Duncan POV:
I paced in my office, trying to wrap my head around the impudence of the girl. Neo had already told me that she had gone out for a walk with Ed, but I felt it odd that she was so comfortable around the doctor.
I knew it was about decades of professional experience that made her feel safe with Ed, but it didn’t tell me why she was scared of me and at the same time so defiant. An order from an alpha was hard to refuse, but maybe because she was a rogue half-breed, her wolf sensibilities had been dulled.
But as I paced, I waited for Neo to bring me news about the girl. Selena… That was her name.
I knew Neo was one to get gossip without letting others know, he was sensible and sneaky in that way. When he opened the door, it slammed against the wall. I turned to him in shock and gave him a glare.“Are you going to repair the wall yourself? I am not paying for someone to work on the scratch you put on the wall,” I s
Duncan POV:The air was frozen and the people watching refused to blink. I was one of them. “Come, someone help me take the girl to my house,” Meredith chirped happily as if she had not seen the ground around her wither and become devoid of life.Not one person moved. Meredith looked around the crowd and sighed. “Oh, come on. It’s not like I would lead you to death,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “If I was strong enough, I would carry her back myself. But I have a herniated disk, you wouldn’t want me carrying something heavy… even if it is a slip of a girl, will you?” she said with a bright smile. Neo was the first one to move. “I… don’t think…” he started. I sighed. “I will take her,” I volunteered. I looked at the girl again and seeing her unstrained face. She looked completely out of it. “Lovely. Someone is wolf e
Selena POV:I woke up slowly. The light that should have been streaming from the window had dwindled and the hum of the woman in the kitchen could be heard. I felt a surge of fear as I looked around the house, but then I heard a somewhat familiar voice speak. Though her back was turned to me, I was sure she was referring to me. Especially because there was no one else in the room.“Don’t panic. It’s not good for your body. This is my house. I grew up in it and my mother and grandmother before me,” she said as she made her way up to me on the couch. The bit of information shocked me. “I am going to tell you a bit about your mother and you will have to process the information slowly. There is no rush, understood?” she claimed. After fifteen minutes, I indeed needed a lot of time to process it. I was just realizing how little I knew about my father and his life before he had me. I still didn’t know how he had
Selena POV:Meredith had led me to a bedroom she had confidently announced was mine. As I sat on the comfortable bed for what seemed like hours… and it had been at least three hours. The light outside had faded considerably and it was fast approaching night. I had so much running through my head that I just shut down the world around me. It had been a long time since I had been able to do this. My mind was constantly filled with the need to look over my shoulder and take in my surrounding. To think about what I would eat the next day and the direction in which I was headed. So much had happened and not happened that I didn’t feel the difference between the hardness of the forest floor and the soft mattress on the bed. My mind just couldn’t make out the difference between the two. Meredith had left me alone after her tutorial on witches. But what did it entail to be a Witch? Apparently, greeting the land was more than just me accompanying a w
Selena POV:The sound of birds chirping woke me up. It was extremely loud and cheerful to my ears.I popped an eye open to look towards the light source I could feel behind my closed lids. From beyond the sheer curtains, they revealed that it was morning or at it what I could gather from the dark clouds looming overhead.I rolled onto my back to look at the wooden clock on the bedside table. It showed that it was nine in the morning. I had never slept past the break of dawn, so I was surprised. I must have been extremely tired because I didn’t remember any sort of dream during the night. Just darkness. Remembering that I was going to spend time with Meredith, I got out of the bed to look for the shower. One good thing about living in a house was that I had a bathroom. While I had been timid at Ed’s place, here, I felt a lot better. I felt like I was owed something because I was deceived. But it wasn’t fun. My brain nagged at me to look
Selena POV:Meredith leaned forward on the couch, taking my hand in hers, rubbing her thumb gently over my knuckles. “This is the history of my kind and our families. The lands and it are intimately tied together,” Meredith began in a voice that left me feeling calm. “I will try to be brief but if you have any questions, just ask me.”I nodded my head for her to continue.“Technically, the Citadel became a town in the summer of 1942, but it had an establishment of nineteen families by the 1760s. I have tried to find as much information as possible from all the families there, but a good amount of the information was kept under the wraps due to the sensitivity of the medium they were written on. The line of the Life Witches seemed to have the most,” Meredith said this as she leaned down to pat my hand. I smiled in return. “But a lot of the witches were sent off from the Citadel to other parts of the country. They
