House of Kallan

Chapter 1

Iskander

The Polar Bear Capital of the World. That’s what the sign read as the train arrived at the Churchill, Manitoba station. Where was that? I might as well be stepping off the train into the furthest reaches of the world.

After a four-hour train ride with spotty service, I was not at all surprised when my phone rang as soon as I was within range of a tower again. Glancing at the screen, though I didn’t have to in order to know who was calling, a smile touched my lips when I answered.

“Where are you?” Emrys asked, a relieved sigh in his tone.

My chest tightened. “Churchill,” I answered and followed the small group of people as they headed toward the station.

There was a pause before he spoke. “There’s probably like a hundred Churchills in the world, Iska.”

Another smile touched my lips. “Canada,” I told him.

“Canada?” he asked, and I smirked at the tone. “What are you doing there?”

“Is there something wrong with Canada?” I teased.

“No.” He paused. “Yes. It’s like you’re living on an arctic moon! Again, what are you doing in Canada?!”

I snorted. “It’s not that cold,” I said. “It’s summer. Even Canada has summer.”

“Pft. Answer me.”

I didn’t really have an answer. I glanced around at all the faces, not sure what I was looking for exactly. Well, I knew what I was looking for. More immediately, it was a person. Answers. Maybe warnings. In the long-term? I feared it wouldn’t be a good prognosis.

“Just looking,” I said.

Emrys sighed. “I hate that you’re alone,” he said. “You know the world is shit right now. I told you!”

“I’m being careful.”

“Iska—"

“I promise, Emmy. I’m being careful. Extra vigilant. Nothing is going to happen to me.”

It was clear he didn’t believe me. I could hear it in his tone when he hummed in frustration. “How long will you be there?”

My gaze stopped on a man who’s looking up at the sky. It’s dusk, so the stars were just starting to come out. Or they would have been if the sky wasn’t cloud covered. “Not long,” I said and turned my attention to the street. “Few days, probably. I don’t know.”

Emrys sighed. “I wish you’d just come here,” he said.

My heart squeezed and I paused to catch my breath. If only it were that easy.

Yet, I was pretty sure it was that easy. I met and stayed with his family. I was more than slightly sure that they’d welcome me. Maybe not to be a part of them, but I could still be there. I could be close to Emrys.

But that wasn’t as appealing as it should have been. It wasn’t that I was opposed to sharing Emrys. Not at all. It was simply that I really didn’t think that it was a viable solution in the long run. When I’d met him, my every intention was to have him become a part of my family. That was before I knew about the dojem thing.

He was supposed to become my husband. That’s what we had been working towards.

Apparently, only Emrys and I had been on the same page.

I had a lot of regrets. Primarily, it was that I should have left when they made Emrys leave. I should have chosen him because it was the right decision.

This regret was also my primary source of anger. Especially as time moved on and I relived the memories, seeing the actions of my “family” for what they really were. Manipulation. Bribing. Jealousy. And eventually, the final blow that I just hadn’t been prepared for.

Even without knowing the dojem thing, it was a shit thing for my family to do. To string us along for as long as they had, making us both think that we were all on the same page. I’ve never been more furious.

I’ve never been more crushed.

“I’ll stop by again,” I said, committing vaguely to that promise.

Emrys knew me well enough that he laughed. “We’ll figure it out, Iska.”

That had been our mantra for the last six months. We’ve been simultaneously crumbling for eighteen months and only somewhat recently figured out why. While I was thankful for an answer to why I felt like I was literally being torn apart not being with Emrys, it didn’t make anything easier.

Especially not with each new person I talked to.

“Yeah,” I answered, my gaze catching on a family walking down the road. Smiling. Happy.

I turned away.

“Call me every day,” Emrys said. “And fuck’s sake, don’t go into no-man’s-land without telling me where and how long and all that shit. I’ve been going crazy, Iskander.”

“Sorry,” I answered. It was the truth. I wouldn’t intentionally upset him.

There was a pause before he said, “I love you. You know that, right?”

