Chapter 13
Nia shuffled her tarot deck, waiting for the tingling energy to form in her palms. That was always her signal that the deck had been properly cleansed and was ready to communicate with her once again. For the last few days, it’d been coming more and more slowly.
She sighed as she continued to shuffle. There was little for her to do but wait, and it was starting to wear on her.
Her lynx was restless. Nia had already let it free and gone for a long run through the woods and mountains.
The sights were gorgeous, the smells incredible, and the freedom of so much open space had been exhilarating, but all her troubles had come rushing back the moment she was human again.
She jumped when her phone rang, sending the cards scattering onto the bedspread.
The Two of Swords landed face-up. It depicted a woman wearing a blindfold, holding a sword in each hand.
This was a card of indecision, suggesting a struggle to see the full picture that might allow a person to make a good choice.
It might as well have been a drawing of Nia on that card.
Appropriately enough, Kristy was calling her to videochat. As her tarot mentor, Kristy had taught Nia everything she knew. She answered. “Hey.”
“Hey! How’s our adventurer?” Kristy asked. Her newborn daughter, Daphne, was sitting on her lap, staring happily into the phone.
“Oh, my god! Daphne’s gotten so big!” Nia felt a pang of homesickness. She knew from the moment she decided to come to Montana that she would miss everyone in the coven. Now that she had so little left for her there, she missed them even more.
“You don’t even know the half of it!” Kristy laughed. “She’s found her inner animal, and she’s quite the beast!”
Nia put her hand over her chest and sighed, sad that she wasn’t there to experience it with them. “Aw, I wanna see!”
“Daphne, can you show Nia your kitty cat?” Kristy asked her daughter.
The baby was busy staring at the phone screen.
“Hey, sweetie.”
Daphne looked up at her mother.
“Nia wants to see your kitty cat. Can you show her?”
Daphne smacked her hands on her lap. She grabbed her toes and grinned, babbling to herself for a minute.
Then the thick, dark hair on her head began to sprout all over her body.
Instead of the sleek black of her mother’s coat, the fuzz showed the dark brown leopard spots hidden underneath.
Her round ears twitched at the top of her head.
Daphne wrapped her paws around Kristy’s wrist and clamped her tiny teeth down on her hand.
“Easy, honey,” Kristy laughed. “Once she figured out how to do this, I basically became her chew toy! And she’s so fast! I can’t bring her outside unless I’m ready to be in my panther. On two legs, I’m not fast enough to chase her down.”
“Oh, Kristy. She’s just a doll. She looks like the perfect mix of you and Grant.” Daphne had Grant’s dark hair and her mother's green, angular eyes. “It sounds like you’ve really got your hands full.”
“I do, but I don’t mind. And you know how it is around here. I’ve always got plenty of help. Mom can’t stay away from her grandkids for long, so Grant and I still get to have dates a couple of times a month.”
“That’s great,” Nia sighed. She’d been so focused on her tarot practice and her dreams of opening the bakery with Brianna over the last few months that she hadn’t thought much about her other dream.
Her desire for a mate and a family was a more intrinsic dream, one that had lived inside her since she was a little girl and resurfaced now and then.
When she was busy with life, it went to the back burner.
Then she met Cole, and those desires had come rushing back.
She liked the idea of someone holding her as she fell asleep at night.
It would be nice to have someone to bounce her ideas off of or to rage at when she was angry at the world.
Nia still had plenty of time to have children, too, and the sweet baby dragons had reminded her of just how fulfilling that would be.
“But anyway, I didn’t call to chat about my boring life. I wanted to see how things are going with you! How’s your tarot going?” Kristy asked.
Nia looked down at the Two of Swords again.
She flipped it over and put it back on top of the deck.
She hadn’t drawn the card, but she knew the deck would find a way to deliver the message it wanted.
“Well, I’ve been pretty busy. I did get to do some readings for Brianna’s pack, so I’m not completely rusty yet. ”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’ve got so much going on with the bakery. Tell me all about it.” Daphne was now on her back in Kristy’s lap, batting at her mother’s hair. Kristy held her hand in the air and then swooped it down onto Daphne’s belly. The baby panther grabbed it with all four of her paws.
