Chapter 39
Elodie
My thoughts were heavy as we made our way back to the Hungarian pack grounds. Lucien wanted a full report before we all went together to the Caelestis castle for the gathering.
The war gathering.
Blood rushed in my eardrums, even as I calmly traced the back of Valens’s knuckles with my thumb. It felt like we’d spent more time together in a car than we had anywhere else, and somehow, the road slipping by calmed me.
“It’s really happening. I know Fiona saw it, but they must be sure an attack is coming if they’re openly gathering all the packs for war.”
“It’s happening. Reed has been working his influence with the other pack Alphas for weeks now, slowly introducing the idea of an omega bringing her gifts back to the wolves, sharing news of the omega stone as people were receptive. Lucien says he’s expecting a good turnout.”
“They’d better turn out if the high alpha calls.”
He snorted, giving my fingers a squeeze. “They will. They all will. They don’t have a choice.”
“True. I’m so used to Kane as just… part of the pack. Sometimes I forget how much power he wields.”
Valens laughed. “I’m still not used to it. For another alpha, being in the same room with him can get suffocating.”
“Really?”
“Really. Petró and I were close in dominance, and I’d say with most of the Blackwater alphas, I’m on par. But Kane… It’s an ungodly amount of power. Impossible to miss.”
I thought back from the moment I met the Blackwater pack to now, and something occurred to me.
“You know, I think both he and Brielle have powered up since we found the stone, and I hadn’t noticed.
He was strong originally, of course. But after her curse was lifted, there was a level up.
And now with the stone whole, there is a little something extra to both of them.
I don’t have a mark, so I haven’t been affected, and I guess it’s just happened slowly enough that I missed it. ”
“You’re going into early heat. I wouldn’t call you unaffected.”
“Right. I just meant I didn’t get omega sealed.” I turned over my hand, showing off my bare palm, unlike the other females in the pack.
He covered my hand with his, interlacing our fingers before lifting them so he could kiss my knuckles. “Maybe that’s because you’re destined for a different kind of mark.”
I sighed. “The guardian thing? Brute, that’s such a long shot, it’s not even worth considering.”
“I don’t think so.” When I shot him an incredulous look, he doubled down. “I really don’t.”
I hesitated, not wanting to hurt his feelings, but he’d told me before that I could and should tell him anything. “I think that’s wishful thinking. You hoping that maybe I have a different calling, something that would mean I didn’t have to lose my job to be with you.”
“Ouch,” he said it jokingly, but also a little bit not.
We rode in silence for a few minutes, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.
“Listen, I get how it might seem like that, given I’ve been firmly pro-bond since the beginning, and you haven’t.
But my mate being a guardian wasn’t ever on my radar.
Like you said, they were stories my parents told me when I was little, a mark carved into some tree bark.
But you… You have something more happening. ” He exhaled harshly. “And I do too.”
That stopped me mid-thought.
“Like what?” I was strangely tense as I waited for him to answer, as if he was going to tell me something awful, though that was an absurd conclusion to jump to.
“I noticed it back in Rubix’s office. You were talking about the magical signatures you could see, and I was listening to you and staring through the bars right along with you, and something shifted.
I don’t know how to describe it properly, but…
One minute, it was all just metal. The next, I could almost see the enchantments.
In the bars, in the collars. Glowing script just appeared between blinks.
And it wasn’t English or Hungarian, but somehow I could still understand it.
I’ve worked with metal my whole life, but I’ve never experienced anything like it. ”
“Holy shit. Why didn’t you say anything? That’s definitely something.”
He shrugged. “It didn’t seem like the time. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t necessarily want to give the information to Rubix.”
“Fair,” I said on a slow exhale. “Okay, so, something is up with both of us, and you think we’re becoming guardians.”
“I know it sounds far-fetched, but there’s no other lore I know that fits. It’s just…” he stared off through the windshield, shaking his head.
“What? Seriously, there can’t be any more bombs to drop at this point. Let me have it.”
“We’re not marked. If we were guardians, we’d bear the marks.”
“Like the one on the tree?”
“That exact mark. It’s kind of like your mate marks, where it appears by magic. And the lore wasn’t very specific about how or when that happened, but I was under the impression that the mark would appear before we’d have new abilities.”
“Oh.”
“And I don’t have anyone to ask. My parents are gone, so how am I supposed to know if this is normal?”
So he thought something might be wrong? I kept that question to myself because he was obviously frustrated. Though, I peeked sideways at his expression and saw the hurt buried there too. That sense of loss, not having your family to lean on when you needed them.
That I understand.
“You keep saying lore. Is it all just oral history? Is there anything written we could look at?”
“No, I—” He froze mid-sentence, knuckles whitening on the wheel as he sent me an excited glance. “You’re a genius, you know that?”
I laughed. “No, definitely not. More of a meathead, by all accounts.”
“Whatever you say. But… yes. There might be. There’s a trunk in my grandpa’s attic.
The house is old, half falling down. Savvy and I used to play in it when we were little, before he died.
It was mostly just old clothes, but there was one chest in the corner that we weren’t allowed to touch.
Old, big leather hinges and brass hardware.
It always made my fingertips tingle if I brushed it when I walked past.”
“That sounds promising. Who owns the house now? Will they let us in?”
“I own it, technically. It’s out in the woods. He preferred to live farther from the town center.”
