— Elaeya —

I did not want to eat another meal in my bedroom, so I went down to the kitchen before anyone took any initiatives.

I was getting tired of that room.

It was beautiful and well decorated, but there was not enough space in the wardrobe and commode to fit all the things that had been bought for me, and a few temporary storage options were lying here and there on the floor. Plus, there was a lot more stored in another bedroom.

It was a mess.

I did not dare go in there, and Mrs. Raynolds would select things for me and place them on the fainting couch in my room every day.

We ate, Kaden and I, together in amiable silence. He has managed, somehow, to lower his workload, and would spend all his free time with me. I must admit that I felt a little guilty in how much I appreciated it. I was afraid it would only make me want more.

We moved to the living room after the meal and watched a movie, cuddled on the big leather sofa.

I don’t think I saw how it ended, and I felt myself being lifted up later.

“I can walk,” I told him, like I did every other times.

“Of course you can,” he admitted. I knew I was not particularly heavy for someone of his strength, but I still felt cosseted, and remorseful to enjoy this more than I should.

He still did not put me down and walked me up to my room.

Upstairs, he sat on the bed with me on his lap and used his free hand to move some of the pillows aside to free the blankets.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He turned his head to look at me. “I am. Why do you ask?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Something seemed off.”

He furrowed his brows.

I let my head rest on his chest.

“You don’t have to do all this,” I said. “I am better and getting better still. I can take care of myself.”

“Are you saying this because you want me to go away?” he asked.

“No, no, no. I don’t.”

“You have difficulty with people looking after you,” he said.

I wanted to argue, but it felt wrong, so I said nothing instead and let my head where it was, not looking at anything in particular.

I knew he was still looking at me.

“I’m not trying to take your independence away,” he said.

“I know.”

“Do you? Is this why you cringed when my mother brought you a gift yesterday. Why you have difficulty looking at all the clothes and shoes you have? Why you’re uncomfortable whenever someone cooks for you? Why you remind me every time I carry you that you can walk yourself? You’re not that heavy Ela, it’s not even a strain. None of us mind buying you stuff. We can all afford it. And no one is asking for anything in return. You owe nothing. No one is going to ask you to give it back for any reason. It’s yours. People take care of you because we want to. I took you to bed because I chose to.”

“You feel guilty,” I said. “You should not. It was not your fault.”

“It’s still my land, my responsibility.”

“No one can know everything Kaden. You keep putting too much on your shoulders. You can’t protect everyone all the time.”

“I could have done better.”

“You did all that you had to do. I am alive. It would not be the last hurdle to face.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that there will be other difficulties ahead.”

“For you?”

I nodded.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know that Kaden.”

“Will it be easier?”

I shook my head.

“Will you survive?”

I shrugged.

He cursed under his breath.

I looked up at him.

“I can’t prepare for all eventualities if I don’t know what I must prepare for,” he complained in exasperation.

“I don’t choose what I know.” I put my hand on his cheek.

He grinded his teeth.

“It is not my clearest insight. It could still be subject to change.”

“What do you mean?”

“The future is not set in stone. It is more like water that flows here and there, sometimes underground not to be seen, sometimes on the surface, but if the landscape changes, so does the flow. Not too many people use free will enough to reshape the future, but it can always happen. And I only see possibilities, like branches of a tree, I see more clearly the biggest and sturdiest, but there are so many of them. Sometimes I get a glimpse at two different branches and they may or not both happen. I don’t know. I don’t know what I will face, but I know it could be hard, dangerous, I don’t know if I will survive.”

I could see worry eat at him.

“But I also know we will marry. And have children. Children that will grow tall and strong.”

He blinked, halted in his brooding by the sudden knowledge.

I rubbed my thumb on his cheek and along his jawline. He leaned into my touch.

“Does it mean that it happens later in years, or that you won’t die?” he asked

“Or those are two opposing future and something could still sway things one way or the other,” I said.

“Children?”

I nodded. “There are times when it is difficult for me to separate the future from the present. There had been morning when I expected a toddler to jump into bed with us.”

He bit his lips.

“What do you want to ask?”

He closed his eyes for an instant. “It’s a little disturbing at times how you keep getting inside my mind.”

