20. Chapter Twenty

I told Ewan about the dream while cuddled together in the cave. He took it better than I had hoped. No throwing things, no screaming, no rumble of alpha rage. Shock had pulsed through our bond as I spoke. Like me, he assumed Nicasia and Ambrose were the soulmates in the story. Since we’d both grown up in wolf packs, neither of us knew if fae families passed this legend on to their children. Luckily, we had a contingent of fae waiting impatiently for our return.

The sun was just peeking over the mountains when Ewan and I left the safety of the cave and raced through the snowy canyon. It was a beautiful day for such a horrible event. Today, every shifter pack and fae coven would pick a side. The Taurus wolves would officially become traitors in the eyes of the Zodiac Councils. The war would begin.

My blood sang at the thought of a battle to the death, and deep-seated rage simmered in my gut. The fae had done this to us, made us warriors, protectors, killers. Zosia had been a na?ve child during the games, and King Orrin forced her to make the decisions of an adult. He’d corrupted her love for Stavros and unwittingly created a clusterfuck in the present. The fae weren’t trying to prevent the end of the supernatural world. They simply wanted to clean up his mess and hide their dirty secret.

By the time this was over, I vowed every shifter would know the truth.

Winter, Birch, and Walter were drinking coffee in the living room when Ewan and I returned. The air smelled sweet, like pancakes or waffles, and I could hear Colleen in the kitchen.

“We need to talk.” Ewan tilted his head back and sniffed the air. “Where’s Charlie? He should hear this.”

“One of his sisters had a nightmare. I can get him back,” Birch said.

Ewan replied with a curt nod.

“Is this clothing optional?” Walter asked. “I’d rather you don’t put your bare asses on the furniture.”

“We’ll put on clothes,” I blurted. Ewan was edgy, and Walter’s snide remarks irritated his wolf.

Coffee sloshed over Winter’s hands as she leapt to her feet. She hastily set the cup aside and muttered a spell to clean up the hot liquid. “I have stuff you can wear, Zara.” She made a valiant effort to meet Ewan’s eyes. “Archer has some sweatpants that will fit you.”

Ewan and I went with Winter to get dressed, returning minutes later to find Charlie, Colleen, and Kieran had joined the others. I figured Ewan would send the teenager away, but he only spared the kid a glance and said nothing. Mrs. Wynn and Frann arrived last and, again, I thought Ewan might not want a foreign wolf to hear such sensitive topics. He gave a deferential nod, like she was one of his elders instead of an Ophiuchus wolf.

I did most of the talking, since it was my dream and all. In the cave, I’d told Ewan how the memory really ended, with royal guards carrying Zosia from the king’s private chambers. I left out that part when I recounted the story to everyone else. They didn’t need to know; it wasn’t important to anyone but Ewan and me.

“Fae soulmates are extremely rare. Only one pair is ever supposed to walk to this earth at any given time.” Frann smiled sadly. “Yet two pairs sit in this room.” Her eyes shifted to a spot behind Winter, making me curious if she could see Archer. “That is significant.”

“It’s also a technicality,” Walter said. “Zosia and Stavros were only Gaia-marked because Nicasia and Ambrose were undead in the year of their birth.”

“Unless it’s not,” I said. “Gaia seeks balance. What if she marked a new set of soulmates to destroy the first? I mean, that’s why King Orrin made the wolves, right? To fight the vampires. Humans, too. But it was the war with the vampires that led to the eternal protectors.”

Honestly, I was talking out of my ass. These weren’t memories I’d dreamt, they were just things that I knew to be true. Still, my word-vomit made certain of the older generations in the room uneasy, something Ewan didn’t miss either.

“This is the problem with the stories from the old country,” Frann said. “They were twisted then, and they are even twistier now. Many Kings of the Valley believed the moment they put that crown on their head, Gaia would speak to them. When that didn’t happen, they made all sorts of fantastical claims, dictated prophecies—anything so history would remember them. Fact and fiction are relative.”

