Chapter 6

I arrive at my grand-mère’s home wearing black boots, a fit and flare black dress, and a cardigan. I'm already about to chuck off with this heat.

Louisiana clearly has not gotten the memo that it’s October.

Her porch is laden with pumpkins, skeletons, and fake cobwebs as I enter the front door, my iced coffee nearly spilling as I step inside.

“This is honestly a waste of time, the only reason I’m even entertaining this meeting is to get a good look at this new so-called Alpha,” she says, speaking to her sister, Daisy, who has never spoken a single word since I moved here fourteen years ago.

My great aunt gives me a small smile and a wave. I move to stand by the chair she’s sitting in at the window. She’s older than my grandmother, but you would think she’s far older than her actual age. Time has been hard on Daisy, her hair is thin, her face is gaunt, and I wish I knew why she was withering away. Most witches are able to keep their youth for a considerable amount of time. Supernatural beings, especially ones with magical abilities, are able to live longer and healthier lives.

Every diagnostic I take of her says she’s healthy, yet she doesn’t talk, and she continues to read by her window daily. Though I always enjoyed the books she would give to me to read, it’s almost like she intrinsically knew what I needed to study. I kiss the top of her white-blonde head as my grand-mère’s heels click against the tile.

“There you are. We must be going,” she says. I put the iced coffee straw in my mouth and suck as much of the liquid in as I can before I take her hand and she teleports us to the meeting place.

I adjust my dress and take a deep breath, wishing she didn’t want to bring me with her.

My magic is solid. I’ve chosen the healing path, which my grand-mère was less than enthused about, but it’s where my magic guided me. Casting healing charms, doing diagnostic spells, it comes naturally to me, and I love it. It’s just not the typical calling of a High Priestess.

Which is completely fine with me, but not to Aster Delvaux. I should be fluent in every type of magic, which I am. I can handle a potion, but not as effortlessly as Iris. My elemental magic is decent, but nowhere near as fantastical as Ember’s.

I love healing magic and everything it encompasses. The only thing that semi keeps her off my back is that no one else in my generation has had the calling to medical magic, so I’m necessary—I’m just not extraordinary.

“You will follow my lead. You’re here as a sign of strength, that we have a succession in place whilst this folly of a pack changes paws every turn of the moon.”

A blacked out sedan pulls up. The back door opening to a man in a luxurious black suit, popping open a black umbrella. His hands are covered in gloves and his eyes are shielded by sunglasses.

“He invited the bloodsuckers,” she whispers, grabbing my wrist to tug me inside of the out of the way seafood restaurant.

It’s a neutral place, owned by a human who knows about the things that go bump in the night.

There’s a massive crawfish statue wearing a bib and holding a fork and knife in each hand. It feels cannibalistic and tacky, but I shrug it off as she leads us into the event space.

Each seat has a place setting based on which group you're from and we take the two Celestial Coven seats.

I glance over at the vampire in the expensive suit and he smiles at me, his white fang nearly sparkling in the tasteless overhead lighting.

“You know, I could use a witch,” he says.

My grand-mère taps her golden wand with thorns and roses against the table. “The day one of my coven helps you is the day I’m rotting in my grave, Warin,” she says.

The vampire just smiles, not lowering his sunglasses or removing his gloves. The rest of the supernaturals in the community take their spots as the back door audibly creaks open.

Before he can even face me, I recognize him immediately.

Silas.

My long lost best friend. The one I abandoned fourteen years ago and never even bothered to look back at. The moment I lived under Aster Delvaux’s roof, I was taught it was coven or nothing. So I shoved Silas into a tiny little box of things I needed to leave in my past.

He’s larger and far more imposing than I remember, but he still has the same handsome features he did when he was sixteen, but now he’s a man.

Well, I guess he’s more than a man. He’s the new Alpha of the Moon Walker Pack.

My first friend, my first kiss, the only boy I ever loved, is now my enemy.

He’s flipping through papers and standing next to a man I also recognize. His sharp buzzed hair and eerie green eyes are impossible to miss—Jonas.

There’s a part of me that’s happy that Silas has had Jonas throughout all these years, that he wasn’t alone. A part of my heart breaks as I watch Silas’ hard features scan the room, not even a hint of a smile on his lips.

When his brown eyes finally land on me, he stares.

It’s like there’s no one else in the room as we both take each other in. The time apart has been kind on his appearance, but not on his demeanor as he rubs his chest as he looks at me. It’s like every emotion crosses his face: anger, frustration, curiosity, resentment, and something else wholly unrecognizable.

I wonder what he sees in mine. Probably guilt. I’ve locked Silas away for a long time, not allowing myself to even go there. How could I? Grand-mère explained to me that different un-human beings existed and that when she came to collect me, she could smell that I’d been around a shifter or a werewolf.

So I kept Silas hidden away in my past. Sometimes, when I was feeling lonely or sad, I’d let myself daydream about what we could have been, who we would have been in a different lifetime.

