by Bonnie Vanak
I gulped down a breath. “My people don’t like anyone being more powerful than they are.”
“What happened to your father and the others, Sienna? I only glimpsed pieces from your dreams. I felt your torment and your emotions and those remained with me.” He kissed the top of my head.
Fresh guilt stabbed me. “When I turned 21, they craved the magick that manifested itself in me. I refused to share it because I knew they wanted to use it to destroy others and gain more territory. My father ordered his army to kill me and I released my magick and destroyed them all. Except Kallan. Kallan escaped at the last moment. He is the last survivor of my family.”
Grayson stepped back, smoothed back my hair and stared into my eyes. “My Sienna. Lass, you say you can’t kill Kallan because he’s your family. But if he died, you would be free.”
I laughed and dried my eyes on a corner of my shirt. “Right. No one else is powerful enough to destroy him. And I’m not doing it. He deserves to die for what he’s done. And if he gains my power, he’ll be invincible.”
“Then you must kill him before he gets to you.”
“He’s the only family I have left, Grayson,” I whispered. “Can’t you understand that?”
He heaved a deep sigh. “Yes, I can. But we can become your new family, Sienna.”
“How can you? You’re not like me. I’m different.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Right. Like you understand.” I shook my head. Stubborn wolf. “We shared a connection.”
“More than a connection. Stay with us and share your power and we will defeat that bastard, Sienna.”
How easy he made it sound. “Even if I wanted to share power with you, you couldn’t absorb it, Grayson. Magick like mine can kill shifters. Only someone with Fae blood can absorb and diffuse it.”
“I can.” He drew in another deep breath. “Because I am half Fae as well.”
The alpha unfurled his fingers. They glowed a faint blue of energy rising. Fae energy.
Staggering backward, I hit the wall of the workshop.
So much made sense now. Why he was able to drive Kallan back at the strip club, and at the lake. Grayson’s silver locks threaded through his black hair that I thought were streaks from stress. Now I knew the silver was a sign of his Fae powers. His ability to dreamwalk with me
“I’ve learned to hide it well. Most people see only the wolf, the alpha shifter. I use my Fae powers only when necessary.” He clenched his fist again. “Nicolas and Stephan know, and now you. I’ve kept this secret since I formed the pack ten years ago.”
The words sank in. “No one else knows you have Fae blood? They think you’re pure werewolf?”
No answer, but his clenched jaw assured me of the truth.
“You asked me to level with your pack, Grayson, and you can’t even level with them. How could you hide something like this from them?”
“I’m alpha, Sienna. I will not risk letting them know what other blood runs through my veins. They follow me because I am wolf.” His upper lip lifted in a fierce snarl.
“And that means not telling them what you are? Maybe your family wasn’t perfect, but they’re your family now and they…”
“My family tried to kill me.”
He began to shake, as if controlling rage and grief. “They tried to kill me in the same way your family tried to kill you, Sienna. You kept wondering why we dream shared because I am wolf and you are Fae. It wasn’t because I was the wolf that saved you when you were younger. Now you know.”
I could only stare. It all made sense – how we had shared in that intimate way of the Fae, connecting in our dire need to have someone accept us for who we were. Even in the dream world, we had desperately needed that connection.
Grayson’s expression turned miserable. “My mother was Fionn Fae and my father had an affair with her. When I was born, she left me at my father’s cabin in the woods in Alaska with a note I would never be accepted at her colony because I had a wolf father. My stepmother agreed to raise me as her own son, but she hated me. My father never truly accepted me and my brothers and sisters tolerated me, until I reached puberty.”
“And your Fae powers manifested.” Oh damn, I knew this story. It was my own.
He paced, hands fisted. “I was thirteen years old and my hands started glowing blue. Like a damn neon sign. It happened at dinner, the first meal I shared with the family. Usually they wanted to eat without me. After that, my father locked me away in the basement. He was ashamed to call me kin. I… begged him to not do it. I promised I would never be Fae, only wolf. But he didn’t listen.”
“When did you leave your pack?” My heart ached for the child he’d been, the boy who only wanted to please his sire.
“I was 18. My father struck a deal with me. He gave me a million dollars to leave and never return. I invested it. I divided my time between New York and Chicago and LA. Worked in the human world with a business partner and then created Calmarth, then took the company to Colorado. I tried to live as a human. But I never was happy because my wolf longed for freedom, not the confines of city life. I felt restricted and restless.”
Again, I was struck at how similar our stories were. “City life is a cage for most Fae.”
He nodded. “I found trustworthy human partners and then struck out on my own to wandering and met other werewolves and witches who had also been shunned by their families for being different. I bought this land, brought them into the fold and formed my pack. My new family.”
His expression hardened. “They’ve been through hell. I promised them they’d have a good life here and I would be a strong leader. I’m not going back on that promise. They don’t need to know about the circumstances that brought me here. They need to feel safe and accepted in this pack. And the only way I can assure them they will be safe is if they believe I am pure alpha.”