I shook my head, confused as to her point. “So, you think we should disregard the prophecy?”

“Not at all. This eternal king believes the prophecy is real, so we must operate under that same assumption. But if you want to know what this is all really about, the crux of it all, look no farther than this room, child. Mark my words, two pairs of soulmates is not happenstance. Gaia may have marked you to restore balance, but that’s not why you’re all here now.”

No one spoke after Frann’s speech. Maybe it was the poison combined with the lack of sleep and the hunger cramping my stomach, but I felt like I was missing something. Mat had started this. He wanted all the eternals and protectors to rise, including the four of us—counting Archer—in the living room. But it wasn’t specific to us… was it?

A cellphone alarm shattered the silence. Charlie reached into his pocket to turn it off. He met Ewan’s gaze. “One hour. We should get in position.”

“I still think I should—”

Three resounding nos cut off Winter’s words. I hated to side with Walter on anything, particularly against his daughter.

Winter glared at me and then turned a pleading gaze on Ewan. “What if you need a speedy exit, hmm? Wouldn’t it be better if I’m there to open a portal?”

“No.” His eyes cut to me. “You’re not going either. But you’ll be able to watch everything go down. Every alpha will be there with a contingent. Your father will bring Zach and Brooke, so you can use the mirror.”

“I left it in your bedroom, Zara, dear,” Mrs. Wynn said. “The cleaners should be finished by now if you want to retrieve it.”

I didn’t love the compromise, though I supposed it was better than twiddling my thumbs and imagining the atrocities.

Ewan folded me in his arms and dropped a lingering kiss on my hair. “You’re in charge until we return.” He spoke in his normal voice, so that everyone in the room could hear him. It was a statement that would reverberate through the pack, letting everyone know I was top wolf.

My father had never entrusted the pack to my mother. If he left the pack lands, command transferred to the highest-ranking male wolf. I caught Ewan’s mother in my periphery and saw her nodding approvingly.

Charlie clapped his hands once and then rubbed them together. “Gaia, what I wouldn’t give to hear the fight about to erupt at my parents’ house.”

I rolled my eyes and tried to downplay my pride. “It’s, like, two hours at the most.”

Ewan gestured to Winter. “Open a portal?” It was half-question, half-command, which was big for him since he barked orders at everyone else.

“Since you asked so nicely,” she muttered as she stood and started weaving a doorway.

I gave Ewan a quick kiss and then grabbed the front of his shirt. “I’ll see you soon.”

He ran his nose along my cheek, breathing in my scent. “You will,” he promised.

Charlie and Birch accompanied him through the portal, as did Walter. I had thought Colleen was part of the watch party, but she hung back, leaving just the women and the silent teenager in the corner.

“If you get the mirror, Zara, I can project the images,” Colleen offered, nudging me in the right direction.

“I’ll open a portal,” Winter said.

She created a doorway straight into the bedroom that I shared with Ewan. I didn’t want to look downstairs and see the bloodstained sofa, and yet I just couldn’t help myself. I peered over the railing, pleasantly surprised to see a brand-new leather couch. The evidence of my crime was gone. Mrs. Wynn had mentioned the cleaners.

Relieved my house didn’t look like a scene out of a B-horror movie, I grabbed the box off my nightstand and hurried back through the portal. In the short time I was gone, Colleen had set about rearranging the chairs in the living room to form a semicircle.

She pointed to the seat that Walter had previously occupied. “Sit there, Zara.”

I finally understood why Ewan grumbled so much about the women in his life not giving him the alpha respect he deserved. Colleen had no qualms about ordering me around, which made me bristle even though I did as she said.

Winter sat on my left, Mrs. Wynn on my right. Colleen and Kiernan took the end seats. I opened the box on my lap and wrapped my hand around the cold metal handle. Thirteen jagged sections appeared. I located Brooke.

