“If I said there was nothing you could do, would you believe me?” Damien asked. The coldness in his tone betrayed him. Lying to a wolf was near impossible. Scent cues and body language always gave away the truth.
“Of course not. Why insult me by trying to imply it?”
“Because I had to try.” Damien started to walk away.
Giselle wouldn’t let him off that easily. She caught up and matched his pace. “Fair enough. And I appreciate your care for my wellbeing. Really, I do. But family needs me. My father needs me.”
“How can you know this?? He’s been a vegetable for your entire life.” His words were like a slap in the face.
In truth, she’d only known him for a short while, but the hidden tail of seventeen years of childhood longing for a family – real family – drove her to accept nothing short of success. “So I should leave him this way?” Giselle snapped at him.
“No.” Damien stopped short and turned on her with fear rather than anger in his eyes. “That came out wrong. I believe in saving those who can be saved, but you cannot know for sure that he can.”
“Damien, I feel it. I sense him in there. He responds to touch. To my touch. He’s a prisoner trapped in his own body. I know it deep within my bones, and I have to do anything I can to reverse what’s been done to him.”
Damien sighed. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You’ve already given me up. Remember?” She hadn’t meant to throw the words at him with such spite, but heartache, coupled with his lack of empathy for her father only deepened the wound.
“I might have lost us, but I haven’t lost you. Yet.”
“So I have to sacrifice myself?” Giselle’s heart sank. Somewhere deep down she knew it would be a one or the other thing. His life for hers and vice versa.
Her resolve weakened as self-preservation reared its head. She could give up nearly everything to save her father, but could she give her own life? And after all her grandstanding, would she be seen as a fraud for backing out, if that were the case?
So many questions plagued her mind, and in her silence she could see Damien watching her. He’d yet to answer for sure. And there was something in his hesitation that pulled her from the downward spiral she’d begun.
“Details,” she said with a sigh. “I need to know everything.”
Damien closed his eyes and took a breath. “To help your father you would need to offer up something in exchange.”
“You’ve said that before. But what, exactly?” Why could he not just give her an answer? The unknown frustrated her more than his lack of specificity because her mind instantly went to a worst-case scenario: her life. But until such words were uttered, she wouldn’t accept them.
“That’s the tricky part.” He turned away, as if not wanting to meet her eyes when he delivered the bad news, but she pulled him back with a hand on his shoulder.
“Just tell me.”
“This isn’t like paying a debtor a specific amount owed. You have to look within and make your offer. If it’s accepted, then my family can act as the broker for the exchange.”
“So I have to come up with something...?” Giselle asked cautiously. Maybe he was overplaying the doom and gloom angle. She didn’t have to offer her life, then. Maybe something smaller. Her eyes trailed down to her hand. Could she offer a part of her? A pinky finger, perhaps? She could live life without a finger. It was useless anyway. Though that of course negated the idea of it being valuable. When she didn’t hear an answer, she turned her gaze back to Damien. “Something of value to me?”
“Yes. And only you can offer it. I cannot even tell you what might be acceptable. It has to come from within.”
“What if my offer is not acceptable?” Giselle asked.
“That I can’t say. Magic isn’t a black and white thing. Your offer could be taken and nothing given in return. Your offer could be rejected. It’s up to the cosmos.” Damien waved a hand to the sky. “The universe holds the great power. We, the witches, are merely conduits of that power. We might look as if we control, it but we simply ask for things to be done.” Damien’s shoulders slumped.
“You’re still holding something back. I can see it. You know the sacrifice would have to be something big... like my wolf or my life to make this work. Don’t you?”
Damien shook his head. “I wish I could say. I only know that your father is in deep. Cassandra too. She’ll never recover the magic. The path to the cosmos is closed to her forever. And so it is supposed to be for Orion.”
“Have you told Cassandra?”
“Of course I did.” Damien rolled his eyes. “She lives with us. She heard me poking around.”
