by Alex Lux
Part of me began to worry about what Mother would do with that kind of power. Nothing about this made any sense. The stories Derek told about his family, the kindness his sister had shown, these weren't the kinds of people who got their kicks killing puppies and torturing innocent people.
And his dad and my mom had history.
I was committed to finding out the truth, but first I had to set this right. He might hate me forever, and I wouldn't blame him, but I would at least save him first.
I waited until Ocean lured Blake out of the barn before I slipped in and found Derek's prison.
My mouth dried up as if someone had shoved cotton balls in it. "Derek, I'm so sorry."
I undid the latches and held the gate open. "You're free to go. Shift and get home to your family before Blake gets back."
He stood there, naked and beautiful, and stared at me. "Was all of this just a ploy to get at my family's secrets so your family could steal them?"
It hadn't even occurred to me that he would think that. "What? No, of course not. I didn't know who you were until just before you turned human. Your family has been attacking us, harassing us and… and killing our puppies. Mother thought this was the only way to protect ourselves."
His eyes widened. "Do you really believe me capable of that, Rose? Don't you think I'd know if my family had done that?"
"Honestly, I don't know what to think right now. But I know you have to go."
He took a step forward, coming too close. "Aren't you scared I'll attack you?"
In another context, his threat would have aroused me, but the love we had no longer existed, at least on his end. "You're the one who should be scared of me. I knew you'd hate me when you knew the truth. I don't know what's going on. Your brother, he was here, in wolf form, attacking Mother. I saw that with my own eyes. I never would have… I wouldn't have done what I did to him if it hadn't been to save Mother."
"You? It was you? You destroyed Dean? He's the most gentle person I've ever met! If he was attacking your mother, he'd have had a very good reason." A light dawned in his eyes as he looked at my hands. "That's why you wear gloves. That's why you always pull away when we get too close, isn't it?" He backed away from me, disgust in his eyes.
My head fell forward in shame. "Yes. I was going to tell you after tonight. I know you can never forgive me, but I thought I was protecting Mother. I thought your brother was trying to kill us.
"I'm sorry, Derek. So sorry. I'm gong to find out what's going on, and I'll find a way to fix your brother. I'll never stop trying to make this right."
"It's too late, Rose. You can't fix this."
Another voice interrupted us. "You're right, she can't. But that will be dealt with later. For now, you'll have to return to your cell, boy. You're our prisoner until your father gives me what is rightfully mine."
Derek turned to Mother and bared his teeth. "He won't give you anything, you psychopath."
"Oh, I think he will when he finds out we have his eldest son." She turned to me. "Is this the boy you've been carrying on with? You were in deeper than I thought. We'll have to work on this rebellion of yours."
My whole life I'd given into her, doing what she said and never questioning her. I thought she had the best interests of the coven at heart, but now I wasn't so sure.
I stood between her and Derek and spoke to him without turning my head. "Get out of here, Derek. I'll handle her."
Mother limped forward, her leg bandaged. My chest had its own bandages as well. Her power slammed into me before I expected it. Maybe I really didn't think she would attack her own daughter, at least not full force.
I fell back and into Derek's arms. He caught me and righted me, then let me go just as fast, but I'd felt something between us as we touched. A spark of magic.
I spun to face Mother, fury burning in my hands. A new kind of power pulsed through me, and I realized that Derek had fed me some of his magic.
It had his flavor, his energy and resonance. I didn't yet know what I could do with it, but I allowed it to settle into me as if it had always belonged.
My senses expanded, and I could feel the earth pulse with its own strength. Water, air, fire, earth, all of the elemental magic fused in me as I realized with shock that Druids controlled it all and, now, so could I.
Mother's air magic pushed at me, like invisible boulders crashing into my weak defenses.
I looked at Derek and his eyes softened for just a moment, giving me a glimmer of hope for what might be.
I strengthened my shield with the Druid magic and searched myself for ways to go on the offensive and end this for good.
