Chapter 23 - Soren
My heart pounds in my throat as I stare down the Cambiases—Shae and Frederic, Aurela’s parents—feeling even more full of adrenaline than I did before I fought Caspian.
My hands are shaking, my heart thumping in my throat, my vision growing sharper, the colors of the dining room around us standing in brilliant contrast to the man and woman standing in front of me.
Before that fight, there was no doubt in my mind that I would win. Now, though, I have no idea what her parents are going to say, and that makes everything feel out of control.
Everything, that is, except the feeling of Aurela’s hand in mine. Everything except her scent, wrapping around me. Everything but the calm, quiet, certain notion that we’re in this together, no matter what happens next.
Lachlan and Valerie watch quietly, but I watch her reach over and take his hand, something passing between them.
I hope that if the Cambiases make the wrong choice right now, Lach and Val will leave with us, too.
In fact, I know they will—they’ve been in this situation before, and Lach didn’t allow his parents to treat her the way they’re treating me right now.
The way they’ve been treating Aurela for far, far too long.
Through gritted teeth, Aurela’s mother says, “We’ve already lost one daughter. I will not lose another.”
It takes a second for me to parse out what she means by that, but Valerie is already standing, throwing her napkin on the table, Lachlan springing to his feet next to her.
And then I get it—Shae didn’t lose a daughter, she lost the daughter-in-law she wanted. Lachlan didn’t marry whom she wanted him to, and her last hopes for a good addition to the family fell to Aurela.
It still blows my mind that these people would consider Caspian as a good addition.
Or perhaps I’m not thinking of it from the right angle—maybe he’s exactly perfect to join this kind of family, where reputation is everything.
Where Aurela’s parents care far more about money and status than anything else, including love.
“You just don’t know what’s good for you,” Val whispers, shaking her head sadly, “do you? You might not like me, but I’m here to stay, Shae. And I won’t let my child grow up with a grandparent who won’t love them unconditionally.”
With that, Valerie turns, scoops up the carrier in which Levi is still sleeping, and marches toward the door.
“Lachlan,” Frederic warns, turning toward his son, but Lach shakes his head, flipping him off before following his wife and mate out the door.
“Guess that’s our cue to leave, too,” Aurela says, throwing her napkin on the table like Valerie did, looking pleased with herself for it. “And Mom, for your information, I look fucking great in patterns.”
With that, Aurela reaches back for my hand, pulling me behind her toward the door.
“Aurela,” her mother warns, and we stop for a second, turning back. “If you leave right now, you will never be allowed to come back.”
Aurela cocks her head, and in a motion that makes me fall even more in love with her, asks, “Is that a promise?”
I gasp, laugh, then snatch the wine bottle from the table before Aurela pulls me the rest of the way out of the room, feeling invincible the moment we slam through the front door and out into the night.
***
“Oh, gods,” Valerie wheezes, lowering her piece of pizza back to her plate again. “Did you really say that?”
“She really did,” I confirm, laughing and taking another swig from the wine bottle.
We’re up at Valerie and Lachlan’s cottage. After leaving Aurela’s parents’ place, we jumped into the car like we’d just robbed a bank and flew down the street, not stopping until we were halfway back into town.
“I don’t want to go home,” Aurela had breathed, and for a second, my heart sank, but then I realized what she was saying.
After a high like that, it didn’t feel right to go back to my place. I started thinking—maybe we could shift, or go back up to the cabin—
But her phone rang, and it was Valerie on the other end, sounding just as exhilarated as we felt, and she said we should come to their place for pizza since we didn’t really get to eat any of that elaborate meal.
Aurela looked over at me, and when I nodded, she said quickly into the phone, “We’ll be right there.”
The moment we pulled up to the cottage, Aurela was awed by it.
“It’s so cute,” she said, as we stepped out of the car and made our way along the little stone pavers. “That porch—and the windows!”
Diamond-paned windows, with dark shutters bracketed them. Vine growing up the side of the building. Flower boxes lined with little pink peonies.
When we knocked on the door to go inside, there was a single, half-hearted cluck from a chicken somewhere in the yard, and Aurela was in love.