“Fair enough. I should have expected as much, though she never mentioned it to me.”
Damien shrugged and turned away, looking at the people walking past them in the busy halls rather than directly into Giselle’s eyes. “Why would she?”
His overt avoidance of meeting her gaze sent red flags up, warning her that despite his attempt to feed her information, there was still quite a bit more he was keeping below the surface.
“Because she promised to do all she could to help Orion. She comes to visit nearly every day.”
“She may not have known you long, but she’s already got your number. I think she figured if she lay low, you might not do something rash.”
“Really?” Giselle all but rolled her own eyes at Damien scrambling to give her a believable story. More deception. More half-truths.
“Okay. No.”
“So what does Cassandra say to you about all this?”
“What do you think?” Damien sighed.
“Stay out of it?”
“Yes.” Damien finally looked her in the eyes and she saw what he was hiding. Fear. Desperation. Beyond just being worried, there was true terror there. As if he knew her life lay on the line, and he could do nothing to prevent her demise.
What she saw within the depths of his sweet puppy-dog eyes scared her too.
“Stay as far away from magic as you can,” Damien pleaded. “Learn from history. Magic can backfire terribly. The gods can be cruel.”
Her resolved waivered, hearing what he said, but she couldn’t ignore the nagging thought of her poor father trapped for eternity, or however long wolves lived. No. As scared as she was, doing this was the right thing.
“Thank you,” Giselle said.
“Please... don’t.” Damien held his hands up.
“What I do is my duty to family. That I think you can understand. So as far as your assistance there goes, I do thank you. And for myself... I thank you for caring enough to be worried for me.” Giselle said.
“We might be done, you and I, as a couple, but I will always care for you.” Damien looked as if he wanted to pull her into his arms and keep her safe, but he made no motion forward.
“The feeling is mutual.” Giselle offered a half-smile.
“If you choose to go through with this, call on us at the night of the full moon. You and your father.”
That was barely a week away. She’d have to decide what to do soon. Another abstract concept turn reality before she was ready to accept it. Could she find something of value before then? Terror of a different kind wrapped tendrils of doubt around her mind. “That’s the night of the trials,” Giselle said, realizing too what else would be going on at precisely that same time.
“Are you going?” Damien asked curiously.
“No.” Giselle shook her head. “I had hoped to stay home and avoid the trials. Spend more time with Father while the rest of the wolves killed each other for his title.”
“Don’t decide now. Take your time. Maybe even wait a month. There’s a full moon every month, you know. You have time.”
That gave her some peace – knowing that she could delay a little if she needed, even though that meant more time that her father had to be trapped. “I’ll think on it and let you know the day before.”
“I need to go now.”
> Giselle could see his desperate need to escape, and although she’d asked for him to share lunch with her, prolonging their time together would only make things worse. “Of course. We’ll talk soon.”
He turned away from her without so much as a hug or a word of good-bye. Watching as he walked away again felt just as raw and painful as the last time he’d done it. But at least she knew he cared.
Chapter 27
I’m not worthless, so what is it that I can bring to the table? Giselle sat staring blankly at the computer screen. What would the universe take in trade? She’d run though all the web searches she could on offerings to the gods and magical pacts and still came up empty. Blood sacrifice. A life for a life. First-born child. Most of them sounded like the stuff of fairy tales. Knowing the great majority of what she read was bullshit didn’t help either. In the past, she might have texted Damien to ask him or maybe stopped by his house to chat. But their breakup had ruined that, and pressing the issue with him would only push him further away.
She couldn’t ask her family; wolves knew next to nothing of magic.
Giselle really needed the advice of a witch – one that wouldn’t advise against what she planned to do out of motherly love, so Cassandra was out too.
Still her fingers hovered over the keys as her mind drew a blank of what else she could ask the vastness of the web. She’d been holed up in her room for the better part of an hour before the door opened behind her.
