by Jordan Deen
Lacey? A woman’s voice echoed down a long corridor, beckoning me away from Brandon and the agony.
“Hello?” I called back, not sure where to turn.
I’m here angel. She called again and appeared. It was her, my mother.
“Emma?”
Yes, my baby girl. She seemed to float toward me. I wondered if Serena had tried a new potion on me that would cause me to hallucinate.
“Are you really here? Or, is this my mind playing tricks on me?”
I’m so proud of you. I knew Brea would lead you home. You are so beautiful, so rare.
“Am I coming down with the sickness?” I begged her for the answer and she smiled in response.
No, honey. You’re growing into your abilities. You have to understand shifting before you can understand everything else. This sickness will pass soon.
“What do I do now? I’ve made a mess out of everything. How do I fix it? Brandon’s going to die…”
Brandon will not die because of what you did. I selected him for you because he is strong. He is so much like your father, honorable and loyal. He will stand by you and support you.
“What do you mean selected? Mom, he’s not my true mate?”
He is your true mate. The Goddess chose him to give you strength and support.
“Mom, that’s not what I asked. Did you put a spell on him?” I wanted her to say no. If she did, then she’d be no better than Sophie trying to bond me with Alex.
Yes, honey, but not in the way you think. When the mark appeared on both of you, we knew he was the one. We called upon the Goddess to make him grow into the man you needed him to be, one that would match your powers and understand your needs. We knew you would be stolen, and we knew you would not be raised in our culture. The one thing they were never able to take was your freewill. You are going to change the world.
I shook my head as she reached out to touch my face, “No, I don’t want any of this. Brandon is not strong enough to outlast the sickness. The Mares will still come for us, and we are not fully bonded.” I grabbed her hand. “Mom, please. Tell me what to do. I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t do this alone.” I started to cry. She wrapped her angelic arms around me, trying to quiet my sobs.
My beautiful child, you are never alone. Continue to read my journal, find the power and the strength within. Brandon is your true mate, once you accept it, all things will be possible.
“But I have accepted it!” I said into her shoulder.
You are still blocking him, and only you can figure out why. The time for you to take your place at the Half Moon Council is coming. You hold a great responsibility to our people. I’m so proud of you. You can do this. You’re destined to do great things.
She mumbled a few incoherent words, hugged me once more, and then, disappeared.
Brandon sat in the chair with his feet up on the end of my bed. We were alone; the light of day crept into my room. My body finally felt lighter. I scooted to the edge of the bed to slip my feet onto the floor. Cautiously, I put my weight onto my feet and pushed myself off the bed. No vertigo or sickness pulled me back down. I survived. Now, all I had to do was figure out why I still blocked Brandon.
“Hey,” I said and touched his cheek. He didn’t stir, so I climbed into his lap and wrapped my arms around his neck. My delicate frame perfectly conformed to the masculine curves of his. He barely left the entire time I was sick, even when others were sitting with me.
“Brandon?” I licked my lips and pressed them to his, trying to take him to Haventon with me. With my eyes squeezed shut, I waited to feel his aura wash over me. I visualized the stream, the trees, and the patch of grass that had become our favorite place to lounge under the never-ending sky.
“Hey, my love,” Brandon said, stroking my exposed back. The wind blew the branches, causing leafs to drift down all around us. “Is this a dream?”
“No.” I trailed kisses up his chest to his face.
“How are we here then? Are we really in Haventon?”
“I wanted to bring you here to let you recover from the stressful week I’ve put you through.”
“So, are you okay now?”
“Yeah, I feel much better.” I rose to my knees and straddled his stomach. “I’d like to stay here for awhile though, if that’s okay with you. We’re still in my room, so we’ll be protected. They’ll know where we are.”
“Oh,” he said like he was still trying to believe his eyes. He placed his hands on my hips, his thumbs slowly brushed up both my pelvic bones. “Do you remember what happened before you got sick? You don’t think it’s what we did, do you?”
“No, I don’t think it was.” I knew it wasn’t, but if I told him my mom confirmed sex wouldn’t seal our fate, would he have believed me? “I have something to tell you,” I took a deep breath.
He sat up to put his arms around my waist. ”There is something wrong, isn’t there?”
“No, I mean, not wrong. When I was sick, my mom came to visit me.”
“You mean,” his eyes got wide and the tips of his fingers pressed into my back, “Sara, the Mare that raised you? Or Emma, your dead mom?” Sara, a.k.a. my fake mom. I missed them, more than I wanted to even think about. Not knowing if they were okay or not made things even worse.
“Emma.”
“Really?” He relaxed against the tree and started to rub my arms as he waited for my answer.
“Yeah, she told me some things.” Maybe I could weave in information from the book without telling him about it. “She said what we did wouldn’t affect our bond.”
“Umm, okay. So, your dead mother said that it was okay we had sex?”
Hearing him say it that way made me sound crazy. “Look, I know how weird it sounds.”
“I’m not trying to discount your dream, but maybe, it was just that. A dream. Maybe it was your subconscious trying to make you feel better about what we did.”
“No. I swear it isn’t just that. She told me other things, too.”