Selena POV:The rest of the day felt like a blur. After finding out about this mating business, I had turned off the world again. Meredith seemed to understand that I needed a little more time to digest all the information so the conversation focused on the coming barbecue the day after. Meredith would be taking me to it, and it was going to take place in the large opening in the center of pack land where the flames couldn’t reach the trees. In two short days, everything I knew about myself had been turned on its head. I didn’t know what to think or how much I could ask since Meredith was being open. Neo seemed to be a bit more closed off, but it only served to remind me that Meredith was just as much a stranger as the next person. There was another thing. I had just met them but I felt like I knew them for much longer. They had befriended me quicker than anyone I had known and shown me kindness that even my father hadn’t been fully capable o
Selena POV:I fell into another dreamless sleep that night and woke up in the morning with the light streaming through my window. The day seemed to be sunnier. Looking out of the window, I saw the rays of the sun pouring over the yard. I was dressed and made my way downstairs to find Meredith in the kitchen preparing for the barbecue. I assisted with chopping the vegetables until it was time to leave for the event. “I am to only bring vegetables because the wolves will take care of the meat. You mostly ate vegetables here, how much do you like meat?” Meredith asked. I looked down and shrugged. I didn’t know if I liked eating it or not. I hadn’t really tasted much, to begin with.“It is good for your body, so have loads of it there, okay?”I gulped. I truly felt like I was imposing and that I was getting free treatment, so I voiced my concern. Meredith guffawed. “You are just starting out
Selena POV:“Ruth,” the Alpha warned. She slowly moved away, but still stayed put at his side. He took an instinctive step away from her, his eyes never leaving mine. I lowered my head.His expression was like he was looking at something that bothered him. The corner of his lips was turned down in a slight frown. “I am happy to see you healthy,” he commented before going silent. “Meredith is teaching this one some of her voodoo, I hear,” Ruth started. “God, that demonstration was freaky but you turned out to be a dirt witch,” she snickered, seemingly bored. She didn’t bother to look in my direction again. For that I was glad. If that was all she understood, I had no need to correct her. “Yes,” I replied politely. I didn’t have to stoop to her level. “A dime a dozen from what I know,” she said, rolling her eyes.“Ruth!” Neo admonished be
Warning: There is sexual content up ahead. Please beware.Selena POV:“Selena, thank god!” Meredith exclaimed into tears the moment I walked into the greenhouse. She ran over to me and hugged me tightly, sobbing into my shoulder. I hugged her with as much intensity, needing a moment with her after passing through the destruction. I felt nothing but gratitude to the powers that had allowed me to live and see the people I love alive. With everything that could have gone wrong, it was truly a miracle. We pulled away but kept our arms around each other. Meredith’s face was a contradiction in expressions. It held tears of released fears but it also showed absolute love for me. “We were so worried,” she started and then stopped to swallow down some of her tears. “When the ritual was over and we had all survived, I knew you had succeeded but we couldn’t find you. We tried everything but you… I mean&helli
Duncan POV:In Meredith’s greenhouse, we all felt the abrupt shift in the air. It seemed to be gone as suddenly as it had arrived. I looked over at Lamont with a questioning look. He looked stunned as well. I walked over to him and watched as he processed what was happening. “Is it gone?” I asked. “Yes. They succeeded,” he said quietly. But he didn’t look pleased. I arched my brow, feeling anger rise in me at his reaction. He looked up and then shook his head. “There is a shift in the air, but I can’t pinpoint what is wrong.” He sighed. “Call the witches.”I moved out of the greenhouse and looked outside. I could sense the destruction this thing had created, but it was farther off than the pack than I had realized. I dialed Argon and Meredith’s phone, but it just wouldn’t connect. I was sure that the magic eater had destroyed the power lines and it wouldn&rsquo
Selena POV:We were surrounded by the darkness.I was shaking with helplessness. I felt its ice-like fingers moving towards me and I frantically moved away from it. Looking over to my right, I saw that it was Meredith’s hand I was holding. She wore the same expression on her face that was flowing through me. On the opposite side of her, Argon was holding on her other hand. We had found ourselves in a small opening in the forest, trying to regroup, only to fall into its trap. The trees and bushes around us were alive with unnatural and pure gloom, foreshadowing what was about to befall us. “Everyone, get into position!” Argon shouted. The noise from the forest was loud enough that normal conversation was impossible to hear. As I looked at the others taking their position, for a brief moment Duncan’s face floated into my head. My own fear changed into warmth. His face—his person—everything, had become something
Selena POV:Duncan’s cellphone rang just as we acknowledged what was happening. He answered it quickly, practically yelling into the receiver over the noise being created by the wind and water outside. The humans were terrified. “Yes. I know. We think so too,” he said, his eyes boring into mine. There was chaotic fear and absolute certainty. The lights above us flickered a few times and then went dead. The emergency lights flashed on almost immediately as we emerged out to the main area. A waiter was crying to calm a crying girl afraid of storms when she noticed us. “I am sure the lights will be back on momentarily,” she said quickly, but I could see she was physically shaking. Duncan was trying trying to move us out the doors, but I stalled him to take a good look at the humans. Absolute fear. These people would be caught in between powers they didn’t know about. What would help them?
