Chapter Seventeen
Emery
“Tell me more about vampires,” I asked Esther.
We were both curled up in the smaller living room that had the TV in it.
I wasn’t interested in the TV, but I found the huge house a little intimidating.
Phoenix had gone with the others to make sure everyone was okay after the scare, and I imagined giving a roasting to the two elders supposedly responsible for getting everyone to safety.
I hated to admit it, but Simeon was right.
I could hardly criticize if I had no intention of being the solution.
And did I? I had no idea. If this was real life—well, my normal life—then Phoenix and I would be dating.
Maybe a kiss, but he wouldn’t have gotten any further.
Not after what? I tried to think. A week?
Had it really only been a week? And half of that, I’d been out of my mind with lust. I groaned silently, then realized Esther hadn’t replied.
I looked over at her, and she was staring at the floor.
“I’m so ashamed,” she said quietly after a moment.
“I’m more than twenty years older than you, and I let the panic with the threat of the silver-skins get to me. ”
I gazed at her and remembered how kind she’d been, how she’d given up her cottage for us, and I reached over and took her hand. “I think Simeon was right to call me out. I can’t imagine what you’ve had to live through.”
“I’m a twin. I had a sister.” Her eyes glistened, and she blinked.
“It excuses nothing, but I hope it may give you perspective.” She took a steadying breath.
“It’s hard being someone that others look to for answers when you don’t have them.
They expect you to know, but for whatever reason, I often don’t.
I get visions. Dreams. I’ve always had them.
My mother didn’t, but my grandmother was exceptional, and it was said she had fae blood. ”
I gaped, but with everything else, why not fairies?
“My twin sister, Estrelle, was like my grandmother. I was always a pale imitation.” She shook her head.
“Not that Estrelle was ever conceited or ever tried to make me feel less. We were as close as we could be. It was Grandmother who usually tried and failed to put a wedge between us. Grandmother singled Estrelle out because she could visualize.”
“Visualize?”
“Like I said, I get dreams, premonitions, that are incredibly hard to interpret. Estrelle got them instantly, like a story. For example, she knew who her mate would be from the time she was a baby.”
“She did?” I was fascinated.
Esther smiled. “Not my story to tell, but they were due to be betrothed on our seventeenth birthday.”
I raised my eyebrows.
Esther smiled. “Many cultures have different traditions, Emery, and her betrothal would have lasted a full year.”
“What happened?” Because I knew something had.
“That morning, Mother insisted we all go to collect fresh flowers for our headdresses. She had, as the humans would call it, a green thumb. There’s a lily called the Peruvian lily or Alstroemeria, native to South America, but there’s a small patch of them that grows near the creek in the woods.
It blossoms only for the day, and my mother was desperate to prove to Grandmother she could get us something Grandmother didn’t know about.
Estrelle said it was dangerous, and she had a bad feeling, so Mother reluctantly agreed to let it go. ”
Esther paused, and I got this was so hard for her. “You have to understand I was always second. The disappointment. I was never loved quite so much as Estrelle, and while Mom wasn’t harsh, my grandmother was. So I made the biggest mistake of my life.”
“You went for the lilies.” I knew.
She nodded. “I thought I could finally do something Estrelle couldn’t.
That I would save the day. So while everyone else was distracted, I left.
Unfortunately, Estrelle had an image of me in danger and followed me.
The silver-skins were waiting. I fought hard, but there were at least ten silver-skins, and we had no chance.
Alessandro was there, laughing. His people held us both, and he stepped up to us and simply touched our foreheads with his finger.
I tried to bite it, and he thought that was funny, but the second he did it to Estrelle, she just collapsed.
It was like he’d put her to sleep, but even he looked shocked.
He just told them to take Estrelle and not bother with me. ”
She was quiet for a few minutes, and the last thing I was about to do was interrupt.
“I blinked, and they were gone,” Esther whispered.
“I ran screaming all the way back, and gammas were summoned by Draven immediately, but she’d vanished.