“Like what?” What if I told him everything?
“She said that I’m the first hybrid werewolf and normal rules don’t apply to me. She also said you used to come to her house when you were a child, and read her books and help her around the house.”
“She told you that?” He looked at me skeptical. “She told you I used to hang out at your house?”
“Yeah, she said Emile used to come and take you home because you’d spend so long there.” I started to test the waters. “She also said that Serena and Josef were the leaders, not Michael.”
He locked eyes with me; a myriad of emotions rushed across his face. I thought I dived in too deep and gave away too much. “They were, but when Josef died, Serena was inconsolable. Dad stepped up and took over for her…temporarily.”
“She seems like such a strong person. I couldn’t imagine that she’d ever not want to run the pack.”
“She’s still a big influence to…everyone. Eventually, everyone thought she’d take over again, but that never happened.”
It didn’t go over as bad as I thought. So, I jumped into deeper waters. “She said something about Half Moon Council.” As soon as I said the words, Brandon almost threw me off of him to stand up.
“What did she tell you about the council?”
I looked up at him from my crumbled position on the ground. Haventon was supposed to make all things better, not worse, and my thigh was killing me from the rock I landed on. “She didn’t say anything really. She just said that after I was born that Serena had to go to it.”
He reached for my arm to pull me off the ground. “I want to know everything she told you. No matter how small, everything.”
I should have stayed in the shallow end of the water because now I was in over my head. Whatever this council was, it struck a nerve with Brandon and seriously freaked him out.
“She said I was very important, and you were going to support me through the trials ahead. She said I was going to be very powerful, an
d not to worry about what we did; it wouldn’t hinder our bond.”
“What else,” he said, sensing I left something out. And I did. A very big, important thing, like the fact I’d already transformed. It wasn’t the natural transforming that we needed, and he probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.
“She just said that Serena was in charge of the pack and that she had to go to the Half Moon Council.”
“Did she tell you Serena is your grandmother?” he asked and stared me down. No, she didn’t tell me, but her journal did.
“Yes.”
“So, you know,” he said and released me.
Reality smacked me in the face as Haventon ripped away. We were back in my room, curled up in the chair together.
Serena, Emile, Michael, Will, and Thomas all stood around the room.
“You look well rested.” Emile’s voice sounded like a melody. But the smiles on each of their faces fell away when Brandon told them.
“Emma came to her. She knows.” Brandon gave away my secret. I wanted to yell at him. There would be no way I could tell him anything else from Emma’s journal. He betrayed me.
“What do you mean Emma came to her?” Serena stepped forward and demanded an answer from Brandon. He stood and set me on the ground then stepped in front of me.
“Emma told her you are her grandmother. She told Lacey that our rules don’t apply to her because she is a hybrid-werewolf. She said our bond could not be affected by what we did.”
Serena tried to push Brandon out of the way, but he refused to budge. “Did she tell you why you were sick? Did she say anything else? Are you for certain it was really her?”
Brandon looked down at me and nodded to tell her what I knew. “Emma said I got sick because my body had to adjust to the coming changes.” Shouldn’t have said that. “She told me things about Brandon spending time with her before I was born and how Emile used to come get him from her house.” I don’t add the part about the council and Brandon seemed okay with that; he didn’t add it either.
Serena looked like she might cry. “Did she say how to contact her or if she would come back at all?”
“She just told me she would always be with me.”
“Did Emma tell you,” Serena stopped and looked at Emile, “did she mention her books? Or Alaina’s?” Alaina’s? “What about Galena? Did she mention her grandmother at all?”
I decided enough was enough. It was time to ask my own questions. “Why didn’t any of you tell me that Serena was my grandmother? Why wouldn’t you tell me we were related? It would have made everything so much easier when I came here.” Everyone stood there with their mouths hung half open. “I walked away from the only family I knew. Why wouldn’t you tell me, so I’d feel connected to you?” I looked straight at Serena, demanding an answer. But, I wasn’t prepared for the one I got.
“Because we didn’t want to overwhelm you with the responsibilities of the pack.”
“What?” I asked. Brandon turned to look at me; sudden dread filled his face.
“Lacey, what else did Emma tell you?”
“I told you, she didn’t tell me anything!” Frustration overtook my common sense. If I had listened to everything they said so far, I’d already know why he was terrified of what would be revealed next.
“Michael took over the pack, but since I’m your mate…”
“Oh, God.” My ribs constricted my lungs and stopped the sweet breath I desperately needed. “You’re…No. No, that’s not possible. That’s not… Michael?” I looked to him for comfort that he would never offer, “Please, tell me this is wrong. Tell me he’s not saying what I think he is.”
Brandon grabbed me before I could head for the door in my panic. “This changes nothing. Nothing,” he whispered through my hair into my ear. “I didn’t want you to find out this way. When you said Emma spoke with you and told you about Serena, I thought she told you everything. I’m so sorry.”
I pushed him away, wanting to hear the fateful words from his mouth. “So, we’re what? We are the leaders? We are in charge now?”
Brandon looked to Michael for guidance before he proceeded, and not with caution. “No, Lacey, you are. You are in charge. I’m standing in until you are ready.”
