28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

Twenty minutes later, Winter opened a portal from inside my house to a spot behind The 24-7 Diner in a town called Lemmings Pass. Only she and I found the name funny. Ewan, Drake, and two guys in suits sat together at a table, the lone waitress’ only patrons. She was human, and either didn’t know or didn’t care about the supernatural invasion happening inside her workplace.

No one seemed terribly surprised to see Walter, including the man Ewan introduced as Director Jones from the human government’s paranormal affairs department. In fact, the two men were on a first name basis, which somehow didn’t shock me. Walter had all sorts of friends and acquaintances in strange places, why not inside the human government?

“So, what do you want?” I asked, sliding into the circular booth to sit beside Ewan, who patted my leg beneath the table.

“Director Jones and Elder Verdes were just asking for our help to stop the vampire attacks,” Drake said in a deceptively sweet voice.

“Wow. After placing bounties on our heads, bold move,” I said. “How do you think we can help, exactly?”

The fae suit, Elder Verdes, cleared his throat and adjusted his tie. “We understand now that this is the work of one eternal, the thirteenth known as Matthieu. We thought you all could speak with him.”

“Oh, so you think he’s going to end his centuries-old grudge if one of us asks him nicely?” I laughed. “Are you serious right now?”

“We were thinking of something more like a negotiation. He must want something,” Director Jones said.

“The guy has been alive for eons. Maybe he just wants chaos,” I suggested, feeling argumentative.

“We know he wants the prisoner,” Elder Verdes said. “He’s already threatened to kill anyone we send to reinforce the enchantments.”

“If you know he wants Demi, what help can we really be?” Winter asked.

The suits exchanged glances. “It’s not just about the spells. Even without them, the wolf is still trapped. In a pocket dimension,” Director Jones said. “One which you are strong enough to open, Nicasia.”

Winter blinked, confused and alarmed.

“You want her to open it?” I asked, drawing the focus away from Winter while she tried to get her bearings. “Why?”

“He wants the wolf. We give him that in exchange for taking his vampire horde away from this realm and leaving us in peace,” Elder Verdes said. “It’s the only path forward that avoids a very bloody war.”

“And then what? It’s not like we can shove the wolf back in the shifter if you get my meaning,” Walter said.

“No. Supernaturals are out,” Director Jones agreed. “But the sooner we end these vampire attacks, the sooner we can get out ahead of the news cycle. Spin the narrative in our favor.”

“We need to talk this over with the other alphas and the high fae,” Ewan said.

“Of course, but this really only effects eternals and protectors.” Director Jones shifted in his seat.

“We both know that’s not true.” Ewan nudged my leg, and I slid out of the booth so he and Drake could do the same. “We’ll be in touch. Don’t show up at my borders uninvited again.”

He left the diner as a group, except for the suits who stayed behind. Once outside, Ewan sent the others ahead, citing the need for a new cellphone and promising not to be long.

“Call when you want me to open a portal,” Winter said. “Zara are you…?”

“Staying with me,” Ewan answered for me.

I slipped my hand in his. “Guess I’m going shopping.”

We watched the others disappear into the portal and then headed toward town and all the stores that didn’t open for at least another two hours.

“I’m sorry,” Ewan said as we strolled along an empty sidewalk. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Then or now.”

“I did, and I’m sorry, Ewan. Just because I’m worried our bond isn’t the greatest for supernatural kind, doesn’t mean I’m going to run. You’re stuck with me. For eternity. And if you need to be mad at me for a while, I get it. I would rather that than you resenting me later.”

He stopped walking and tugged my hand. “Really, I’m not mad at you. I’m hurt, but I’ll get over it. Still, I shouldn’t have lied to you. It was stupid.”

I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him softly. “Forgiven.”

He wrapped his hands around my waist. “Why does this feel too easy?” he murmured, recapturing my mouth when I started to pull away.

“I’m not always difficult about everything, you know. Plus, we’ve passed, like, four jewelry stores with shiny baubles in the windows.”

