by Alex Lux
Will Derek even see the same woman when he looks into my eyes?
Somewhere, hidden in the secret folds of the universe, there must be a different path I can choose. But those secrets have yet to be revealed to me.
And tonight, my hands carry only death.
TWENTY FOUR
Wisely and Slow
DEREK
Wisely and slow, they stumble who run fast.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
THE NIGHT OF a new moon was always a calm affair at my house. The energy of a full moon built our power like a raging fire, but the new moon soothed us, causing a more reflective journey.
My dad used these nights to meditate and hone his gift of Seeing.
I hadn't heard from Rose since I told her I loved her, but my mom and sister both suggested that this time I give her a bit of space before pursuing her more aggressively.
So when my dad invited me to join him in his meditations, I surprised myself by accepting.
We sat, knees crossed, in the rose garden, allowing the power of this sacred space to enhance our ability to channel. I'd always liked the unpretentious nature of the new moon. It didn't flaunt itself; it just went about its work in silence, invisible to everyone, not at all showy. But under such moons, new creations were strongest, new journeys encouraged.
It was a night of new beginnings, and I hoped that this meditation could help provide me the answer I needed to bring Rose into my life permanently.
We'd been sitting in silence for an hour, me mostly trying not to scratch at random itches, when my dad's eyes popped open and he stood. "We have to gather the whole family. The witches are planning to attack tonight. They're coming for the rose bush."
Blood bumped faster in my veins, and my wolf side howled to come out and attack. "We can finally crush them and get them out of our lives for good."
"No, son. That's not our way. We will defend and protect, we will offer healing to anyone who is injured—including the witches—but we will not engage in violence. Violence only creates more of the same. If we want a world of peace, love and true harmony, we have to practice that ourselves."
He walked out of the garden before I could point out that, throughout history, any true revolution that affected change for the better had begun in bloodshed. He may not want to fight, but for my brother, my family, and for our sacred duty to defend this power, I was ready to rip every single witch's throat out and drink their blood.
The magic of the roses, the magic of the moon and my ancestry, filled my veins, coursing through me as part of my flesh. It bent the core of my DNA, reshaping me into something new. Bones broke and mended, organs repositioned, skin turned to fur and my senses heightened.
The pain, extreme but fleeting, gave way to the crash of sensory overload as I adjusted to the sounds and smells of the night.
Bugs scurried under the boulder, their legs grating against the ground, filling my ears with their sound. Moss grew on trees, its odor distinct and musty.
Leaves rotted and decomposed under the fresh fall of snow, but my wolf nose didn't interpret this as unpleasant, just a natural extension of the earth's cycle.
I embraced the power, howling at the hidden moon, and stood guard over the roses while I planned my attack.
Each of us had distinctive markings, and I was the only all-black wolf in the pack, so if I went against my father's orders, he'd know it was me.
I paused and reflected on my choices. Was I really willing to risk losing my family for a chance at revenge?
In that moment, I'd have given anything for revenge.
TWENTY FIVE
Another's Anguish
ROSE
One fire burns out another's burning,
One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
WE'D MADE IT to the Druid's property when we heard the wolf howls echoing through the forest. Standing on the edge of the vast estate, but far enough out that we couldn't be seen by anyone at the house, we formed a circle with Blake in the middle and pulled our black cloaks around us so that our faces were shielded from even each other.
He needed more magic from us than he'd ever taken before, and that required blood magic.
Mother cut her arm and dripped blood into the circle as she chanted in another language. I didn't know this spell, but when she handed me the knife, I did the same and passed it on to Ocean, who stood at my side.
My arm stung as the blade bit my flesh, aching deeply as blood dripped onto the cold ground.
Once the knife returned to Mother, she completed the spell, and light from each of us moved through the circle toward Blake, filling him until he glowed as if he'd swallowed a rainbow.
We reformed the circle after he left, and I could see what he saw, as if through his eyes.
A sense of vertigo threatened to undo me, but I held on to Ocean's hand, and Mother gripped my other hand with iron force.
The numbness from Sandy's death hadn't entirely left me, but Derek's confession of love had broken the dam that I'd raised around my emotions, and for several days after that I'd cried my heart out.
Now I stood as a shell of a person who once was, but might never be again. The choices I made tonight could unmake me forever.
Behind my eyes I saw as Blake saw, running with increased speed and strength toward the garden he'd seen before.
It was a private garden, locked within old stone walls. He slowed his pace and looked around for others.
Bushes rustled to his left and, when he turned, a black-as-night wolf, larger than the brown one I'd destroyed, jumped out at him and tackled him to the ground.
