Lycan Legacy (A Soulmark Series Book 5), page 12
"Every imperfection can be hidden and masked in a letter. A part of me wonders if I ever truly got to know Atticus. I'll only learn if he's the man I met through our letters with time... and that's why I'm not in love with him," I explain, my words soft-spoken.
"But he houses the other half of your soul," Luna argues plainly. "Where in your history has there been a pair who did not fall in love when the sealing, marking, and binding of the soulmark were completed?"
I flush. "The steps to completing the soulmark are very intimate, Luna. And as I've just said, I don't know him."
"But you do know him," she continues on stubbornly. Our eyes meet in twin glares, gray against a glamoured dark blue. "You've known him for twenty years."
"Well, I'm not the type to jump into things headfirst," I snap. "Besides, Atticus and I agreed to take things slowly."
Luna brushes a few wayward curls away from her face, her lips pursing together thoughtfully. I take a moment to do the same. My much longer, snowy hair is in two loose braids on either side of my head, but tendrils free themselves with each passing breeze as the wind picks up.
The fragrance of food from not too far away begins to tease my nose. After a calming breath to soak in the smell, my nose gives an irritated twitch. Food isn't the only thing riding on the wind. Magic is.
We walk in silence, closing in on the fork in the path that will lead us back to the witches’ large backyard. I would be perfectly content for it to stay as such, but Luna has other plans.
"If you ask me, there's no reason to delay the inevitable. I think Atticus is wonderful." Her sudden conviction draws my eyebrows high as we turn down the final stretch of path. "He's very handsome and is always nice to me. I think you make a lovely match because you're very handsome, and you've been nice to me too."
Her hand drifts my way, and she toys with the end of one of my braids.
"Thank you."
Atticus’s face comes to mind at Luna's compliment. The chiseled jaw and easy smile. His China blue eyes and the physique of a tight end. Another image flashes of him and the way his unruly chestnut hair falls into his line of vision every so often. How he smooths it back without care and his muscles stretch and contract.
"I'm sure you'll fall in love soon enough," she declares, the smile winning.
"It's complicated."
Luna huffs again as we near the house. "Everything is complicated in your world. Especially love, when it's so simple. Humans." I don't have to see her eye roll to know that she has done it, and I let out a short laugh at her exasperation.
Luna opens the back door calmly, her earlier spirit receding as we enter the house. I trail in after her, more than prepared to lift her spirits once more when I see who is in the kitchen. It's Aunt Mo and Aunt Lydia, along with a petite Asian woman who looks like she might be still in high school. I stop in my tracks when their eyes remain on me as Luna walks toward the front foyer to hang up her coat.
A sweat develops at the back of my neck as their regard turns frosty. My gaze flicks to Aunt Mo, whose own consideration is less severe than the others, but no less intense. There is no doubt in my mind the other two women are privy to Aunt Mo's Christmas time prediction, and a rush of indignant anger fills me.
Tilting my chin up a fraction, I stride across the kitchen to the foyer, mindful of their judgmental stares following me. Luna's surprise is written on her face when I open up the front door and begin to exit.
"Are you leaving?" Luna's disappointment clear.
"I've just remembered something I need to do," I explain with a casual smile in place. I turn and give Luna a hug, then begin to exit. "How about we meet again soon? Maybe next time you can come over to our house?"
The sentiment makes Luna light up like a star. "Okay," she says a touch bashful. "If you're sure that will be okay with Atticus."
"I'm positive," I reassure her, itching to leave the hostile environment.
"Bye, Winter!" The door closes behind me at Luna's farewell, but I'm already halfway down their driveway. I don't know where to go, or what to do for that matter, but by leaving the witches' house I can breathe again.
III
“You’ve grown callous, Edmund. What slight have I dealt your pack? What crime have I committed to justify this treatment, as if I'm some venomous crone? They burned my yurt down to the ground. Every medicine and remedy I kept on hand—gone.” Merida’s eyes flashed with fury at the indifferent alpha. “They burned my home, Edmund, with me inside it. Why? How could you allow this?”
The alpha scoffed, a hand absently reaching to stroke his beard as his dark eyes pinned her to the spot. Edmund Blanc was a powerful man, made more so by his lycan ability. Merida held no false hope that her grievance would be acknowledged or accepted, but she refused to stay silent.
“Did not my son ask you to leave our land months ago?” he asked. “What more did you expect, witch? In your blatant refusal to vacate our lands, our lycan nature was aroused. From your years spent around us, you should have expected our territorialism. Our aggression.”
