Chapter 8

I dreamt of my mother. She was in her Avian form and the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life. She had long black hair, porcelain skin, raven black feathers and the same green eyes I have. She smiled at me with so much love that I started crying like I was just a little kid and I somehow felt like I was. I climbed onto her lap and hugged her as tight as I could.

I heard beeping sounds when I woke. I slowly opened my eyes and tried to make sense of my surroundings. Was this a hospital? No. It looked familiar, where have I seen this room before? I must be at August's home; I think this is the guest room. Next to my bed was one of those machines that monitored heartbeats. There were some pipes connected to me, one to my nose and another my arm. Just then a woman came in that was dressed like a nurse. She smiled when she saw I was awake.

"Mr Vale, I'm so happy you are awake. How are you feeling?"

My mouth felt dry and my jaw sluggish. It felt strange being addressed with August's surname. We haven't actually talked about who would take who's surname.

"I think I'll live...hopefully," I said.

"Of course you will. Now, let me just check your vitals and if all is good, I can make you more comfortable. She took my blood pressure, temperature and even looked at my tongue.

"You are looking like you're recovering very well. I will remove the heart monitor and the air supply now, but you need to keep the drip in for another day. Your body had been severely malnourished, and your body reacted severely to the Avex in your bloodstream. Don't push yourself too hard too quickly, okay?"

"Yes."

I didn't really understand why the Avex would affect me so much since I was half-Avian. Did they overdose me?

I learned that the auctioning venue had been destroyed and most of the people involved with it killed on August orders. Some, including the scientist, escaped. Ugly had been one of the more fortunate ones that was taken alive and questioned. He cracked after some "persuasion" and confessed that he was the one that buried the bodies of the young men that were disposed of. That explained the poor locations although it was a surprise that he didn't slip up and leave any trace of forensic evidence behind. He didn't know who the masterminds were, but could tell us the name of the scientist, Ren Cane.

The "serial killer" was a set-up to give the police a way to close the case and stop investigations because of ugly's shoddy job at getting rid of bodies.

Pops and my sister came around to visit me while I was recovering over the next few days and brought Hades. When the dog saw me, he promptly dived onto the bed and refused to budge.

August finally opened up to me about how he and pops knew each other. It went way back to when my dad was still in law enforcement. At the time he was investigating some illegal weapon smuggling when they first met, and he saved August's life. From then there had been a friendship of sorts between them.

My father started working for August undercover and ended up leaving the police force because it didn't give him the freedom, he needed to be able to do what he needed to do. There were a lot of dark things happening that the police didn't really have the authority or manpower to handle. My father didn't want me to be exposed to the "underworld" and tried his best to keep me safe from it.

That explained his secrecy and probably the dodgy files in the basement a.k.a. safe room. The private investigator firm he started was a front, although he did take on some private investigation work too. It wasn't like he was running around in the underworld all the time.

He became eyes and ears for August in our district because they didn't have jurisdiction here. It was quite ironic that August's house is literally 10 minutes from my old home, but the two places are in different districts. As the next in line for leadership in their district, August was not allowed to even own a property in our district.

Lately things have started becoming more and more dangerous, especially with half-Avians getting abducted which apparently wasn't just a problem in our district but others as well, and there were other things that August didn't want to discuss with me to "protect me".

August then suggested to my dad that he'd marry me. This would give me status and protection as his spouse. I wasn't too happy about this explanation but when I asked August if the whole story about his dad putting pressure on him to marry was a lie, he said that it wasn't. It actually gave him the idea since he needed a spouse and I needed protection.

I was allowed to return to work a week later and had to fight with August about bodyguards following me around. He wanted to have me surrounded by five. We eventually settled on three out of sight bodyguards. He previously, unbeknownst to me, had two following me around. It was them that shot the men that held me and Danny hostage before between the eyes. He was super pissed when they lost me at the motel. Somehow my assailants knew about them and chose that particular motel because the rooms had two doors, one to the front and one to the back.

When it was reported that I was missing, the police tracked my car to the Motel's parking lot. And that was how they found Cayenne dead in the motel room. That left only Tim as a lead on the drug shootout case and even though other officers had been keeping an eye out for him he hadn't been to campus since the "big chase" as everyone now referred to it.

The office welcomed me back with a "welcome back" cake Jenny baked. I was glad to see Danny had recovered too, but he still had a limp when he walked.

True to his promise, August showed me a nice running trail close to our home. It was nice to get back into routine. And now it was Sunday, and we just parked outside my sister's place for the long overdue family lunch.

"It will all be fine," August said to me while gently rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb.

"Wait until this is over and then say it again," I replied and took a deep breath before getting out of the car.

August had met my sister when she came to visit me while I was recovering but now we were seeing her on her own "turf" and it was back to business as usual. My sister could sometimes be a bit...much.

Her twins, Theo and Sam were jumping on a trampoline outside in the front garden. We made our way past them, the bicycles and other toys lying about, as well as the creepy garden gnomes in the flower beds that my sister liked for some reason, when their two Maltese poodles came to bark at us. As if nobody could see us approaching the house through the large open living room windows.

My sister came to meet us by the open front door with her two-year-old toddler, Kayley on her hip.

"Welcome!" she said before smushing the baby first into me and then August. Kayley seemed to think this was some sort of game and giggled.

"Nice earring," she said as she noticed the dark blue stud in my left ear and she then grabbed my left hand to look at my engagement ring. It was a simple platinum band with a row of small diamonds embedded into it. The wedding date was still to be discussed and set and I still needed to meet August's family which I was quite nervous about. Apparently, it wasn't only his dad that was hoping to see him marry a woman.

My sister introduced August to her husband James and the two seemed to get along.

When she passed Kayley to pops, I watched amusedly as he entertained her. August and I haven't spoken about it. That I can fall pregnant. After the incident I had read up about it and found out that some half-Avian men had the ability to fall pregnant due to a gene deviation.

When pairing with an Avian, the children born would be almost completely Avian every time. When those children were paired with an Avian again, they produced even more "pure" Avian children.

Half-avian women's kids were only slightly more Avian than human. Due to some unknown reason, it had become very rare for Avians to produce offspring between themselves and the kids between Avians and humans had random degrees of both species. It was clearly a case of an organisation that wants to "breed" pure Avians which they feel is the superior species.

A lot of things were uncertain. The black-market trade was far from shut down and half-Avians would continue to be at risk. The "Drug Cartel" case was still unsolved. I was learning a lot about myself and coming to terms with that what I previously thought was "crazy" was now the new normal. Being with August would present challenges on many levels. But right then, sitting here, surrounded by people I love and care about I felt at peace. That whatever the future might throw at us we'd be able to handle it.

to be continued...