by Celeste Raye
Laura was quiet and John was trying to figure out what he was hearing. What spell had the witches cooked up that was going to be used on his pack? While he wasn't the Alpha, he certainly didn't want anything to happen to his family. From the sound of it, the witches we're going to burn them all.
He had known that his father and uncle had started something that was going to be worse than any of them could have imagined, but John had not seen this coming. There was a rage inside of him when he heard such things said about his family, and he instantly wanted to do what his uncle did. He wanted to lose his temper and take out the little black-haired witch that was so flippantly talking about killing so many.
John didn't even know what to think about Laura. She wasn't as gleefully going with it as the other one was, but there was still something that he wasn't sure about. Was she going to help her family? Was she going to be the thirteenth?
“So why is everyone still here if we're waiting on ingredients?”
“Because this sort of magic doesn't come easy. We're going to have to practice, and we have to do several cleansing rituals before we can even get started. We can’t ask for the sort of power needed without some sort of sacrifice.
“What sort of sacrifice?”
“Twenty humans.”
Laura was unaffected as far as John could see. She had been more affected by the idea of his pack being burned, but his keen eye saw that her hand was shaking a little bit. He doubted that the other woman noticed. Laura didn’t want to go with any of it.
“It seems like a lot of revenge for one life.”
“It isn't just for the one life that was lost. It is for all the other lives that will be taken if we don't do this. It'll all be over soon, Laura, and then we can get back to things as normal.”
“Yeah, I hope so, though ‘normal’ around here was always just as bad.”
“What did Mom want to talk to you about before?”
Laura was quiet, and she just kind of shrugged.
“She thinks that I have run off with some boy, I suppose.”
“Some boy, or some beast?”
Laura looked up at Madeline and shook her head. “Let me guess; you were listening in?”
“Of course. You guys got a little loud. Tell me that what she said isn’t true?”
John had no idea what they were talking about, but he could see that Laura was almost immediately upset again. Maybe that's what she had been upset about the whole time, not anything to do with him.”
“I am not going to say anything, Madeline. What I have done and the decisions I have made are my own.”
“You know what's going to happen if the others find out.”
“They can do whatever they want to. They can kick me out if that's what they want to do. Then where will the extra witch come from?”
Madeline sighed. “It doesn't have to be this hard. You are magical. You are a Baxter, and you need to start acting like it. You can fight it, or you can get stronger. I don't understand why you want to fight this so much.”
“I don't understand how you can go along with such plans, Madeline. I have known you my whole life, and I never knew you to be cruel.”
“I need the coven. That means that I'll do what is needed for them. They are family, and family comes above everything else, right?”
Laura nodded, but she didn't agree. He could see that her response was feeble, and though John was alarmed by the information he had found out, he was more worried about Laura. She was obviously in the lion’s den, and Laura was certainly not a lion. Not the Laura that he knew.
He stayed for a little bit longer, hoping that the other woman would leave and he would be able to talk to Laura, but that did not happen. Instead, the two left together, whispering about things that he couldn't quite hear. John was full of emotions, a variety of them, but he had to push it all to the side.
Right now, the only thing that mattered was that he warned the pack. He was going to have to step up and help his father. If not, and something happened to them, he would never forgive himself. Not when he had lost the only leverage that they had.
Chapter Twenty
Laura did what she was supposed to do. She did the chanting that her family needed her to do to get stronger. She did the creek cleansing rituals that took almost a week. For nearly a week, she had to wash in a cold river every single day with a pungent mix of herbs rubbed all over her body. She had no idea that such things would take so long.
More than anything else, though, Laura thought. She had no one to talk to because no one would understand. The Baxter witches were so rigid in their ways that they could not process the idea of falling in love with a shifter. All they could see a shifter for was a beast, but Laura had never seen John that way. He had always been a man to her. How could she have fallen for an animal?
It wasn't the betrayal and the way that he had set her up to be used against her family that bothered her the most. What bothered her was when her mother had come to her room that first night back. She didn't even know how Caroline had known. Laura had not even known herself, but now that it was out between the two of them, Laura had needed time to process it all.
Even though she and John had only spent one night together, it had been enough to change her life forever. Her mother had immediately noticed a difference. She was pregnant. A shifter pregnancy was faster than a human’s or witch’s; however, she was not showing yet. It had only been a day or two at most when Caroline told Lauren. That she even knew, freaked Laura out.
Her mother was worried that the rest of the family would not accept the baby. Laura couldn't even accept that she was pregnant at the moment, and she had no idea how she was supposed to move forward. She did not even want to be in her family herself, and the idea of bringing a baby into the family, almost made her sick inside. The last thing that she wanted to do, was bring anything that she loved into an environment like that.