More insight filled me. “The land you bought that was inhabited by the Fae… you bought it for the power.”
Eyes closing, he nodded. “My father had told me my mother’s colony was located in western Colorado. After I left my father’s pack, I sought her out. They told me she came to this area of the state to heal herself. Her colony had been using this land for decades to infuse themselves with magick. I found her lying on the forest floor in the campground near an abandoned shack, trying to siphon the power to heal herself. The magick is ancient and simmering just below the surface, but she lacked sufficient power to transform it into healing energy.”
“Why was your mother sick?”
Grayson rubbed the back of his neck. “She fought with a werewolf hunting in her forest. My mother lost. When she saw me, I could see her disgust. Her son, the wolf shifter. The enemy. Then she told me if I used my Fae power to heal her, I would receive my inheritance of forty acres of prime forest in her colony. Everything I had ever wanted – acceptance by my mother and her people – would be mine.”
Jaw clenched, he stared into the distance. “I had hoped so much she would love and accept me for myself. She only wanted to use me. I wanted to hate her. But I couldn’t. I tried to pull enough energy from the earth, but she was too badly injured. I failed.”
My heart broke as I realized the hardships he endured as a child. Grayson, desperate to be a wolf to blend in with his alpha father’s pack. Finding acceptance with his mother, purely for selfish reasons.
“I’m sorry.” I placed a hand on his arm, feeling the muscles tense. “She died on this land.”
He nodded. “They didn’t even want her body. I buried her on the campground property near the lodge office. Sometimes I visit.”
“I’d like to see her grave.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
“What did her people say when they found out you buried her?”
“They were angry. But I made a pact with them to forgo my inheritance on condition that they warn others away from the campground. They started rumors that the ancient ones had punished my mother for setti
ng foot on their ancestral home. It kept other Fionn away. They would have been too drawn to the power there.”
“Power, always the struggle for power with most Fionn Fae. Yet I want nothing to do with it,” I said quietly.
His eyes flew open. “I need you, Sienna. You’re a light in my dark world, an anchor who makes me stronger. You’re a woman who showed me that all Fionn are not evil. When we shared our dreams, you gave me hope. I grew up fearing my Fae blood. When you and I dreamshared, I realized I could choose evil, or good, just as you did.”
“I killed my family, Grayson. That doesn’t make me exactly a good person.”
He swept out his arms, anger glinting his eyes. “I wish I had been there to destroy them as well, lass. They were greedy bastards who cared only about taking what you had. It was self-defense.”
Tightness eased inside my chest. Logic told me I had no choice in the destruction I caused, but the guilt had remained. Hearing another Fionn Fae tell me my actions were justified felt like absolution.
“Do you take energy from the campground?” I asked.
‘I siphon it as needed to ward my own property lines and heal my people when they are sick and try to coax the land to heal as well. I’m not strong enough draw out enough of the magick, just tap into it.”
“Tell your pack, Grayson. Tell them what happened and what you are.”
A head shake sent my hopes spiraling downward. I got his reluctance to share everything about his background with his people. Grayson was a tough alpha and tough males aren’t known for blabbing about their own problems. And yet by refusing to let his people know exactly what he was, he was selling them short.
“Have you ever considered they would understand if you did tell them?”
Jaw tightening, he folded his arms across his chest. “My own damn father kicked me out for having Fae blood, Sienna. Do you think I’d want to let the world know what I truly am?”
So proud and stubborn. I wanted to shake him because Grayson needed acceptance and love from the very people he promised the same, and yet he was loathe to risk it.
“You’re willing to accept everyone in your pack for being different. And yet you refuse to accept yourself and share with them who you truly are?”
“They follow me because I am a strong alpha wolf. Not a Fae.”
Maybe I had spent three years running from my reality, but I also knew that I could no longer hide what I was. Who I was.
“Why do you want me to share my magick, Grayson? To become an all-powerful alpha no one can touch?”
“Fuck no,” he yelled. “I want your magick shared so you won’t feel as if you have to keep running anymore, damnit! So you won’t feel isolated and different from any other Fae, and always look over your shoulder in fear that someone will try to hurt you simply because you’re stronger than they are.”
His voice dropped to a bare whisper, anguish in each word. “I know what that’s like, Sienna. I love you and want to spare you that pain, spare you from running away.”
“Oh Grayson.” My throat tightened because I loved him, loved Nicolas and Stephan and the thought of leaving made my heart break. Yet I could not remain here in shadow, as he lived.
“Can’t you see I may be running, but at least I’m free? How can I stay here as a Fae if you won’t even admit to being one as well? You say you love me, but real love,” I struggled against the tears clogging my throat. “Real love accepting someone for what they are, faults and all. And you can’t even accept yourself.”
Grayson’s expression tightened. But I saw the flicker of doubt in his eyes. Too late.
“With any luck, I’ll be out of the state before Kallan even knows it. You and your people will be safe.”
“And that’s your choice?” he asked quietly. “Keep running?”
