Chapter 27

S leep evades me. All I can think about is everything that happened last night.

The necklace, Azure, Violet’s tears, the kiss.

That fucking kiss.

“You’re such a disappointment,” Thorin says, and I groan, rubbing my eyes so hard with my palms my vision has dark spots.

I wanted it. Part of me hates that I stopped, even if it was the right decision.

I wanted to kiss her before I found out she was a wolf, as much as I hate to admit it. But now that I know we’re true mates, in every sense a shifter can be, everything has changed for me. There are more possibilities now than there weren’t before. Now we’re physiologically matched, though not completely on the same page.

She’s still a witch, that hasn’t and will not change. What she decides to do with this new information, this new part of herself, will decide everything.

If she abandons her wolf, then I’m not sure what will happen. There’s no way Thorin would stand for it, and I’m not sure how I could move on. I’d live the rest of my life as I already have, celibate and alone.

Violet has some serious choices to make when it comes to her coven and my pack. They are her choices and hers alone.

No matter how fucking badly I want to sit her down and lay out everything for her. That she could be the person, the thing, that brings the shifters and witches to peace. That she has to realize she’s been lied to by her grandmother at the very least, some truths have been withheld.

I thought I could fight this tether between us, look past the fact she was my mate because it wouldn’t really work. But the universe has a way of making me swallow my own words.

The resentment of the way she left Mander’s is slipping away the more I get to know her and learn about her life.

She didn’t want to leave me. She hid me away in a mental box, not because she wanted to, but because she felt like she had to. We would have been something. We could still be something.

Even with all these revelations I still realize that I’m the only one winning in this situation. I get everything, keeping my pack, peace with the witches, and my mate.

Violet could possibly lose everything she’s known in her adult life. That… that is precisely why I had to stop that kiss, no matter how good it felt. As much as I meant what I said, I can’t go through the torment of losing her again. I also can’t let her choices be based on me, this hex, or the tug she may possibly feel from this unmet mating bond.

Maybe since she’s only half, she doesn’t feel it as strongly as a full-blooded shifter would. Her wolf, however, would undoubtedly have been able to feel it.

“She did. She’s beautiful, my mate,” Thorin says as five loud bangs jolt me out of the bed as I rush down the hall to the top of the stairs.

Violet looks at me, blinking away her sleep, it appears I’m not the only one who didn’t get much sleep last night.

“Violet Delvaux, open this fucking door right now before I blow the hinges off,” the voice says and Violet rolls her eyes, flicking her wand, which effortlessly smoothes and ties her hair into a bun.

“I’m coming,” Violet yells as she descends down the stairs.

When she swings open the door, there are two women on the other side. One I recognize, but haven’t actually met. Violet just used her face when she was hiding from the other witches. Her hair is a long blondish-red, and she wears heart-shaped sunglasses and a pink sundress. The other witch is taller than the other two, with long braids that hit her mid back, she’s wearing a simple black t-shirt and jeans.

Both of their gazes look up the stairs and they just stare.

“Go put a shirt on,” Violet says waving a hand at me.

“Oh my god, did you two sleep together?” the redhead asks.

“No, Ember. Jesus. What’s with the wake up call and the inquisition?”

“I don’t know, maybe because a few days ago you spilled all your secrets to me, which I physically can not tell Ember, and I haven’t heard from you since, which then made me take matters into my own hands. This isn’t like you, Vi,” her other coven member says.

“I’m sorry for not getting in touch, Iris,” Violet says, feeling properly scolded. I grab a shirt, tug it over my head, and go to meet my wife’s best friends.

It only takes me a few minutes to join them in the kitchen, all three of the witches turning their gaze on me. The redhead I know now as Ember’s mouth is wide open. It seems Violet was able to get the basics of our situation out while I was upstairs.

“You’re married. Like, full blown husband and wife?”

“Yes,” I reply.

“For now,” Violet says.

Iris watches both Violet and me extremely closely, like she’s fitting all the puzzle pieces together, though there’s no way she can know the complete truth about everything.

“And the hex is forcing you to live together?” Iris asks.

Among many other things.

“Yes, and we’re working on breaking it. There’s no reason to tell the High Priestess,” Violet says, while pretending to be busy in the kitchen.

Iris stands, her fingertips balancing on the table.

“When you’re ready to be honest and tell us the truth about everything, let us know. Ember, let’s go,” she says and Violet’s eyes widen.

