by R. L. Weeks
“You’re really only about a fourth werewolf, but no one will ever know since you can change now,” Vera stated.
I glanced from the old woman to my girlfriend. Jackson stared at Vera, waiting for more explanation, but Vera only stared off into the stacks of books across the room.
“She’s right,” I confirmed. “You’re only one-fourth werewolf, and not only should you not exist, but you definitely shouldn’t be able to shift. Looks like you’re more special than I thought, babe.” I tried to soften the blow.
“Is that what happened to me last night?” Jackson’s lips trembled as she asked.
Guilt ravaged my heart. If I was a good boyfriend, I would have been there with her to explain what was happening, help her through it. Instead, I used magic to knock her out and keep her asleep through the God-awful experience of shifting while I brought her sister back to life and healed her.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there with you,” I said.
Jackson sank into her chair.
Pierce smiled at her weakly and grabbed her hand. “It’ll be fine, sis. I promise. So you’re a werewolf, and I’m a witch? I still love you. Nothing changes that.”
“Everything changes that!” Jackson shrieked. “We aren’t even sisters!”
Pierce winced as Jackson’s words cut through her, but Jackson was right. I was glad she realized their bond was not by blood. It would make leaving easier.
“You need to tell them now,” Vera stated, barking her command at me.
“Tell us what?” the sisters asked in unison.
“I’m leaving. Tonight. And Pierce is coming with me.”
Pierce gasped. “I’m what?”
“Pierce is going with you?” Jackson asked sadly.
Both girls looked confused and scared, but Jackson also looked like I’d stabbed her in the heart.
“It’s not like that, babe,” I said. “Pierce’s birth mom is the leader of the Black Lily Coven. She’s got to come with me.”
“My birth mom?” Pierce whispered and looked past her sister and straight at me.
“Yeah. Her name is Adella. Your father’s name is Spencer. The entire reason I’m here is because I was tasked with finding you and bringing you back to them, and it’s time to go.”
Vera spoke up. “He’s right, girls. It’s time for Pierce to go. She’s got a destiny to fulfill.”
“Grandma! You can’t be serious!” Jackson cried. “And you.” She turned toward me. “You’re just going to leave me here, after telling me you love me, and you’re taking my sister with you?”
“Don’t I get a say in any of this?”
Jackson immediately stopped talking, and we both looked at Pierce. The color was coming back to her cheeks, and her eyes were beginning to shine again, but they were currently angry and dark. Her long red hair was draped over her shoulder and she sat up straight, fixing her posture before she spoke again.
“I’ve thought about this since finding out I was a witch, and I decided immediately if I had a chance to meet my birth family I would take it.”
Jackson scoffed at her sister. “And you didn’t think I’d want to come with you? To help you? Be there for you?”
Pierce smiled gently and looked at her sister with pity. “You need to stay here. You need to graduate, and you just found out you can change into a wolf, Jackie! I mean, that’s pretty serious. I think we both need time to figure out who we are, separate from each other.”
Pierce looked down and waited for Jackson’s reply, but Jackson looked up at me instead.
“You’re really leaving me?”
“There will be people here to protect you and Vera,” I said to reassure her, though I knew it wasn’t her safety she was concerned with. “When they get here, two will travel with Pierce and me, and two will stay behind to find Axel and put an end to him once and for all.”
“He’ll follow us. He loves me. He won’t stay here.” Pierce stated.
“He doesn’t love you. Vampires can’t love. They can only lust and obsess, and I’m afraid to tell you, he’d hurt your sister to get to you, Pierce.”
The girls had no idea the type of danger they were both in. They had only had a few days to wrap their minds around the whole idea of the Supernatural Order, and now they were being separated.
“So we’re all in danger then?” Jackson’s voice was quiet and meek. She sank back in her chair, and my heart dropped at how defeated she seemed.
