Aris
Soren leans against the thick charcoal gray cushions of the L-shaped couch in Blake’s atrocious modern living room. It’s… sunken. I nearly cracked my head open within seconds of appearing in his house twelve hours earlier than I told him I’d be here, but apparently Blake, Soren, and to my surprise, Logan have been expecting me. Or they were getting the party started early. We’ve wasted most of the day. I slept until the late afternoon. Logan cooked dinner, which was surprisingly good, and now?
Blake got the good whiskey out for the occasion, whatever that occasion is, because nothing about succession has been spoken about yet.
Logan, propped on the armrest on the far side of the couch, crosses his arms over his chest and looks down at where I’m sitting on the floor. My back is against the curved base of the wall-to-wall fireplace. Everything in this house–save for Skye’s scattered pink and purple toys–is smooth, curved or leaning at impossible angles–all dark glass, gray plaster, and pale wood.
Everyone else in the family thinks the house is a masterpiece, a true marvel of modern engineering. I often wonder if Blake based the blueprints on one of Kieran's absolutely insane drawings because, to me, none of it makes sense.
The bottle of scotch resting between my knees catches the light of a hand-blown chandelier. I tip it to my lips while Logan and Soren continue commiserating over their beloved wives–my sisters. Who they adore. Who they won’t stop talking about. They’re men who look like they could beat the shit out of anyone at any time. Yet, they go soft and fluffy at the mention of their mates’ names.
“I miss the girl. I’m not gonna lie,” Soren says, stretching his arms over his head with a soft groan. “Fallon’s newest vocal stim is ‘fuck.’ She’s been saying it repeatedly, and it drives Maeve mad, but… she’s definitely the one who taught her that.”
“Yeah, Kieran went through that, too. It gets better as they get older. I can just tell him no now, and he moves on to the next cuss word on his list.”
“What’s his current favorite?”
“He heard Ryan call someone from a neighboring pack a bastard, so of course, it’s that.”
Soren chuckles, and the conversation drifts away without me, but I haven’t been following most of it. This is supposed to be a guys weekend, according to Soren, who planned the whole thing mostly to get acquainted with the impressively large flat-screen TV upstairs in Blake’s den, but when Blake returns to the living room with more drinks, I notice the shadows under his eyes and the way he catches Logan’s eyes.
I can’t ignore the elephant in the room anymore. “Where the fuck is Kaleb?”
Soren sighs, grumbling under his breath as he stretches out on the couch, legs splayed. “I can’t blame the guy for not coming. He doesn’t know us well.”
“He barely speaks the language yet as it stands,” Logan adds with a nod. “Plus, they’ve got Ian.”
“He didn’t like the idea of leaving Lexa behind. An evening away from his mate and child carries a very different connotation to him after everything they’ve gone through recently. I doubt they’ll leave each other's sides again.” Blake sets a fresh bottle of scotch beside me, eyeing me with interest before he sits down a few feet away on the ottoman.
“Should we talk about succession, then? That’s the reason we’re all here.” I drain the rest of the first bottle, the booze going down far easier than it should, but slowly lower it when I notice all eyes on me. “What?”
“Why is it snowing in Veiled Valley?” Blake asks pointedly, his dark brows arched and voice smooth and cold as ice.
“Fuck if I know,” I murmur, reaching for the second bottle, which he snatches quicker than I can react.
“Your emotions and powers are directly tied to the stability in that territory. You’ve turned a tropical rainforest into a winter hellscape.”
“I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but I am not Alpha King of Veiled Valley. Not yet, at least. Last I checked, my mom’s still the Alpha and Grandpa Ryatt–”
“What’s going on with you?” It’s Soren this time, and I shoot daggers at my brother-in-law from across the room. He’s more amused than anything.
“Fuck off. I came here to talk about succession, and if we’re not doing that, I’m going home.” I rise, but all three men remain seated, staring. Waiting for me to break. Normally, I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction… ever. Especially Logan, that old fuck. He used to beat the absolute shit out of me and my friends during our years in warrior training when he was our unit trainer, and he enjoyed it. Now, he’s married and mated to my sister, and he’s looked smug as hell about it for years.
“Fine.” I snatch my cloak off the back of the couch while striding out of the room and immediately stumble over the step leading up from the sunken area. I curse, then whirl to face the men. The closest things to brothers I’ve ever had. “You know what?”
“What?” Blake sighs, popping the cork off the fresh bottle of scotch like he… already knows what I’m about to say.
I’ve bottled these feelings up for months. The rejection. The heartache. The confusion, and honestly, the fear. Fear I had a taste of something I’ll never have again. Fear I’ll roll over in the morning to pull my wife closer, and she’s not soft and warm and doesn’t smell like fucking cherries.
“You fucking bastard. You know. You looked into my head!”
Logan and Soren rise methodically, poised to intervene, but I ignore them, taking several determined steps toward Blake, but he doesn’t stand. He takes a pull from the bottle and then shakes his head. “I didn’t have to.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Soren tucks his hands in his pockets and bites back a knowing smile.
“Fuck. Skye?” I gape, and Blake shrugs.
“She’s exceptional.”
“You haven’t taught her it’s bad form to look into someone’s head?”