Then Laura had to wonder where she was going to go. Laura knew that it was going to be hard enough to leave without having a baby to take care of the whole time. It just seemed impossible, and a fear had risen inside of her. Could she do it alone? It seemed unlikely, but Laura couldn’t think of another way.
The last option Laura considered was to just stay with the family. She was going to have to come out with it eventually. Soon, she would be showing, and when the baby was born, she was pretty sure that it was going to come out more hairy than usual and they would know. So, the only way that she was going to be able to stay with the Baxters, with a half breed baby, was to go to them for mercy. Although her family wasn't known for that.
So, Laura chanted the words that meant nothing to her while her mind spun with ideas of how she was going to fix her life. It just seemed so impossible at the moment, that she wondered if it was even something that could happen.
A week went by, and then another. The black lotus from the mountains in East Asia was now available and the spell was to be done that night.
Everyone in the coven was getting ready for the battle. Laura was sick to her stomach. She knew that no matter how truthful or untruthful John was about who he was and why he hired her, it wasn't going to be enough of a reason for her to help kill him and his family. She just didn't know how she was supposed to get out of it. They needed her for the final spell; she was thirteenth of the covenant after all, but Laura wanted to be anywhere else but, in the woods, outside of John’s home.
“I thought we were going for the pack?”
Caroline smiled over at her daughter and agreed. “We might as well get the next in line first. It is just him and his child here, so we could pick them off real easy.”
Laura could see the look in her mother’s eyes and she knew that Caroline was daring her to say something. Laura was dying to rebuff the whole crazy plan. Surely, they had to know that what they planned to do was evil.
She was going to have to make a choice, and Laura knew that she couldn’t hurt Dana or John in any way. If it became betwe
en that or her family, they were not going to like which one she chose. Laura was sure of that.
Caroline had to talk to her sister about something and Laura took it as a moment that she could breathe. She had to come up with a plan. She had to warn them of what was to come. Laura had to find a way to get them to leave and go somewhere safe until it was all over. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if something happened to them. Not to John and Dana. They meant too much to her.
Those two had been more of a family to her than her own had been in her whole life. There was no way that Laura could turn her back on them, no matter what the circumstances were for the meeting.
Laura took the opportunity to get closer to John’s place. She wasn't quite sure how she was going to get a message to John. Above all else, he was the father of her baby, and no matter what, she couldn't turn her back on that.
Her mind went to all the spells she had practiced and used in the last couple of weeks. Her magic was flowing stronger and more confidently than it ever had before. Her mind just had to come up with something. Anything. All she had to do was get a message to him.
Laura was hunched down into the bush when she heard her sister’s voice behind her. Laura was repeating something over and over again, trying to get a message in. Her sister must have heard too much because her voice was loud and worried.
“What are you doing?”
Laura turned around to face Madeline, and she could see that there was accusation all over her face.
“I don't want to be here, Madeline.”
“So why are you trying to warn them? This is supposed to be the easy hit. It's just some guy and one of his kids.”
“That's not just some guy and his kid. A seven-year-old little girl that is bright and smart is in there. I can't do this, and I can't let it happen either, Madeline. You told me before that you do not agree with this. Why do we have to do it then? Why is it okay to attack a child, no matter what bloodline we’re from? When did all of this become normal and justified?”
Laura was feeling shaky inside because she knew she had been caught. The fact that she knew who his daughter was would show them that she had kept some things to herself.
“So, you know these people?”
“Yeah, I do. I know them very well, and I don’t want anything to happen to them.”
Laura was going to say more, and then she stopped. There were some things that just didn't need to be said, and the fact that John was the father of her unborn child did not seem like something that she should be bringing up.
“I can't believe you did this, Laura. I can't believe you're trying to stop this. You're going against the whole family.”
“You can come with me and help me. Help me save some lives today, instead of taking them. Come on, Madeline. I know that our generation doesn't have to be like there is. We don't have to be filled with all this hate that the rest of the women in our family have. It all seems like a waste of time, doesn't it?”
Laura could see that her sister was fighting with some internal moral compass. It was hard to keep it running when living in such a family. She wanted to believe that her older sister that had lived abroad for a while had learned that there could be more equality in the magic community. Laura did not believe that fighting amongst themselves was the best way to ensure survival for all of them. It actually felt like the worst way to make that happen.
“I can't do that, Laura. There's no way that I can help you. If you do this, this means the end for you and the Baxters. What are you going to do if you have no family? Where are you going to go?”
Laura didn’t know the answer to either of those questions, but she knew that she was never going to be able to look herself in the mirror again if she did something so ghastly. Her soul would not recuperate.
The real question to Laura was how was she ever going to sleep again, knowing that she had helped such a horrible transgression happen? There was just no way over that and Laura knew that she had to stand her ground. If not, it was going to be her soul that was given away.
