Chapter 18
Valens
My pulse pounded even as we wound through boring back roads, my mind turning over every low word Elodie had shared with Leigh.
She was seeing magic.
I wanted to ask one thousand questions. When did it start? Can you see anything else? Do you have any strange markings? Being just the tip of the iceberg.
But I swallowed them down, frantically digging through my memory for any hint that what I suspected was true. It was hard to focus when excitement was trying to capsize the boat.
I knew so little about guardians beyond the stories my mother had told me when I was young, before she died. I knew of the tree, the symbolism… but the rest was just stories, right? Legend?
A youthful part of me believed them, but the adult, who’d seen too much, who’d been through it all… Well, I had healthy skepticism.
But being able to see magical traces? That was part of the legend. Being attuned to an omega’s mother’s needs? Also part of the legend.
Was Elodie more than a warrior maiden? Was she a true guardian?
Possibility hummed in the air, but I kept it to myself. I needed to dig, see if I could find any written records to show her. I didn’t want to go off half-cocked and have her think I’d lost it, or worse, that I was grasping at straws to keep her by my side.
This thing between us was as fragile as it was beautiful, and I wanted to protect it, even from myself.
No, I had to protect it. She was too precious to me for anything less.
We pulled up in front of a destroyed castle after a long, boring drive. Boring was a nice change of pace, though, so none of us was complaining. Not even Leigh, who’d slept through more than half of the trip.
Even eager to stretch my legs, I was slow climbing out of the SUV, because I couldn’t stop staring at the wanton destruction in front of me, sorrow thick in my veins, knowing that my own pack mates had done this. Which meant we were equally responsible for making it right.
A daunting thought.
The stones were charred, only fragments of beautiful stained glass windows remaining in any of the lower-level window frames.
The destruction didn’t stop there, though.
The roof was proof that fire had engulfed the castle from top to bottom.
Blackened roof beams jutted like charred bones through what had once been an orange-tiled roof line.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured to no one in particular, even as my chest squeezed painfully.
Gael slapped me on the shoulder. “You didn’t do this. Varga did this. And you have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I could have stopped him.” The words cut so deeply because they were true.
Petró may have been the leader of the Hungarian pack by birthright, but it was my own reticence to step forward and challenge him after his father died that had allowed this to happen.
I was stronger than him, but felt my place was with the pack, protecting the women, children, and elderly he left unprotected as he took the males on his “hunts.” It had never even occurred to me to challenge him for control.
It had occurred to Lucien, though. It was one of many reasons I was happy to be his second.
Shame filled me at my own shortcomings, multiplied by the fact that the Blackwater pack—including our new Hungarian pack Alpha—had dealt with so much yet still extended the hand of friendship to us instead of wiping us off the map.
It would have been their right. But they chose not to, and it was humbling.
“This was such unnecessary destruction,” I finally said, trying to shake off the haze of dark emotions that were trying to swallow me. “But we will make it right.”
Gael eyed me curiously. “I know you work around the pack town, but… this is a lot to take on.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “Hard work doesn’t bother me. Besides, I’m good at stone work.”
He laughed, eyeing the blackened castle with obvious trepidation. “Anything you’re not good at?”
My gaze caught on Elodie, standing about ten feet away, where Leigh leaned against her shoulder as the women all discussed the dismal living arrangements. “Plenty.”