Chapter 34: My Grandmother Was A What???

“We should be leaving now,” Jasper growls out. He runs his hand through his hair, pulling the locks.
“It is only for a few hours,” Alma explains. “We will be able to make up the time later on.”
“I do not feel comfortable here,” he retorts, snarling.
The Climont soldiers mill about, shining their weapons or cooking their dinner. The maids constantly glance over at the Pivurlions, their brows stitched up with unease. Jasper refuses to relax in this atmosphere. There is a tension thick in the air that he does not trust.
“Let’s retrieve our horses,” Alma urges, moving to his side.
“I am not leaving her here alone.”
“She is not alone, Olisnia is with her.”
Jasper breathes in, but he is only able to sense a small whiff of Eliana’s honey scent. He cannot put too much distance between them. He must protect her.
“She is right,” Evyn sighs entering the conversation. “We all know Olisnia is very powerful. She will watch over Eliana while we go to get the horses. We will need them if we are to leave quickly.”
He wants to argue, to fight his friends on the issue of leaving, even for a moment, but he still has his reasoning. He knows that it is the best option to have the horses prepped for travel. There is a tightness to his chest though. He is terrified of letting Eliana out of his sight. What if something were to happen to her?
“Alright,” he grumbles out. He knows it is absurd to watch her every move. He needs to get her home, to her family, before the rebels destroy all that she loves. That is what matters, nothing else.
He clenches his jaw, wondering what the Drulian and Eliana are talking about right now.

>><<

“I am not sure this was a good idea,” Eliana sighs as she sits next to Olisnia inside the small tent that Drake had set up for her and the others just outside camp.
She ponders on what happened inside Drake’s tent. Junet outed her to the Prince. Now he knows how she feels about Jasper. She wonders how the maid found out when she wasn’t even sure of it herself.
“You are only trying to protect your people and Jasper is only trying to save you,” the Drulian explains. “His goal is to get you back to Zaline, even if he is not completely sure why you need to be there so quickly.”
The Princess nods softly, “Why is it that you’re here, helping me?”
“Eliana,” Olisnia begins, “I do not know if this is the right place to talk of such matters.”
Eliana forces down a small chuckle, “Was it the right time back in Windwill after you had just finished healing Alma?”
“You are right. Are you sure you wish to speak of it now?”
With a nod from Eliana, Olisnia breathes in deeply. She glances up, pondering, “I told you that a werecat actually stayed here on the mainland while the others left for Shidon.”
“Yes, if they truly did stay. Why?” Eliana cannot help being curious. She understands that it is not entirely insane to believe that the Kexon survived. There is no proof that has been given to her to confirm either way. Only the affirmations of her father and citizens.
“Simply put, she had fallen in love and was pregnant.”
Confusion forms in Eliana’s mind, “Why would that make her stay?”
“Her lover was not of the Pivurlion race. He was human.”
“What,” Eliana’s mind shuts down momentarily, every thought fighting for presence. Could this truly be real? No, impossible. “There is no way that a Pivurlion would end up with a human.”
Jasper appears in her mind, causing her heart to shake and her nerves to tear her up on the inside. If the races truly could mix, is it possible she could be with Jasper? Is it even probable?
“The Pivurlion race was once human,” Olisnia continues to explain. “It is not entirely impossible that they could mate with a human.”
“Mate. . .” The memory of her intimate moment with Jasper in the shack, their kiss they shared, has her body burning up. She remembers the one word repeating in her mind.
“Yes, they can mate, or rather marry, anyone, but their soul bond is genetically manufactured to be a Pivurlion. They can love another, but their soulmate has to at least be partially a werecreature. There is no other way. We created them like this, to not lose the Pivurlion blood, or to even dilute it.”
“Then,” she pauses to hold back her shattering disappointment, “Why do so many of them mate outside their clans?”
“That is truly a mystery. As far as I know, Drulians only thought of the Pivurlion race as one entity. Once they rebelled, they created their own clans.”
“Why are we speaking of this again,” Eliana questions scrunching her nose together.
“I was bringing up the topic of werecats, specifically the one that stayed behind.”
She nods, “Oh, yes.”
“I wanted to mention this woman specifically, because I believe her to be very close to you.”
“Really, who?” As Eliana frowns, she looks away, searching her memory. She knows that she has never met an actual werecat before.
“You may not accept this fact, but your grandmother was the werecat. She was the last remaining fullblood on the mainland.”