My new power wrapped around Mother's attacks, turning them back against her.
Derek had given me a reflective magic. Whatever Mother threw at me was returned to her in equal force.
As Mother attacked herself, I pulled deeper and commanded the earth to send up roots to entangle her.
The earth didn't want to obey me and fought against the darkness it sensed in me, but another flush of power from Derek infused me and the earth submitted, shooting vines through the floor.
Mother screamed as vines wrapped around her, trapping her and rendering her harmless.
"You're not going to do this, Mother. He's leaving here safely."
When I turned to Derek, he shifted, looking unstable as he howled at the moon and, with a forlorn glance at me, ran into the woods and disappeared.
Mother stared up at me with cold eyes, and I wondered if she had ever really been warm, or if I had always projected love onto her out of my own desperate need to feel something from the woman who'd given me life.
THIRTY ONE
Is Love a Tender Thing?
DEREK
Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, Too rude, too boist'rous; and it pricks like thorn."
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
NOTHING MADE SENSE.
Life. Love.
It didn't add up.
She'd saved me, after her family captured me.
She'd gone up against her mother to defend me, but she'd been the one to injure Dean.
I'd fed her power, but I also wanted to punish her for the pain she'd caused my family.
Running through the woods, down streets and through the town, I hid in the shadows, using what little magic I had left to cloak myself as I made the long trip home. My injuries burned and ached, and I knew I'd feel it tomorrow, but it wasn't the physical pain I feared.
In the morning I'd wake up and my whole life would be a lie. My heart would remember the pain it was in, and I'd lose everything I thought I'd gained.
A part of me didn't want to wake up, but I knew I had to.
When I got home and got dressed, I found my dad in the library. He wasn't working, just staring out the window. He rose and hugged me. "You made it home. I've been forming a plan of how to break you out, but you're here."
I told him everything.
Men cry.
People don't think we do, and usually we don't, but sometimes, we do.
That night I did.
I cried in front of my dad and showed him the tattered shreds of my heart as I pulled out the engagement ring I'd bought her with some of my trust money. I wanted to get her the best money could buy. Now, it served as a cruel reminder of the life that could have been.
My dad stared into the two-carat diamond, his eyes glazing over, and I knew he saw something I didn't.
"Son, not all is as it seems. You fell in love with her heart, and what you saw was her truth. There's more to this story than you know. Don't give up yet."
He gave the ring back to me. "Keep it safe. You'll need it someday."
The little moments of life are often the sweetest. It was all those little moments with Rose that ran through my mind as my father and I sat in silence.
How she looked as she ate her dreadful cereal.
The kindness she showed to everyone, people or animal.
The way she made m
e laugh with her understated humor.
I had to ask myself, could that woman I'd fallen in love with truly be my enemy?
"Dad, you said something before, about how there might be innocent people in the coven, people who don't know the truth of what's happening."
My dad nodded. "Yes. It seems especially likely now, under the circumstances."
"Could Rose be innocent, despite having been the one to injure Dean?"
"If someone or something attacked one of us, would you do everything in your power to stop them before they harmed us?"
"Of course," I said.
"And what if you later found out that we hadn't really been under attack, that you had harmed an innocent because you'd been misguided, or misinformed? Would that make you evil?"
I considered his question. "Not evil. Still in the wrong, but not evil. It would be a fatal mistake."
I got his point, so I had to determine how much Rose really knew about her coven and her family, and what she thought was happening that night when Dean was attacked.
And I needed to find out why Dean had gone there in the first place, but the only person I could ask couldn't respond.
"Dad?"
He turned to me. "Yes?"
"I've decided not to leave. You were right all along—this is my home and I'm needed here. I need to be here."
My dad smiled. "I'm glad to hear it, son."
"And I have a favor to ask."
"Anything," he said.
"Will you help me find the truth about what happened tonight? Will you help me get Rose back?"