Selena POV:Following the success of the new ritual, practice continued daily for the next week. The tension I had thought was snuffed out returned in another form. Instead of flaring emotions, it was restlessness that gripped me. The unspoken question of when the magic eater would come hovered over everyone. There was no certainty about when the magic eater would arrive, but we were expected to carry on with our lives as if it were business as usual. It was starting to become too much to handle and we were feeling the drain outside of normal ritual work. I found myself nodding off a few times during wolf training. Duncan was exhausted too. Each time I practiced, the ritual chipped away at me, but Duncan bore the brunt of the emotions. His heart felt heavy as he couldn’t shoulder the load with me or offer anything that my stubborn pride would allow. On top of that, we were both frustrated that there never seemed to be a time when we were truly al
Selena POV:I walked out of the bathroom after my hot bath and found Duncan fully dressed and looking at the journal next to him. Lamont had handed him the book before we left with a request to bring it with us to tomorrow’s practice. He was dozing off and when I approached him, he started awake. “Sorry,” he mumbled, sitting up and rubbing a hand across his eyes.I laughed at how boyish he looked and perched on the edge of the bed next to him to rub his neck. “With you running around all day and emotionally supporting me, you are more tired than me. I am surprised you are still awake.”He smiled sleepily and leaned towards me to rest his chin on my shoulder. I reached my other hand and massaged the top of his head, enjoying the feel of his soft hair and the gentle waves of contentment radiating from him, relaxing me in return. “Nice,” he sighed, setting more against me, drifting back to sleep. I g
Selena POV:The home phone rang as I was cleaning the dishes. Knowing that it was most likely Duncan trying to contact me, I hastily wiped my wet hands on a dishtowel and managed to answer it by the fourth ring. “Hello?”“Selena, Lamont needs us to head over to the greenhouse to go over the new ritual. Should I come to pick you up now?” Duncan asked, getting straight to the point. “Sure, that’s fine,” I told him, feelings tingles of stress and strangely enough, eagerness when he said the word ‘ritual.’“Great. I will be home shortly,” he said before quickly disconnecting the call. Did that mean we could use this new ritual? I had transcribed the segment and felt unsure about it. But it was still worth a try. .The greenhouse was alive with activity when Duncan and I walked through the back door. My eyes landed on Argon, who was helping Lamont lift a large pot
Duncan POV:As soon as we were back from wolf training, I practically dove in to get the witch notes out. I placed the package on the table and carefully unwrapped it to find an old, beat-up, leather-bound book nestled within it. A frayed red ribbon was stuck between the pages and I gently opened it to the section marked. A crude ink drawing of a circle took up one side while scribbles of what looked like notes were on the other. The only thing that I could read with ease was the top note in larger scrip that said: “Negating dark energy.”“What did you find?” Selena asked quietly, taking a seat beside me and leaning over for a better look at the contents. I pushed the books towards her so that we could share, hoping she might be able to decipher some of the faded writing on the pages. We were both quiet for a few minutes as we studied the content. Selena broke the quiet with a sharp intake of breath and sat back. Her emotions had changed
Selena POV:“Duncan, I know that you have more experience in being the leader of the pack, but I am not dumb. And I am not without knowledge of being a witch. My instincts have helped me a lot and I haven’t been wrong when I listened to them. I trust your instincts as the alpha and want to approach Meredith for help. I know you thought it was the right thing to do, but please trust me,” I whispered. He stopped the movement of his hands and remained quiet for another second. His emotions revolved around us, but none of them were anger. “I know you are not dumb. You are a talented witch and alpha female. I just forget sometimes that you are capable of so much more. All I want to do is protect you…” he said sincerely and then spoke softer. “…because you are mine.”He pulled me along him so that we were lying chest to chest, my face above his. A wave of sweetness rolled inside me, seeping into my pores as that