I stopped walking again and closed my eyes. For some reason, his words soothed something inside me. They always did. Sometimes it was just his voice, but in moments like this when I was feeling particularly lonely and my skin ached because I hadn’t touched him in months, his words, his declaration, it made it all a little more okay.

“I love you,” I repeated. Saying it helped too. “I promise to call you tomorrow.”

“Okay, good. You have somewhere to stay?”

“If I didn’t?” I teased.

“I appreciate that you’re trying to lighten the mood, but Iska… I’ve seen some scary shit lately. Monsters aren’t safe. Especially not a sweet, sassy nymph.”

I huffed, but couldn’t stop the smirk. “Noted.”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Emrys said. “Fable says you owe him a picture. Don’t make him call you!”

I chuckled as I walked down the street. “I’ll send him one soon.”

“Okay.” He paused. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

There was another beat before he disconnected the call. As soon as that connection dropped, the weight on my chest that had momentarily become lighter fell, and I struggled to breathe for a few seconds.

When I caught my breath, I glanced up at the hotel I was standing in front of. Churchill Hotel. There were some cute ones like Tundra Inn and Iceberg Inn, but this one was good enough for me. I’d made a reservation before leaving the train station hours ago. As soon as I had my key and found my room, I dropped into the chair in front of the window.

That’s where I found my picture for Fable. There was a truck outside, stopped in the road, with a polar bear biting on the grill. Maybe like it was trying to get the little logo off? I smirked and snapped a picture to send to Fable.

I didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

[Fable] OMG I want to cuddle with it!! Can you take a selfie??

Laughter bubbled out of me as I shook my head. He’s such a damn cuddly bear. Or… cuddly dragon? Maybe that’s why he didn’t see the threat that was a polar bear! All he saw was a stuffed animal.

[Me] I think I’m going to pass but I’ll keep it in mind for a future date.

After lounging around for a while, I changed into something that felt more public-worthy and headed outside. I actually had a reason for traveling to Churchill. Reasons I hadn’t really shared with anyone outside of my therapist and bestie.

With a deep breath, I stepped into the cool air. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said it was summer and therefore not in the negative digits. However, where I was currently standing was a peninsula with the delta to the Churchill River on one side and the Hudson Bay on the other. The breeze that tore through this part of town was sharp.

Turning south, I wandered down the main road that ran more or less alongside the train tracks. While I went, I studied the buildings around me and the faces of those I passed. As a nymph, the fact I was “different” was easily noted. My hair had blue streaks and my eyes were a brilliant cerulean blue too.

Because humans didn’t understand that how I presented myself was natural, most of the time they just assumed I had a flair for the eccentric. Until recently, I played that up. It was easier to fit in that way.

But Emrys had told me that his new friends had told the governments around the world about the existence of monsters and, though they didn’t inform them how to identify one, I really had been trying to blend in more. Especially since I was wandering the globe on my own.

Now I looked at everyone. Were they giving me more than a curious, cursory glance? Did they know that I was a supernatural? Is that white house with black trim a stylistic choice or is that an ORKA facility? Were these people walking by hiding weapons?

Thankfully, I was close enough to water that I didn’t feel too threatened. Giving away my identity would kind of suck, but if it meant I was defending myself, then I’d take the risk. Besides, I’d just leave and be done with it.

I was literally just passing through.

The turn off from the main road was exactly as I’d been told it would be. The only right turn since I left town almost an hour ago. And the driveway I followed now promised to be nearly as long.

But these were monsters, so I wasn’t surprised that they chose a secluded area which provided privacy. The sun had long since set by the time I reached the large house at the end of the drive. Literally in the middle of the woods, barely within the town limits of a place so remote that there were more polar bears than people.

There were a few people sitting outside. A woman and two men. The woman smiled immediately as she got to her feet.

“Iskander?” she asked.

I nodded as I approached.

“I wasn’t expecting you so late,” she said, smiling as she held her hand out to me.

“I can come back tomorrow,” I offered.

“You walked over an hour to get here,” she said. “Don’t be silly. And we’ll drive you back to town when you’re ready.” I shrugged, because I didn’t mind walking. “I’m Jessica,” she said. “This is Talbot and Morgan.”

