Chapter 69 - Ryder
Sixty-Nine
RYDER
There’s a vampire in her house, and I’m stuck watching from afar, my gaze filling with all the blood that’ll be spilled if she is harmed.
Unfortunately, shifter hearing isn’t as good as vampire hearing, which means whatever’s being said is too far out of reach, so I’m forced to settle and wait until they leave.
When they eventually do, and Carina goes to bed, I promised the pack to return for the night and morning, to assist in the transfer to the caves.
It kills me that I’m letting them all down.
It kills me even more to leave her side.
There’s no signal in the shifting of time, but suddenly, a figure appears out of thin air.
A purple braided rope of hair gets swatted in my face as Freya settles beside me.
“Hey, wolfie. Wanna shift so we can talk? Since you weren’t inside with the cool kids, figured I’d find you here, being the creepy stalker you are. ”
I shift in location, pulling on the pants that Morgan conjured yesterday. “Fuck off.”
“Ah, I’m kidding. Hey, do I look the part?” She picks at her leggings and kicks her hiking boots into the ground. “You’d know best, my little camper. The vampire had a castle, just sayin’. You should take a lesson.”
“The day you find wolves living inside a castle is the day you kill me. Or are you not capable of killing, original witch?”
“Ooh.” She flicks a finger, sending a purple spark to the ground between us. “You have quite the attitude when you’re cranky. Is this what being without your mate is doing to you?”
Being without my mate is the worst fucking kind of hell.
“What the hell do you want?”
“To catch you up on what was talked about: I offered my ever-ending knowledge. Carina started by asking who her father is, which I know but can’t tell.” She leans closer, her purple eyes widening dramatically. “Have you put it together yet?”
“Her mother’s from BC. Sloane said it was Hightooth Pack.
Alpha is Callum. He’s her father.” I’d put it together nearly instantly, as soon as Sloane said what she had, but never got the chance to discuss it with Carina.
“The similarities are there, but I only realized it the other day. It’s why he kept staring at her. ”
“Ding, ding, ding! Do what that news with what you may. Anyway, what else did she ask…? Oh, fun fact you might find exciting. For all her claims, she hasn’t had any out-of-control moments the past week, and that’s simply because her shifter side maintains the balance.
Which leads me to asking, do you know your history? ”
“No one does.”
She inches closer, our knees brushing. Then she turns, lining our bodies up to cup my face in her hands. “Oh, my sweet little babies are all grown up.”
“You?” I jerk back, and then to my feet. “You created us? How disappointing.”
She doesn’t follow me but instead stretches her arms and legs to the side until she’s flat on her back and staring up at the sky.
“Wow, be a bit nicer about it. A long, long, long, long—well, you get the idea—time ago, Hecate’s only instruction was to bond with Earth, so I did.
Being curious of my powers and potential, I turned a wolf into a human and made her my friend.
Skip a few thousand generations and here you are. ”
“That’s fucked-up.”
She shrugs into the ground. “That’s magick. You’re welcome, by the way. Without me, you literally would not be here.” Hands into the ground, she abruptly sits straight up. “Would you like to call me Mom or Sis? Either works. Maybe your own personal Goddess, since I did give you life and all that.”
Only one person gives me life. She is a witch as well, but it isn’t this one.
Freya rolls her eyes before standing. “You’re way too serious. Anyway, what else… She can’t shift, and this will be made apparent soon. Now, you’re all caught up, and I should go.”
My hand snatches her wrist. “My turn for questions. Why didn’t you help us in Ontario?”
Her nose scrunches as she peels herself free, as if I’m a big in that strange, ever-changing hair of hers. “Hecate’s instructions. Carina had to become Dark, but I can’t say why, so don’t bother asking.”
“Is she truly in danger in the future?”
“Depends on your definition of danger.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“That wasn’t a well-worded question.”
“Will she survive the war?”
“Can’t say.”
My teeth snap together. “Will she be safer here or with me?”
“Also can’t say.”
“Will she return to me?”
“Can’t say. You’re really not getting this are you?”
“I’m getting you’re a pain in my ass.”
“Two more questions, pup, then I’m out of time.”
“The war Carina said she saw through the Seer—is it real? As in, it’ll happen?”
“Should I point out that was technically two questions? Yes, it’ll happen. This news was made recent to me as well. I’ll save you a question and will not say when or the outcome or any of what happens during it.”
“Once again, very unhelpful. What happened to her birth coven?”
Freya pauses, tipping her head to the side. “Hm, that’s quite the unselfish question. I can’t say everything since it’s not my story, nor the time for it. They’re alive and in hiding. They’ve…gone to a place.”
“A place?”
“It’s not on Earth, so when she starts hunting for them, pull her back. I swear on Hecate, she won’t find them and will spend her life looking for something that doesn’t exist.”
“And you’re not saying where, I presume.”
“Nope.” The P pops.
“One more question.”
“Now you’re just in the negatives.”
Ignoring her, I go on, “Sloane seems pretty fixated on the concept of Light versus Dark, good versus evil. You’re the First Witch, Freya, so you’d know best. Is magick inherently good or bad?”
Her head turns to the side, eyes sliding across the ground, to Carina’s house, and finally past the roof to the sky. “No,” she murmurs. “Magick is a balance. It’s a person’s actions that decide their outcome. The concept of good versus evil was bred in the wars between Heaven and Hell.”
“I though witches didn’t deal with the Celestials.”
She turns to face me, more somber than I’d never imagined her capable of. “Doesn’t mean we’re unaffected by them.”
With that, she disappears.