I leaned in and cupped her the left side of her face with my hand. She really was beautiful, and if she hadn’t inherited the werewolf curse, there may have been a chance for us, but the last werewolf to befriend a witch had been Jackson’s grandfather. There weren’t many wolves left in the world, but it wasn’t acceptable to date one. They had nearly eradicated the witches once after all.
“Yes, you’re in danger, but I need you to trust me.”
I had been asking her to trust me a lot lately, and while she had once given trust so easily, I could tell she was starting to have her apprehensions. I rubbed my thumb across her cheek and decided to tell her the last bit of truth I had.
“I’m not an eighteen-year-old senior,” I admitted.
Jackson’s eyes narrowed and her hand went up to mine, still on her face. “What do you mean?”
I took a deep breath. “I’m twenty-one. I was posing as a senior to get close to Pierce. I didn’t get the intel about Pierce graduating early until I saw you both at the school. I should’ve dropped the act and gotten out of here with Pierce then, but I met you, and I couldn’t bring myself to leave,” I told her sincerely.
Jackson shot forward, swatting my hand from her face.
“So you’re telling me you were only here to use me to get close to Pierce and not only did you do that, but you also kept Pierce here past the point of when you were supposed to essentially kidnap her, which is what led Axel to us and got us all nearly murdered? Oh, and you’re also way older than me?” She blurted her entire rant out in one long sentence without stopping for breath.
I stared at her with my mouth agape while Vera chuckled from the other end of the table. “Uh, yeah?”
I rubbed the back of my head and waited for her to say something else. She just stared at me with all her sultry Latina swagger, shooting daggers into my chest with her eyes. She wasn’t the first young woman to go from loving me to hating me, but she was the first whom I had actually felt something for in return.
“I’m sorry, okay?”
I stood from the chair and faced her. “I’m sorry for everything that’s happened. I didn’t mean to fall in love with you. I didn’t know your curse would be triggered. I didn’t know I’d almost get you killed or you’d get possessed by your dead aunt. If I had known only terrible things would follow my decision to stick around little longer than necessary, I would have revealed to Pierce who she was myself, and we’d have been long gone by now.”
The tears welling in her eyes felt like a punch to the gut. I should have known better than to develop feelings for someone during an assignment. Work romances never ended well for either party, and now I was reaping what I’d sewn.
She sniffled. “It’s not your fault.”
“She’s right!” Vera interrupted. “It’s no one’s fault but George’s. If he had let the girl grow up knowing who she was and learning how to protect herself, none of this would have happened. We could’ve given her back to the damn coven years ago, and I wouldn’t have a vampire stalking around my house or all this property damage I have now!” Vera stomped her cane on the floor as she spoke to punctuate her anger. She was right, though it wasn’t my place to say anything. If the girls had grown up—both of them—knowing full well who they were or could be, their entire lives could have been different. They could have grown up in a whole other world.
“When are you leaving then?” Jackson looked up at me with her big brown eyes. I wanted to lie to her and say never, but she deserved honesty during our last moments together.
“As soon as Zachary and the crew get here, probably first light. Sunup will still be our best advantage so we can see,” I replied.
Jackson nodded. “I’d like to spend the night alone with my sister then, if it’s the last time I’m going to see her.”
“Yes, I’d like that too,” Pierce said.
“Well, I for one am exhausted. Tommy, help me over to the west wing so I can lie down,” Vera ordered as she wobbly stood up.
Pierce stood. She was shaky as well but walked out of the room on her own. Jackson tried to walk past me and follow her sister, but I gently grabbed her elbow.
“I’m so sorry,” I tried to tell her again.
Jackson jerked her elbow away from my hand. “I need time to process all of this and say good-bye to my sister. You’ve already said enough,” she replied icily.
I knew right then whatever bond we’d had was shattered. Maybe it was for the best. She was so young and still had so much to learn about not only the human world she had grown up in but the Supernatural Order to which she now belonged. I was sure Adella will have a fit when I tell her the gene had been passed to Jackson. If the wolves could multiply with humans now, without using magic, their numbers could start to replenish, if they hadn’t already.
