Chapter 14 #2
"We're talking about protecting tourists." A muscle ticked in Ryker's cheek. "The pack's reputation. Making sure no one gets hurt."
"You don't know the witches are responsible."
"I know they're the only magic-users here. I know the incidents started after they arrived. I know things have gotten worse since Willow's been investigating." Something flickered beneath the surface of his voice. Doubt, maybe, or guilt he was trying to bury. "We can't afford to take chances."
Willow listened to them argue about her like she was furniture, a problem to be solved rather than a person sitting three feet away. Gray was defending her, pushing back where he could, but she could see the tension in his shoulders. He was outnumbered here, and they both knew it.
Having Lily here might have helped. She would have torn Ryker apart with her bare hands, and would have stood between Willow and every wolf in this room if she had to.
The alphas must have kept this meeting from her deliberately, probably ordered Gray to stay quiet, and the guilt on his face told Willow exactly how much he hated it.
All this time she'd thought she was making progress. Had believed all the hard work, the festival planning, the proving herself over and over meant something. But she'd been tolerated, not accepted, and the second someone offered a reason to push her out, they'd grabbed it with both hands.
Willow stood, and the chair scraped against concrete loud enough to cut through the noise.
"I turned against my own mother in front of everyone. You know that." Her voice didn't shake. It was a small mercy. "And then I brought the others with me here because I believed in this pack. Because I thought sanctuary meant something to both of us."
"Would you know if one of them was working against you?" Shaw asked from the back of the room. "You didn't know your own mother was planning to steal your cousin's power."
Her hands curled into fists at her sides as she tried to ignore that ridiculous question.
"And now you're debating whether to exile us based on magic that doesn't even match our signatures?"
"We're debating precautions." Damien's voice was measured, reasonable, which was somehow worse than hostility. "If there's any chance the disruptions continue during the plunge—"
"I'm the one who warned you about the risk."
I helped you. I gave everything I could. Why isn't it enough?
She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. She wouldn't beg. Not in front of them. Not in front of him.
"The sanctuary witches have been here since October." Diego was trying for calm. "Why would they start sabotaging now, with the council vote coming up?"
"Leverage." Ryker didn't hesitate. "Desperate packs make desperate decisions. What better way to remind us how vulnerable we are?"
"That's insane." The word ripped out before she could stop it. "You're saying we'd sabotage our own chance at sanctuary? Threaten the one thing standing between us and eviction?"
Ryker smirked. "I can't rule it out, and neither can the alphas."
Voices crashed over each other as the room erupted into debate again, someone mentioning logistics, Dante asking about proof standards, and Willow realizing they were deciding her fate while she stood there watching.
No.
"I'm not going to sit here while you debate my exile." Ice coated every word. "When you've made your decision, you know where to find me. The bakery. The one I've been running while trying to save your fucking festival."
She walked toward the door without waiting for permission, without looking back. Her spine was steel and her eyes burned, but she'd swallow glass before crying in front of them.
The discussion resumed before she'd even reached the threshold.
Frigid air slammed into her the second she stepped outside, cold and damp, the wind off the water feeling colder than before she’d arrived. She made it three steps before her legs threatened to buckle.
Not here. She couldn't shatter in the middle of the street where any wolf with enhanced senses could hear her fall apart. There was no way she’d give Ryker that kind of satisfaction.
Willow forced herself to keep walking, past the bakery with its warm golden windows, and past the marina where boats knocked against the dock. Each step dragged like she was wading through wet concrete, and her chest had become a vise that wouldn't let her breathe.
She found the bench behind the boathouse, half-hidden by a stack of crab traps. The damp wood soaked through her jeans when she sat, and then the tears came, hot against her frozen cheeks, and she let them fall where no one could see.
All she could think about was how he'd held her like she was precious. Like she mattered. And tonight he'd stood in front of everyone and asked them to cast her out.
She'd known what she was getting into when she let him touch her.
He was damaged, and no matter what happened between them he'd hurt her eventually.
But she'd told herself the connection was real underneath, that when he looked at her, some part of him saw her.
Not Iris's daughter, not the witch who couldn't be trusted.
She'd been so certain she could reach him if she just tried hard enough, or proved herself enough.
All she'd done was hand him the weapon he was using against her.
She'd sensed the magic in that cove and told them something lurked there, tried to help, and Ryker had twisted her findings into evidence of her guilt. Her hands were shaking now, and she pressed them flat against her thighs and tried to breathe.
Sage and the others had followed her here, trusted her promise that Devils Point would be different, that they could build something safe away from her mother's shadow.
Now Ryker's evidence threatened to rip them from the only home they had, and Willow couldn't think straight enough to fight because her traitorous body still ached for the man destroying them.
That was the cruelest part. Even now, even after this, some piece of her still wanted him. She wanted to crawl back to that night in the cabin, with the heat between them, and the moment she'd thought he might choose her.
She needed it to stop. The wanting, the burning, the way her blood lit on fire every time he walked into a room, making her stupid and desperate and blind.
There had to be a way.
Her grandmother's books mentioned old magic for impossible situations. Blood rituals. Binding spells. The kind of workings that cost something real. She'd skimmed past those pages for years, uncomfortable with what they implied. Magic should heal and nurture, not cut and sever.
But some wounds needed cutting to heal, and she simply couldn’t take this anymore.
She stared out at the dark water and thought about what it would mean to sever whatever thread had tied her to Ryker since the moment they met.
It had drawn her to him, but not him to her.
At least not enough. Instead, he'd chosen to stand against her, to believe the worst, to throw her to the wolves in the most literal sense possible.
She could choose too.
The debate might still be happening in that distillery.
They could be deciding right now to exile her, or to grant a reprieve she apparently hadn't earned.
Either way, the pack would keep treating her like a threat to be managed.
And Ryker would keep looking at her with those dead eyes while she burned for someone who'd never choose her back.
Unless she made it stop.
Willow wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and stood. Her legs held this time, her tears had finally slowed, and something harder was settling into her chest. Resolve.
She had to tell Sage and the others what had happened. That conversation would break her all over again, but they deserved to know before the alphas showed up with an eviction notice.
And after that, she was going to find her grandmother's recipe book. The one wrapped in cloth under her bed, with pages she'd never let herself fully read because the magic had been to dangerous to consider.
There had to be a way to make the burning stop. If severing whatever bound her to Ryker was the only path forward, she'd pay that price willingly.
She was done earning a place that kept getting ripped away. Done burning for a man who'd rather see her exiled than trust his own heart.
The pack could decide her fate. They couldn't decide this.
Willow squared her shoulders and started walking toward their cabin, where four innocent witches waited for news she couldn't bear to deliver. The wind bit at her face, carrying voices too distant to make out.
Let them debate. Let them decide.
She was taking her power back.