THIRTY TWO
My Only Love
ROSE
My only love sprung from my only hate.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Dear Diary,
When we see reflections of ourselves, do we see our true self? It's a question I've been pondering as I consider how to see the world for what it is.
The Great Mystery can never be unraveled, for with each layered uncovered, like an eternal onion, it reveals another. But what of the smaller mysteries? Those, I feel, must have answers, and I intend to find them.
I've sat for hours, staring out my window, replaying our week together in my mind. The way he laughed at my jokes and smiled so tenderly before he kissed me. The stories he told of his family. The many meals he cooked that didn't consist of food that looked like children's toys. The tales he told and secrets he shared and the truth he laid bare for me to see.
I saw him, I know I did. So if I saw him, and if he is the man I love, then I'm not seeing the truth of something else.
That is the mystery I must unravel, if I ever hope to bring him home to me.
THIRTY THREE
Where Two Raging Fires Meet
BLAKE
And where two raging fires meet together, they do consume the thing that feeds their fury.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
DARKNESS HID OUR covert meeting. While everyone else slumbered, we embraced the night, throwing shadows into the wind with the candles we'd brought.
Rainbow paced the kennel, her leg already healed through magic.
I didn't know what had happened, but there'd been a shift in power and Rainbow didn't like it.
I'd found her tied up by roots and had cut her free. Everyone assumed she'd kick Rose out of community for her betrayal, but I knew she needed her eldest daughter for the power she wielded.
What would come next, I could only imagine.
Rainbow poked her finger into my chest. "Keep an eye on her. Watch her and make sure she doesn't have any contact with this Derek character. He's bad news for her. We need her to use her powers more if our plans are to succeed. Find ways to force her, to drain it out of her. Can you do that, Blake?"
I shrugged. "I'll try, but so far your plans haven't been working too well. The attack you staged with the Druid got her to use her gift, and she only hated it more. What's the point?"
Her eyes formed slits and tore into me. "The point, o cheeky one, is that if you want all the powers promised to you, you'll do as I say."
My legs shook in fear and excitement. I needed these powers to woo Rose and to become a man people would respect.
"Speaking of, I have your first reward." She held up her hand as if swatting a fly. "You will get your first fill of power tonight. It will help you keep Rose out of trouble and get her on board with our plan."
My heart beat through my chest. I'd waited for this day for years. "What do I need to do?"
She drew a pentagram into the snow and dirt and retrieved a covered bowl from her large bag. "Kneel before me."
I did as she said, palms slick with anticipation.
Sticking her fingers into the bowl, she trickled its contents over my head. Something sticky dripped down my face as she muttered words in another language.
A wave of energy forced its way into me, clawing painfully into my soul. I gripped my chest and fell to the ground. "What did you put on me?"
She loomed over me, her long hair swept up in a bun. "The blood of innocence. The puppies sacrificed themselves for your first taste of true power. To make it more permanent, we'll need pure blood from a human, but that will come later.
"Enjoy this while it lasts, Blake. If you fail to do as instructed, you will not be pleased with the consequences."
Death haunted me from all sides as I struggled to breathe. Puppy blood dripped in my mouth and eyes, stinging them.
The power that took me over felt foreign and invasive.
For the first time, I doubted my alliances, but I was in too deep to back out now.
Opening myself up as much as I could, I accepted this strange force and felt it remaking me into something much stronger.
Into a brand new me.
~TO BE CONTINUED~
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About Alex Lux
Alex Lux is a USA TODAY bestselling multi-genre romance author who fancies herself British and living in a swanky flat in London where she and the Queen frequently have tea and crumpets. In reality, she's a native-born Californian who has a great fake accent and often compels her kids to get their fake British on as well. She does love tea, but drinks it with her Sexy Russian Prince (who's not really a prince, but he is Russian, and he is sexy). Together they write books with lots of sex and intrigue while raising three little girls who are entirely too smart for their parents' own good.
When not penning toe-curling sexiness, she writes fantasy and science fiction with her husband as Karpov Kinrade.
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