CHAPTER 5

Chapter 5: Bloodline

"So what do you make of this?" Lucky asked as he walked in his brother's room. "Do you think he was telling the truth when he said he forgot you weren't his son?"

"I don't know," Nikolas said honestly, not looking up from his math homework. "If you don't mind, I have homework to do before I take my shift at Kelly's tonight."

"Come on, Nikolas, this is me you're talking to," Lucky answered as he let himself fall on the bed. "If you want me to leave you alone, just tell me, don't try to find phony reasons"

"Fine, I want to be alone, so leave," Nikolas said angrily. "Now, Lucky"

"No can do," Lucky smiled at his brother as he sat on the edge of the bed. "Dad told me to keep a close eye on you!" Lucky told his brother and was surprised to find raw pain in his brother's eyes. "Hey, I'm not that much of a brat, am I?"

"That's not funny, Lucky!" Nikolas said angrily. "Do you realize what you just said? Dad wants you to keep an eye on me, which means he already thinks of me as the enemy!"

"Whoa, Nik, relax man, dad asked me to keep an eye on you so you won't be alone if that Cassadine woman ever show up to take you on that Greek island, that's all!"

"Well, somehow I don't think that's quite the reason," Nikolas told his little brother dryly before returning to his homework.

"Come on, man, you don't think that dad thinks you are an enemy, do you? I mean, if he did, he wouldn't have shown you every trick in the book to defend yourself against us, now would he?"

"I guess you're right," Nikolas allowed and looked at his brother. "Man, I'm a prince," he said suddenly. "Which means you have to address me as 'your majesty' and nothing else!"

"You're a Prince, all right," Lucky answered as he got up. "Cause you're a Royal pain in the butt!"

"Get out of my room, you brat!" Nikolas exclaimed, laughing despite himself. His little brother always had a special way to make him laugh, just like Luke always had a special way to tease him.

"I just realized that you somewhat knew you were a Prince all along," Lucky said when he reached the door. "Every time you go to the bathroom, you say you have to go sit on the throne"

Lucky's laughter echoed in the room long after the young teenager was gone, leaving Nikolas chuckling to himself in front of his math homework. Slowly his laughter died down, leaving him with a sour taste in his mouth. "Man," Nikolas said, shaking his head as he slowly passed a hand in his hair. Everything that had been said downstairs was still rolling in his head, teasing him, nagging at him. Luke wasn't his father.

Nikolas threw his pencil on his desk and got up, slowly pacing the floor of his room, trying to deal with the fact that the man who raised him, who taught him everything he knew about anything, from how to use a gun to how to start a fire with only one match, passing by the right way to treat a woman, wasn't the man who gave life to him. It shouldn't matter, really, he told himself, because he received everything a child could to make sure he was becoming a good man. He had attention from the man of the house, which is beneficial for a young boy's development, he had his mother, he had more love than any other child he knew, his brother aside, so why was he hurting so bad?

Because he was lied to? That was part of it, but not all of it. Of course it hurt to know your parents lied to you about who you were, and where you were from, but that part was easily getting over, because of how much they loved you, and what they sacrificed for you. In the end, that part didn't matter, Nikolas decided.

But he was still hurting, and he didn't know why. If his genes didn't matter to either Luke or his mother, why was it bothering him so much? He turned around and saw the picture that was taken last summer, when Luke had left the house and he had taken Nikolas and Lucky to a camping trip for 2 weeks. The picture showed both boys playing in the water. Nikolas was dunking Lucky, while the young teenager was fighting like a demon in holy water not to be drowned. Nikolas took the picture in his hand and smiled, slowly remembering the best camping trip he ever had.

***Flashback***

"Throw it over here, dad!" Lucky yelled, jumping up and down, before Nikolas threw his arm around his brother's neck from behind, before Lucky's head was suddenly under water.

"Now you can throw it to me, dad!" Nikolas laughed and Luke did, too, before he threw the frisbee to the remaining standing boy. Nikolas and Lucky had been fighting in the lake for nearly an hour now, any reason was good to dunk each other. Luke had taken the frisbee out, and the boys were now fighting to know which one would Luke send it to next from the shore.

"Send it back, though," Luke told Nikolas, before he sat down on the ground and lit a cigar.

"Dad, why do you smoke that stuff?" Nikolas asked before he walked to the shore and sat next to his father, and shook his head to splash Luke with water. "It'll kill you!"

"If Frank Smith couldn't, this won't cut it either," Luke said, after he exhale a large amount of smoke from his mouth. "You, too, will learn to appreciate a fine cigar, just as you will learn to appreciate a fine woman, a find scotch, and a fine blues album. All of the above will make your life paradise, my boy, and there is no way you can not like it, you are, after all, my offspring!" Luke added, taking another great inhale from his forbidden passion.

***End Flashback***

Nikolas sat down on his bed, feeling like the world's weight was now on his shoulders. He finally realized why he was so hurt to know that he had been lied to, all of his life. To know that Luke wasn't his father.

That was just it. Luke wasn't his father. All of his life, he had taken great pride into being Luke Spencer's son, a man who was admired for either his courage, or his foolishness. Wether it was his enemy, or his friends, everyone couldn't help but feel something for the man, and Nikolas, just as Lucky, always took being his son seriously. They know, having his genes, that they would always know on instinct just what to do in a crisis, how to act, who to trust. They had his blood, his soul, his heart. To quote him, they were the best of him, because they had his love of life, and Laura's compassion.

And now, all of what Nikolas based his life on, was a lie. His life was a great castle of cards and just a little wind made it all fall down. He wasn't who he always thought he was, he wasn't the offspring of the man he always thought, he didn't have the genes, the instinct that he needed to go on in life.

Nikolas was the son of a maniac. This was how he needed to base his life from now on. He would have to work twice as hard to make sure that his mother's genes would always be the dominant ones, that his mother would always be the one to guide his life. Stavros Cassadine's insanity would not rain down on him, no matter what. Nikolas knew that he would never be one of them, he would never be his real father's son.

At least he hoped so!

***************

"Is everything set, Stefan?" Helena Cassadine asked the man by her bed

"Yes, Mother. Luke should be telling Nikolas right now that the boy isn't his son, and that you want Nikolas to take his rightful place at the head of this family at once!" Stefan answered as he took his mother's hand in his and kissed it.

"Very good. Nikolas will know soon enough how the Spencers killed his father, and his grandfather. He will be the one to put this absurd family to their knees, begging us for mercy!" Helena told his son, yanking her hand away from his mouth. "Leave, now. You have work to do"

"Yes, Mother," Stefan said as he got up and walked out of the room. "That is where you are wrong, Mother," Stefan said out loud on the other side of his mother's door. "Nikolas will be used to bring YOU down"