“You wear your feelings on your sleeve. You always have, which is why I was shocked to find out you had them for others in the first place.” Blake rises and rests the bottle on the mantel and then folds his arms over his chest. “What happened with Morgan? Did she reject you?”
Apparently, Skye isn’t as exceptional as her freak of a father thinks she is. “No. I kicked her out after she put her hands on my–”
The room falls silent, which isn’t that hard to do. Even the crackling fire is sucked into the vacuum of stillness created by what I know are impeccably sound-proofed walls.
“Posey Sapphire.” Blake rolls her name over his tongue, violet eyes holding mine. Just the sound of her name is enough to undo me. The scotch washes over me in a wave, dragging me to the floor, where I slump on the step, resting my face against my palm.
I was, proudly, the family slut. The one with a heart of steel that couldn’t be broken or invaded. I could party, riot, and rage without a second thought. I’ve been rumored to have slept my way through Eastonia, and… it’s an honor, truely, but still….
I’m fucked up. My best friend’s little sister fucked me up. She could have run me over with a car, backed up, and done it again, and it would have hurt less than this.
“I told her I loved her,” I admit, my voice steadier than I assumed it would be. “I told her I’m in love with her, and she won’t…. She feels the same way, which is why this entire fucked up situation I’m in is just impossible. She won’t say it. She won’t just accept it. She won’t budge.”
“She’s an alchemist, Aris. This is in their nature.” Blake paces to the far side of the room to look out the window.
“And what nature is that? To be stubborn and immovable?”
“She’s bound to duty to not only her pack but her powers–”
“She was going to join a convent,” I snarl.
“Have you…” Soren tapers off, glancing at Logan before arching a brow. “Slept with her?”
I laugh. It’s bitter. Wanting. Like just thinking back on this summer is like a knife to my vocal cords. I run my tongue along the edge of my bottom teeth. “Yeah.” I glance at Blake. He’s looking at me again, but I can’t feel his tendrils of power anywhere near me, thank the Goddess. “Do you guys want a play-by-play, or something?” I scan each man’s face. “Any takers? Anyone care to know that I practically begged her not to go into that asinine priestess training program and to stay with me instead, to marry me, so she could live in peace away from her family?”
“What does her family have to do with this?” Logan’s voice is low, calm, like he’s talking to a live bomb. Maybe I am. My shadows rile, curling between my fingers.
“She can’t shift. She doesn’t have a wolf. Blake, who knows fucking everything, can attest to the fact that it’s a bad thing for her family’s reputation and her brother’s ability to ascend to Alpha soon. All the Sapphire Ridge pack cares about is their ability to use alchemy, which is supposed to be directly tied to the ability to shift. It determines everything–marriages, children. And–” I laugh because I’ll throw the empty bottle across the room to shatter against the window if I don’t, “She can’t have kids, apparently, and a few hours ago she looked me dead in the eyes and told me not to step down for her.”
“You offered that?” It’s Logan again. He sits back on the couch, stretching out his legs. He almost looks impressed.
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to.” I look right at Blake, who apparently is Ryatt’s heir as ringleader of this generation of the family, which feels a little unfair. We should, I don’t know, hold a vote about who’s really in charge. I’d vote for myself, of course.
“Is she your mate?”
The clouds shift, and moonlight stretches across the living room. It’s full and brighter than I’ve seen it in months. The second the moonlight sweeps over my feet, I feel both forms vibrate in wait, but my fox form…
I stiffen, slowly clutching my shirt. My heart pounds before racing, and I feel…
“Are Maeve’s shields up?” I ask Soren, who narrows his eyes.
“Of course, why?”
Logan shifts his weight uncomfortably, glancing out the window in the direction of the palace, where my sisters, Marianna, and the kids are having their own girls weekend… plus the twins and Brie’s boys.
Another pang rips through my heart in warning. Something's off. I either drank enough to officially give myself alcohol poisoning, and I’m about to pass out, or…
She did it. She went into the caves. I knew she would. Fuck.
“I have to go.” It’s all I can manage before my shadows erupt and wrap around me against the shouts of alarm from all three men. I close my eyes, and the world goes black. I open them to the blurry outline of Posey’s alchemy room. My vision clears, revealing startlingly bright moonlight filling every inch of the room. She’s not here.
The fawn is asleep on a pillow under the window. She doesn’t stir when I take a step, then another, scanning the room like someone or something is about to jump out and attack, but then I see it and confirm the worst.
The mask… and the helmet. The helmet I’ve never seen–that didn’t call to me in the caves. The helmet that's humming with so much energy now I can taste it. It’s mended completely. New gems glisten in the quicksilver glow of the moon.
But beside it, in a basket, rest two human skulls and a diadem.
“What the–”
Howls drift from the forest beyond the castle. That’s not uncommon for a full moon, but the ache in my chest as the howls drift away and the racing of my heart nearly brings me to my knees.
“Where is she?” I ask the house. “Did she go back into the caves?”
Only the male spirit makes himself known.
“Where. Did. She. Go?” I snarl. The air shifts nearby, and then the helmet slides across the granite tabletop, rattling as it comes to a rest. The wolves howl again; they’re on the hunt.
I look out the window as dread like I’ve never known fills my body and renders my human senses useless.
I turn to the door I hadn’t used to enter the room, and a pile of shredded clothing glimmers in the moonlight.
She lied to me about being able to shift… but why?