As predicted, she was with my family. Seeing my parents in their ceremonial Gemini robes nearly broke me. Did they even miss me? Were they glad I had left? The debacle of my almost-marriage to Hayden had brought shame on the pack and, specifically, my father. Did he hate me?

I asked myself these questions because they were easier to handle than the one I really wanted to ask: Would my father have handed me over to the Zodiac Councils? I hated that I didn’t know the answer.

Mrs. Wynn touched my arm. “Whenever you’re ready, dear.”

“Yeah. Sorry.” My gaze landed on Colleen. “I’m ready.”

Her water magic was cool and refreshing, like a dip in the falls at the first hint of spring. The lights in the room dimmed, as a three-dimensional image of the scene in the mirror lit up the space in the center of the semicircle.

My father, who had always been the strongest shifter I knew, looked shell-shocked, like his mind couldn’t process the fact he’d been wrong about something. Mom appeared almost smug. Had she believed the eternals and their protectors were real the entire time?

Zach wore a neutral-verging-on-constipated expression, which I knew as his anxiety-face. My heart broke for him, and I felt more than a little guilty for not being there to ease his worry. Brooke slipped her small hand in his and whispered too softly to hear in his ear. Whatever she said made my brother smile. She was the ideal alpha’s mate, with her gentle touch and soothing words. I wanted to be that for Ewan.

“Are you certain we shouldn’t take a larger entourage, Merrick?” Mom asked as she smoothed the shoulders of his long, fur-trimmed robe.

“We don’t want to appear hostile or like we are opposing the Zodiac Council. The four of us are a show of respect,” my father said.

Mom simply smiled and refrained from further argument. I admired her restraint and wondered how often she held her tongue when she desperately wanted to unleash it. I had always been a daddy’s girl, while my mother and I often clashed. Now that she and I were both mated to an alpha, I understood her a little better. I respected her more, too.

My family climbed in a waiting SUV, which drove them out of pack lands and to a small town halfway between Arcane Landing and Arcane Falls. From there, they went to a bar, where the owner directed them to a door with a static portal that transported them to the council”s meeting spot.

They stepped out into a large meadow. Small clusters of fae and shifters were spread throughout the clearing. Like my family, many wore ceremonial robes. Most fae rulers had donned their crowns in a show of superiority that made me dislike them immediately.

Across the clearing, another magical doorway opened, and Essie stepped through. I was pretty sure I gasped. She planned to oppose the councils, so I hadn’t expected her to appear in person. While Winter was on Team Surprised, both Colleen and Mrs. Wynn looked like they’d expected it.

“What will they do to her?” Winter asked her mother.

“Essie knows what she’s doing,” Colleen replied, which was not an answer.

Representatives from nearly every faction, fae and shifters, gathered in that clearing. I recognized a few, including the Aquarius alpha’s daughter, who’d nearly become my sister-in-law. Liam and his sister Sasha stood with their father Jonah, the Virgo alpha, and glared at my family. Their longstanding feud made the situation feel oddly more normal.

The Leo Fae were not in attendance, which both surprised me and didn’t. As far as I knew, Hayden was still King Evander’s heir apparent. The Ophiuchus wolves had no obligation to attend, so I wasn’t at all shocked that they didn’t. Their fae counterparts weren’t there either, and I was less sure if that was normal. Neither the Taurus wolves nor fae sent parties, nor did the Capricorn wolves, as promised. The Capricorn Fae had representatives, though. Lots of them. My father wasn’t wrong about such a large entourage appearing as a show of force.

A portal opened in the center of the clearing. Thirteen fae filed through the golden light, followed by thirteen shifters. They all wore gilded cloaks lined with white fur that made my wolf twitchy. Each of the twenty-six Zodiac Council members wore an identical gold crown of thorns holding four stones, which represented the elements.

A fae who looked older than Essie cleared his throat loudly, as if to capture everyone’s attention. The clearing had fallen silent when the councils arrived.

