14. CHAPTER 14
I’m about to reply to Grayden’s text message to organize the meet-up with his family when a knock on the door interrupts me.
I furrow my brows, dumbfoundedly staring at it. It’s not Grayden because he would’ve mentioned in his text that he was coming over. As always, I’m also not expecting any other visitors.
The person on the other side of the door knocks again, this time harder and faster. They’re getting impatient. It breaks through my shock, and I rush to check who it is. I lift myself on my toes to look through the peephole.
“I know you’re there,” Hekate says. “I can feel you on the other side of the door, Helia.”
“Just a moment,” I tell her, trying to deal with the shock of her visit as I tackle the many locks on my door.
Hekate pushes past me the moment I open the door. She glances around the living room and smirks. “How terribly quaint.”
In an attempt to busy myself, I close the door. It buys me a second to take a breath before I face my sister.
“What are you doing here?” I ask directly, locking my eyes on hers which are of a slightly darker shade of green than mine.
She never bothered to pay much attention to me outside of my duties to the coven and the things I could do for her. It’s also been a while since she went anywhere without her personal security team or any other lackey to kiss her ass in hopes of getting a better position in the coven.
“What? Can’t I come and visit my sister without having some hidden agenda?” Hekate teases, faking an innocent smile that makes me shudder. “I wanted to have a cup of coffee with you and chat.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, knowing that I can only push her so far. Hekate will only ever reveal what she wants to and whenever she wants to. We’re all just pawns in whatever game she’s playing, so I might as well get along with it. “No milk and no sugar?”
“Pure black,” she grins. “Just like my soul.”
I nod. “I’ll be right back.”
“Take your time,” she tells me. “I hope you don’t mind if I take a look around.”
“Knock yourself out,” I say over my shoulder before disappearing into the kitchen and sending a quick text to Grayden.
Hekate is here.
I put on water to boil and take out two cups out of the cupboard. My hands are shaking, and I jump for my phone when it buzzes with Grayden’s reply.
What do you mean?
I take a deep breath, trying very hard to keep my cool while also getting frustrated with Grayden for wasting time on explanations. Hekate has a crazy ability to read me like an open book. It must be a twin thing.
As quickly as I can, I type back a string of messages, sending them one after another.
She came to my apartment to hang out.
We never do that.
She’s never been here before.
Something’s wrong.
She knows.
“What are you doing?” Hekate asks from the kitchen’s doorway, startling me into nearly dropping my phone.
“Waiting for the water to boil,” I reply, then hold my phone up for her to see. “And checking on work. They want me to come in to do an earlier shift tomorrow.”
Hekate studies me for the longest of moments. Her eyes don’t reveal anything. There’s only an emotionless cold void in them.
“Okay,” she says at last, seemingly accepting my explanation. I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding, allowing my muscles to relax ever so slightly. Hekate smiles and walks to the fridge. “You still drink yours with milk?”
“Yeah.”
I finish off the coffee and then pour it into two cups. Hekate tops mine off with a bit of milk before returning the carton back to the fridge. She takes her cup and goes back to the living room. I do the same, following her more out of habit than anything else.
Hekate makes herself comfortable on the sofa as if she’s been here many times before. I push away the unexpected sadness of the fact that she’s sitting here and not Grayden.
“Are you going to get that?” Hekate asks, nodding at the phone in my hand.
Grayden has sent me dozens of messages back, but I can’t risk opening them in front of her. Knowing my sister, she would lean closer and read them if given the chance.
I smile and shake my head. “It’s my day off. I’ve already told them I can cover Liam’s shift.”
I’m hoping that adding a detail would make the story more believable. Hekate nods like we’re having a normal chat, then makes it even worse as she leans closer and turns it into a girl talk.
“Are there any hot doctors in that hospital of yours?” she asks with a level of excitement that I’m not sure is entirely faked. “I’ve always had this fantasy about hot men in uniforms. Usually, it’s about firefighters and cops, but doctors in their cute white coats sound good too. Please tell me that Liam is one of those hotties. He sounds Irish. Does he have an accent?”
I stare at her with my eyes wide and my mouth open. I don’t know who this person sitting next to me is, but she’s nothing like the Hekate I grew up with.
“Who are you and what did you do with my sister?” I ask, trying to make it sound like a joke but in reality, watching her like a hawk.
“Isn’t this what you always wanted?” Hekate asks, tilting her head to the side. “Haven’t you ached for a sister with whom you could talk about boy and girl stuff?”
“No. Yes. I mean, I just wanted a sister,” I say quickly, stumbling over my own words. “Whenever I told people that I have a twin, everyone immediately assumed that we’re best friends.”
“Oh, Helia,” Hekate breathes, putting a hand over her chest. “You don’t think we’re friends? That’s just awful.”
“Drop the fucking act, Hekate!” I snap, annoyed to be talked to as if I’m a fool. “How about you get straight to the point and tell me the real reason you’ve come here.”
A flicker of anger flashes in Hekate’s eyes, but it disappears along with her fake smile. She sets the coffee on the small table in front of us, then turns to me. I’m aware of being studied closer than ever before, my every move and twitch carefully analyzed under her watchful stare.
“I want to talk about the attack,” she tells me, her cold voice carrying an authority of the Venerable Superior that she is.
I nod in acknowledgment, knowing that sooner or later we’d have to have this talk. “What do you want to know?”
Hekate tilts her head to the side, narrowing her eyes as if she can see right through me. “You warned us that they were coming. How did you know?”
