Chapter 27
Trish
I kept my steps light as I walked with Vincent back toward the training field, even though my heart was racing.
Alpha Kera was furious, but I’d convinced her to give me a few more days to figure out what else was going on. I couldn’t screw up now, not when for the first time in my adult life, she was trusting me to take care of things.
I’d almost slipped up once already by pressing my luck to get Jaxon back in here. But I couldn’t bear the pained look on his face, and getting him closer would give me the opportunity to speak with him sooner.
Everything was working so well.
That’s exactly why I don’t trust it.
Vincent wasn’t a wolf, but he wasn’t stupid. Unless he’d somehow grown up outside of every wolf territory, then he’d know that Kera and I could speak through our pack link. Him not saying anything about that was worrying me.
Oh, and Mom being here? I could kill Alec and Meg for letting that happen. Thankfully Jaxon had been right beside her, offering support I couldn’t give while still keeping up the act.
I owed him one. Big time.
“Shouldn’t I be out there with them?” I asked sweetly, glancing over my shoulder to see Jaxon hurrying to join the formation.
His dark eyes found mine and I couldn’t help the smile that crept onto my lips. Was he my mate? All this time? I almost didn’t want to believe it.
“I think you’ve already proved your worth, wouldn’t you agree?” Vincent said.
I whipped around to find he’d stopped walking and was watching me.
Crap. I smiled bigger. “Not really. My magic… It feels like it’s back. But I can’t test it unless I’m around others.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed. “I assumed Earth magic would do better if you were alone with nature.”
“You would think that,” I hurried to say. “Except in my case, I work better in a group.”
Was that a good save?
Just go back to Kera now and admit you were wrong.
“Fascinating. And here I thought you didn’t want to be part of a coven.” Vincent folded his arms over his chest and waited.
Had he heard that? I was sweating bullets. “No… I don’t need a coven… It’s just that… My magic came back during the trials, so I assume that’s why. Being around all these other witches and warlocks helped shock my system. I think.”
Even my wolf cringed.
Vincent continued to study me as if I was a puzzle he couldn’t solve.
Same, dude. Same.
“Tell me, Tisiphone,” he broke the awkward silence. “How close are you to your Alpha?”
I’d already fumbled my way through one lie, so I tried to stick closer to the truth. “She’s my aunt, but she’s an Alpha and I’m a beta wolf, so we’re practically a different species. Plus, I’m the only wolf-witch in our pack.”
“But she comes to check on you personally.” Whatever he was trying to decide on seemed to work itself out. “We might have use for you yet.”
“Hold up, what’s that supposed to mean?” I called after Vincent, but he was already walking. His long legs ate the distance back to his camp.
And if that wasn’t the rudest thing.
I stayed on his heels, but my beast grew more frustrated with each step.
I don’t know what else you need to see here. We already can tell he’s nuts.
We need proof someone is crazy before we call them out, I told her, like talking to my wolf this much was sane.
Vincent stopped so abruptly that I almost crashed into his back. “Your magic is personal. I suggest you stop relying on others if you want to get in touch with it again. That’s probably why it weakened in the first place.”
“You’re right.” I nodded, biting my bottom lip so I wouldn’t reveal more than I should.
“I’m always right.” He sighed. Could his head get any bigger? “Go in there. Get centered with yourself.” Vincent moved to the nearest tent and pushed open the flap.
I really was an awful spy, because I didn’t even recognize the area we’d ended up in, not that the outside of any of these black tents looked much different.
“What is this place?” I stepped past him.
There was no answer as the flap closed, blocking out the sun, and he was gone.
I peered into the darkness, letting my eyes adjust to the dim light of candles burning and the thick smoke of incense that hung heavy in the air.
Incantations and chants drifted from one of the darkened corners, mixing with the soft sounds of voices that seemed to come from everywhere. An old woman’s laugh. A young woman sobbing. Children singing.
Nope.
I spun on my heel to leave. This was far too witchy, even for me.
“Trish?” a voice called out.
Damn it. A tense smile strained my cheeks as I turned back to the darkness, looking for the sound of his voice. “Charles? Is that you?”
“I’m over here.” His laughter followed the ominous words.
Honestly, you barely know the guy, my wolf warned. Maybe let’s not be stupid.
I took a steadying breath, listening to my intuition that was buried just beneath my wolf’s initial fear. Charles had tried to help me. If he was mixed up in Vincent’s craziness, I needed to help him too.
Alpha Kera, Mom, my sisters, and Jaxon were all just in the next valley over. Worst case, I could run screaming straight back to Cerberus Pack and pretend none of this ever happened.
But it wasn’t the worst case yet.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, heading deeper into the darkness to where I thought I’d heard his voice come from.
The caw of a crow. A ruffle of feathers. Darkness gave way to a small corner illuminated by candle light.
The smell of incense thickened. Earthy and rich. It filled my lungs. I exhaled, watching the cauldron Charles stirred bubble and pop as smoke billowed out on either side.