I knew right away which one was her dojem. The way they immediately came together as soon as Jessica stepped onto the porch again. The way they smiled at each other. There was just something in their eyes.

Ever since my therapist had suggested that Emrys was my dojem, I’ve been traveling around to all the obscure places to track them down. To talk to them. I needed to know everything and there just wasn’t a lot of information that was readily available.

I didn’t know if it was something within our evolution that made the dojem bond so unlikely that it was almost a thing of myth, but that was what it had been relegated to. Once upon a time, this mystical thing happened. Not today.

Except that there were a few cases. Such as Jessica and Talbot.

Sometimes, I wondered why dojems had bigger families when it was clear their bond kind of trumped the others. But the way I saw it was that we were monsters first. And monsters tended to create family units.

In hindsight, I wondered if that was because of the age-old adage that there was strength in numbers. These days, strength was both a blessing and a curse. It meant safety, but was also a target.

The three of them turned to me as I took the other chair. I wasn’t sure upon first inspection what kinds of monsters they were. But once I remembered that we were surrounded by trees for miles, I guessed that they were likely earth monsters. Terra monsters.

“Was your travel okay?” Jessica asked.

I nodded. “Yep. It’s weird being without cell service for so long.”

She grinned. “You get used to it. It’s kind of nice being mostly off grid.” A moment passed. “So. You had questions?”

With a sigh, I briefly and without detail, explained my situation. But I paused when Morgan’s expression turned angry. Talbot tapped his hand lightly and Morgan adjusted in his seat.

“He’s not upset at you,” Jessica explained, carding her fingers through Morgan’s hair. His dark eyes closed. “You’re the second person in the last month that’s talked to us about their family getting in the way of a relationship that is soul-deep. They were human, so it’s not quite the same thing, but nonetheless.”

“It’s fucking stupid,” Morgan said and then huffed when Talbot tsked him. I covered my mouth with my hand to hide my smile. “Did they know?”

It took me a second to realize he was asking me. So I shook my head. “No. Not about the bond, at least. But they knew how we felt about each other from the start.” For the first time in a while, I was willing to give them a little slack. “To be fair, I had a tendency to get caught up in new relationship energy. It’s always felt like I was searching for someone and at first, those first weeks, it kind of fulfilled that… craving. But it would fade, and I found myself searching again. I guess I can’t be mad about the idea that perhaps they didn’t believe this was different in the beginning.”

“Do not make excuses for them,” Morgan said. The surrounding trees rustled and Morgan shifted, rolling his eyes at the trees. Again, I smiled behind my hand. Definitely some kind of earth monster. “The point is, family is supposed to support. Not manipulate you. This should have, at the very least, resulted in a serious question. Not a dead end.”

Just as my therapist would say. Imani knew Emrys wouldn’t match with any of them except me. And that wasn’t enough to get us into his matches.

“I take it you’ve always been smooth sailing?” I asked.

“Oh no,” Jessica said, laughing. “No family is smooth sailing all the time. Everyone has relationship bumps. But we take care to make sure we always speak to each other. As cliché and frequent as this topic is, communication is truly the backbone of a relationship. And the more people you have involved, the more important it becomes.”

“Maybe that’s where we broke down,” I mused, not for the first time. The conversations we had were superficial. Even as I think about it, as often as I did now, until Imani kicked Emrys out of our house until he could be matched with us, we hadn’t had any real conversations in… ages.

Life was just easy. Repetitive. It was running on a pattern that rarely wavered from its set path.

“I’m not trying to color your thoughts, but if you’d been with them a while, I find it hard to believe they didn’t see that there was something between you two,” Jessica said. “Everyone knows that Talbot and I have a bond. Everyone. Including the humans, though they just say we’re deeply in love. But they can see it. There’s no doubt in my mind that your family could see it too.”

She wasn’t wrong. Just as I stated that, I remembered how I knew exactly who her dojem was as soon as she stepped foot on the porch. I didn’t need to know her or have had a conversation with her before I saw the bond between them.

It was bright. Clear. Strong.

Anger washed through me again.