Wolf of Sight

by Quinn Loftis

  “I told you I had to take care of something very important,” he argued. It seemed his obvious exasperation at her words was finally getting the better of him. “It wasn’t like I fled in the cover of night without a word.”

  “No, but you failed to mention that you would be gone for five damn years!” She hadn’t meant to yell, in fact, she’d specifically told herself that she would remain calm. Apparently, her other self was telling her rational self to go jump off a cliff.

  “I said it was important.”

  “Is that code for ‘I’ll be gone, without a word or reassurance, for half a decade?” Jezebel snapped. “I took care of your home. Watered your plants and tended your garden. I fed that demon of an animal you called a horse so you wouldn’t come back to find him dead, because I knew what he meant to you. What I hadn’t realized was how little I had meant to you.”

  “Those are your words,” he barked.

  “No! Those are your actions! People who care about someone don’t stay gone for that long with no word of reassurance or even a ‘Go to hell. It’s over.’”

  “And what of your actions, Jezzy? What did your actions say about how you felt for me?”

  The pet name cracked something inside her, and she bit her lip to keep the tears at bay. One slipped down despite her effort, and she hastily wiped it away. “I was angry. I hadn’t realized until you’d been gone for half a year just how much I cared for you. The longer you were gone and the more the pain ate a hole inside of me, the angrier and more bitter I became. I didn’t know how ugly I was inside until I stooped to the low of taking another man to your bed.” Jezebel wiped away more tears. Even though she desperately wanted to keep her emotions in check, they continued to flow.

  A low rumble rolled out of Thad as he stood up and towered over her. “I didn’t expect you to wait on me,” the djinn said. “I also didn’t expect you to be angry at me for being gone.”

  “Did you even miss me?” She whimpered. “Did you feel anything for me at all?”

  “Of course!” he roared. “I am not a heartless monster. If I hadn’t felt anything, I wouldn’t have cared that you were with another man, regardless of where you slept.”

  “But you just said you hadn’t expected me to wait on you.”

  “I also hadn’t expected it to bother me if you were touched by another. It wasn’t until I knew for sure that you indeed had moved on that I realized just how much it enraged me. Still enrages me. I don’t even want to consider the number of lovers you’ve had in the past century while you’ve lived in the human world.”

  “Only one,” admitted Jezebel. “And the one time I was with that man, Anna happened. I cannot regret that night because it gave me her.”

  Thad’s eyes narrowed as his gaze fell on her. “There has only been one man, one time, in a hundred years?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t want the pain that came with caring for another and if I couldn’t have who I wanted, there was really no point in being with someone else. What about you? How many hearts have you broken?”

  Thad scoffed. “You cured me of any need I might have once felt for female companionship.” He frowned and then muttered, “At least until recently.”

  “What do you mean by that? Have you found someone? A mate?” Why was she asking? Because she liked to have her heart split open, stomped on, and then spit on for good measure? Apparently so because she was hanging with bated breath to hear his answer.

  “I thought I wanted a mate,” answered Thad. “After being around the wolves and their true mates, I thought that maybe it would be a cure for the melancholy that I’d found myself feeling. But”—he shook his head—“seeing you, feeling these emotions that I thought I’d long ago released, I find that once again I have no desire to endure such torment again.”

  “We could try again. Start over. Start new.”

  The bitter laugh he let out had her flinching away from him.

  “I’ve lived a very long time, Jezzy. There is too much pain between us to ever be able to try again.”

  “I looked for you,” Jezebel said quickly as he started for the door. She couldn’t let him leave, not until he knew everything. “I was so worried that something had happened to you. Four years after you’d gone, I went searching. I went to the veil of every supernatural realm and asked any being I came across.” This was something she hadn’t told anyone. She hadn’t been able to because it had taken every ounce of strength she had not to shatter when it had happened the first time. She hadn’t wanted to relive it by telling someone else about it, not until now. “Finally, one kind soul pointed me in the direction of your family. I was shocked, of course. No one visits the djinn realm because no one knows where it is. But I went.”

  “What?” he growled.

  “I went because I needed to know you were alive and well. I thought that would be enough for me to be able to move on. When I entered the veil, one of your sisters, at least that’s how she introduced herself, greeted me. When I told her I was looking for you and that I hadn’t heard from you in so long she assured me you were fine. I told her I wouldn’t believe her until I saw you with my own two eyes. So, she presented me with a scrying glass. When she called forth your image, I saw you, whole, unharmed, and wrapped in the arms of another woman.”

  “You lie. Even now you’re willing to continue your deceit!”

  “NO,” she yelled back. “I have no reason to lie. I lost everything when I did what I did. Why the hell should I lie now? Your sister smiled coyly and practically told me to be on my way and that you were no longer in need of a pet. She said you’d been betrothed to another djinn since your childhood, and the female had finally come of age.”

  Thad’s face looked murderous. His fists clenched at his sides, and his eyes turned solid black, the whites completely engulfed. “So, you were a woman scorned and decided to get back at me? Is that it?”