“Well…” Nia didn’t want her family back in Salem to know how badly things had turned out.
She’d been so hopeful, and they’d all supported her.
She hated the idea of returning to the coven as a failure.
Since she’d be going back anyway, though, she might as well tell her. “It was going really well at first.”
“But?” Kristy prompted as she tweaked Daphne’s tail.
“But it turns out my mate is here,” Nia said slowly.
“Whoo! There’s a distraction for you! That’s so exciting! Tell me all about him!” Kristy had gotten too focused on the phone, so she didn’t see Daphne about to pounce on her knee. “Ow!”
“He’s a good guy. Literally, since he’s with the police.” This was so hard to say out loud. All Nia could think about was the twisted look of pure fury on Brianna’s face, and she wondered how many other people might feel the same way.
The sisterhood loved her, though. They knew her better than anyone, probably even better than Brianna at this point. “He’s actually the chief of police as well as the pack Alpha. But he’s Brianna’s dad.” There. She’d said it.
Kristy instantly understood how tricky the situation was. “Oh, honey. How did that go over?”
“Not well.” Nia thought she’d already cried out all of her tears after Brianna had caught her and Cole at the bakery.
More had come the next night when she was alone, and another flood of them came after that.
She’d reached the point of finally feeling like she’d cried herself out and was just numb to it all, but telling Kristy renewed her pain.
“Brianna’s furious with us. We told her that we’re fated, that we weren’t just doing this because we wanted to, but that didn’t seem to make any difference to her.
She’s hardly speaking to me, and she doesn’t want me to be part of the bakery anymore. ”
“Oh, sweetie. Hang on a second.” Kristy got up and stepped out of the frame for a minute, carrying Daphne. Nia could hear a door and a murmuring voice, and then Kristy came back alone. “I’m so sorry, Nia. That’s not fair.”
“It sure isn’t.” Nia grabbed the box of tissues from the nightstand, which was almost empty. “I feel so stupid. I was so excited to come to Montana and finally do what I’d always wanted, but now I wish I’d never come at all.”
Kristy looked like she was about to start crying, too. “I’m so sorry. You’re not stupid. You couldn’t have known that any of this would happen. You followed your heart, and that’s what all of us should do.”
“Following my heart bit me in the ass,” Nia retorted, wiping her nose and tossing the tissue before grabbing another one. “My best friend hates me. I found my mate, but I can’t be with him. I’m going to have to come home.”
“I wish I were there so I could give you a hug,” Kristy soothed. “You poor thing. You’ve really been through the wringer.”
“It’ll be over with soon enough,” Nia gulped.
“I hadn’t had a chance to unpack very much, so at least it’ll be a little easier to throw everything back into another moving van.
I want to stay here until the bakery’s grand opening, just in case Brianna decides she needs me for something.
I’m sure you’ve also heard about our run-in with dragons, and I feel like I need to be here for that, too. ”
Kristy nodded. “Beck and Kendrick are on their way. They should be there tomorrow. How are the little ones?”
“Pretty good, actually.” Though Nia had debated whether it was the right thing to do or not, she’d gone back to the packhouse periodically to help with the babies. She’d managed to time things out well so that neither Cole nor Brianna had been there, and Linda had filled her in on Eve’s arrival.
“They could definitely use Beck and Kendrick’s help still.
The babies have their mother back, but Cole wants to try speaking with Eve’s mate,” Nia explained once she’d shared the story with Kristy.
“It’s probably going to be better to have some other dragons along, so this guy won’t think it’s just a bunch of wolves coming at him. ”
“Plus a lynx,” Kristy reminded her.
“Yeah. Maybe.” Nia wasn’t sure if she’d be going along on their mission.
She hadn’t spoken to Cole about it, and she was certain Brianna wouldn’t want her there.
When she’d gone to the packhouse, she’d felt the other members watching her closely.