“This is a grave day for all of us,” the man said, his voice shockingly deep and steady, given the tremble in his hands. “Sacrificing one of our own is never an easy choice, but we must weed out the rotten apples before they destroy the entire harvest. They may seem harmless now, merely your friends, your children, your mates. Should we allow them to continue on in this life, they will rise and destroy our world.”

The alphas all made a low rumbling sound that echoed through the clearing and then howled as one. If it weren’t so creepy and cult-like, I might have thought the harmony of the moment beautiful.

The fae elder waited for the noise to die out before continuing. “Our ancestors had the best of intentions when they created their warriors and wolf protectors. Unfortunately, they were short-sighted. In their desperation to protect themselves from the humans, they made thirteen eternal warriors who could only die by their own hand. They didn’t understand that the immortality spell would allow for reincarnation. While this loophole has allowed the eternals to be born again and again, it has also provided us with a chance to right the mistakes of our forefathers.”

This was a less biased version of the eternals’ origin story than I had expected from the fae. Unlike King Orrin, this man didn’t speak of soulmates or place the blame on Nicasia and Ambrose like they were single-handedly responsible for all the wrongs of the supernatural world.

Starting with the fae, the old man called each faction forward and demanded the surrender of any suspected eternals. The first few interactions were uneventful, which I’d anticipated. All the eternals, save Winter and Archer, were missing in action. They called for the Geminis last.

Out of habit, I sucked in air and blew out a long breath as Essie and the other Gemini fae stepped forward. The tension in the living room ratcheted up several notches. Colleen vibrated so badly that the images projecting from the mirror glitched. Winter was on the edge of her seat, literally. Even Mrs. Wynn pursed her lips and clasped her hands in her lap, as if waiting for bad news. Only Kiernan reacted, but he also didn’t grasp the magnitude of the proceedings.

Why was the teenager who helped poison me here? It wasn’t the first time I’d wondered, but with everything else happening, I had yet to ask.

“Elder Sable, we have spoken of this matter at length. It has now come to our attention that the Gemini Fae have two eternals. A pair. The pair. Unless circumstances have changed—and I hope for your sake they have not—they are both still mortal.”

“There are no eternals in Arcane Landing, Ilyod,” Essie said, using the man’s given name instead of his title.

I silently cheered her subtle defiance. No matter how this ended, Essie Sable was a legend. I saw my feelings reflected in Colleen’s watery eyes. She was proud of her grandmother.

This clearly annoyed Ilyod, yet he kept his opinions on the matter to himself. “Semantics, Essie,” he said, dropping her title as well. I had a feeling these two had history.

“It’s the truth, all the same.” Essie stood a little straighter, a challenge in her keen gaze.

I wasn’t familiar with fae politics since I paid little attention in the classes where I might have learned more about their ceremonial customs and laws.

“Your great-granddaughter is one of these vile creatures, Essie. Your bloodline is tainted.”

“You have no proof,” Essie said calmly.

Ilyod smiled. “I’m afraid we do.”

The portal opened again, and two people dressed in all black dragged a third figure into the clearing. An older man and a blonde woman around my age followed. Winter made the sharpest keening sound I had ever heard. Her pain filled the bond. I turned to her, wide-eyed and terrified. She was pale and in shock, and I wanted to murder the person responsible.

Colleen rubbed Winter’s arm. “It’s okay, baby. He can’t hurt you.”

I pried Winter’s hand loose from the chair arm and threaded her fingers with mine. Nothing much hurt me anymore, but her grip had me wondering how quickly a vampire’s broken finger bones healed.

“If he comes near you, I will drink him dry and spit out his unworthy blood. Then I’ll feed him to the next blue bat we find.” I never raised my voice, every word measured and precise, because this wasn’t an idle threat. I didn’t just want to protect her from harm. Her pain made me vicious and vengeful.

Is this how Ewan feels about Mat? I wondered. If so, we had yet another problem. That bond couldn’t continue. What had Winter said? The bond couldn’t be severed, only rejected. On my list of Uncomfortable Topics to Discuss with Your New Mate, formally rejecting his bond with Mat was number one.