“It doesn't matter. Madeline, it just doesn’t matter where I am going to live or be. They want us to kill hundreds of shifters, handfuls of humans, and children. I don't know how else to frame it so that you will care. They want us to kill all of them and I am not okay with it. I don’t think I will ever be okay with such a thing. I can’t understand how you could be. You won’t come back from something like that, Madeline.”
Laura was pleading with her sister because she didn't want to lose her. How could she not, though? How could the older sister that she knew be the same in the aftermath of killing hundreds? It was impossible and Laura wanted to shake her sister.
Madeline had kept her safe so many times before, and now Laura wanted to do the same. She just wanted to make sure that they were going to leave with their souls intact. That didn't seem like too much to ask, but she was finding resistance at every turn.
She hoped that Madeline would understand and that she would see the break of empathy in her face. Laura was waiting for it, but it was becoming clear that it was not to be seen. Her sister was not the one that she remembered from before. The sister that she knew was gone and that was somehow even more soul-crushing than the fact that Madeline insisted that she take Laura to their mother.
“If you take me to her, you know what's going to happen.”
“I don't know. Maybe Mom will let you leave before anything worse happens.”
Laura could tell that her sister did not believe it, and she didn't believe the words either. She had known her mother long enough to foretell what was going to happen next. Caroline was not one for forgiveness. Her father had learned that lesson a long time ago.
“You know that is not going to happen. You know exactly what they're going to do to me, Madeline.”
“Yes, I do. But it's the same thing that they’re going to do to me if I go with your stupid plan. You can't save them, so you might as well save yourself, Laura.”
Chapter Twenty-One
John was in the middle of another round of questions from his daughter. Dana wanted to know where Laura was and when she was going to get to see her again. She was becoming very adamant about it, and John didn't know what to tell her.
He was always battling with how much his too grown-up daughter should know. He decided to give her a little bit of truth, and hopefully, that would satisfy her curiosity for the moment.
“You know that Laura isn’t human, right?”
The look on his daughter's face told him that she had not guessed it and Laura had not given away her true identity. That wasn't something that he quite understood.
“What do you mean? And if she's not human, what is she?”
“A witch.”
That took a moment for Dana to come to grips with. Shifters were taught at a very young age to stick to their own kind. Witches, in general, were a dangerous lot and were to be avoided. Because of witches like the Baxters, there were a lot of people that did not trust them. John had been one of those people until he met Laura. Then he realized that he’d been wrong about so many things. His father's prejudice had blinded his own heart; now John felt like an idiot.
“Did you know that she was a witch?”
“Of course, I did.”
Dana was confused, and John was running out of truths that he could tell her. It seemed like that one was enough, but of course, Dana had more questions. He should have known better. Dana was always wanting to know everything.
“So then why is she gone?”
“I think she needed to go back home to her own family.”
“Oh. So she's not coming back, is she?”
John still wasn't of the inclination to believe that. He wanted to believe that whatever was going on between them was more of a misunderstanding than anything else. He needed to believe that he would see her again because the thought of anything otherwise was hard for him to process.
“I don't know. I am afraid to tell you one
way or another because I really don't know what's going to happen.”
He paused to tell her the bit about him using her against her own family. That was something that John figured he could keep inside and everyone would be better for it.
“I think she's going to come back, Dad. I know that she wants to come back.”
John wished for a moment that he had his daughter’s optimism. But something wasn't right. Ever since they have started their last line of thinking, John began to notice things. Mainly it was a feeling inside of him that he picked up when others were around. It was just a feeling, or rather, a knot in the pit of his stomach that was sending off red flags.
“So, what are we supposed to do?”
“We aren’t supposed to do anything, Dana. Sometimes you just have to be patient and believe that things work themselves out. It’s getting late; why don't you go ahead and get ready for bed? I have to go check on something.”
Dana looked at her father one last time before she went upstairs to take a shower and get ready for bed. He would read to her in a little bit and tuck her in, but now there was just a pit in his stomach that he had to fix. There were hairs on the back of his neck standing up tall. There was something going on, and before he knew what he was doing, John was outside, looking towards the trees.
He couldn't see anything, and even his heightened senses couldn't pick up movement or sound. It was just a feeling that he had. Somebody was there, and to him, it felt like more than one person. And whoever they were, they weren't there to help him. He didn't have many enemies; it seemed that his father and uncle's adversaries had found their way to him.
John strained to hear anything to tell him what was going on, but when he still couldn't hear anything, he started to move towards the darkness. Before he could think about it, he had turned into his bear form and was moving stealthily deeper into the woods. Someone was there, and he had to find them. He had to keep his family safe.