Chapter 13 The Hedge Witch #2
“It’s not meant to be.” She refills my cup without asking.
“I don’t have certainties about how far it will go.
But that girl is carrying an Omega heritage that’s been sleeping for a long time, possibly her whole life.
I don’t know where it came from. But I know it’s stirring, and I know this village has a way of waking things up. ”
“The mate bond. If I’m activating it by being near her...”
“Then walking away won’t stop it. Not now.
Mistwood has her, same as it has all of us.
” She fixes me with a look that cuts through every layer of deflection I’ve built.
“The question isn’t what she is, Roan. The question is what you’re going to do about it.
And that’s not a question for me. That’s a question for you. ”
She says it gently, but it lands. Because she’s right. I’ve been treating this like an intelligence problem, and it’s not. It’s a choice.
“There’s one more thing,” I say, because I might as well put all of it on the table.
“I haven’t told Rebecca. I haven’t told my father.
If I tell them, it becomes pack business.
My father will want to manage it. Rebecca will want to plan for it.
And Phoebe will go from being a person to being a piece on a board. ”
“And you think keeping it from them is protecting her.”
“I think it’s giving her time. Time to adjust, time to understand, before anyone else decides what her life should look like.”
“Even if it means going against the pack.”
“Especially if it means going against the pack.” I hold her gaze. “My father’s been waiting my whole life for me to fall in line. If I hand Phoebe over to the system, that’s exactly what I’d be doing. Following the rules because they’re the rules, not because they’re right.”
Maggie looks at me for a long time. Then she smiles. Quiet, knowing, carrying the weight of every difficult thing she’s ever watched play out in this village.
“You sound like your mother,” she says.
The words land somewhere I keep locked. My mother died when I was twelve. She is not a subject I discuss.
“She fought the same fight,” Maggie says. “She loved your father. She loved the pack. But she never let the pack tell her how to love. She found her own way, even when it put her at odds with tradition. Especially then.”
I don’t trust myself to speak.
“You’re not your father, Roan. You never will be. And whatever you decide to do about that girl, you’ll do it your own way, because that’s the only way you’ve ever known.” She stands, gathering the cups. “Now. You promised me a fence.”
* * *
I fix Maggie’s fence. It takes two hours. I do it badly because my hands are steadier in a fight than with a hammer. But the posts are straight, the wire is taut. Maggie pronounces it acceptable, which from her is high praise.
Walking home through the village, I pass Ivy Cottage. The surgery sign is dark, the curtains drawn. Sunday. She’ll be inside, probably reading, probably drinking tea, probably not thinking about me as much as I’m thinking about her.
Maggie’s words sit in my chest. You’ll do it your own way, because that’s the only way you’ve ever known.
My way. Not my father’s way, which would be a formal introduction to the pack, a structured integration, the full weight of tradition and ceremony brought to bear on a woman who doesn’t know werewolves exist. Not Rebecca’s way, which would be careful planning, strategic management, and a measured approach that works for pack business but has no place in something this personal.
My way is simple. My way is honest. Just me, standing in front of her, telling her the truth because she deserves it and because every day I don’t is a day I’m choosing my comfort over her right to know what’s happening to her.
Not as the Alpha’s son. Not as a Mistwood heir fulfilling his destiny. As Roan. The man who’s spent his whole life refusing to be what everyone expects, and who is only now beginning to understand that refusing was never the same thing as choosing.
I’ll tell her. Soon. On my terms. And if the pack has a problem with that, they can take it up with me directly. I’ve spent a decade avoiding confrontation with my father. For Phoebe, I’ll have it.
My father won’t like it. Rebecca will have opinions. The pack will adjust, or they won’t.
I keep walking, past the cottage, past the lane, into the trees where the path turns towards my cabin.
The forest is quiet around me, the way it gets in late autumn when the birds have gone south, and the undergrowth has thinned to brown stalks and bare earth.
My wolf is calm for the first time in days, settled by the decision, even if my human brain is still turning it over.
I’ve been called the rebel my whole life. I’ve never really earned it. Avoiding your responsibilities isn’t rebellion. It’s just absence.
But this, choosing to protect someone even when the pack says she belongs to them, choosing honesty over protocol, choosing her over the path of least resistance, this is the first time the word fits.