“Uh...” I blinked at him stupidly. What the fuck was wrong with me? “Kit.”
His brow shot up in surprise, and I sighed. “Christina, actually. But everyone calls me Kit. Except Austin, but he’s an ass, so...” Wow, now I was rambling.
“Christina. Huh, I knew she was going to change your name when she took off, but I wouldn’t have guessed that one.” Vic sat back in his chair with a sigh, like he was exhausted.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I replied cautiously. “That’s always been my name. It was one of the only things I did remember when social services found me on the streets. My name—Christina—and my age.”
“Girl... this is gonna be a long story,” Vic’s weary voice held a shadow of an Irish or Scottish accent, and he waved at the couch behind me where Caleb sat perched on the edge like he was a snake coiled and ready to strike if this guy turned nasty.
“Sit your butt down and have a drink.” He reached over to the coffee table where a crystal decanter sat full of amber fluid and poured some into the two small glasses sitting beside it. “You boys want one, you better grab more glasses from the kitchen.” Handing one to me, he clinked it with his own and then took a long sip.
“Very responsible,” River commented, “supplying alcohol to a minor. Kit’s only nineteen.”
The sip of whiskey I’d just taken got caught in my throat, and I coughed as I sat my ass down on the couch beside Caleb.
“Nineteen? You need ta get your math straight, boy. I thought you secret agent types were supposed to be switched on?” Vic barked a husky laugh and took another sip of his drink. “She woulda turned twenty-one not two weeks past. I should know, after all, I was there when she was born.”
Had I not already been sitting, I would have fallen.
“Sorry, what?” I demanded, my voice as strangled and confused as the rest of me. “You’re clearly mistaken. I told you I knew two things when social services found me. My name—Christina—and my age—five. Five. Not seven.”
Vic snorted, knocking back the rest of his drink and refilling the glass. “And you remembered nothin’ else. Just your name and your age.” He levelled an amused look at me, like I was a damn idiot. “That doesn’t sound suspicious to you?”
Jesus fuck, I was a damn idiot.
“Drink up, girl. This is gonna take me a few tries to work out what I can tell you that might be helpful.” Vic sighed and scratched at his scarred cheek.
“You okay, Kitty Kat?” Caleb murmured, taking one of my hands in his as he shifted closer to me. I glanced up at him with a weak smile as I clutched the tumbler in my other hand. A perfect mirror image of Austin, Caleb only have one distinction from his twin: his eyes. Caleb’s were soft, open, and permanently laughing, while Austin’s were as closed off as a Swiss bank vault.
Until they took their clothes off, that was. There was no mistaking who was who when their tattooed flesh was visible.
“Yeah, just... lost two years of my life in the blink of an eye. No big deal.” I took a sip of the smoky liquid and sighed as it warmed a path down to my belly. Minor or not, it wasn’t my first time drinking hard spirits neat.
“Two years doesn’t mean squat on the lifespan of a blue-blooded Ban Dia,” Vic snorted. “Now then. Do you want to know anything in particular, or shall I just start at the beginning of what I know?”
“Yeah, what the fuck a Ban Dia is.” Vali’s clipped voice startled me as he spoke. I’d almost forgotten he was in the room, as quiet and still as he’d been. Glancing over at him now, leaning against a doorframe with a ferocious scowl on his face, it was easy to remember he was the kingpin of a major crime syndicate. But also that he was the man who’d saved me from slavery and death and a man whom I’d recently transformed into a dragon-shifter. Vali and I... we were the definition of complicated.
“Jesus, you don’t even know what you are? Nicky didn’t even give you that much, huh? Little turd.” Vic shook his head “All right. Let’s start with what I know of your people. It’s not much and it’s non-specific, so we shouldn’t run into any roadblocks on the way.”
“Roadblocks?” Wesley questioned, ever the academic. His face was alight with curiosity, and I knew he was practically salivating with his thirst for knowledge.
“You’ll see,” Vic grunted, then turned back to me. “Ban Dia, or bandia, roughly translates to Goddess, which is what your kind was always thought to be. My knowledge is limited to the small scraps Bride threw me when we were still on speaking terms, but so far as I understand, the Ban Dia are the source of magic and the creators of all supernatural beings. There are just twelve original Ban Dia, and each one has just a single line of pure-blooded descendants.”
“Has?” I blurted out, interrupting his story but fixating on the present tense he’d used.
“Yes, girl. Has. The Ban Dia are the only true immortals to ever have existed. They, you, cannot die. Or so Bride led me to believe. She was known to lie, cheat, and betray though, so who knows how correct that information is. I probably wouldn’t be in a rush to test the theory.” He shrugged, like he didn’t much care if I did or not. “Anyway. Each Ban Dia can only ever produce one, single pure-blooded offspring. I imagine your mother assumed you were not it, and that’s why she abandoned you. Perhaps your magic was late to manifest? All I know is that when I last laid eyes on you at age three, you were showing nothing more than human. Not even shifter, but then that coulda been blamed on the plague.”
My jaw dropped open as I intended to ask a question but came up blank. What the fuck did one even say to that?
“So, Kit’s power, her ability to heal and turn people into supernatural beings...” Wesley filled the silence for me with much more pertinent words than my stupefied brain was producing.
“Lord, you pups don’t know much, do ye? She’s not turning them, she’s restoring their connection to the magic. These two,” Vic nodded toward Cole and Vali, who stood glowering with their identical granite eyes and broad frames. “They were never human. Just like the rest of you. You just don’t know it yet.”