The coven sent him more power as he fought the wolf, evading tooth and claw, seeking an opening with his knife. The beast lunged forward and tore into Blake's leg, and I felt the pain as my own. Gritting my teeth, I channeled, and our power wove through Blake's muscle, mending it, weaving it back together. The wolf leapt back and growled. Superhuman strength pitted against a beast filled with magic. The fight could favor either of them, so I pushed more into Blake to give him an edge.
As he and the wolf came face to face, I could see into the wolf's eyes and my heart raced. The eyes, so familiar, like I'd looked into them before.
Flashes of the other wolf played through my memories. His eyes as a wolf and his eyes as a boy as he turned into the human shell that collapsed on the kennel floor.
My body shook from the inside out, and my power slipped away from me, dissipating into the night.
TWENTY SIX
He Jests at Scars
DEREK
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
THE NIGHT AIR filled with smells and tastes in my wolf form. A hunger to hunt, to kill, to punish, filled me. My father knew the choice I had made, and he let me make it while the others stayed to guard the roses and my brother.
The scent that stood out the most had been this man. His scent had been on Dean when we found him dumped in the cold on our property, like trash.
His scent had also been at the cabin after the fire.
This man had hurt my family for the last time.
I jumped him in the shadows, expecting some level of power from him, but not expecting such strength and speed. Certainly not expecting him to heal as fast as I could injure him.
He carried only the one knife, but he used his body as an even deadlier weapon, blocking me and throwing me against the trees. Even in wolf form, I couldn't heal as fast as him.
He taunted me with his abilities, which made me think they weren't his naturally.
"You can't win, wolf. I'm not alone."
He confirmed what I suspected, and I dodged him and dove to the side, leaving him to his own mission as I found those responsible for this attack.
He was a pawn in their game.
I wanted the queen.
TWENTY SEVEN
Known
Too Late
ROSE
too early seen unknown...and known too late
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
THE BLACK WOLF approached us with a violent howl. Our circle scattered as he charged in, snapping at coven members with his razor-sharp teeth.
When he saw Mother, he dove for her, pinning her between a tree and a boulder. We had so much power flowing into Blake that most of the witches had almost nothing left. They backed away, unable to do anything to fight against a large, magical wolf-Druid.
I wished I'd confronted Mother about her relationship with David O'Conner, at least then we might have known more about their powers and limitations. Instead, we knew precious little.
Mother fought the wolf with what little power she had left, calling forth the earth to push against Derek, but the attack only stung him, and he moved in for the kill.
I stood behind him, facing Mother, my palms sweaty with fear and dread.
Mother called for me, and the last wolf attack continued to play in my mind, as if on a loop. Mother calling, begging me to help.
"You must use your powers. You have to stop him."
But that wasn't a memory. Mother once again wanted me to kill. To destroy life, even though it went against all the values of what being a witch meant. She reached into my mind and spoke to me, prodding me into doing her will.
I hesitated and the wolf lunged, biting into her leg. Blood seeped from fresh bite marks.
Mother screamed in pain and begged me to help her.
The wolf snapped at anyone who tried to approach her, but I was behind him. I knew I could touch him and end this.
And end him.
Magic swelled in me, that darkness that always fought to be free finally found its way out.
My hands lit up with heat, the energy of fire to burn and destroy.
The same energy that had killed Sandy and destroyed Derek's cabin.
I took a step.
Then another.
The power needed a way out. I could no longer contain it.
I touched the wolf, ready to unleash the darkness, ready to take a life.
It's time I took control, I'd told Ocean, and this was me, taking control, ending this feud.
"Hurry," Mother whispered to my thoughts.
Or was someone else still in control?
I tried to pull my hands away from the wolf, but it was too late. The power had latched onto him, draining him.
No. This was not the way I'd live my life.
I gathered my energy, willed it back inside, back into the dark pit from which it came. The touch of death clung to my fingertips, and I pulled with all my might.
And my hands came off the wolf.
The beast turned on me and charged, and I used what Derek had taught me, feigning one way while coming in for an attack below. I just hoped wolf boy parts hurt like real boy parts as I kicked between its back legs.
The wolf whined, fell back, then righted itself and lunged at me, pushing me to the ground and pinning me.
He looked ready to tear my throat out when my hood fell back, and he saw my face.
And I saw his eyes and finally I remembered why they were so familiar.
This wolf had the same eyes as Derek, when he'd defended me from the men who'd attacked me.
The. Same. Eyes.
TWENTY EIGHT
Peril in Thine Eye
DEREK
Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Rose.
Rose.
Rose.
MY MIND REPEATED her name, as if I could make all of this horror disappear and we'd be back in the cabin, holding each other in front of the fire.
At first I thought the coven had captured her and used her to punish me. She was their prisoner.