  “I was a woman in love with a man who didn’t want me and didn’t have the decency to tell me. Or at least that’s what I thought.”

  “In love?” he spat out. “You never once hinted you felt so strongly for me, and you expect me to believe you?”

  “DAMMIT! I don’t care what you believe. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you even care. I need you to know the full story. I’ve never told anyone, not even Peri, what your sister told me.”

  “Why didn’t you confront me about her information? Didn’t you think that hearing it straight from the source would have been a more accurate way to know the truth?”

  “I wasn’t exactly rational, Thadrick. A year later I was still taking care of your place and horse because it made me feel close to you. I was pathetic, pining away for scraps of you in your things and home. I just wanted to be over you. I wanted to be free of the grasp you held on me.”

  “Well, you certainly got what you wanted. You’re free. I release you. Is that what you need? I have no claim on you, and I wish you the best for your future.”

  His words were flat, and the only emotion Jezebel could see in his face was complete and utter rage. If anything, she was even more caged now than she’d ever been.

  “My house is practically shaking with the amount of power being poured into it. Holy hell, Thadrick of the djinn, get yourself under control!” Peri’s voice broke into their little emotional bubble. Thad didn’t pay her any attention.

  “What was the name of the sister you spoke with?” he asked Jezebel.

  “Myanin,” she answered.

  The power grew even stronger. “I don’t have a sister named Myanin.”

  “I’m not lying!”

  “Thad, you need to rein it in. If you cause my house to implode, I am going to be most put out,” warned Peri.

  “I must go,” the djinn said suddenly.

  “What?” Another voice joined them. “You can’t leave. We have to prepare the spell,” Jewel said. “Anna and I are on the verge of going dark, and we need to get this show on the road
.”

  “It is of little consequence to me, child, if you go dark, as you put it. You aren’t the first pure person to give in to their darker side, and you won’t be the last. Volcan will not be the cause of the end of the world.”

  Jezebel’s mouth dropped open at the cold tone in Thad’s voice. He sounded as if he couldn’t care less if they all were crushed beneath Volcan’s heel.

  “You have to stay,” Peri added. “You gave your word.”

  “You see my eyes, Perizada of the Fae?”

  She nodded. “I do.”

  “And you know what it means?”

  She nodded again.

  “Then you also know if I use my magic right now, I might just destroy the world, instead of save it. I. Must. Leave. There are things I must attend to.”

  “Please, Thad,” Jezebel tried. “I’ve caused enough harm by my actions. Don’t let me be the reason you don’t help these girls. They need you.”

  He shook his head. “No. The intelligent healer can figure it out.” He turned to Peri. “It was a mistake for me to leave my home. It was a mistake for me to come here.” Without another word, he was gone, out the door, out of Peri’s home, and out of Jezebel’s life, again.

  “Shit fire!” Peri bellowed.

  More was said, but Jezebel couldn’t hear any of it. Her heart was shattered. Her daughter was in danger of becoming evil, and the man she loved had basically said it was a mistake he’d ever seen her again.

  Thad was breathing hard as he moved through the fae forest toward the veil. It wasn’t exertion that had him out of breath. It was how tightly he was trying to keep from releasing the anger that was causing his blood to boil. If he released his power now, he would destroy all of Farie. He shouldn’t be leaving them. He’d indeed given his word, but neither could he stay. Thad was roiling over Jezebel’s revelations. He hadn’t known that she’d cared enough for him to be worried about him, let alone actually search for him. He also hadn’t known that she’d been deceived by his own people, that he’d been betrayed by a childhood friend.

  He’d known that Myanin had had feelings for him, but he’d made it clear numerous times that there would never be more than friendship between them. He hadn’t thought her capable of something so lascivious. A woman whom he’d grown to care deeply for and cared for like a sister had purposefully hurt another—the woman Thad hadn’t even realized he loved, not until after he’d caught her in his bed with another. Jezebel’s actions still burned him to the core, but he at least understood the motivation behind them. She’d been in love and thought he’d left her to be with someone he’d been betrothed to. She thought he’d lied to her and never admitted that he was to be married.

  How would he have responded if the tables had been turned and he’d been the one to find out such information about her? That was easy, he shrugged to himself. He’d have killed them both. Did that make him slightly unhinged? Probably, but then any being that had lived thousands of years was bound to be at least a little twisted.

  He moved at inhuman speed as he headed for the veil of his people. There were multiple locations all over the world that would allow him entry, though few people, supernatural or otherwise, knew that. It had been a few decades, maybe five, since he’d been to the djinn realm. He didn’t miss it. He found that his own people tended toward callousness as they aged, and he was callous enough. He didn’t need their pissy moods adding to his own. Needless to say, he was looking even less forward to his return than usual.

  When he finally reached the veil, he didn’t hesitate to cross and knew exactly who he’d find on the other side. She was, after all, assigned as the veil guard for the current thousand-year rotation.