“They know,” Linda had told her quietly when they had a moment together.
“Oh.” Nia had felt a vibration of guilt and shame run through her.
Linda had put her finger under Nia’s chin and brought her head back up. “It’s not really any of my business, but I thought it was only fair that you should know the matter has been discussed.”
“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” Nia had tried to explain, but Linda had shaken her head.
“This is for you and Cole to work out in whatever way is best. As I said, I just thought it was fair that you should know.”
Nia was grateful to her. She’d been hoping that they could keep the matter as private as possible.
She highly doubted Brianna had told anyone, which meant the rest of the pack had simply figured it out.
At least she knew that everyone was talking about her behind her back, though the knowledge brought no comfort.
“Hopefully things go smoothly with this dragon,” Kristy said, snapping Nia back to the present moment, “but if they don’t, how’s your magic been?”
“It’s been changing.” Nia held up her hand and spread her fingers. From the tip of each one, she created a steady stream of tiny bubbles.
Kristy laughed. “It looks like an aerator in an aquarium!”
That brought a smile to Nia’s face, too, which felt good.
She closed her fist, and when she opened it again, there was one large sphere sitting on her palm.
“I know. It’s been kind of wild. When I first got this power from the portal in that church, I could only fire them out at full speed and blast everything in the room.
Now I can slow it down as much as I want to, and I even made little bubbles for the babies to chase. It’s kind of fun.”
“You know, Colette has experienced something similar.” Kristy tipped her head to the side and tapped her chin.
“Oh, yeah?” Several of the younger witches had been given new powers when a banshee had been using them to help open a portal into another realm.
There was a lot about it that Nia still didn’t understand, and even Maeve, their High Priestess, had never seen anything like it before.
Colette’s power had come in the form of a magic sling that she could wind up and fling at her target.
It had always reminded Nia of those sticky hands that came in gumball machines.
“She found out she can send other energies through her slings,” Kristy told her. “She can send extreme heat through them and melt ice wherever it touches, for one thing.”
“What about the others? Has their magic changed at all?” Iris had been given the power to create shields of incredible strength, and Zoe could pull magic directly from ley lines.
“They’ve only just started exploring that once we found out what Colette could do, so we’ll have to see where that goes. It’s pretty exciting, though. Just make sure you keep all this in mind and stay in control,” Kristy advised. “There’s no telling what you might be able to do.”
“I will.” Iridescent bubbles didn’t seem to be too much of a threat, at least. “I guess I’ll get the chance to work with everyone else on it when I come back.”
Kristy frowned. “Look, I’m not going to tell you what to do.
No one wants that. Just don’t make any sudden decisions, especially when there’s heartache involved.
Take your time. Really explore your options.
You’ll always have a place in the sisterhood, whether you return next week, next year, or even in ten years. We’ve got your back, okay?”
“You’re going to make me cry again,” Nia warned, swiping her fingertip under her eye. It was a good thing she hadn’t bothered wearing makeup lately, because it would’ve all dripped off. “It’s hard, though. I don’t see any way forward.”
“I can only imagine. It’s not every day that you meet your fated, though.
Don’t let this go too soon. We’ve all been there, in one way or another.
” Kristy whipped her head to the side as a door banged.
A dark blur barreled into her lap, all claws and tail.
“Daphne! Your Aunt Tina was supposed to be watching you.”
“Sorry!” Tina called. “She’s fast!”
“It’s all right.” Kristy returned her attention to Nia. “I’ve got to get going. Hang in there, okay? We all love you.”
“I love you, too.”
They got off the phone, and the room was too quiet.
She picked up her tarot deck, but another card fell out.
This time it was the Knight of Cups. A man in a long dark cloak stood looking down at three spilled cups.
His back was turned to the two cups still standing behind him.
It was a card about failures and isolation, which felt very accurate at the moment.
It was also, however, a reminder that all hope wasn’t lost and that there were opportunities if one only looked around.
Like the Two of Swords, it was a card about careful choices.
Nia sighed. If only she felt like she had a choice she could make.