“So let’s go check it out, after we give our report to Lucien. Before we leave for the castle to be with the rest of the packs.”
“You really want to? It might be nothing.”
I squeezed his hand, taking my turn to kiss his fingers. “Or it might be something.” I wasn’t sure I believed it, but for him? I hoped it was something.
We pulled into the Hungarian mansion’s driveway at dusk.
Olivia waited for us on the steps, jogging down to hug me as soon as we piled out of the SUV.
It felt strange letting myself out when Valens was so insistent on opening doors for me everywhere we went, but with Olivia racing toward me, I didn’t want to sit around like a princess.
“How are you? I was worried it would be too much, with everything… just everything. And I guess you guys heard the news?”
“Yeah. The new gathering.” I forced a smile. “Silver lining: The maidens didn’t get to go to the last one. At least this time, I get to see and be seen.” I waggled my eyebrows, and she rolled her eyes.
“You’re such a goof. But yeah. It’s going to be big.”
Big, earth-shattering, catastrophic—whatever adjective you put on it, I was afraid. But I kept those fears to myself.
“Everyone’s waiting inside to hear your report. Do you want help unpacking the car?”
Valens met us on my side of the car. “Nah, I’ll unload after. We’re just ready to get done and get some rest, right, El?”
“Right. I’ve been dragging by the time we get to bed every night.”
Olivia frowned, stopping to take a longer look at me, then pressing her fingertips to the inside of my wrist. “Any new symptoms you want me to look at? I might be able to come up with some herbs to help with your energy.”
“No, I’m okay. It’s normal, right?”
She tilted her head to the side. “Well, yes. But just because it’s normal doesn’t mean we can’t make it more comfortable. With you two not being bonded and this heat starting early, you might be going through more discomfort than most.”
Joy.
“Well, luckily, I’m made of tough stuff. Let’s get this over with, and I’ll get some sleep. Tomorrow morning, you can poke and prod me to your heart’s content.”
“Fine, fine. I just worry about my girls.” She wrapped an arm around my waist and squeezed me. “You’re my family now. You’re just going to have to let me fuss over you a little bit.”
Goddess, a lump rose in my throat so quickly, I could barely breathe around it. Because Oli meant every single word in a way that stung so deeply, I’d never felt anything like it.
Simple, open acceptance. I wasn’t even her pack, not truly. But to her, I was family. I might not be able to call the Hungarian pack home, but these people were my home.
Valens hesitated in the doorway, finely tuned to my emotions, apparently, given the worried look he wore. “Do you need a minute? What’s wrong?”
I pulled him in for a quick, fortifying hug, and the awkwardness I’d been feeling since letting myself out of the car dissipated. “Not a damn thing. It’s right, actually. Come on.”
The others had gathered in the library again, and my heart warmed as, one by one, we were greeted with tight hugs and well-wishes.
Galyna got me first, with her usual rib-busting squeeze followed by a back slap.
Dakota surprised me by practically knocking me down in her enthusiasm.
It made me feel more than a little guilty that I’d been so bitter about her arrival.
It wasn’t her fault. She was following orders, like the rest of us.
Fiona’s eyes were flickering back and forth between amber and blue when she leaned in to hug me, her hair floating just a little as she tried to rein in her power. “Missed you,” she whispered as she pulled away.
“I missed you too. All of you.” Damn it, my eyes were watering. And much as I’d love to blame it on the hormones, that would be a cheap cop-out.
It was them, every last one of them. This ragtag family of mine, that I stumbled into and never wanted to lose.
I glanced to the side, where Valens had huddled up with Lucien and Reed as they exchanged their own greetings, and something inside me seemed to fall so effortlessly into place.
This was where we belonged. The two of us, together, surrounded by our people. Loved by our people.
But just as quickly as the warm fuzzy feelings came, they were almost smothered by my sense of duty to protect my family.
There were no guarantees in life, not even for a wolf shifter. We could die and be maimed, we could lose our mates or lose our pups. We might not come through this war intact.
I vowed to myself then and there that I would fight with every last breath for these people. I would be their guarantee, their safe space, the one who protected them from all comers.
I would be their protector.
“So, you guys want to fill us in tonight or sleep first?” Lucien asked, running a hand through disheveled blond locks.
“We’ve got too much to wait, I think,” Valens said.
“Let’s all sit and get into it, then. The cook made snacks.” He gestured to the sideboard, and my mouth watered as I caught the scent of fresh coffee.
I beelined for a cup as everyone else found a seat, settling in next to Valens and passing him a coffee as he started filling them in.
We switched off seamlessly as we went, each of us sharing the bits and pieces we knew, our observations of who seemed to be aligned with whom, and I laid out the full results of my snooping expedition.
It took several hours and at least two coffee refills, but in the end, they had it all.
“So, the pixie king is enslaving his own people too. I guess that’s one way to ensure there’s no dissent among the population,” Fiona spat bitterly.
“And the vampire collar being poisoned is a step worse than we thought. What if we can’t remove any of them?” Reed asked.
I glanced at Valens, wondering if his new talent for reading the enchantments on the metal might be able to remove them. But exhaustion was dragging at my limbs by then, and everyone else seemed to be running on fumes too.
It was a theory to test in the morning.
The group broke up, and Valens whisked me back out to the waiting SUV, holding my door with a soft smile.
Once we were both inside, he paused, hand on the wheel. “Your place or mine?”
“I think mine. But can you stay over?”
“Always.”