“You’re lying.” Iris springs up. Her eyes are blazing with anger. “That’s not possible, it’s not true.”
I step back. Never have I seen Iris so angry at me. “It’s true. That girl will swear to her story.”
“That girl is sixteen. She doesn’t know what she’s doing--she shouldn’t even be here!”
“When Jonah found me, I was sixteen. It didn't make me less credible did it?”
Iris looks ready to argue when Nia comes from behind her and puts a hand on her shoulder. “We’re all tired and hungry. We should really take care of ourselves before we start arguing on the merits of this.”
“It’s too late to go back now,” Iris says. “It’s a lie.
“It’s not.”
“There has never been a wolf-witch pairing. Ever!”
“And the moon goddess is a fickle bitch. Maybe she doesn’t approve of this and she’s changed her mind.” Or maybe the laws in place made it impossible for these wolves and witches to meet. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, Jonah will soon know it. And he’ll surely use it. Let loose a thousand of wolves who thought they’d spend their lives without ‘true love’ and you have a hormonal, phermonal driven whole-sale slaughter. Then what? What happens to the girls--they lose everything.
Nia laughs a little but Iris just gives her a glare. “If the goddess doesn’t approve, then why are we doing this?”
“Because it’s right,” I say, wringing my hands. “Jonah is my mate, yes. But the way he detests humans and witches is wrong. Look at what this country has become--a wolf-led ethno state. Now that you can be mates, what now? There’s disdain for witches already.” I breathe in deep. “It could be sexual slavery. So the moon goddess doesn’t support us, that doesn’t make this cause any less noble.” My back straightens and I put my hands down by my sides. “In fact, it only serves to clear things up--should we stop now, witches will either be mates or medics and nothing in between. You know pack laws--they keep us from full participation in this world should we be unattached to our mates.” I spit the word out. “We shouldn’t be prevented from experiencing all the good has to offer for the sake of being baby incubators!”
By the end of it, I’m heaving, my shoulders rising and falling in complete indignation, but I see Iris’s deflate out of her. “You’re right.” She shivers. “But that means there’s a wolf out there for all of us, isn’t there? Is that man alive? Did she kill him?”
I shake my head and Iris lets out a long string of curses. Nia steps forward. “It’s fine. We’ll win this, in the end.” I bet he already knows. I bet he’s already coming for us. “We have the magic on our side which someone seems separate from the moon goddess and her domain. I wonder even, if she was the only goddess at the inception of the world.”
“None of that is important right now. What’s important is that you carry out this fight. We’re winning. He hasn’t hit us hard yet, but he will. He’ll want to crush us and knowing him, he wants to prove to me that I can never run. So the only way we’re going to win is fighting as dirty as he does.”
Iris nods before stepping outside the tent and yelling to her war secretary. They’re about to make plans and by god, I’m going to be there. The baby in my stomach kicks hard and I put my hand over my belly. My son will never sit on a throne, not in this twisted world of wolves standing over all of us. I know there’s goodness in witches, I know there’s goodness in humans, I’ve seen it in them. I’ve lived among them and seen it in school trips and museums of beautiful art and warm bacon breakfasts--little glimpses of humanity. And contrary to what Jonah believes, I’ve seen plenty of bad in wolves. I turn, breathing quick to soothe the kicking and I step outside, following as fast as I can on Iris’s heels.
#############################################################
Jonah’s Pov
I cringe, a feeling rushing through my head. No, not so much rushing, but like hitting me upside the head with a sack of cement bricks. Imani has gotten good at hiding feelings from me. I wonder if it’s because she tried to remove her mark again. But nos is different. Now, I can feel her determination coursing through my blood. This is a warning. I can almost hear her voice, I can almost see her pinched face, serious, her hands on her hips in a pose I can’t take her seriously in. I can hear her indignation and I can almost laugh at it.
‘I mean business Jonah, all business,’ she’d say if she were here.
I close my eyes. And deep love comes too. But not for me. It reminds me of my mother, staring not at her face, but holding her hand when I was young. It feels like shifting for the first time and having her there to console me while I cried, even though my father told me Alpha’s take it in stride. An electric shock races through me, a thrill too. Is she pregnant with my child? I shake the thought away immediately. She would’ve terminated any pregnancy by now.