“You can’t be serious.” I glared at Brandon, but it did absolutely no good.
“Lacey, you are Gregory and Emma’s only child. Gregory was to take control after your birth. You are the successor, controlling the Amanas is your birthright.” Serena crossed the room and tried to drape her arms around me, but I shoved her away.
“Leave me alone. All you’ve done is lie to me since you’ve met me. Get out,” I yelled and ran into the bathroom. Brandon pursued me, but I slammed the door in his face.
He pounded, then knocked, then I heard him slump to the floor. He begged for me to open the door, and brushed his fingers under the small opening under the door. Michael and Emile both tried to comfort him, but he ordered the room cleared and never left the other side of the door. Hours passed and he continued to plead, trying to convince me that being in charge changed nothing, but he was wrong. Being in charge changed everything; all the way down to how I looked at Emma’s journal. Somehow, every single word mattered that much more. She hadn’t steered me wrong yet, and it seemed the answers to all life’s questions were in there. I pulled it down from the cabinet and Brandon started begging again when he heard me get off the floor.
“Lacey, please don’t do this. Let me in. Let’s talk about this. Please. This is killing me.”
“Go away, Brandon. I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
“I won’t leave like this. I can’t leave you. Please open the door.”
I let him continue to beg long into the night while I started my mother’s journal over again. I re-read through every miniscule detail, including the color of the first sheets she bought for her shared house. I didn’t get why she’d include something like that in a journal; did the color of sheets really matter to anyone? Maybe it was just a way to distract herself from the decisions she’d made. I couldn’t really blame her for that. The rollercoaster I’d been on was getting old, and sitting in the front seat posed a bigger threat than I ever imagined. No wonder everyone avoided me when I got here… I wasn’t just the freaky half-wolf girl, but throw in half-witch and future pack leader, and that pretty much sealed the deal.
It all boiled down to a long series of bad decisions: I got mixed up with Alex, then Brandon, ran away from home, and allowed them to dictate my life since we’ve been here. The only thing I’d done right so far was sneaking out with Brea. I would have been lost without my mother’s journal; although, I wasn’t sure what to do with all the information just yet.
c h a p t e r
FIFTEEN
A light tap on the door woke me from my journal-induced sleep. Nightmares of my final night with my fake parents, and Sophie trying to cut off my hand, plagued my sleep. I hadn’t thought of that night in so long, but the dreams were vivid like it was yesterday.
“Lacey?” Pain and agony dripped from Brandon’s tone. “I love you. You don’t have to open the door. Please, just talk to me. You don’t understand how bad this hurts me.”
“You should have thought about that before you kept me in the dark about everything.” I stood and stretched my arms above my head as high as they could go to push the edge of the journal back up to the hiding place. I slipped the contraband candles into my pocket. After her journal entry to me, Emma focused on basic shifting and skills I would need to understand witchcraft, and how deeply involved Galena was in the witch’s community. It seemed that I came from a very well connected family, on both my mother’s and father’s sides. Even though she said she deeply loved my father, everything in the journal indicated it was an arranged marriage…one focused on strengthening the coven and the pack.
“Lacey, I was going to tell you everything when the time was right.” His fingers drummed on the door. “You had so much to worry about already. Please, h
oney, open the door. I’ll do anything. I’m sorry for everything.”
Serena interrupted, “Brandon, maybe you should go get some rest.”
“This is my mistake. I’m staying here until she opens this door.”
“No, you’re not,” Serena said. “This is for your own good Brandon. You aren’t effective when you are so tired like you are right now.”
“Stop, let me go!” Brandon yelled and something, possibly a body, pounded on the door. The hinges shook under the new strain being placed on them. I half expected the wood to splinter apart like they do in the movies. Thankfully, it didn’t.
Brandon’s muffled voice continued on the other side of the door, but there was no use in opening it now. If Serena had determined she would have me alone, then that is what would happen. And it did. After all the shouting, screaming, and what sounded like linebackers tackling each other, we were alone. Just Serena and the door that shielded me from her prying, knowing eyes.
“Lacey, I know we should have told you the truth. I’m not going to pretend that we didn’t do you a disservice by keeping you in the dark all this time. You must understand; all we’ve done is shield you and protect you from those that will move against you—that will try to challenge you as our leader. That is why we are here, segregated from the rest of our pack and our families. Please open the door. I will tell you the truth. I will tell you everything you wish to know about us and your history.”
“How can I believe you won’t just lie to me some more?” I said and sat down on the floor again. Brandon was forcefully removed from the room, so there was no way in hell I would open the door for her. She probably already had two or three people ready to spring on me. Then again, if they removed Brandon, they could have easily broken down the door too.
“Look, we do not have much time. The Half Moon Council is a meeting of the leaders and advisors of all the werewolf packs from all over the world. When I was born, the Amanas were peacefully leading the Half Moon Council. My family was focused on peace for our communities, instead of warring within the ranks for territory, money, and power. I will explain it all to you. You need to understand the history. Please, come to my cabin with me. I will show you the books so you can see for yourself.”