Giselle ignored her sister’s approach. Didn’t matter which one it was, she was busy. They could go about their business and leave her in peace. She was supposed to be studying and catching up on missed work still; at least, that was the cover she’d used to get Martina to give her alone time.
Nothing could stop her prying sisters, though.
“I’m not going to bring it up, because I know it’s a worthless cause, but you have to snap out of the funk soon,” Taylor said to Giselle’s back.
Damn! Just go away. Giselle wanted to scream the words. She’d rather face the Spanish Inquisition than invite her sister to open her chest and rip her heart out again talking about stupid boys.
“Okay,” she sighed at her sister’s awkward attempt at pretending she didn’t want details. It ate her up inside, and Giselle knew it. Her and Damien’s breakup had been the quietest one in school history, with neither talking about it to anyone in the families. In public they acted as if all was business as usual, except that it wasn’t. Seeing him ripped the band-aid off her bleeding heart. Each time she was reminded that she was not allowed happiness in anything.
Behind her, she heard the soft squish of the mattress. If Taylor was getting comfy, this conversation was happening whether Giselle wanted it or not..
“Ash was looking for you at school today,” Taylor teased, as if hearing his name might spark something in Giselle.
Not the boy she’s expected her sister to bring up; but she didn’t feel like talking about him either. “Ash knows where to find me,” Giselle sighed. She started typing the words magical sacrifice into the search bar then deleted them just as quickly, knowing she was being watched.
“Maybe he wants to go run? I could cover for you with Martina.” Taylor sounded genuine, but hints of unease were laced within her words.
“Yeah. Sure. Running is good,” Giselle said absently, trying to locate her train of thought. “Not now, though. Busy.”
Taylor groaned behind her. “If I were Di, I’d just demand you turn around and tell me what the hell is going on in your head.”
Giselle squeezed her eyes shut, holding back the angry reply she wanted to give. Taylor was right about one thing: Di would try to steamroll her, but that wouldn’t necessarily change the results. She took a breath and decided to fight fire with fire. Taylor wanted info, and so did she. “Am I worthless?” Giselle turned to face her sister.
“I didn’t mean...” Caught off guard by her reply, Taylor choked on her words. “That’s not... No... Look. I’m sorry.” She stood as if she were planning to walk out of the room, but Giselle beat her to the door.
“What makes me valuable? What is so damn important about me?” Giselle asked. “If I’m so damn important, as everyone has tried to tell me, why has the universe chosen to shit on me?”
Fear replaced shock in Taylor’s eyes. “What? Why are you asking that? Are you okay?”
She’d taken the bait. Giselle smiled inwardly as she kept the hurt in her voice. “Everyone tells me I’m so special, but recent events have proven otherwise, right? I mean the Alphas... Damien...”
Always the sympathetic one, Taylor’s bleeding heart gushed, hearing Giselle downplay her self worth. Tears glistened in her eyes as Giselle finished speaking.
“It’s been a crappy month, Elle, but that doesn’t mean you’re worthless.”
“Sure seems like it.” Giselle added a little extra sulk into her voice.
“You’re awesome. I mean it. Forget the whole Alpha blood debacle. Forget Damien and his stupid family for breaking you two up.”
“So they did break us up?” Giselle cut Taylor off before she could realize what she’d revealed.
“Uh...” Taylor’s shoulders slumped with guilt. “Yeah. He was asking too many questions about Orion and Cassandra, and his mom finally said it was time things ended.”
“I figured as much.” She’d long since accepted that truth, but it still pained her to hear it.
“He really cares about you. So don’t think it had anything to do with your worth.” Taylor reached out, but Giselle pulled away before she could make contact. Annoyance flashed across Taylor’s soft face, and she let the smack of her falling hand hitting her thigh echo in the room before speaking. “No one wanted you and him to end up like your father and Cassandra.”