Colleen laughed. “Walter will be so disappointed he wasn’t here to hear you say that.” She held firm to Winter’s arm, while keeping her eyes on the projection. After a few seconds, her calming magic flowed from Winter to me.

I didn’t love the way Colleen magically sedated her daughter, but I didn’t want to overstep, especially in a family dynamic with so many nuances.

“Lazlo Keene has agreed to testify in exchange for a year’s worth of magic infusions,” Ilyod informed Essie.

If it surprised her to see the disheveled captive, she didn’t let on. “He killed two people. His word is garbage.”

Ilyod gestured to the man and woman. “Jonathon Keene and his daughter Christina have also volunteered to give testimony.”

“Let the prisoner speak,” a relatively young fae councilperson said.

The guards forced their prisoner to stand tall, one holding the back of his neck so his head wouldn’t lull. Beside me, Winter whimpered and squeezed my hand harder.

“It’s okay, baby,” Colleen cooed like Winter was a faeling. “It’s in the past.”

I had a vague idea of Winter’s ordeal at Arcane University, but never knew the specifics. Hearing Lazlo fucking Keene detail how he stole her magic bit by bit, becoming addicted to her power… I wanted blood. His. Spilled at my feet, pooling into a puddle of consequences. I didn’t want to give him the pleasure of my bite. He didn’t deserve it. Instead, I would take his blood bit by bit, same as he’d done with her magic. Except I wouldn’t start out so subtlely.

More of Colleen’s cool magic infused my veins, reducing the rage from a boiling inferno to a simmer. That was a lightbulb moment. I’d thought Colleen was easing Winter’s suffering. In hindsight, it was obvious. The rage was what Colleen wanted to quiet in her daughter and, by extension, in me.

In true piece-of-shit fashion, Lazlo Keene tried to spin it so that he was a victim. Winter’s magic was just too addictive to resist. He had a disease, and the fae had a long history of killing people who suffered from depletion.

Judging by the uncomfortable reactions of the fae in the clearing, this was another dirty secret no one wanted to discuss.

Jonathon Keen’s testimony was short and not helpful to Ilyod’s case. At the crux of it, Colleen had told him that Winter was “different”. Essie protested, arguing that Colleen had been referring only to Winter’s dimensional magic.

Christina “Tina” Keene had apparently been Winter’s roommate at Arcane U, and she proved to be a reluctant witness. While fully saying that Winter was weird, Tina only talked about overhearing conversations between her roommate and a ghost. Ilyod and the other fae councilpersons tried to pry information out of her with leading questions. Tina held strong.

“Didn’t Winter Sable call out for Zosia in her sleep?” someone demanded of Tina, who rolled her eyes as if this entire thing was boring her. “No, she called out for my brother. Yeah, gross, I had to be there for her sex dreams.”

Given the average age of the fae council members, no one wanted to pursue a line of questioning that involved anyone’s sex life. Still, they seemed to think the evidence against Winter was damning enough without Tina’s testimony.

Essie nodded, as if resigned to the council’s decision. Then she spoke. “Like so many before you, Ilyod, you refuse to see the forest for the trees. You are so focused on a prophecy made long before anyone here lived. You are bringing it to fruition, not the eternals. Remember that. They didn’t declare war. You did.”

Ilyod opened his mouth to speak, but Essie wasn’t finished.

“Come for my blood, Ilyod, and I will spill yours across this sacred ground.” A deep rumble filled the clearing from all sides, punctuating Essie’s words.

I knew Ewan’s growl, and it was music to my ears.

The fae council looked around as if a terrifying beast might stride into their midst. The shifter council responded to the call of their king, returning Ewan’s howl in unison. A few even pounded their chests, though none seemed to understand the truth of the situation.

Ewan and the others didn’t grace the clearing with their presence, much to the relief of the fae council. They knew a true predator skulked in the shadows. I noted reactions from both councils and filed the information away for later, when someone with a lot more knowledge could explain what it all meant.

