Rite of Submission - Rite 1

54: The Final Days of My Life

                I'd started to think that he wasn't going to show his face at all. Sophie's face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning when he stepped through her doors. "Dimi?" her chair fell back on the floor, she stood up so fast. I couldn't help but smile, watching her run across the room to tackle him. "I thought you said you couldn't..."

He cut her off, "Someone helped me free up just enough time to visit with you for a little while before I have to get back to work." He gave her a hug, looking at me over the top of her head. She kept an arm around his waist as he walked her back to the table, as if she was afraid to let him go. He picked her chair up for her, pushing it in as she sat down. "Good morning Selene," he didn't look at me, taking a seat beside his sister, "I can't stay long."

"Good morning Dmitri," I poured myself a cup of coffee and opened the book I'd grabbed, just in case he did show up. I held it up in a way that made it clear that I had no intention of holding a conversation with him. I ignored the way she frowned, looking between the two of us, unhappy that everything was not back to the way it used to be.

Their conversation was a little tense at first, but once Sophie started talking about throwing Kelly a baby shower, no one could've gotten a word in edgewise. As if he'd set a timer, exactly 30 minutes after he'd stepped through the door, he got up and excused himself. We barely exchanged pleasantries before Sophie walked with him to the door.

"Thank you," she smiled at me as she sat back down.

"For what?" I looked at her over the top of my book.

"I don't know how you did it, but I'm pretty sure that you had something to do with that."

I shrugged, "You should've made him eat more; he looked pale."

We spent the rest of the day, looking through the stack of books we'd brought up from the library. We'd been focusing more on the political stuff trying to learn more about my lineage. I was surprised to see Samuel in the hall when we went to swap out the tomes. I realized that Dmitri was actually listening to me and using his Beta to actually help him instead of babysitting me, the thought made me smile.

Information on The Vὅlsung was harder to find than I thought it would be. They were considered to be lycan royalty, but other than a few obscure passages here and there, there was very little written about them in the history books we had access too. They were all Alphas, or at least as strong as an Alpha. Only one of them was considered the Alpha of Alphas. They possessed special gifts and skills, but we couldn't find anything about what those gifts and skills were. And every pack feared and respected them.

I pushed my food around on my plate, frustrated by yet another dead end. "Did Isabel look into some ancient blood lines or something back when we first found out about the wolfsbane?"

Sophie's shoulders straightened, "Oh my god! You're a genius!" Not being about to find the information we were looking for had been just as frustrating to her. "We should go see her tomorrow and pick her brain to see what she knows or maybe she has some texts that I didn't know about." She shoveled a bite of her in her mouth and made a face.

"Cold," I asked, trying to hold back a laugh. She nodded, swallowing the bite with a frown. "Mine too," I pushed the plate away. "What do you say we take a break for the rest of the night? Maybe watch a movie and turn it?" She agreed, abandoning her dinner as well. We changed into comfy PJs and piled up on the couch.

This didn't feel right, this dark empty space where the air felt like water in my lungs. The dread was overwhelming, settling into my bones as it gained strength. This was all so wrong. I spun around; searching the tree line around me for the eyes I could feel watching me. I could only catch a blur of silver out of the corner of my eye. What was it doing here? And what did it want from me?