Ewan’s brows drew together. “You want me to buy your forgiveness?”

I rolled my eyes. “No. Don’t be ridiculous. I want you to reward my forgiveness. Oh, and a cellphone of my very own.”

“You want two rewards? Someone is greedy.”

I shrugged. “You say greedy, I say… opportunistic.”

Ewan laughed, a genuine sound from deep in his gut. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you with Walter.”

“Yeah, so, about that….”

I told Ewan about my trip with Walter down memory lane as we wound through town and waited for the stores to open. He wasn’t surprised that Walter and Colleen had played Gaia to call forth Nicasia and agreed they must’ve had a good reason. Our opinions diverged on whether to tell Winter.

“She deserves to know,” I argued.

“This is really a family matter, I think,” Ewan said.

“How would you have liked it if I was all ‘it’s a family matter’ and let you find out from your mother?” I demanded.

“It’s different.”

“No. No, it’s really not. Besides, Walter wouldn’t have told me if he didn’t expect me to tell Winter.”

Ewan frowned. “Walter isn’t that complicated of a man, Zara. If he wanted her to know, he would tell her himself.”

Normally, I would have conceded to that. Walter was devious and liked to manipulate people, but he was also straightforward when he wanted to be. So there was a reason he couldn’t be direct with his daughter.

“No. He wants her to know. It’s someone else who doesn’t. Like Colleen or Essie. Probably Colleen. She’s the only one Walter respects enough to keep his promises,” I said, letting my thoughts pour out unfiltered.

“I get Colleen not wanting Winter to know the truth, but why would Walter want her to?”

I shrugged. “He’s Walter. Who knows why he does anything?”

We were the first customers at the cellphone store when it finally opened and walked out twenty minutes later with shiny new electronics. My number was also new, so I didn’t have a bazillion messages waiting for me like Ewan did. I offered to skip the jewelry store since there were people waiting on our return and all, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

“Thirty more minutes won’t change anything one way or the other. But you do know you can wear any of the Taurus pack jewelry, right? It belongs to you now.”

“Right. And last month that was your mother’s stuff. I want something that’s mine and only ever mine. Is that stupid?”

“No. No. Not at all.”

The saleswoman was very excited to meet Ewan and his credit card. She brought out all sorts of rings and pendants with high price tags. They were fine. Nothing exciting. And while I had sort of been joking about a shiny reward initially, I didn’t want to pick something just because. I wanted something special. So, we left empty-handed.

“We’ll find you something,” Ewan promised as we left the very disappointed saleswoman.

I called Winter with my new phone and had her open a portal. Naively, I didn’t specify where I wanted us to exit, assuming it would be inside my home. Instead, she dropped us outside the Temple of Gaia, where we followed the voices inside. Drake and Penn had gathered the decision makers from every spoke of the alliance but had waited for us to explain the situation.

There was a reason an alliance of this size hadn’t existed in centuries. Too many opinions, and everyone thought theirs was right. The alphas all talked over each other, and Essie was no better. I thought for sure Ewan was going to wolf-out several times, and I wouldn’t have blamed him. There wasn’t even a majority vote on any single issue, yet the Taurus High Fae kept proposing new issues for everyone to vote on.

I wanted to rip out my hair.

Things didn’t improve as the day wore on and tensions grew. Ewan finally called a ceasefire—err, pause—on the conversation until the following day, after everyone had the chance to calm down. Mom and Mrs. Wynn hadn’t been invited to the meeting, so Ewan and I went with Zach and Brooke to the lodge to fill them in. Secretly, both alphas wanted their mothers to tell them what to do, at least that was my take. Personally, I thought the last thing we needed was another opinion.

“I’m not cutout for diplomacy,” I whined when Ewan and I returned home.

“No wolves are. That’s why these alliances aren’t super popular.” He grabbed bottled blood from the fridge and two wine glasses from a cupboard. “Everyone still has their own agenda.”

“What’s our agenda?” I asked, accepting the glass of blood he poured and offered me.