“Wait,” she stops her coven members, and they sit back down on their seats. As she leans against the wooden counters that still look like the original ones built in the home, I perch my own ass against the counter and wonder if she’s going to make her decision right now.

“I found my mother,” she says instead, clearly not going the route of complete honesty.

“Shit, you did?” Ember asks, her deep green eyes full of pity and sadness for her friend.

“She didn’t recognize me. She has no magical signature.”

Iris’s brows furrow, and she glances down at the table.

“What did Aster say?” Iris asks.

“She said that I took her magic from her when I was born, and she decided to live a human life. That she probably put me up for adoption because she couldn’t handle what I did to her.”

I glance over at Violet. She hadn’t told me this yet. It doesn’t match the same mother who set up a nursery, wrote letters, and clearly worked very hard on a necklace to preserve her other half.

“You don’t believe her,” Iris says and Violet shakes her head.

“It just doesn’t make sense, none of it. Why can no one truly remember my mother?” Violet asks.

The two other witches look contemplative.

“You told him this before us?” Iris asks, and Violet shakes her head.

“No, he didn’t know what grand-mère said before now.”

Iris looks at me, her eyes going hazy for a moment, and she quickly looks away.

“How can we help?” Ember says in an upbeat voice that makes Violet smile. I eye the witch, wondering why she’s so suddenly eager to help Violet and not concerned about going behind her High Priestess’ back.

“Grand-mère can’t know what we’re up to. We can’t bring anyone else in from the coven, not yet. I need to work on getting this issue resolved,” she says, shoving a thumb in my direction. “I also need to find out what really happened.”

“Is it not in the past?” Iris asks.

Violet simply shakes her head no, and Iris sighs.

“Ember can look through the archives. Her grandmother has some of the best kept histories of the coven. I’ll help with this situation,” Iris says, glancing at the two of us. “What do you have so far?”

Violet blushes, and it’s endearing. “Not much.”

Iris rubs her temples, clearly frustrated with the lack of initiative on our end.

“I have an idea. I need to talk to the shifter alone,” Iris says.

Violet looks panicked, but Ember takes her hand as they go out into the backyard. I watch from the window as Ember uses her gift to regrow and revive some less than fortunate plants in her backyard.

“Are you going to be a hindrance in reversing this spell?” Iris asks.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I reply, and she narrows her eyes at me. I cross my arms over my chest and she mimics the motion, not backing down for a moment.

“We could lock you up and toss you into the basement.”

“This house doesn’t have a basement, and I’d simply shift and free myself.”

“We could confine you to the house.”

“You could,” I reply, staring down at the formidable witch.

“Violet is a lot softer than she looks, if you think I’m going to let you fall back into her life and tear her apart again, you’re dead fucking wrong.”

Confusion is riddled on my face as I speak. “She left, not me.”

“Please, as if she had a choice. The first months she was here, all she would do is cry over you and endlessly talk about you to the point where I would wish for my hearing to give out. She’s my sister and I’ll have her back no matter what. That includes ruining you if you hurt her.”

“We’re working towards dissolving this marriage,” I remind Iris, who rolls her eyes.

She pulls out her wand, just toying with it, not threatening me directly.

“Aster is going to ascend Violet within the next decade,” she says, and I know the confused look on my face feels permanent. “Violet missed out on a lot of basics being away for so long. No matter how she may think of herself, she is actually extraordinarily gifted as a witch. I don’t think anyone else with only fourteen years of training would be where she is now. The High Priestess is hard on her, because she wants her to be the best, to continue the Delvaux dynasty.”

“What are you getting at?” I ask.

Her bright amber eyes glance up at me. “If you had to wait a decade for there to be a change in hierarchy within the coven, would you?”

She’s being serious, and so my answer is just as real.

“I’ve waited fourteen. What’s another ten?”

She nods, tucking her wand away. “I’ll get to work on getting rid of this legal problem of ours. You work on not making a mess of things, and we’ll get our house in order,” the witch says, and I wonder why she isn’t in charge of things.

Iris smirks, as if she knows what I’m thinking.

“Witches who have the gift of foresight can never lead a coven. Understanding the future is both a blessing and a curse,” she says with one final glance as she goes to the backyard to speak with her two friends.

I scrub a hand down my face and fill a glass of water for myself and wait for Violet to return.

The cat jumps on the table and sits in front of me, staring at me with his freakishly yellow eyes.

We just sit there in the stalemate, until he sticks his paw into my glass of water and then licks the droplets off his nails.

I realize that I somewhat have her friends on my side, now it’s time to tame the small magical beast.