hands as she broke down into a sobbing, trembling mess.
The guilt she had run from for half her life finally caught her, pinning her to the ground.
Aleksander didn’t flinch.
He looked down at the weeping woman with nothing but cold, unfiltered disgust.
“After everything you did, do you really think crying is going to help?” Aleksander’s voice cut through her sobs like ice.
“Kai wasn’t the monster that killed your siblings, Josette. Your entire family and your coven systematically turned him into that monster. You built him, piece by piece. Your family is directly responsible for your siblings’ deaths.”
Jo choked on a sob, shaking her head as the weight of his words crushed her.
Aleksander crouched down, his movements smooth and deliberate, until he was directly face-to-face with her.
He waited until she had no choice but to lift her tear-streaked face and look him in the eye.
“And here is the greatest irony of it all,” Aleksander whispered, his voice resonating with ancient authority.
“Tell your coven this. Siphoners were never abominations. They were a warning.”
Jo’s breath hitched, her blue eyes widening in confusion and horror.
“Nature was disgusted by your coven’s barbaric practice of the Merge,” Aleksander explained, delivering the devastating truth.
“So, to disrupt it, Nature began creating witches in your bloodline who had no magic of their own. They were a direct message from the earth itself to stop. But your coven didn’t understand, and you didn’t care. You tortured Nature’s messengers instead. That ignorance led directly to Kai.”
Aleksander tilted his head, his dark eyes entirely devoid of mercy.
“But you don’t need to worry about Siphoners anymore. Kai was the final stroke. Since you ignored the warning, Nature is going to take much more drastic action next time.”
Jo’s blood ran cold.
“Drastic?”
A slow, chilling smile spread across Aleksander’s face.
“Your coven is going to be wiped clean. No survivors.”
Jo went completely, deathly pale.
The color drained from her face as the sheer magnitude of the doom hanging over her family sank in.
This wasn’t a threat from a rival coven or an angry vampire; this was the absolute judgment of the earth itself.
Aleksander stood up seamlessly, looking down at her one last time.
“Tell your father this,” Aleksander commanded, his tone ringing with finality.
“Let Joshua Parker know that he is the one who has led the Gemini Coven to its absolute dead end.”
Without waiting for a response, Aleksander turned his back on the sobbing witch and walked toward the front door.
Lucy and Lexi didn’t say a word.
They shared a brief, heavy look, fully understanding that they had just witnessed a divine sentencing.
Leaving Jo completely broken on the living room floor, both women turned and followed the Avatar of Nature out of the house.
The screen door slammed shut behind them, but Aleksander didn’t stop walking.
He bypassed the gravel driveway entirely, his long strides carrying him straight out into the sprawling, overgrown field behind the safe house.
The air around him was already changing.
The temperature plummeted instantly, and the atmospheric pressure dropped so fast it made Lexi’s ears pop.
Aleksander stopped in the center of the tall grass, his back turned to them.
His hands were clenched into tight fists at his sides, trembling slightly from the sheer, terrifying amount of power surging through his veins.
When he finally tilted his head back to look up at the sky, the transformation was terrifying.
The whites of his eyes had vanished entirely, consumed by a pitch, abyssal black, while his irises burned with a piercing, glowing, blood-red light.
High above them, the clear Oregon sky violently shattered.
Massive, bruise-purple thunderclouds rolled in from every direction with unnatural speed, blotting out the sun and plunging the field into an eerie, twilight darkness.
The wind began to howl, whipping fiercely through the grass as a deafening crack of thunder shook the ground beneath their feet.
Lexi’s vampire instincts flared, a wave of genuine alarm washing over her as she felt the sheer magnitude of the raw, untamed magic spiraling out of him.
Before she could take a second step, a strong hand clamped firmly onto her arm.
Lexi snapped her head to the side.
Lucy was standing right beside her, her grip unyielding despite the chaotic wind whipping her dark hair around her face.
“Don’t,” Lucy warned, raising her voice to be heard over the rising storm.
“Let him be. He needs to release his pent-up anger.”
Lexi frowned deeply, looking back at the terrifying silhouette of the Avatar of Nature standing amidst the brewing hurricane.
Lightning flashed violently in the clouds above him, illuminating the glowing red of his eyes.
“He is losing control, Lucy. The magic is pouring out of him.”
“Don’t worry,” Lucy shook her head, her almond eyes locked on her cousin with unwavering trust.
“He will gain it back. He always does.”
A massive bolt of lightning struck the distant tree line, instantly followed by a booming roar of thunder that rattled Lexi’s chest.
“Aleksander isn’t just angry about what happened,” Lucy explained softly, stepping closer to Lexi so she wouldn’t have to shout.
“He’s an empath, Lexi. When he looked into Jo’s mind, he didn’t just watch Kai’s memories. He felt them. He felt that boy’s terror, his isolation, and the agonizing heartbreak of being thrown away by the people who were supposed to love him unconditionally.”
Lucy let out a sad, knowing sigh, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off the sudden, biting chill in the air.
“Aleksander can tolerate a lot of things,” Lucy continued, watching the storm rage around him.
“He knows the supernatural world is brutal. He can even understand monsters who commit terrible atrocities. But what he absolutely despises are the people who create those monsters and then refuse to take responsibility.”
Lucy looked at Lexi, her expression turning deadly serious.
“He hates parents who look at their own children, label them as ‘abominations’ for how Nature made them, and abuse them until they finally break. To him, there is nothing more sickening than a family systematically destroying their own flesh and blood, turning them into a monster, and then acting like the innocent victim when that monster finally bites back or becomes the monster they made him to be.”
Lexi stood in silence, the wind tearing at her leather jacket as she watched him.
She finally understood.
The terrifying storm wasn’t just a display of god-like wrath.
It was the physical manifestation of a man who saw right through the Gemini Coven’s self-righteous victimhood.
Aleksander didn’t hate the monsters of the world; he hated the self-righteous parents who forged them in cruelty.
She stopped pulling against Lucy’s grip, choosing instead to stand firmly in the howling wind, keeping a quiet, watchful vigil over the man she loved while the sky tore itself open above him.