I try to keep my thoughts off her and on the plans in front of me. Again, I have the war map out. My grandfather calls on the phone advising me, but he won’t come out of his retirement. ‘I’ve never been King,’ he said, ‘’I wouldn’t know.’ It’s at moments like this where I miss father the most. Father should have been here, to celebrate my mating, officially. He should’ve been here to watch me to become Alpha when he stepped down from his duties. But all of that was skewed. Imani….it’s like she destroyed all of that. But I can’t hate her for it. She didn't know. Still, it leaves me empty and hollow.
The door opens and I move to cover what’s on my desk. The face is familiar. The eyes are my mother’s and the lips, my father’s. I stand up, back to my desk so I face the door. “Lara. You’re home from Europe.”
She wears high heels and large, circular glasses. They’re so dark you can’t see her eyes. Unlike my mother, who joined my grandfather in the beautiful scenery of the rockies, Lara never left mourning. She’s just incorporated black into every part of her life. Long, dark trenches, even longer, shapeless widow-worthy dresses. The color has been leached out of her skin so now she’s a shocking pale. It’s entirely wraith-like, like a ghost from my past has come to trail me. She stands, watching me silently and the back of my neck itches. Finally, she offers a small smile from black-painted lips and leans forward to kiss both my cheeks.
“It’s good to see you brother. You look well.”
“As do you.” We both know we’re lying, but I look haggard and wicked and she looks like she’s returned from the dead.
Her gaze is harsh and judging as her eyes fall on the war map. “Ah, this kingdom of yours. Is it still going?”
“You’re a lady of this kingdom--a duchess. I would expect upon hearing this information that you’d find your mate and be eager to settle down.”
“The European system? Have you become so fond of titles and displays of power.” She twists a simple silver band on her thumb, the only flash of color on her person and it’s watery at that. “You have to prove it after finding it, don’t you. And I have the intention of finding this mate, whomever they may be.” I reel and she quirks her lips into a smile, sitting and setting her black purse onto the desk. We were raised to know that when we come of age--our mid to late teens, we’d meet and mark our mates. After, a heat and the rest of our lives would begin. To hear her say otherwise is horrifying. “I have no intention of settling back into this life. I’m fine traveling.”
“But am I fine financing all of it?”
She goes impossibly paler. I reach around my desk and pull out statements. I hadn’t expected her to come so early, but I wasn’t completely unprepared. “Hundreds of thousands on clothes and shoes in one shopping trip. The next day, you spend four thousand on a bottle of wine. I will not continue to fund your fancy French lifestyle. Come home.”
She stiffens. “This is not my home. There is nothing for me here.”
“Evansville will be a great center of learning and culture soon. What you find there, you can find here.”
“No.”
“We found your mate in the database. He’s an Alpha Juvenis, no surprise there, of a pack in Northern California. He wants to meet you as soon as possible.”
“I don’t know him but I hate him already.”
You sound just like-”
“Your mate? The one who swears to hate you but you follow her across the country anyway. Perhaps.”
I know she did it to catch me off-guard, to unsettle me. And it worked. “She doesn’t hate me...just our systems.”
Lara sneers. Her dark lipstick cracks. “Like that’s any better. Are you willing to abandon this system?”
I shift my eyes to the side. “I know what I’m doing this time.”
“Yes, third time's the charm.” Her voice is mocking and over-sugared. “I’m sure she won’t manage to wile out of your grips again. She’s truly your equal brother.”
“That’s my final word Lara. Find something to do with your life. If you want to go to school, I’ll pay for it. If you want to run your duchy, I’ll support you. But you simply cannot wallow in your depression and spend thousands on lavish, self-destructive parties.”
She takes off her glasses and I flinch. Her undereyes are dark purple, like she’s been given two black eyes, but they’re not swollen. It’s exhausting. “So you really think that it’s in my best interest to meet this man?” Her eyes are questioning.
I speak slowly. “I want what’s best for you and this is what I think will be best.”
“Fine then,” she says, picking up her bag. “But it hasn’t been me you’re looking out for. Not Mom or even Imani. It’s your image. You want a loving, doting, beautiful mate and the perfect aristocratic family. You want us all in our places. We’re just another part of your silly war.” She yawns. “But it seems those witches have something to say about it. Good for Nia and Iris, they were always nice girls. They didn't take shit from anyone.”
“Why are you saying this?”
She puts her glasses back on and the blue of her eyes disappears, taking the only piece of color away. She straightens out her dress. “Because dear brother, it’s going to be a good day when you eat crow.”
She turns and leaves. I close my eyes. Where, in all of this, did I lose my baby sister?