Chapter 29 Avine
TWENTY-NINE
AVINE
Aknock at the door interrupted the moment.
Before anyone could answer, it swung open, and Elder Sue Tidewell swept into the room with the serene confidence of someone who’d never encountered a locked door she couldn’t talk her way through.
“I heard there was wine.” She perched in the only empty chair as if it had been left specifically for her. “And feelings. I do so love a good feelings session.”
Avine stared at her great-aunt. Sue wore floral patterns that belonged at a garden party—flowing and completely inappropriate for an impromptu bedroom spa night. Her silver hair was perfectly coiffed. Her smile was perfectly innocent.
Avine didn’t trust that smile for a second.
“Aunt Sue. How’d you know we were—”
“Oh, dear.” Sue waved a hand. “I know everything that happens in this town. You should understand that by now.” She accepted a glass of wine from Junie—who looked slightly awed and slightly unnerved—and took a delicate sip. “Now. I understand there’s been some discussion about your situation.”
“My situation.”
“With the Alpha. With your magic. With the interesting position you’ve found yourself in.” Sue’s eyes—sharp as ever despite her sweet-old-lady facade—fixed on Avine. “You’ve been hiding your power for years, dear. The inn saw through that.”
A chill slid down Avine’s spine. “You knew. About my magic.”
“Of course I knew.” Sue smiled. “I’ve known since you were a child. You think you visited me those summers by accident? You think I didn’t notice the way the sea responded to you, the way the wards reacted when you were near?”
“But my mother—” Avine began.
“Your mother was earth-touched, yes. The sea magic doesn’t always pass in a straight line.
” Sue’s tone was patient, matter-of-fact.
“In the Tidewell line, it runs deep but quiet — skips a generation, sometimes two, then comes back stronger than it left. Your great-grandmother on my side could call storms from a clear sky. Your mother never had a drop of it, and neither did her mother before her. You got the full measure of what they missed.”
The room had gone very quiet. Even Cassia looked uncertain.
“You orchestrated this.” Avine spoke slowly. “My coming here. The inn. All of it.”
“I may have… nudged things along.” Sue’s expression didn’t waver.
“The inn needed someone with sea magic strong enough to wake the old wards. You needed a place to become who you were always meant to be. I created the conditions for both things to happen.” She paused.
“I’ve been maneuvering for this for a decade, dear niece.
Longer, perhaps. These things take time. ”
Avine didn’t know whether to be furious or grateful. Both, maybe. Both seemed appropriate.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you have believed me?” Sue asked. “Would you have come if I’d said, ‘Avine dear, you’ve got dormant sea magic and I need you to come awaken it so you can bond with an inn and possibly fall in love with a werewolf’?”
“No.”
“Exactly.” Sue rose, smoothing her skirt.
“The point, my dear, is that you’re stronger than you think.
And so is what’s growing between you and the Alpha.
But strength means risk. Love always does.
” She moved toward the door, then paused, looking back over her shoulder.
“The question is whether the risk is worth it. Only you can answer that.”
She left as suddenly as she’d arrived, the door clicking shut behind her.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
“Well.” Junie broke the silence. “That was deeply unnerving.”
“She’s been planning this for a decade.” Cassia breathed. “Your great-aunt’s a criminal mastermind.”
But despite everything—the manipulation, the secrets, the decades of planning—she couldn’t find it in herself to be angry. Because Sue was right. She had been hiding. And it had taken coming here, waking the magic, nearly dying, falling for a wolf—all of it—to finally make her want to stay.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
She picked it up, knowing before she looked who it would be.
Still awake? Theo’s message read. Beck says I’m wearing a hole in the floor with my pacing.
She smiled, affection spreading through her that had nothing to do with the earlier heat and everything to do with simple care.
I’m okay, she typed back. Stop worrying.
His response came almost immediately. I’m incapable of not worrying about you.
Her smile widened. She could picture him—probably in his office at the brewery, paperwork forgotten, phone in hand, thinking about her when he should be focusing on pack business.
Pacing that hole in the floor because he couldn’t sit still, couldn’t stop worrying, couldn’t stop caring, even when caring was inconvenient.
God, she was in trouble.
I know, she wrote. Then, before she could talk herself out of it: I’m glad.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Get some sleep, he finally sent. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Tomorrow. The word felt like a promise.