I let the girls pass without saying another word and took Vera’s arm. We followed the girls silently down the hall back into the part of the manor that wasn’t completely falling apart. I deposited Vera at her bedroom and was going to follow the girls to their room to discuss the plan for when Zachary arrived, but Pierce’s door was slammed in my face before I could get a word out.
All I could do now was wait, and waiting was not my best skill.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Pierce
“You remember when we were eleven and thirteen and we went to that beach resort in Barcelona for an entire week?” I asked Jackson.
“I don’t want to talk about the past. We need to talk about tomorrow. You cannot go with him.”
I fluffed my pillow a bit and rolled onto my side so I could face my sister in bed. Her eyes were puffy from tears and exhaustion, her skin was yellowish, and her hair was a greasy tangled mess. My life and all the baggage I was just finding out about was destroying my sister’s life.
She’s not your sister, a nagging voice kept reminding me in my head. Of course Jackson was my sister. Even if we weren’t blood related, I loved her more than anything. She was part of me, and I’d never abandon her, but I knew what I had to do next, I needed to do alone.
“I have to, Jackie,” I whispered.
“You’re really going to skip town with my boyfriend? Do you even know where he’s taking you?”
I shook my head. All I knew about where we were going was I’d meet my birth parents there. I hadn’t asked for an address. Although, I supposed it was naïve of me to blindly trust him, even if he was the only other person like me I had ever met.
“It’s not like how you’re trying to make it. Tommy loves you. He fell for you just as hard as you fell for him, but he’s got a responsibility—”
“To you!” Jackson said, interrupting me. “He has a responsibility to you, to my sister. How am I supposed to feel about that? The love of my life is leaving me because my sister is more important than me!”
“Oh, Jackie, you’re young. You’re going to experience love many more times hopefully.”
“Stop talking like he isn’t my soul mate. You sound like a nagging mother. I know what Tommy and I have is real,” she stated.
I couldn’t blame her. If Axel hadn’t tried to kill me, I never would have believed he was the serial killer or he was a vampire who was compelling me to him in his little forest hut in the middle of the night. I shuddered and was glad I couldn’t remember the almost-nightly blackouts.
“You think he’ll come back for me, after he takes you home I mean?” Jackson’s voice was merely a whimper. She brought the edge of the sheet up to her face and rubbed it across her cheek. I reached over and pushed a clump of hair away from her eyes and behind her ear.
“I don’t know, sis. He hasn’t been clear with me on exactly what the plan is for after Zachary and the others get here.”
Jackson sighed and reached across the bed for my hand. “I knew I’d have to say good-bye to you this year, but I really thought it was going to be because I was going to college. Who would’ve thought you’d actually be going off to witch school or some shit?”
She tried to laugh, but I could tell she was only trying to hide her sadness.
“That’s a good way of looking at it though. You can pretend I’m off at some stick-up-the-ass college, and you can stay here with Vera and learn about where you come from too,” I suggested.
“Ooh, yay. Me and Vera,” Jackson answered with an eye roll.
“There’s still so much we didn’t get to talk about tonight. I knew something was wrong with you the night Axel attacked me. Tommy said you were possessed?” This was a story I needed to hear. I had noticed Jackson wasn’t herself and had been ultra moody the last few days, but I thought witches were the only ones who could see ghosts. Tommy and I were the only ones who’d been able to see the dead girls in the woods after all.
“Yup. Possessed by dear old Aunt Dana. Vera’s sister.”
Chills ran up my spine as the temperature in the room dropped suddenly.
“That’s probably her now,” Jackson mumbled.
She let go of my hand and rubbed the bracelet on her opposite wrist.
“How did you get her out? Doesn’t it usually take, like, a priest or something to do an exorcism?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“Well, I don’t know. I’ll make sure to look up the rule book before I get possessed by my bitchy, vengeful dead aunt again,” my sister countered with a nudge to my shoulder.