  “Thadrick?”

  Myanin’s voice, one he was usually happy to hear, felt like blades running across his skin. She stood ten feet away and started to take a step toward him but stopped when she noticed his eyes, which were, no doubt, solid black.

  “Is everything alright?” she asked. “Has something happened in one of the other realms?”

  He took a deep breath before he spoke, hoping to keep from strangling her. “Why have you never taken a mate?”

  It wasn’t what she been expecting him to say, judging by the shocked look on her face. Myanin composed herself quickly and then responded. “You know why.”

  “And I’ve told you several times it will never happen. I will never desire you that way.”

  “You don’t know that. We live very long lives. Our emotions change, feelings grow.”

  Thad shook his head. “You have always and will always be like a sister to me. I could never see any of my sisters, including you, in a romantic light, no matter how long I walk this world.”

  As she often did when he said something she didn’t like, Myanin changed the subject. “Why are you here?”

  “I’ve come to address a grievance I have with a clan member. It has been brought to my attention that I have been betrayed by one of my own, and I am petitioning the ruling elders to discipline the one who knowingly and purposefully acted in a way that brought harm to me and one I cared about.”

  Myanin visibly paled. “Who would dare such a thing?”

  Betrayal among the members of the clan was akin to murdering one of your own. After all, how could there be any kind of healthy society if they were willing to harm one another? “Who indeed?” he asked, glaring daggers at her. “Are you really going to play this game?”

  Her chin tilted up and she pulled her shoulders back. “Thadrick, what are you implying?” She had the gall to look offended.

  “A century ago, you told a woman who came looking for me that I was betrothed. You told her that she’d been nothing more than a pet to me and to be on her way. You lied. You hurt her. And you hurt me. If you had any idea of the pain your selfish actions have caused, you’d turn yourself into the elders.”

  “She was a witch,” Myanin spit out. “She didn’t even deserve to breathe the same air as you, let alone share your bed.”

  “That was not your decision to make!”

  “It would have been a disgrace. You would shame our clan with such a union! Who do you think the elders would side with?”

  Thad was older than Myanin and knew the elders far better than she. “I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but our people don’t think themselves better than any other race.”

  “We don’t mate with others,” she said.

  “Only because we rarely socialize outside of our realm, not because we have some superiority complex. We are the keepers of the supernatural history. I have seen the amazing things each race is capable of, and we would be blessed if any of those would choose one of us as a mate. They are out there fighting the evil in the world while we sit back in the safety of our realm and do nothing but observe and record.”

  “It is not our place to interfere.”

  He growled at her and took pleasure when she took a step back. “It is that kind of thinking that creates bullies and victims. If it is not our place than whose is it? If everyone stood back with their hands held up saying ‘Not I’, then WHO?”

  “You will bring ruin to the djinn’s if you join the battles of the other races. You will break the order of things.” Myanin touched the stone hanging around her neck. It was a direct link to the elders.

  “Did you ever think that maybe things are already broken and that is why there is so much turmoil in the world? Did you ever think that maybe we were given so much power for such a time as this?”

  “Myanin, you summoned us?” The voice of elder Clarion joined them just before five djinns stepped from the surrounding forest.

  Thad bowed his head and pressed his hand over his heart. “Elders,” he said, offering them the respect they were due.

  “Thadrick,” Lyra, one of the two female elders said. “Do you have news that we need? You usually don’t come unless that is the case.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Whoever the
current historian was, they rarely were around the clan. It was easier to see the other supernaturals if they were living in the human realm instead of one of the supernatural realms.

  “I have a grievance I wish to bring before the council. It is something that has just been brought to my attention,” explained Thad. “And it involves Myanin.”

  All five heads turned to look at the female. She stood tall and defiant as she stared at Thad, her eyes narrowed and filled with anger. To his surprise, he didn’t see any pain. It was then that he realized her obsession with him was just that: an obsession. There was no love in her for him. It was simply that she couldn’t have something that she wanted. How he’d never seen it before, he didn’t know.

  “Let us convene in the hall of justice,” Clarion said and motioned for them to follow.

  Thad glanced back at the veil and felt himself being pulled in two directions. The words he’d spoken to Myanin were truer than he realized. They needed to be helping their fellow supernaturals and the humans. They needed to be offering the aid of the power they held. And yet, for the sake of his honor and Jezebel’s pain, he needed to see justice done. He would just have to make sure it was served quickly so he could get back to help defeat Volcan, and then after, he had a certain witch he needed to apologize to. They’d both endured pain but maybe she was right. Maybe they could start over. They’d both learned things about themselves that would make them better prepared for a relationship. He just hoped he hadn’t ruined any chance with her when he’d left her standing there needing his help. He would make things right. He had to. After seeing the woman he loved again, he was sure he didn’t want to spend the rest of eternity without her by his side.

  Chapter 16

  “I would rather face a thousand of my foe in battle than be betrayed by one person I care about.” ~ Thadrick