Chapter 40 Aiden #2
“What group of scholars?” I asked. I’d never heard of such a group, and the Moon knew I’d spent the month before camp began frantically researching this very thing.
He shrugged. “We don’t really have a name, but more just a shared thirst for knowledge and”—he went back to staring intently at Avery—“a desire to right some wrongs done to the females of our kind.”
“And what is it that you want with Avery?” I pressed.
“Simply to help her learn where she comes from and what role the Moon, in her infinite wisdom, may have for our glorious tiger,” he replied.
He sobered, the kindly grandfather giving way to a hardened shifter elder.
“And to have a frank discussion about those forces lurking out there who would seek to harm her and those like her.”
Every single one of us went on high alert.
This was knowledge we all needed—to protect our mate and to help us uncover who had done unspeakable harm to her family and Elijah’s.
But at what cost?
“You have my attention,” Avery said. “What’s the catch?”
He chuckled. “Well, I had hoped you wouldn’t see it as a catch, but you’re correct that I do have my own motives. I won’t lie to you, my dear.”
“Great,” Avery said. She was still remarkably calm, but her tiger was pacing with increasing agitation, and it was driving my jaguar up the wall. We’d all been through a whole fucking lot in the past forty-eight hours, and this was a curveball we didn’t need but couldn’t ignore. “Let’s hear it.”
“I’d like to invite you to come with us today and spend a week at my lakeside manor,” Jeremiah said.
“I have in my library many of the apocryphal texts that those of us seeking truth have collected over the generations. I will share them with you and tell you everything I know about where you come from.”
Apocryphal texts. That was exactly what I’d been searching for—esoteric writings whose existence I’d only theorized about with Elijah as I tore apart my dad’s home library.
But there was no way this bastard was offering up this sacred and likely dangerous knowledge out of the good of his heart.
“That’s very generous,” Avery replied. She snaked an arm around my waist and snuggled into my side.
“I’ll bring Aiden here along with me. He’s a professor of magic and history, so he’d be best to help me sort through that.
” She grabbed Elijah next and pulled him into her other side.
“Or how about I bring my basilisk? Like me, he has a particular interest in learning more about nefarious groups who are harming female shifters.”
A chill seeped into the air and surrounded us all. I didn’t have to look at Elijah to know that he was putting all his energy into keeping his beast from committing additional murder.
Jeremiah’s smile slipped. “Ah, well, that’s the crux of the problem, my dear. My offer is only good if you come alone.”
“Hell no,” Heath growled. “Do you think we’re stupid?”
“Let me guess,” Avery said. “None of these men are allowed to accompany me, but Kellan and his quad will be present the entire week?”
Jeremiah shrugged helplessly. “I said I wouldn’t lie to you.
I want to give you a chance to get to know my grandson and the fine men of his quad outside of the Guardian program.
As I’m sure they’ve mentioned, they do not hold the same prejudices against bonds with a beast soul as their peers.
” He narrowed his eyes at Heath. “And I am a bit suspicious regarding the intentions of this group of young men, my dear. Holden Blackwell is the last male on earth who would raise his sons with progressive views on females with a beast.”
Heath bared his teeth. “You’re not wrong about my father. But you’re dead wrong about our intentions regarding Avery.”
Avery gave me a reassuring squeeze, and then she took a step forward and lifted her chin.
“Kellan,” she said, addressing the scheming griffin over his grandfather’s shoulder.
“This needs to stop. I appreciate your open-mindedness regarding shifting females and bonds, but you need to know that Heath, Aiden, Elijah, and Wyatt are my Fated.”
Jeremiah’s eyes widened.
Kellan, however, did not look surprised. “I thought that might be the case.” He gave her a wry smile. “But I don’t give up that easily, Avery.”
“Are you insane?” she asked incredulously. “Their beasts are not rational when it comes to me, Kellan. You watched Elijah swallow a man whole with your own two eyes.”
Jeremiah slanted Elijah an uneasy look, and Elijah gifted him with his most unhinged smile.
Kellan’s face hardened. “Avery, they found out you were Fated before camp started, right? It would explain the seismic shift in their behavior. And yet, you were at odds with them for most of the summer. You’re not bonded.