But then I realized that she hadn't been restrained. And she'd been about to use some kind of power on me.
All of the blood lust drained from my body, and my heart cracked into shards.
As if from another dimension, I heard the leader call for the coven to capture me, but I couldn't move. Couldn't make this new reality where Rose was my enemy mesh with the reality I had lived where she was my love.
A magical net surrounded me, and still I didn't fight.
Her beautiful eyes were wide in fear, her pale face drained of even the slightest color. I could tell from the swelling around her eyes that she'd been crying a lot, and I didn't know which part of me should respond to that—the man who loved her, or the Druid who wanted her dead.
The nets tightened around me, pulling me off of her. My claws scraped against her chest, leaving raw, red lines. I didn't harm her on purpose. Would she know that? Did it matter?
The man I'd fought came back, bent over and out of breath. He said something about the power failing. He couldn't get the roses.
Perhaps my dad had been right. Perhaps fighting them hadn't been the best choice. Nothing seemed to matter anymore.
As they pulled me along the icy forest floor to their cars, my eyes never left Rose's. She shuffled forward, Ocean at her side, and stared at me, tears running down her face as my wolf body gave out and my human body took over.
TWENTY NINE
What Must Be Shall Be
ROSE
What must be shall be.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
No.
No.
No.
NOT DEREK. IT couldn't be. But the eyes. And then he shifted, trapped in the magical threads of power from my coven, the wolf shifted into man, and my beloved Derek lay there naked, staring at me with so much hate and pain.
I knew every inch of him, had touched and loved all of him in the only ways I could, and now he had been reduced to a wounded animal.
Worse—the enemy.
Large purple bruises formed on his back from when Blake had thrown him against the tree, and the threads of magic dug into his skin, cutting him and leaving open wounds.
I clutched my chest where his claws had torn into my flesh as they pulled him off of me. "Stop!"
Mother leaned against Blake, who helped her to the car. The others looked at me, shock on their faces.
I pointed to Derek's battered body. "You're hurting him. He had nothing to do with the attacks on our property. He's innocent. Let him go, please."
Ocean held me upright as I pled for the life of this man I still loved, despite everything.
He hadn't even been in town until after the attacks had started. He'd come back for his brother, who'd been hurt.
Oh God. His brother. I had destroyed Derek's brother.
No.
No.
No.
This couldn't be happening. A week ago I had hope, a future with promise. Now, my world had turned to ash and everything I loved had been taken from me.
Blake shouted about making him pay for what he'd done to Mother, but all I could see was what we were doing to him. What I'd done to his brother.
I sobbed in Ocean's shoulders as the coven I'd been raised in once again ignored me to follow the misguided lead of Mother.
THIRTY
Love's Heavy Burden
ROSE
Under love's heavy burden do I sink.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
"ARE YOU SURE about this?" Ocean crossed her legs, waiting for me to reply.
I looked at Sandy's empty bed, and my heart once again mourned her loss. I hadn't the strength to remove all signs that she'd lived here, so instead I lived with the smells and sights of her daily life, as if she'd come barreling in from the outdoors at any moment, licking my hand.
"I'm not sure of anything anymore. But he had nothing to do with the attacks on us, that I know. He doesn't deserve to be our prisoner, naked and kenneled, treated worse than a criminal."
> Outside the night howled its discontent, perhaps for all the injustices that had commenced on what should have been a night of fresh starts.
Ocean reached for my hand. "I believe you. I didn't get the psycho vibe from him, either, and I trust you. Let's go save Derek from our crazy coven."
I nodded, but didn't stand. "Only one problem. To save him, I'll have to see him again. Talk to him. Explain myself, and yet I'm too confused by all that's happened to explain anything. How did we get here, Ocean?"
She hugged me, then pulled back to look me in the eyes. "I don't know, but no matter what, you have me. We'll figure this out together. First, we need to take care of your boyfriend."
Boyfriend. The word stung. "He's not my boyfriend. Not anymore."
"That remains to be seen." She pulled me off the couch and handed me some clothes. "Time to don the spy gear."
"Don't worry about Blake, I know how to handle him." Ocean said as she handed me the flashlight.
Our 'spy gear' consisted of black leggings, a black turtleneck, and a black knit cap. I thought it was a bit overkill, but I didn't press it. What did it matter what we wore? My hands shook with fear at seeing Derek again.
Mother had ordered him locked in one of the kennels, with Blake as a guard, while she took care of her leg.
Everyone had retired hours ago, drained emotionally and magically. Ocean and I had concocted this half-assed plan, and now we had to see it through. I wouldn't let Derek rot in a dog kennel so this coven could use him as a bartering chip with his family in trade for the rose bush.