But this isn’t that lifetime, him sitting before me as the Alpha of a wolf shifter pack just solidifies that. There is no universe where we’re together, or friends again, and it feels like the air is being sucked out of my lungs.

“Are you quite done gawking at my progeny?” she interrupts the moment and Silas’ gaze shifts to her.

“My apologies, let us begin,” he says, taking a seat and dismissing our perplexing reunion.

He’s white knuckling the countertop, and I can’t keep my eyes off him. If he senses me staring, he doesn’t give in, looking anywhere but my direction.

“I want to thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I’m Alpha pack leader, Silas, and I’m hoping that we can leave this meeting with a better understanding of one another and a solution to move forward.”

My grand-mère scoffs at even the slightest mention of peace.

“If it’s peace that you want, why was this meeting not held at night?” the vampire from earlier asks.

“I apologize for the shortsightedness.”

“Hmm. You’ve apologized twice now during this meeting. Are you also here to apologize for the lives of the witches that ended between the sharp teeth of your pack? Or how about the centuries of crimes against our coven,” she says in her rich, southern twang.

Sometimes I wish I spoke like her, or the rest of the coven. Maybe I’ve picked up some linguistic choices, but I’d never be able to curse in southern sophistication the same way Aster is capable of.

“Please, tell me about these crimes. Ones that are relevant to those living today,” Silas challenges her, still not looking in my direction.

What am I going to say to him if I have a chance? What do I even say? I’m sorry I abandoned you. It wasn’t my choice, but wanting nothing to do with you now is?

Just the idea of it has bile creeping up my throat.

Her lips purse, like she wants to say something, but by bringing it up it would be showing her cards. Instead, she goes with the low hanging fruit. “We could start with the full moon and how nearly every quarter one of your dogs interrupt our rituals.”

“Wolves,” Silas corrects her. “Are there treaty lines of where everyone can and can not be on the full moon?”

“Where we roam on the full moon is out of our control,” the werewolf ambassador says. His name is Elias, and he’s honestly not a bad guy. Before he was bitten he coached the high school football team, but his life is tied to the moon now.

I suppose it controls all of our lives, in some way.

The vampires thrive under the cover of the night and love the luminescence that a full moon brings.

The werewolves’ life is centered on a moon, only shifting once a month, but completely out of control when they do.

The witches use the moon as a source of power, gratitude, and a way of centering our coven.

The shifters tie to the moon is a mystery to me, but they seem to hold something dear to it, with how many times we’ve had to listen to a cacophony of howls while we set out jars of water to be blessed by the night sky.

“You don’t chain yourself up?” my grandmother asks in distaste. I want to sink into the floor.

“Denying the beast only proves to make things worse. When I let him roam, he gets out his energy. I haven’t and will never mark someone to have the same fate as my own.”

My grand-mère taps her nails against the table, causing Silas to glance at her.

“We can create boundary lines so that my pack and your coven have specific, private areas to convene our monthly rituals.”

Her back straightens next to me. She likes what he’s offering, but she hates him so much, I don’t think she’ll accept.

“Why?” she asks him and I sit on my hands, the feeling making my fingers numb. Maybe if I focus on that I’ll forget everything that’s about to happen.

“Why what?” Silas asks, clearly agitated.

“Why would you come here and embarrass you and your pack with a peace treaty, knowing it’s impossible? You have to have something worth trading for peace,” she says, standing up and resting her palms on the table and looking around the room. “None of you have anything I want, you’re insignificant to me. If I wanted to, I could kill you all with a simple flick of my wrist. Do you know why your pack is still alive, Silas?”

He stares at her, not responding, and she gives him a wicked smile that would normally scare the strongest of men.

“You’re alive because I let you live. Because your pack is so unimportant that I barely ever think about you. The history books may be confused about what started this feud, but I don’t forget all the things I witnessed at the helm of Alpha Collins,” she says.

With that name, Silas tilts his head. That name is new to him.

“I hated that motherfucker, but that man was an Alpha. He brought your sad little pack into the modern age with violence and technology. He killed a member of my coven, not with his teeth like a real wolf, but with something far worse,” she says, tapping her nail against the table. “You can forget this silly notion of a peace treaty and prepare for me to take you down even ten times harder.”

“It’s unfortunate to hear you think that way,” Silas says, and my grand-mère already has her wand back out.

It’s a stark reality watching how they’re both handling this situation, but I shove my conflicted thoughts deep deep down. My loyalty is with my grand-mère, with my coven. Just because I knew him a lifetime ago doesn’t change anything, it can’t.

“It would be far more unfortunate for your pack to be down yet another Alpha, wouldn’t it. Violet, get up, we’re leaving,” she says.

It feels wrong to leave without having actually spoken to him, but what else am I supposed to do?

“Yes, Violet, run off with your grand-mère. It’s where you belong,” Silas says and the words hit me square in the chest.

I don’t falter, though; I keep my chin high, my eyes clear of any tears as I turn and face him.

“You’re right, it is where I belong.”