“Seriously though, sis. How’d you do it?” I asked her again.
“I don’t know. I just knew I needed to get to you, and I guess my love for you and desire to save you was stronger than Aunt Dana’s ability to possess me.”
“I love you, Jackie.”
“Love you too.” Jackson’s eyes fluttered, and my fingers gently stroked her temple until she fell into a deep sleep next to me. I waited a few minutes to be sure she was going to stay sleeping, then swung my legs over the bed, grabbed the bag I had packed and ready to go, and bolted through my bedroom door. I raced across the manor back to the old library where Tommy waited.
“She’s asleep?” Tommy’s voice cracked at the end of his question. Leaving my sister was hard for him, but we both knew if we didn’t go now, she’d try to stop us in the morning, and it would be harder on everyone. Besides, Axel wouldn’t expect us to travel at night.
“Yea, she’s sleeping,” I confirmed with a sigh.
Tommy nodded and sat at the head of the table where two other men sat, one on each side of him. They were older than Tommy, probably in their thirties. The blond man had a long beard tapered off at his collar bone. His icy blue eyes, long hair tied back in a ponytail, and black symbols tattooed up and down his muscular arms made him look like a Viking lord. The other was a Viking’s opposite in every way. He had dark, ebony-colored skin free from tattoos, dark brown eyes, and prominent features that complimented his strong jaw. His midnight-black hair was cut short and clean, and he had no facial hair at all. Where they were the same, however, was their strength. Both men were impossibly large, easily close to seven feet tall. They towered over Tommy, even while they sat at the table.
“These men are our reinforcements. Meet Nicholas, one of our most powerful spellcasters, and Trey, our muscle. He’s a shifter.”
“I thought you didn’t like shifters?” I questioned, remembering his remarks about wolves and witches and how our grandfather—well, Jackson’s grandfather—was the only werewolf the witches had tolerated.
Trey laughed and tried to use his hand to stifle it, but Tommy nudged him anyway, which made me laugh. Tommy was at least two hundred pounds lighter than
the two men on either side of him, but Tommy was the one who seemed to be giving the orders.
“There are many different species of shifters, Pierce. We just don’t like the wolves,” Nicholas explained. “Trey is a bear shifter. We like their kind, and many of them even live and are employed with the coven.”
“I must have missed that part of my history lesson,” I mumbled.
Tommy stood from his chair. “Don’t worry about it. We only riffled through about a hundred of those old books in the library. There were thousands to choose from.” He winked.
“Yeah,” I replied.
My head began pounding, and I reached up to rub my temples. I closed my eyes tightly to block out the light as the pain intensified and my head spun. Someone grabbed my arm to steady me and eased me into the chair next to Trey.
“Everything went okay with the spell bringing her back, right?”
“Yes, it went perfectly. I had all the ingredients. The moon was full. She’d only been gone five minutes or less—”
“Are you sure it was only five minutes?”
“Absolutely!” Tommy snapped.
“We need to get her home,” Trey interjected.
Yes, home. I wanted to go home more than anything, back to Manhattan and our high-rise. I tried to lift my head from the table, but the pain was unbearable. Two hands grasped each side of my head and squeezed gently. The pressure helped ease the pain building inside my head, but the warmth radiating from their hands, through each strand of hair on my head, penetrating my skull, and warming my brain and blood was what flushed the searing pain from my head completely.
When he removed his hands, I opened my eyes and looked up. Nicholas had healed me.
“What’s happening to me?” I asked him.
“When witches die, their soul goes to the other side to be with the ancestors. When Tommy brought you back, he ripped your soul from the in-between and put it back in your body.”
“Okay, so?” I pressed him to get to the point.
“So, it’s unnatural to die twice. Your soul wants to complete its journey to the other side to commune with the ancestors.”