“I am sorry,” I pleaded. “I did not want to intrude.”

He shook his head. “I know.”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

He put his left hand on my cheek, mirroring me, his right arm still around my back.

I waited patiently.

“I had a lot of time to think lately,” he said. I saw his jaw tighten. “What it did to you. I couldn’t do anything.”

“Most cannot fight Others,” I said.

“I’m going to find a way. I’m not sitting on the sideline again.” His jaw tightened again. “I guess seeing you up on that wall, it made me understand things.”

I tilted my head slightly, trying to understand what he was trying to say. “You are trying to say that you love me?” The word just came out, but when I heard them, I knew them to be true.

His eyes widened.

“I—I guess I am,” he said looking at me a little baffled. He shook his head, as if he was trying to shake something off. “I knew right then that I would have preferred getting my arm cut off than letting this happen to you.”

It was my turn to be shaken. I took a sharp intake of air as the vivid image struck me.

He gave me a knowing smile. “I guess I’m not the only one realizing things.”

I swallowed. “I-I would not have lived well with myself if you had lost an arm.”

He kissed my forehead.

“I could have known sooner—that something was happening to you,” he said. “If the bond would have been forged.”

I looked up at him.

“You said we’ll get kids and everything. I mean, if it’s meant to happen anyways—. I know you said you were not ready. I can wait. It’s just—.”

“You are right,” I said.

He searched my eyes for a clearer answer.

“It will happen,” I said. “I am ready.”

“Now?” he asked, his breathing hitching up.

“I can barely keep my eyes open, Kade.”

“Of course,” he said. “You get better first. Then we can take care of this?”

I nodded and yawned.

“Let’s put you to bed first.”

“I’m not a child.”

“I know.”

“Will you join me?”

He kissed me.

“I will.”

* * * * *

On Friday, Shae made sure everyone would be there for dinner. She took it upon herself to reunite everyone, so she moved this to the big packhouse dining room and insisted on both Jean-Philippe and my parents to join us.

The fourteen of us enjoyed a meal of duck à l’orange.

Jean-Philippe, who was a little shy at first, found his voice very rapidly and after an animated conversation with Sebastian about stories of him and Jean-Philippe’s father, Marcel, he moved the conversation to describing his packhouse to Jasmine who was eating everyone of his words like water given to a Saharan dying man.

“Can I ask you something?” Sebastian asked my father a little later.

“Sure,” my father said

“You’re an inja, right?”

He nodded.

“What’s an inja?” asked Nadine.

“A different breed of werewolf,” replied Sebastian.

“There are still other breeds?” asked Amy.

“Amy,” Shea reprobated her daughter.

“There are still plenty,” explained my father. “Just not as many as lukáns.”

“I thought they had all died out,” Amy said.

“Many did,” said my father. “But some are more numerous than you would think.”

“What about you?” she asked my mother. “You don’t smell like a wolf. What are you?”

My mother blinked at her, rigid as a statue.

“Amy,” Kaden said. He did not raise his voice, or said it reproachfully either, but she knew she was asked to drop it.

Jasmine opened her mouth about to ask something, but caught herself halfway, closed it, and looked down at her plate, then acted as if she had not been about to talk.

Jean-Philipped stopped talking to Darren about the new sports car he bought, and turn worriedly to Jasmine. She just shook her head.

I think she was starting to worry about her actions. I knew all too well how the realisation of becoming Luna changes rapidly your perspective on your actions.

As for Amy’s question, I also knew that if Kaden and I were forging this bond soon, it would also mean that there would be no turning back, not that I had been considering this, not for a long time now.

And obviously, after what happened in the hospital, there were probably rumours circulating around about me already.

I was fairly sure Kaden had asked for everyone’s discretion, but I was also fairly sure the stories had moved around regardless.

“Is it a secret?” asked Gwen.

Kaden gave her a look. She snapped her lips together and looked down at her plate.

“It is,” I said.

It would not be for long, regardless. It would only be harder for this pack, this family to accept me, us, if they did not know. The only way to make a good decision is with proper information.

I don’t know what they will decide, but I know that they will need to, eventually.

All eyes had turned to me.

“She is half-witch half-vitteraï,” I said.

“Cool,” said Gwen. “A witch.”