Now, Val has been trying to finish the same piece of pizza for nearly five minutes. But our recounting of what happened after they left is making that hard for her, apparently.
“I just—” Valerie pauses, shaking her head and looking over at Aurela with admiration. “No offense, Aur, but I could never imagine you saying something like that. It’s so bad-ass. It reminds me of—”
She cuts herself short, and all it takes is a glance at her, then at Aurela, to know who she was about to mention.
Tara.
The idea of her hangs heavy in the room around us. Even though this thing with the Cambiases feels finished, like a small win on the books for us, with Tara still out in the woods, it’s impossible to fully relax.
“Sure, you don’t want some of this?” I ask, tipping the mouth of the wine bottle toward Aurela, who pinches her lips together and shakes her head, glancing at the bottle only briefly.
“Don’t like whites,” she says, and I shrug, taking another swig for myself. Normally, alcohol doesn’t affect me, but tonight it feels like a one-two punch. The high of stealing it and the high of drinking it build on one another and making me just a little tipsy.
“So, what are we going to do on Sundays now?” Valerie asks, glancing at her husband, who lets his head fall back against the couch.
“I don’t know,” he murmurs, a tired smile on his face. “Sleep?”
Valerie rolls her eyes. “Or maybe we should start a new family tradition. One with our families.”
Lachlan glances at me, and it hits me for the first time that he and I are going to be like brothers. His children will play with mine, and our families will be intertwined in a way that far surpasses friendship.
“Yeah,” he says, shrugging nonchalantly, back to being cool-and-calm Lachlan after the fury he’s shown off this past week. It’s a little jarring to see how quickly he’s changed his mind, but I’m pleased that he thinks I’m good enough for his sister.
Even if his parents never will.
“Why do you think they’re like that?” Aurela asks, breaking the sleepy little moment, the pleasant talk of a new tradition.
I sit up a little, glancing over at her, realizing she’s the only one of us who hasn’t had a single sip of alcohol tonight—stolen wine or not.
“Generational trauma?” Lachlan asks, glancing at Valerie, and I get the feeling the two of them have talked about this a lot.
“We never really knew our grandparents, but I’m betting that has a lot to do with it.
Maybe they grew up with impossible standards, and they didn’t know anything other than how to pass them along. ”
“Do you think they’re ever going to…change?” Aurela looks small, and I reach over, wrapping my arm around her, tugging her into me. She sighs into the touch, and I breathe in her scent.
“Don’t know,” Lachlan says, his head tipped back against the couch, his eyes on the ceiling.
Logically, I know the two of them are siblings—twins, even—but this is the first moment it really hits me what that means.
They grew up together, spent a million moments side by side.
And right now, Aurela is a scared little sister—by just a few minutes, but still—asking her older brother for information he doesn’t have, answers he can’t quite give her.
“For a while, we thought that they would,” Valerie says, her voice low, her eyes rising to meet first Aurela’s, then mine.
“The truth is that, even with all their faults, your parents are doing some form of trying. My parents…they were pretty clear about not wanting me when it became obvious that I couldn’t shift.
After that first fire, I left town, and they never even tried to look for me.
And when I came back, they were already gone, moving on and leaving no trace of them behind. ”
Lachlan reaches over to his wife, settling a hand on her knee.
“So, what I’m trying to say,” Val says, after a deep steadying breath, “is that I was really hopeful your parents just needed a wake-up call. It’s clear they care about you both, but I don’t know where the line is between love and control.
And I don’t know how to manage a relationship with them when they constantly step over it. ”
“When did you get so wise?” Aurela whispers, shaking her head, and I gently use my thumbs to wipe the tears from her face.
Growing up without parents wasn’t fun, but I didn’t go through any of this, so maybe that’s a small saving grace. My parents will always get to be angelic martyrs in my mind, while these guys have to live with the gruesome fact that their parents are, in fact, flawed and broken people.
“No offense, Aur,” Valerie says, laughing and reaching for her wine glass, “but it helps to leave the house every once in a while.”
Aurela laughs, shaking her head and reaching for another piece of pizza, though it’s long gone cold by now.
“Yeah,” she says with a sly glance in my direction. “I’m learning that the easy way, I suppose.”