Chapter 1 Trish #2
I loved both my sisters more than life and I’d die for them, but they were also always in the way.
“Give me fifteen more minutes,” I said, trying to keep everyone calm.
“Start checking in five,” Mom muttered from the corner of her mouth.
“Five minutes.” I smiled again.
Alec sniffed. “Are you baking?”
“I told you she’d be freaking out,” Meg whispered, loud enough for all of us to hear.
“I’m fine.” I opened the small kitchen window. It was seriously getting hot in here.
“So you’re okay with Jaxon coming to the meeting today?” Alec crossed her arms over her chest.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” I stood by the window to breathe in the fresh air, trying to cool my skin.
“I don’t know.” Meg shrugged. “Maybe because the last time you saw him, you cursed his… What was it?” She turned to Alec.
My sigma sister snickered. “His travel bag.”
“How is that even possible?” Mom rubbed her forehead as she sat back onto her seat.
I couldn’t wipe the anxious grin from my face. “I didn’t mean it. I blessed his travels.”
“You can’t mess around with things like that,” Mom warned.
And yet she wanted me to go to a festival of witches where there’d be ample opportunity for me to really cause a problem.
“Come on,” Alec chuckled. “If she doesn’t use her magic, then how will we know that it’s still on the fritz?”
Glad one of us found this amusing.
Meg didn’t, though. “Hush. You don’t have to rub it in.”
“I’m standing right here.” I dragged my palms over my eyes. This was not how I wanted my morning to go.
I just wanted to make sparkly cupcakes.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Mom rushed to my defense. “You’ve got more power in your pinky finger than most people will ever touch in their lives. It’s not safe for you to throw it around without caution.”
“What are we? Chopped liver?” Alec asked.
“That’s not what I meant either,” Mom said.
“Stop messing with Mom.” Meg sighed. “We all know Trish is her favorite.”
Mom stomped her foot. “She is not.”
“I’m not?” I cried, winking at Alec.
“Stop it right now,” Mom scolded us all. “I love the three of you equally.”
I chuckled softly to myself. Working Mom up was one of our favorite pastimes, and we didn’t get to indulge as often now that we were all grown.
We still had Sunday family dinners together, since none of us had our own mates or families, but those weren’t as spontaneous as moments like this when we all used to live in the same house.
“Well, you never compliment our magic,” Meg teased as she took a seat next to Mom, nudging her leg.
“You all have different and admirable skills,” Mom explained. “But you’re worse at magic than Trish.”
“Burn.” Alec snorted.
“Hey now,” I said, but she was right.
As the only natural born witch among my sisters, I was the one who was most drawn to magic. They knew basic spells, courtesy of our witch mother and grandmother, but neither of them had an innate gift like I did.
That was why being magic-broken hurt so damn much. Everything I was, all my power and the uniqueness that made me me, was just out of my reach.
I’m always here. My wolf tried to console me. I gave her a mental pat.
Not that she wasn’t great, but compared to my sisters’ sigma and alpha wolves, my beta wolf was just… average. And without my magic gifts, so was I.
“Are you three giving your ma a hard time?” Dad brushed wood chips off his flannel shirt on the porch, talking to us through the open door of the cabin. His salt-and-pepper beard still had bits of wood dust in it as he ducked his head to come inside, heading straight for Mom.
“Yes!” She growled in that cute little human way of hers. “The three of them are feral.”
“You make me feral.” Dad pulled Mom to her feet and planted a kiss on her lips.
My sisters and I gagged on cue. No matter how old we got, we would always be that immature.
Dad grinned as he looked around at the four of us, pride making his chest swell. Everyone in the pack knew him as the grumpy enforcer, but I never saw what they were scared of.
My scary dad was a total teddy bear.
His grin faltered as he sniffed. “What’s burning?”
Gods, no.
I turned in slow motion to see flames licking the door of the cast iron stove.
“I’ve got the water,” Alec said.
Dad grumbled, “I’ll get the towels.”
“Trish, you wait outside.” Meg pushed me toward the door, shaking her head at Mom. “What were you thinking, letting her in the kitchen?”
Mom smiled at me, trying not to let pity show on her face. “You’ll get it next time.”
Told you this was a bad plan.
I just wanted to make him cupcakes.
Smoke followed me out of the cabin as my family worked to save our childhood home from yet another disaster of my making.
Tears burned behind my eyes.
I moved as far away as I could and sat on a stump while I waited, knowing I’d only make it worse if I tried to jump in.
Not for the first time since the mysterious summons arrived in the mail, I thought about what it’d be like to go anywhere else, to be someone else. Somewhere I wouldn’t have to hide or be coddled like I was breakable glass.
Somewhere no one would recognize me—where I wasn’t the broken wolf-witch who couldn’t be trusted to do anything alone without my family breathing down my neck, waiting for my inevitable screw-up.
Maybe leaving wasn’t such a bad idea.