“I’m making potions.” Charles’s eyes were glossy as they looked up, seeing through me. “I can’t stop.”
“You can put the spoon down.” I took a cautious step toward him. Then another.
The scene before me wavered and slipped. Like on water’s reflection. A mirror. Something not quite, but there.
“I can’t.” Sweat dripped down his brow. “You come stir it for me.”
Don’t you dare touch that spoon. My wolf bared her teeth.
I sniffed again, realizing a second too late that I was getting high. Uh-oh.
“Trish?” Charles called again.
“I can’t.” I shook my head. “I’m a horrible cook.”
The cauldron bubbled over and Charles started laughing, dropping the spoon into the green rising potion and disappearing into the smoke.
“There you are.”
I spun around.
Frances shuffled her tarot deck as her silver hair framed her glowing face. “The Tower is yet to fall. Let’s have another reading, shall we?”
“I’m good,” I whispered.
“Don’t you want to hear what the cards say?” Frances cackled.
I told you not to do this, my wolf groaned as the wind howled louder, sending a tornado of dust and smoke spiraling around me.
I crouched down and clamped my hand over my ears, breathing through my nose.
It’s just a bad magic trip, I reassured her. We have to see it through.
The howling wind stopped and a card dropped at my feet. The High Priestess in her blue robes and intuitive smile stared up at me.
“Your Gram.” Frances’s voice was miles away. “She says to run.”
That’s it!
You can’t come out. I jumped to my feet as my wolf tried to take control, fearing what would happen if she inhaled these toxic fumes, and my vision tunneled.
The ground fell from under me.
I screamed, scaring my beast back into hiding as I clawed at the earthen hole that swallowed me into its depths. Over and over. Deeper and deeper. I screamed as I fell.
The crow cawed. Mom sang one of her weird human lullabies that the other pups had never heard of. Dad howled as he taught us how to hunt. To clean our kill. My sisters giggled as we played.
Ring around the rosie. A pocket full of posies.
The noise of my life came rushing past me as I continued to fall.
I tried to grab onto something, and it was Jaxon’s face that filled my mind.
The day I’d found him in the tree once he realized how different he was from the rest of us.
The sadness in his eyes. A promise I’d made to myself long before Gram died.
That I’d always protect him.
“Aren’t you scared?”
“Never when I’m with you,” I’d said, trying to ease his worries.
I landed on my back hard in the dirt. Groaning, I rolled to my side and slowly pushed myself up.
“Tisiphone, you shouldn’t be here.”
“Gram?” Tears blurred my vision as I climbed to my feet. There she was. Just how I always remembered her. Moon-streaked silver hair decorated with beads and glacier blue eyes that saw everything.
“You shouldn’t be here either,” I said.
Warmth filled her smile. “No, my brave girl, I shouldn’t be. But you had a question for me.”
I swallowed down the hundreds of questions I’d wanted to ask over the years and settled on the one burning most in my heart. “Did you know about Jaxon?”
“That you two were fated mates?” She nodded.
“Why then?” I whispered. “Why would you make him swear to protect me? If he was my mate, he would’ve done it anyway.”
Gram frowned, and I had to wonder if ghosts could feel haunted. “Jaxon had some hard decisions to make with a power as great as his. If he always put you first, I knew it would balance out the scales.”
I clasped my hands over my mouth, choking on all these wasted years. “I didn’t know.”
“I think you did.” Gram shrugged. “I think a part of you always knew, so you did what you decided to do to protect your sisters.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” I sighed, realizing I was arguing with a hallucination of my own making. This wasn’t Gram.
She leveled me with a glare.
Okay, maybe it was.
I gave her a watery smile. “I messed up.”
“I told you to protect them. Not hide your magic so they’d grow stronger while you faded,” Gram said.
Damn if those words didn’t cut straight to my core, because that would protect them. If I’d have had full range of my powers throughout our entire lives, my sisters would’ve been pushed to the background. A sigma and an alpha wolf, bettered by a beta? They didn’t deserve that.
It wasn’t intentional, though. It wasn’t like I’d purposefully hidden myself or denied what I wanted so that they wouldn’t suffer. So that they’d become the powerful wolves they were always meant to be…
Oh gods, she’s right.
“No.” I shook my head. “You’re wrong.”
“We don’t have enough time for this.” Gram reached out. Her hand was but a breeze as it caressed the side of my cheek. “You need to wake up. Your sisters will need you soon. Remember what I said?”
“Protect my sisters.” I knew that. I lived my life by it. “What else do you want me to do?”
“All of your sisters. They need you too.” Gram faded before I could ask “who,” cut in half by the sunlight that burst through the tent.
With bloodshot eyes and still coughing up bits of smoke, I saw Sarah Ossory standing outside the tent, peering into the darkness.
And suddenly Gram’s words made sense.
“Don’t go,” I choked out, trying to catch my breath as the incense cleared from my lungs.
Sarah turned and ran.