If it were us—if we’d found our Fated, especially if she was you—there’d have been no fucking questions.
We’d have been bonded by the first Full Moon.
But you weren’t. They didn’t want you until they did, and they hurt you in the process.
I want the chance to show you that we’re a better choice. ”
“Do you wanna fucking die, Crimson?” Wyatt growled. “I have had a hard fucking couple of days, and you’re trying to keep my mate from me. I will rip your throat out.”
“Okay, okay,” Jeremiah said, waving his hands. “I understand this is a… complication, but my offer stands. One week, Avery, and you’ll have full access to my entire library, including everything I know about the insidious work of legatum menidis.”
I sucked in a breath.
Avery whirled. “Aiden?”
“Legatum menidis is Latin. Legatum is like a bequest, in the written and codified sense. It could be understood as a precursor to the notion of ‘heritage,’ which didn’t come to be used in English to mean ‘something passed down from the ancestors’ until the 1600s.
Menidis is a latinized form of a Greek word for Moon. ”
She blinked at me, and then realization dawned. “Lunar Heritage.”
Elijah swore.
Avery pressed her lips together and shut her eyes for a moment. She took a single fortifying breath, and then she turned back to Jeremiah.
“One week,” she said. “I’m not a prisoner. If I decide I want to leave, I leave.”
“Of course,” he said easily.
“I’m allowed contact with my family,” she went on.
He nodded. “Certainly. But I’m afraid I have to insist that you do not have contact with the gentlemen behind you for the week you’re with us.”
Heath was vibrating with barely restrained violence. The rest of us were not any better, but we had to keep it together.
If there was even a chance of learning something that could help us shed light on who killed Avery’s mother and Elijah’s, on who wanted to hurt Avery….
We had to let her go.
“Fine,” Avery said tersely. “But George is coming with me.”
“Hell no,” Kellan spat.
Jeremiah frowned. “Who?”
On cue, George emerged from behind Heath’s car and slithered over to Avery. He hissed at Jeremiah, and then he wound himself around Avery’s leg.
“My python,” Avery said. “He comes with me, or no deal.”
“Avery, come on,” Kellan said. “You’ll be perfectly safe. You don’t need a rabid snake bodyguard.”
“He. Comes. With. Me. Or. No. Deal,” she bit out.
“Yes, yes, that’s fine,” Jeremiah said, waving a hand. “Your week starts now, my dear. Let’s get your luggage into the Suburban.”
Fuck.
I can’t do this.
“Hey,” Avery said, gathering us in close. We all put our hands on her, desperately, wherever we could reach. “I have to do this. He knows something about Lunar Heritage. We can’t afford to ignore that.”
“I know, but fuck,” Heath said. “We just…. We just came together, Killer. The thought of being away from you for even a week feels like someone is tearing my lungs from my chest.”
“We can do it,” she said. “It’ll suck, but I’ll bail as soon as I can. And you trust me, right? I don’t want anything to do with Kellan’s quad.”
I stroked her cheek. “Of course we do. That was never a question.”
“Elijah?” Avery asked tentatively.
His eyes glowed yellow, his pupils slitted. The beast was fighting him hard, poor guy. “Don’t worry, Dove,” he said, his voice a soft hiss. “I’ll never be far from you.”
“Okay.” She blew out a breath. “Okay. I’m doing this. George will be with me, and I’ll be okay. It’ll be over before we know it. Please let Ian know everything. I love you all.”
As Kellan and the assholes in his quad moved her bags from Heath’s car to the Suburban, we kissed her goodbye, one by one.
And then we watched as she donned the uncompromising focus she always had before battle and climbed into the front seat, George draped over her shoulders like armor.
Doors slammed, and then they drove off, spiriting away the beating heart of our quad.
“We’re not going to take this lying down,” Heath said after they’d disappeared. “But we have to play it right.”
“Yes,” I said.
Wyatt and Elijah grunted their agreement.
“All right, huddle up,” Heath said. “This is what we’re going to do.”
To Be Continued…
Avery and the boys’ story concludes in Rage of Beasts. Want a sneak peek at a draft of the first chapter? Sign up for my newsletter at