Essie turned and led the Gemini Fae back to their spot in the circle. Except, before they reached it, a portal opened, swallowing Essie and the Geminis.

“Did you do that?” I asked Winter.

One side of her mouth lifted. “I promised Nana Essie I would if things weren’t looking good.”

Normally, there was a lot of hand waving involved in Winter’s magic. It wasn’t a criticism, simply a fact. Yet she had opened that portal without lifting a finger or muttering a single word. Even more impressive—or terrifying—she’d opened a remote passageway. At the very least, that took a lot of magic.

Murmurings ran through the clearing. Council members turned to one another as if looking for guidance. Despite accusing Winter of being a mortal eternal, they’d underestimated her abilities. Not smart, I thought, giving her hand a squeeze.

“Enough.” Ilyod raised his right hand to call for silence, gesturing for one of the wolves to join him.

A burly man with salt-and-pepper hair and a matching beard lumbered over. He was large, like an alpha, but lacked the domineering presence of my father, or Ewan. My focus shifted to my family. Only my mother projected confidence. Well, and Brooke. She didn’t know the truth about her heritage, yet she stood as tall as if she did. They had nothing to hide, so I shouldn’t have worried, but I did.

It didn’t help that the council saved the Gemini wolves for last, the same as their fae counterparts. Six of the nine packs handed over suspected eternals—twenty shifters total. I felt sick as I watched lines of guards march out of portals and take the wolves into custody.

For better or worse, I didn’t recognize any of their faces from my dreams.

When they called the Gemini wolves forward, Winter lent me her strength instead of the other way around. Mrs. Wynn patted my other arm. The two council representatives greeted my father and Zach and then turned to my mother.

“Rosalind Snyder, are you aware that an eternal can only be reborn if their bloodline still exists?”

My mother tipped her chin up. “I was not. Thank you for educating me, Elder Bollinger,” she said to Ilyod, sounding suspiciously like me.

“Rosalind found her fire,” Colleen said with a smile.

I’d forgotten that Winter’s mother knew my parents from when they were younger. Or maybe I’d blocked the information from my memory, because I didn’t want to think about a time when our parents were our age. It felt sort of incestuous in a way I couldn’t really describe.

“As the mother of a known eternal, the blame for her birth falls upon you.”

My nails shot into claws. No. No. No fucking no. I would not allow them to punish my mother for my sins.

Mom didn’t back down. “I did my duty to my mate and my pack. Your only proof that Zara is eternal is the word of a man harboring a decades-old grudge. Isn’t that right, Jonah?”

“I watched a vampire drink her blood and walk in the daylight.” Jonah’s voice boomed across the clearing. “My heir saw it, too.”

Liam, the fucking traitor, nodded like a bobble-head.

“Ah, yes, but our family has also spurned your son. As I understand, Liam didn’t take Zara’s engagement well.” She leveled a razor-sharp stare at the rival alpha. “Oh, my sincere apologies, Jonah. I thought you knew your son was intimate with my daughter.”

I couldn’t decide whether to die of humiliation or give my mother a standing ovation. Liam had been my secret, or so I’d thought. How long had my mother known the truth and said nothing?

Jonah roared his displeasure. From somewhere in the shadows, Ewan responded, his growl both a threat and a promise. It was probably wrong for me to enjoy watching Liam and his father cower as they felt the power of their one true alpha.

“He won’t let them hurt Rosalind,” Mrs. Wynn assured me.

Ewan had refused to intervene during the eternal round-up. Still, I didn’t doubt that he would barrel into the clearing to save my mother. What I wanted to know was why my father remained silent while the council questioned his mate.

“Word has reached this council that your daughter has mated with a known risen eternal. The new alpha of the Taurus pack.”

Mom squared her shoulders. Her voice was so flat when she spoke, the words sounded ominous and prophetic. “Then I suggest you prepare to bow before your Luna.”