“It’s the only choice I have. Nicolas will give me a ride back so I can pack up and leave. I can’t stay here living a lie, knowing you refuse to admit you have flaws when you readily accept everyone else’s. Good-bye Grayson.”
I turned my back on him and walked away. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, even harder than releasing my powers to destroy my own family.
Because when you truly love someone, leaving them means leaving your own heart behind.
Chapter 29
Grayson
It took a long walk in the Zen garden in human form followed by a quick run through the woods as wolf to clear my head after the incident in the workshop.
As I ran on four paws, my heart racing, my body reveling in the senses of my wolf, my human half came to an ugly realization.
Sienna was right.
I had taken the coward’s way out by not revealing myself to my people. Sharing her magick would not be releasing her of the burden, but empowering myself.
It’s a tough thing to realize you’ve been a stupid ass when you’re a leader who’s supposed to be setting a high standard.
Maybe too high. Maybe in trying to pass myself off as perfect, I cheated my people on sharing something special that might even make them feel more accepted. Maybe because I didn’t trust them to accept me, faults and all, I shortchanged them.
I didn’t want her to walk away, but I had something important to do first. After shifting back, I called Nicolas. He was in the garage, getting the bike ready to take Sienna back.
“Go slow. Real slow. Take a detour to the campground to visit my mother’s grave,” I told him.
“That’s fucking romantic.” His voice was curt.
“It is what she wishes and it will buy us time. I’m calling a pack meeting in the picnic grounds.”
“Time for what?” A note of hope in his voice. Nicolas didn’t want to lose her, either.
“Time to for to do what she wishes and tell the pack I’m half Fionn Fae. If I do, maybe she will change her mind and live with us.” I took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy, but when was life ever simple?
An approving hum over the phone. “About damn time.”
“Excuse me?” I growled.
He cleared his throat. “About damn time you leveled with everyone. And did something for yourself.”
I thought of Sienna, the only woman I ever wanted. “I don’t want to lose her, Nick.”
“Then we’ll help you get her back,” he insisted. “You’ve kept us alive, safe and thriving all these years. You’ll do anything for your people. It’s time we did something for you. You need Sienna. Stephan and I need her as well, but you need her the most. I’ve never seen you connect with a woman the way you connect with her.”
“I love her.”
“Me too,” Nicolas said softly. “Now, go do what you do best – be our leader. I’ll take good care of our Sienna.”
Spirits lifted, I called a meeting of the entire pack.
They assembled outside in the picnic area we’d built for eating outside as a group on warm days. After they gathered, I asked Stephan to sit as well. Surprise flickered in his eyes. Usually my betas stand at my side.
But I needed Stephan to sit and be square with me.
Clearing my throat, I started what was probably the most difficult speech of my adult life. Even more challenging than the time I stood before my father, pleading with him not to abandon me.
“I want to talk to you today about something I’ve hidden from you. I did it to protect you, hell, I rationalized I did. In reality, I did it to protect myself.”
The entire pack stared. I could hear the collective heartbeats of all of them, see the worry in their eyes.
“You came here because you needed a place to call home. You left behind your family, and everything you knew. It doesn’t matter who you once were, who sired you, what set you apart and made you different or where you came from or who believed in you. I believe in you and I always will.
“I brought you here because I believed in you. We’re a family and you must always be honest with your family. Even if it means hurting the ones you love.” I struggled with the emotio
n clogging my throat. “I haven’t been fully honest with you.”
Approval shone in Stephan’s eyes. He nodded, giving me encouragement.
“I’m not a pureblood alpha wolf.” Damn this was humiliating, almost more than the day my father kicked me out while the entire pack watched and applauded. I kept my spine straight and my gaze centered, even though I shook inside.
But Sienna was right. How could I expect my people to share their vulnerabilities if I did not share mine?
“My blood is mixed, like many of yours. I have Fae blood as well as wolf.” Gathering my powers, I fisted my hand and then released the stream of pure blue energy, sending it sailing into a brick wall.
The wall blew to pieces.
Sienna did that.
My Sienna, who shared her magick when we made love. We had something beautiful and honest and real, and I screwed it up.
Silence draped the air for a few minutes.
Then a small voice – Carmen’s – broke it. “Alpha, does this mean you’re leaving us to join the Fae?”
Stunned, I sought her out, went to her side and crouched down. “No, sweetheart. I would never do that. I made a promise to you and your parents that we are a family now and I will do everything to protect you.”
Carlos, her father, nodded. “You said we are all family, Grayson. And families help each other. What do you need from us?”
I couldn’t speak, because I had half-expected them to bolt, or scorn me. Judging from the reaction they had given Sienna, why should I expect differently?
“You did not want Sienna here because she is Fionn,” I said slowly. “How am I different?”
They looked around at each other. “Because you’re our leader,” one called out. “She was a stranger.”
Emotion filled my chest, making it tight. My people trusted me to lead them. No matter what. Why had I waited this long to return their trust?
Elderly Marc struggled to his feet. He gestured to me. “Alpha, may I speak?”