Giselle let the words sink in. Everyone always worked with her best interest at heart, but good intentions weren’t always the right path. Damien’s questions were no doubt the ones she’d had him ask, and the truth that was being so closely guarded had ended their relationship – a truth she had still yet to discover. Something of value to her. She had to offer something. But what in her was worth anything? Her blood? Her spirit, maybe? She could only offer herself. And maybe that was it – part of her soul or something, scary as that was.
Taylor’s annoyance faded in the silence of the room as the two girls stared blankly at each other. “I know life is throwing crap your way, but you have to try and shake it off. In less than a week―”
“I’m sorry I’m being a bitch.” Giselle cut her off. “I’m just wallowing. Feeling worthless. I mean, I was all but guaranteed to be royalty and then dumped like hot garbage... why?”
“That Vivian lady.” Taylor flipped a switch and went back on the defensive for her sister. “She’s poison. You should have been Alpha. You have the blood of Orion Silverman in your veins. You were born of freaking magic and all. You’re like Super Wolf.”
Giselle snorted at her sister’s gushing. “Super Wolf? Really?” Her words hit closer to home than Taylor had probably intended. She was a special kind of oddity in the wolf world. Magic had been her catalyst, and though her mother had lost it, Giselle had not had life stolen from her. So perhaps some spark of it resided within her.
“I could totally whip you up a fabulous cape if you wanted.” Taylor’s smile returned.
“Do it. Seriously. Hot pink.” Giselle threw words out to keep Taylor speaking, while her mind worked out what Damien had said about being able to channel magic as a witch. She might not be one, but if that quality resided in her blood, it might be part of the equation.
“Ewww. No!” Taylor cringed, and then took her place back on the bed. “If anything, you need a cool blue.”
“Either way, I’m Super Wolf, right?” Her sister had unwittingly given Giselle the answer she had been looking for. But damn. She had no way to confirm her suspicion.
“Yeah, I’ll say. Super Annoying Wolf.” Taylor laughed. “You’re awesome when you’re happy; but da
mn, girl, you can mope with the best of them.”
“Well, I did lose Alpha and my boyfriend in like the same week. Am I not allowed to have feelings?”
“Nope.” Taylor chucked a pillow at Giselle. “You suck it up like a big girl.”
Giselle lobbed the pillow back at her. “Right – you’re one to talk.”
“That’s a low blow.” Taylor scrunched up her face, but there was no real anger to be seen.
“It is, isn’t it?” Giselle mocked her. “All is fair in love and war.”
“Speaking of love...” Taylor asked. “Ash?”
“Really? You’d ask me that now?” She knew she shouldn’t have brought it up. Taylor might have said she was okay with anything that might happen between Giselle and Asher, but the truth was, she’d be hurt.
“He was asking for you.”
“Because we both love to run when we’re stressed.”
“And he likes you,” Taylor said with a tinge of jealousy.
“I just lost my boyfriend. I’m not ready for a rebound. Especially not with Asher Thrace.”
Her stern rebuttal had a calming effect on Taylor, as if her sister needed to hear the truth to temper her own fears. “Okay. Just trying to get your mind off of Damien. You know... sister solidarity.”
Giselle’s mind had lingered on Damien for too long because he was directly tied to all the failing aspects of her life. She needed him to help find information. She missed having him around. And she knew that beyond his family’s support of their breakup, hers was secretly cheering it on as well. One less embarrassment when the Alphas came.
It hurt. All of it. Like a dagger to the heart, over and over. And there was nothing to be done about it because they were all right. She couldn’t be with Damien in the future anyway, Alpha or not. It just wouldn’t work. That much was certain. Saving her father would only further drive the wedge between them, as she now had an idea of what she’d have to ask Damien and his family to do for her. She only hoped by the end of things that friendship would still be possible... if she were capable of it herself when the dust settled. A small part of her wondered if she’d end up trading places with her father when all was said and done.
Fearless Little Werewolf Page 16