“What’s a vitti-thingy,” asked Amy.

My mother looked me in the eyes.

I nodded.

She inclined her head, respecting my decision.

“Vitteraï,” she corrected Amy. “The bearers of the ways of the spirits.”

“What’s that?”

“Werewolves called them spirit wolves,” Sebastian told his daughter.

“I never heard of them,” said Shae.

“It is because our existence has been mostly erased from recent memories. Very few knows we ever existed,” my mother said.

“Why?” asked Jasmine unable to withhold her curiosity any longer.

“We are biologically magical in nature and as such, has been hunted like dragons, gorgons, and many more, for parts.”

Everyone stopped talking.

“We have been experimented with, slaved, trafficked, and killed in great numbers, until so few were left that it became easier to convince the world we were no more,” my mother continued. “And we have been hunted like vulgar pests for the risk we posed.”

I saw Shae look at her husband and son, seeing by their expressions that they already knew of this. She then looked at me and frowned, concerned.

“What risk?” asked Gwen, after realizing no one else was asking, her voice small and careful.

“To breed outside of our kin. To create hybrids,” said my mother casually, then she returned her attention to her plate.

She, my father, Kaden, and I were the only ones still eating.

Slowly everyone returned to their meal in silence.

Lisa raised her head sharply, dropping her fork. “Why, though?” she asked. “What is wrong with you being a hybrid?” she asked my mother and I.

“Because our young inherit differently than most.” I answered this time. “Because we connect with land, spirit, ancestors, because the sheer access to blood, even partially of another species, doesn’t stop us from reaching further into what we can be, and can become.”

Most looked absolutely confused.

“So that’s how it works?” exclaimed Sebastian.

All eyes turned to him.

“It means, being half-blood doesn’t mean they are limited like half-bloods. They can access what a pure blood can,” he explained.

The girls looked mostly confused.

“Of both?” asked Shae in sudden realisation.

He nodded.

“I don’t get it,” said Jasmine.

“It means that this little lady,” he said pointing his fork at me. “Can access all that a spirit wolf can do, and a witch, and an inja werewolf. And when they have kids,” he added waving his fork in both Kaden and I’s direction. “Then that child will get all of her abilities, plus your brother’s.”

“Potentially,” I corrected him.

He nodded.

“That’s why you’re worried about the black market, and hitmen, and politician?” asked Darren at Kaden.

He nodded. “Vitteraï have been in position of power in the heydays. They became a sign of power and prosperity, until they got so hunted that they were feared like the plague for all the trouble they brought.”

“Will you bring us trouble?” Asked Amy at my mother and I.

Kaden glared at her and she cowered.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Shea. “They’re family, we take care of family.”

Sebastian smiled at his wife. “We can prepare for it.”

“It could be easier to walk away,” said my father.

Sebastian smiled wickedly, but Shae was the one supplying the words behind the smile.

“We don’t walk away. Anyone touch any of us or ours, and we’ll unleash all the hounds of hell.”

Sebastian looked at her proudly. “We’re fighters. She’s with us now, so are you. You’re family. That’s the end of it,” he said.

Kaden pressed his back against the back of his chair, his plate empty. He crossed his arms and looked pleased at his parents with a wolfish smile plastered on his face.

“Sorry,” said Darren, as his phone rang. He left the table to take the call in the corridor.

“Don’t worry,” Shae told my parents and I. “You have a place here. We’ll take good care of you.” She took a bite. “Isn’t it more than time to add her officially to the pack?” she asked Kaden. “And you too, if you want,” she added for my parents.

Something in this felt odd.

“Maybe not now,” I said.

“Why?” she asked me.

Kaden did not. He was getting more and more used to my insight now.

I shrugged.

Eva looked suddenly worried and rushed to Darren.

Everyone stopped talking to look up.

She opened the big double-doors of the dining room. Darren was in the corridor on the other side, his back pressed against the wall, sitting on the ground, his elbows on his raised knees, his head hanging down, his face invisible to us, his cellphone still in his right hand.

“Babe, what’s wrong?” Eva asked. “Babe? Darren?” she lowered herself next to him.

He didn’t move or said anything.

All I could sense from him was turmoil and sadness.