Ewan emptied the rest into his own glass and grabbed a second bottle to take with us into the living room. “To enjoy our bonded life.”

“Okay, simple. I like it. What gets us there?”

He sank down on the sofa and kicked off his boots. I slipped off my sneakers and stretched out with my feet in his lap and sipped my blood, pretending it was red wine.

“Gaia, I don’t know. Peace, I guess. Walter’s right that we can’t undo what’s been done. The reveal is here, and the sooner we accept that the better. Not that we need another thing to argue about, but I want to propose sending enforcers into the cities to slow the attacks. Too many more nights of this, and the humans will never trust us.”

“And that’s what we want, for them to trust us?” I asked.

“We need them to trust us. It can’t be like before. We need to exist alongside them in this world. Otherwise, we’re doomed to another thousand years of war.”

I frowned. “Is that part of the prophecy?”

He downed his blood and refilled the glass. “No. I’m judging by history. Both times the fae made warriors, it was to fight the humans. And both times, it backfired. So, why don’t we try not doing that.”

“Okay. What about Mat? Do you think we should reunite him with Demi and banish him to another realm?”

“I’m not against the idea,” Ewan admitted. “Make him someone else’s problem.”

“Do you think that’s fair?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. But we can’t kill him, so banishing him to another realm is really the only way to be rid of him.”

I had been holding onto the secret about the cure for way too long. I would have liked to say that I finally came clean for any reason besides that I didn’t have a choice.

“So, at the risk of never getting my shiny bauble, I need to tell you something. There might be a way to kill Mat. If we cured him first. Unless we can get our hands on Cassius again, we will come back eventually. But that’s a problem for later us.”

Ewan went very still. “Cure?”

He was definitely mad, and that was definitely fair. My justifications for keeping this monumental secret from him still felt valid, and he softened when I said that I had wanted to use it on him. Only having one dose also helped steer him toward my way of thinking.

“You’re positive Winter hasn’t told anyone about it?”

“Yeah, pretty sure. If Walter knew she had it, she wouldn’t still have it. And she wants to give it to Lena, so I know she still has it.”

“Nobody can know, Zara. It’s too valuable, and I don’t want to give the others the chance to vote against giving it to Mat. Once it’s done, we’ll deal with the fallout. We just need to convince the others that banishing him to another realm is best, which is the only thing no one adamantly opposes, so it shouldn’t be hard.”

I studied him over the rim of my wine glass. “I thought there would be more yelling over this. You’re calmer than I expected.”

“I had plans for the night that didn’t involve fighting with you.” He ran his hand up over my knee and squeezed my thigh.

“Oh, yeah? Like what?” I bit my lip and batted my eyelashes, relieved he was willing to skip ahead to the making up.

“First, you’re going to stand up and take off your pants.”

I hurried to my feet and shimmed out of my jeans. “Now what?”

“On your knees.”

I ran the tip of my tongue slowly over my lips and sank down between his legs, fingers going for his belt. He leaned back against the cushions and wound his hand in my hair.

“Gaia, you’re good with your tongue.”

I smiled around him. Yeah, I was pretty good, and so was he. Something he reminded me of before we went upstairs for the night. The sex was good because we always had good sex. It was great because, ridiculous as it was, I’d missed him the previous night. I’d missed his arms around me and his scent enveloping me, the way comfort and security of his skin against mine. The way he worshipped me even though he was still mad. The way he loved me without reservation, and the way I truly believed that we were the only thing right in a world full of wrongs.

And when I fell asleep with my cheek pressed against his chest, I wished that everyone could experience even an iota of my love for him. It felt selfish for us to have so much and others to have none.

That night, in my dreams, was where the idea started to take shape. Ewan’s talk of using a different approach when dealing with the humans was also fresh in my subconscious, so he deserved some of the credit, too. And sure, it probably had something to do with the fact that I had finally gotten my prince, my fairytale ending.

Was it really so wrong for Mat to want his as well?