Seven #5
I could still remember the stricken looks on their faces. All our history had been forgotten in those moments. That I had been there, helping, taking care of their children. Everything was erased because I was a monster.
“That, sadly, was not the only time that ever happened. So when he says to you that it was never his intention to scare you, he means it. He’s learned patience and understanding over the long years of his life.
And while what you attempted earlier seems horrific to me—terrible form for an alpha pair, having your son try to use his mindfuck powers on someone—Merritt is likely to forgive the attack, as you could never hurt him. ”
And I did, and I had, but she was right, it was horrible. What Abel, Narah, and Justin had tried to do to me, they had clearly done before to many others. They had oppressed other people’s free will, and that could not be allowed to continue.
“Sometimes I forget what I was made for,” I said, easing free of her and taking a few steps away.
“You were made to be loved,” Cole told me, and when I turned to look at him, he was bathed in the green light of my eyes. “Your eyes are glowing, and it’s really pretty.”
“You weren’t made to hurt others,” Ondine reminded me. “You were made to mete out justice, and as Cole says, to be loved.”
“You’re both romantics,” I said flatly.
“Which you need desperately in your life,” she teased me before she grabbed Cole’s arm and walked him backward. “Don’t want to be too close when he becomes his beast, love. If the power touches you, it smarts a bit.”
I became my true self again, the change not instant as it used to be, but my body still re-formed fast enough that when I rounded on Justin, he cried out.
“Never again,” I told him, the words loud in his head as I lunged at him, driving him down under me and taking his throat in my jaws.
Narah and Abel were screaming, as were Reggie and Fletcher, but no one moved to help. They were all far too terrified of me.
I bit down just barely, only enough to break the skin and draw a trace of blood, and then inhaled, taking all of his power into me.
I had stripped the same from so many others over time—dark magic from witches, the change from shifters, the ability to slip between planes from the fae.
I could steal that which made others stronger if they used it to unfairly entrance, bewitch, hypnotize, or oppress others.
Justin had used his power, by his own admission and by that of his parents, to dominate the hearts and minds of wolves brought into their pack.
And though he claimed to have never taken sexual advantage, I couldn’t see into his heart.
But I would not allow him to ever use his ability to charm on anyone else.
It was gone in an instant, absorbed into me before it flowed back out into the universe from which it came.
Stepping back, I huffed on the small wound I’d made and saw it heal, before returning to my own form and exhaling deeply.
“You all right?” Cole asked me.
“I am.”
He gestured for me. “C’mere.”
I moved quickly to reach him, and as soon as I was close, he took hold of my shoulder and yanked me into his arms.
I felt like I fit, like I belonged there, and I closed my eyes and leaned.
“You’re so powerful, Mere, but you carry a lot on your shoulders, and I’m gonna help you with that. Let me take care of you.”
“Let me do the same, okay?”
He nodded but didn’t release me.
“I want your stuff in my home, so let’s do that.”
“Yeah, let’s do that,” he agreed, his voice all guttural as he kissed the side of my neck before he let me go.
When he went to grab a duffel bag, Justin yelled.
“What’d you do?” He was nearly screaming at me.
“I took your power,” I told him. “Not the shifting, not your strength, but what you used to lure people in and tangle them in a web—that’s gone.”
“You cannot be serious,” Narah gasped.
“Oh, I’m dead serious,” I told her. “All I was originally made to do was judge and punish, and I possess all the tools needed to do so.”
“But that can’t be.”
I shrugged. “I don’t normally get mad anymore, I don’t rail over injustice, I simply take whatever steps are needed to remedy a situation.”
“But Merritt, you—”
“Enough,” Cole said quickly. “Please go.”
“Wait,” Abel began, and then turned to me. “I don’t want to be parted from my nephews. Please allow us to see them on Thanksgiving and for the hunt and—”
“I will not influence their choices,” I told him. “I would never do that.”
“Please go,” Cole said. “We can talk another day.”
Justin was staring at me, and I wasn’t quite sure what I was seeing in his expression. He was certainly angry, but there was regret mixed in there as well. He kept glancing over at Ondine, and I had the sudden urge to protect her, which was ridiculous. She was a formidable creature.
“Go fetch whatever is needed,” she said to me. “I will remain here, at the threshold, and stand guard over your home and the boy.”
No one tried to say that she alone wouldn’t be much of a guardian. They knew better now. We stood there, unmoving, and watched them all leave.