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Chapter 10

Bri

They had effortlessly handed over the trinkets that protected them from other witches meddling. Left themselves vulnerable to the tyrant who was their mistress of dark and light. I picked up the trinkets and closed my palm over them, enforcing the talismans and strengthening their power. Before I offered them back. The men looked at me questioningly.

“Don’t lose them, I know I forget to tell you, but I’m thankful for your friendship, I will protect you and yours and I expect the same in return,” I offered. They reached out tentatively as if I would smite them and took the items returning them to their persons.

“As you all know I don’t know my origins, I was a foundling. I buried a lot of what I was after my father died. The girl's memories started coming to me the night I was forced to sign the contract. Whenever the anxiety ran too high her memories were my escape. I don't know who she is but I'm tied to her. When the Depression ran too deep, the peace she granted me, stayed my hand.” Andrew went to speak and I silenced him shaking my head. Zoey and Trent didn't need to know how close I had come in the past to taking my own life.

“She is not the only one I'm tied to. After I escaped and cast the cloaking spell, my body collapsed in the boat I had borrowed, The old woman later called it my first ascension, I don’t know what that means, and she’s a cryptic old coot, but she’s been on me since the day I left to go back to them. I suppose after what you’ve told me she's right. I should have listened to my heart that day, but if anything happened to them,” my voice cracked again. Andrew, for once kept his mouth shut and just listened while Trent’s fingers flexed around his glass uncomfortably before he took a sip.

“When I was under that pressure of the ascension, it was much like the time Lorraine took the rattlesnakes to me but instead of venom, it was lava in my veins. They told me later I was like that for three days in the Bayou. During that time my inner temple changed from the manicured landscapes of the garden district to the wilds of the Bayou. It's a malevolent place but it is now the only place I see as home.”

I took a moment to reflect on that word. Home. I still loved New Orleans but it wasn’t home anymore. Home was with them.

“When they found where I had cast the spell and my promise to retaliate against them, Draven attempted to unravel that spell on my third day when the moon was full and the wolves of the Bayou ran wild. That's when I struck him, I simply let my magic loose on him and elevated the threat, I gave it something better to do than completely destroy me. During that fight my body must have jolted causing the boat to capsize. My men were there in their other skins as if they knew I was coming. Well, at least one of them did. When I sank into the waters an alligator at least 9 feet long tried to seize me and Wyatt saved me by ripping out the gator’s throat. I watched myself die on the bank of some unknown island. But he spoke to my soul, those words will always ring clear, “Not today ma Sha,” after that, he insisted he and his pack care for me and I fought it but he is a stubborn man. It was so easy to fall in love with every part of their family, they became MINE. That night he held my spirit to my body with his words as he begged my heart to beat. While Beau was the breath that kept me living” She became quiet for a moment before she went on.

“Beau at first was a force to be reckoned with attempting to protect what I had no intention of harming. I just wanted to run away from the kind men and hope they never met the chaos following me. Yet Wyatt the Alpha insisted and I allowed myself to accept their safety. How someone as broken as I was could still find love in my heart, I do not know but over months of their companionship, I fell in love with them and their family, Bastian Louis and Claude. They were abandoned by their mothers just like me. So I mothered them and they filled my heart with joy… even when it was hard for Bastian to trust me I never took his slights to heart. I understood him and accepted him as he was,” Bri swallowed hard.

“I cannot explain it all in words you would understand but that land and those men and boys call to me on a level beyond this world. I tried to leave them once. The tension between Wyatt and I was too strong. I stepped across the line in the sand and he refused me for his own reasons, to protect me in his own way. I had come to realize that I loved Beau as well for far longer than I wanted to admit and I needed to leave or risk putting a rift between them…Beau had other ideas.” Bri paused downing her glass. “Instead of taking me to the bus stop he took me to his Alpha and challenged him in front of his foes. If you knew what Wyatt was you’d understand that this wasn’t just an attempt to sway his superior it was a blatant act against him. However, when we returned home and I told them how I felt, their answer was to both love me and to share that love as opposed to losing me, even though they knew they would eventually end up without me.” The room became quiet.

“They are wolves and Wyatt is a Rougarou, not the only one but the one that owns my soul. That last night between them, I became so consumed by them that I let the light I had protected them from all those months seep through. I’m not sure how it happened but that is how I have become tied to them and there is only me to blame for this mess I have made.” Bri explained.

“You say that they must have accepted me; however, they have their own preordained laws when it comes to love. I have cheated them of finding this love by tying them to me and I cannot explain the guilt that gives me,” she admitted. “They have mates out there somewhere chosen by the goddess herself and I have ruined that pure love for them”

“Werewolves?” Andrew asked and Bri just nodded.

“Well who's to say you are not the mate in question,” He pushed further.

“Seems too cliche?” Bri offered. “Too obscure?”

“Why would I be granted such a gift after all the years the goddess turned her back on me?”

“Because she didn’t,” Trent offered. “You're just too stubborn to see what’s clearly there.” Bri huffed.

“What else should we know Bri? Might as well get it all out,” Andrew asked.

“I am afraid as vivid as the dreams have become that something more catastrophic could happen. Something like the wind cyclone that occurred the first day I was at their home and had to tell them what sort of trouble I was running from or something like what became of my bedroom the day I watched them walk away. The old woman keeps telling me I made a mistake. While I want to agree with her I also can’t see another way.”

“What are you dreaming of?” Trent asked.

“Them, it's as if I'm with them again and every morning, when I wake they are ripped away from my being.”

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Andrew asked, reaching for the whiskey and filling my glass before adding to the rest of their glasses. He frowned seeing Zoey had taken only sips.

“You forget I walked through life very much alone in this house since my father died. They along with Zoey and Mags have been my only safe places, forgive me if it’s still hard to trust you as you feel I should. I know that you never had a choice but you never suffered the things I went through. I never blamed you for any of it but trusting you with the witch's council is one thing, trusting you with them, is a completely different animal. Now you know why I pushed them away and what I need to deal with,” she picked up the letter from the desk, running her fingertips over the writing.

“What's that?” Trent asked.

“I made a promise to a motherless boy, one I almost failed to keep. Bastian is graduating. The deal was if he did, I’d make it to the graduation, so his whole family would be there. " A soft smile crossed my lips. I also have to cook him his favorite meal.”

“You cook? Andrew asked.

“I do, is that such a surprise?”

“Why haven’t you cooked for us yet?”

“Because my heart has been sad and I didn’t feel like it, maybe that will change, I suppose a lot of things will, that is if they still accept me. Maybe I should just let things be. They will forget me eventually. It is not their duty to save me.”

“You have a bond with them that is hell-bent on destroying you, They deserve to know. To make the choice you took from them.” Zoey pointed out.

“What do the Iwa say?” I asked Zoey.

“They have always told me to protect your light, the light wants you to be with them Bri. The dreams the way you always clutch your chest when you think nobody is looking, their heartache magnifies yours, I'm not watching you do this to yourself anymore. As far as they are concerned, it's time to go back. They kept me quiet about this for a while but it’s time. Without them, you cannot hold the light, so you're going and you're going to stay as long as it takes. We will handle things here until you can return and then we will work it out so you can be with them, and still fulfill your duties here while keeping them secret.”

“You go back to them Bri, and you find out once and for all. Reclaim your light.”

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