“I met a wolf,” I reply, testing to see her reaction. When she doesn’t immediately lose her mind, I allow myself to believe that this might actually go well. “He’s very well-connected and told me about the attack to make sure that I’d be safe.”
“This wolf,” Hekate starts, her face contorting with disgust when she mentions the enemy species. “Who is he to you?”
“I’m not sure,” I admit, then take a deep breath to find words how to describe the relationship between Grayden and me. “I didn’t know he was a wolf when I started hanging out with him. I wasn’t even aware of his true nature when we hooked up. But when we realized who we were, we tried to stay away from one another. We couldn’t. We can’t.”
“So, what?” Hekate inquires. “Is he your boyfriend? Lover? Fuck buddy?”
My cheeks flush, and I struggle to keep up the eye contact with Hekate. We’ve never talked about boys and to do it all of a sudden, it’s a bit unnerving. Maybe she really wants to be my sister. It seems like she’s trying. I should try back and give her a chance.
“All that and much more,” I confess, a small smile appearing on my face that always finds its way whenever I talk about Grayden.
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Hekate says and stands up. I raise my brows in surprise, momentarily fooling myself into believing that we’re making a real progress. “Get up. You’re coming with me.”
“What?” I ask, reflexively following her order and standing up. “Where?”
“You fucked a wolf,” Hekate says with barely suppressed anger, but her face is now an open picture of disgust. “You need to be cleansed.”
“I need no such thing!” I reply, feeling outraged. “You seem to be forgetting yourself, Sister.”
“No,” she hisses, then blatantly looks me up and down. “You’re the one that forgets herself. You’re a disgrace. You either get cleansed or that’s the end of the road for you.”
“The end of the road?” I ask, raising my brows in disbelief. I shake my head and scoff. “What? You actually mean to kill me. Isn’t that a bit melodramatic, even for you?”
The next things happen too fast for me to process much less react.
A flame of green fire lights up in Hekate’s emotionless eyes. Despair and emptiness flood my chest, paralyzing my body on the spot. She’s way more skilled at using magic than I am. For some of the spells, she doesn’t even need to constantly repeat the chanting. Her concentration is rock solid and her will is one of steel. Hekate puts the palm of her hand on my forehead, her eyes focused on mine, the green flame in hers putting me into a trance. She moves her lips, muttering some words under her breath until she completes the spell to keep me paralyzed.
I feel, hear, and see everything, except that I can’t move a finger.
Hekate grabs me under my shoulder, holding up my weight. She murmurs another spell and when her grip on me eases ever so slightly, I realize that it has something to do with weightlessness.
I mentally curse myself for not paying better attention when our parents tried to teach us the spells. I’ve always preferred potions and medicinal herbs myself, and even then, it was only the healing ones that I truly perfected.
Hekate gets us out of the apartment and to her car which is parked right in the front. She carelessly drops me on the backseat, then goes to the driver’s side, starts the car, and drives off to who knows where.
I might not be able to speak, but that doesn’t keep her from talking to me. Her eyes are fixed on the road as she delivers her angry monologue.
“I’ve given you so many chances, you know,” she starts. “I tried to give you your space and as much time as you would need to come to us on your own volition. The most fucked-up part is that you didn’t even realize how much I’ve been fighting for you.”
She pauses and turns on the turn signal, then takes a right turn. She keeps her focus on the road a while longer before continuing her speech.
“The coven wanted to teach you a lesson,” Hekate goes on. “They wanted to punish you for spending all your time and energy on humans, which would be fine if you hadn’t been neglecting your own kind.”
Hekate shakes her head, her fingers gripping the steering wheel so tight that her knuckles turn white. She takes a deep, shaky breath.
“This was the last straw, Helia,” Hekate tells me, still not looking at me.
But I see her. The tension in her muscles, the icy anger in her forceful yet neutral tone. We might be as different as a day and night, but at the end of the day, she is my sister. My twin sister.
“You’ve always been too caring and kind for your own good, but that was fine while it was directed at the witches and humans. You crossed a line when you started sympathizing with the wolves. You lost my protection when you started sleeping with one. You lost your coven and your family when you picked him over us.”
I want to tell her that I didn’t pick him over them. I want to tell her that it didn’t need to be a choice at all. I try to tell her all that, but I can’t because of the stupid spell.
“But don’t worry, little sister,” Hekate says and briefly glances back at me with an eerie smile on her face. “There’s still hope for you. I’ll make sure to bring you back to us and to help you reach your full potential just like our parents intended.”
If my body wasn’t paralyzed already, the tone in her voice would definitely reach that effect. My eyes are the only part that I can move, and they widen to comical proportions.
“Unfortunately,” Hekate continues, seemingly oblivious to my terror, “progress comes at a cost. You must be stripped away of your sins before you get cleaned up. While birth is a painful process, it has nothing on rebirth. I promise to be there every step of the way. I’ll make sure that you succeed. We’ll prove to everyone that no amount of pain can break a Payne. Your endurance will be enough to earn you forgiveness and possibly even a little bit of respect and admiration. I want you by my side, and together, we will lead the Ultra Coven to a war that will finally put an end to all wolves.”
A lone tear falls down the side of my face and onto the leather seats. I was a fool for thinking that Hekate could be anything more than the Venerable Superior. I was so desperate to have my sister back that I blinded myself from what was right in front of me. Now, I have to pay the price and a very costly one at that.