The wolves insisted that if she wasn’t returned, they would retaliate, but the silver-skins said if the wolves attacked en masse and the humans discovered them, the treaty would be void, and they would attack the humans.
That there wasn’t anything in the treaty that said they had to obey wolf law. ”
She pressed her lips together. “And it was true. The treaty had always been about human protection, and Estrelle wasn’t human. Draven was ready to go after her, but the elders insisted he risked the treaty.” She smiled, but it didn’t light her eyes. “He had to choose the good of the pack.”
Esther looked at me then. “My grandmother died a year later of grief. My mother mated a wolf who was traveling across our territory, and she’s in Georgia now.”
I hesitated. What I wanted to ask, I didn’t, because I wasn’t so unfeeling, but she answered it anyway.
“We had a strong bond, and I felt her for years. Half of me was in agony because I knew how they tortured the she-wolves, and half of me was selfishly glad simply because she was still alive. I stopped being able to feel her many years ago.” She closed her eyes briefly.
“I know she’s dead, but at least she isn’t suffering. ”
And she’d had no one.
“The first year I got my job, I didn’t think I would even make it to Christmas without murdering a particular set of parents.
They’d moved into the area just before the start of the school year and kept very much to themselves.
Their son, Kelsey, was such a bright boy, but he was so stifled.
He was never given permission for so much as a neighborhood walk when we were studying nature.
He was marched to the school gates every morning by his dad and collected every night by his mom.
School buses were a huge no-no. He was never allowed to play with his friends.
He couldn’t visit their houses ever, and they weren’t allowed back to his.
” I sighed. I’d been such a jerk, and it had taught me a huge lesson.
“At the start of the second semester, I was ready to go to war for this kid. He was miserable. He grew so quiet in class that I was very concerned. There was an afternoon treat coming up at the local petting zoo. I’d even personally invited either or both parents to accompany us to try to make them feel better.
One morning, he wasn’t in class when I took attendance, but another boy insisted Kelsey had come to school.
I left the class in the care of my assistant and found him crying in the restrooms. He was devastated because his parents had said no to the petting zoo. ”
I forced myself to go on. “Full of righteous indignation, I met his mother when she collected him that day and made sure she felt guilty denying her son the opportunity. She just stood silently and listened. The day after, Kelsey didn’t turn up, and I was frantic.
I was in the principal’s office immediately following attendance, and he read me the letter he’d received from Mr. and Mrs. Jennings saying they were leaving the area. ”
I sighed. “Then Principal Sanchez taught me a valuable lesson. He asked me if I’d heard about the kidnapping of Joseph Turner.”
Esther winced, and I knew even in the wolf world, they’d heard of that.
“Joseph Turner was eight when he was taken as he stepped off the school bus. His mom got a flat, and she was three minutes late getting home. Three minutes was all it took for the Barrito gang out of Los Angeles to take him. His father was an assistant district attorney in a prosecution for gunrunning involving their boss. They posted videos of them torturing that little boy for a week before his death. Seven days. Seven days where I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be a parent and feel so helpless, so full of self-hatred because you’d failed to protect your child. ”
Esther gazed at me with understanding. She knew.
“Kelsey was Joseph Turner’s little brother, and because I thought I knew best, I chased them away.”
I stood. I couldn’t sit. “So I get it,” I said quietly. “I know when you’re in an impossible situation. I understand you making the wrong call for the right reasons and spending years trying to put that right.”
I scraped a hand over my face. “I completely understand them hating silver-skins, obviously, I do. But the boy I met wasn’t a killer. He ran from me deliberately so he wouldn’t put me in danger. That’s not evil.”
Esther swallowed and was silent for a few moments. “What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, knowing it was a double-edged question. It wasn’t just the future of some fourteen-year-old vampire boy we were talking about or even the future of the packs and the lack of pups.
It was me.
Phoenix and me.
The insta-love crazy mating vibe was affecting everything, and I knew, absolutely knew, I had to make a decision.
I just had no idea what that should be.