Page 7 of My Perfect One
“It’s okay, our family is big, but you can count on every single one of us. For anything you need.”
Again I see the sad look in her eyes. I need to know what happened to her family. Finally everyone’s here and we head inside the clubhouse to talk. The council introduces themselves to the siblings.
“I apologize if I get names wrong. There’s a lot of you.” Archer chuckles as everyone laughs.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get to know all of us in time,” my baba says as he smiles.
“You said you needed to talk to us, what’s happened? First of all, where are you from?” Leonardo Mancini asks.
“We’re from Brisbane, Australia. We heard about the four families in Lake Renegade and how you took down group of people that were experimenting on shifters. Our parents planned on coming here to talk to you themselves, but we werewaiting for our visas because we didn’t know how long we’d be here. But before we could get everything together, we were taken. That was about two months ago,” Oliver says as he looks at everyone.
My stomach has knots in it as we listen to Oliver.
“We should also tell you that we’re Taipan snake shifters,” Archer adds.
“Holy crap. That’s fucking cool,” Eros says. He gets a look from our baba. “What? They’re the deadliest snakes in the world. Wait. If you bite one of us, will we die?”
Baba sighs. “I’m sorry for my son.”
Archer and Oliver laugh.
“We have two separate venom glands. But no, if we bit you, you would get really sick.”
“But we won’t die?” Adonis asks.
“Not from our lighter venom…” Seraphina smiles.
“I don’t like that smile. That’s an evil smile. Apollo, you need to watch out.” Sebastiano Mancini laughs.
“I’m not worried.” I chuckle as I hold Seraphina closer.
“Please continue.” My baba sighs at all of us.
“We were at the beach and all of a sudden, we were in nets. We were put into an apartment-style place and kept there. There was just enough room for all of us.” Archer takes a deep breath. “They would force us to shift and then they’d milk us for our venom. Our parents kept trying to figure out how to get away, but it was hard because there was seven of us.”
The room gets silent as I watch the three siblings. Fuck, there were seven of them, which means that they lost not only their parents, but two siblings too. I don’t know how I would cope if I lost my parents and two siblings.
“Did you hear any names while you were there?” Panagiotis asks.
“They were careful about not saying names. It was always the same people that came to get us. But they didn’t talk a lot, only to threaten us.”
“I heard them say a name once. That Paul would be pissed if they didn’t get enough venom from us. The problem is, they didn’t know that we have two different venom sacs. So we would give them the non lethal venom instead of our lethal one.” Seraphina says.
We all pause when we hear the name Paul.
“We need to stop for a bit. Ares, go and get Satoshi and Hanako, they need to hear this too.”
Ares nods and goes to get his in-laws.
“They were part of the group that was taking shifters here in Chicago. Satoshi is a researcher and he was forced to help the leader, Samantha. She used their children, Haruki and Sakura, against them. Sakura is Ares’ wife. That’s how we found all of this out. I’ll let them tell you their full story.”
“While we wait, I really need to know the difference between your venoms,” I say to Seraphina.
“Our lethal one will kill a human within thirty minutes to an hour. And the other will make them sick. It’s the same for shifters, except that you’d need to kill them while the toxic venom is in them,” she explains.
“That’s terrifying.” Eros blinks at her.
Ares comes in and introduces everyone.