“Are you not both beast and man? What of your human nature? Or has your pack succumbed to your baser instincts and now find your tastes to razing the homes of your peaceful neighbors? What have you to gain from my departure? I have tended half your people for illnesses and eased your bodies of the pain associated with shifting. There has been no crime or act committed on my behalf to earn such ire.”
Edmund leaned forward. His top lip furled to reveal stark white teeth that could tear a man or woman—or witch—to pieces.
“You stepped outside the bounds of propriety and accrued our wrath when you so wantonly pursued my son.”
Merida stared down the alpha even when a telltale prickle irked at the back of her neck. Vibrations carried through the air from growls echoed by the guards in the room.
“I am owed flesh and blood for the crimes committed against me.”
“Harlots have faced worse fates than yours,” he said and waved a hand dismissively. From behind, rough-sewn hands gripped Merida’s arms and pulled her back. She let out an animalistic snarl that roused a laugh from the alpha.
“I will not leave—"
“You will,” Edmund snarled, his amusement quick to fade. “Or I’ll kill you myself.”
Merida’s feet stumbled beneath her at the wolves’ insistent pulling. She choked out another stunted cry, and an instant later, a palpable current streaked through the room. The wolves at her side quickly leaped back, their teeth bared at the shocking slight.
“You’ll regret this,” Merida promised.
Her feet continued to blunder beneath her as she made her retreat. The wolves inched their way after her, cautious of the stinging magic that still plagued the air around them. Merida managed to escape the hut unscathed for the most part, though her hip managed to catch the sharp corner of the table near the hut’s opening.
But a bruise on her hip was not the only thing she left with.
Clenched tightly in her fist was a small, oval stone that seemed to glow a pale, milky blue. A moonstone. Merida knew how keen the Blancs were to these gemstones thanks to Luc’s own cooing over their unique luster.
Soon the Blancs would pay for their greed.
Soon they would pay for the misdeeds against her.
Soon—
“Merida?”
The anger that swelled hot and adamant in her heart of hearts, in her very soul, stopped short of its darkest mark. Merida walked faster, curling around the backends of huts and small cottages cut of both wood and stone.
“Merida, wait.”
Who did these wolves think they were to test her power? To test her patience and generosity? After all of these years… Merida thought, her malice returning.
“Stop.” The voice was closer than Merida anticipated, and when she found herself trapped amongst recognizable arms, she did not fight against them. Steamy, warm breath panted past her ear as the male body guided her to a more private location.
“What do you want?” Merida spat.
“Don’t be like this,” Luc half pleaded, half scolded. His dark brows hunched over his eyes. He looked down at her as if pained on her behalf, and Merida felt herself falter.
“You did this,” she accused brokenly. “You could have stopped them long ago. You could have stopped it with a single word, but you let them persist. Has your heart grown cold for me after only a few short months?”
Luc’s jaw clenched. He cast a furtive look over both shoulders before he leaned down. “You will always hold a place in my heart,” he admitted. “But my pack would have me believe these traitorous feelings garnered from some potion or spell.”
“I would never—”
His palm clamped over her cry. “It matters not,” he told her without remorse. “For you must leave now or meet your maker.”
Merida shook her head. Luc’s gaze hardened.
“Is your heart so shriveled and frozen that you cannot see what your presence has done to me? You parade yourself throughout the village in front of my soulmark and slander my position in the pack with your damnable pride. Can’t you see?” he hissed. “You pine away after a man who no longer loves you but another. You insult this packs’ generosity with your continued presence upon our lands. I asked you to leave.”
His words broke off with a crack, and he shoved away from the witch with disgust.
“You have done this to yourself,” he said, repeating the statement once more to reassure himself. When he brought himself to look at his ex-lover again, his wolf prowled forward with dangerous intent.
“Don’t be this way,” Merida pleaded. “Don’t be like them. One battle won, and you think yourselves the mightiest pack in the land—”
“Leave, Merida,” Luc interrupted. “And do not come back.”
Merida thrust her chin high in the air and strode away with a final glare. They both pretended her jaw wasn’t trembling at the action.
Merida left. But she planned on returning.
++
It was difficult for Merida to put into words the deep roots of her pain. Her hatred, on the other hand, bubbled forth like a volcano on the verge of eruption.
They had chased her from the village, wolves whom sweated and howled after a higher rank in the Blanc pack. All ready and willing to do what they thought might please their alpha and beta.
Merida fled to the safety of the forest, calling up the blossoming flora and awakening trees to stall her enemies. They answered, but Merida still found herself far more beaten than when she had stepped foot in the alpha’s lair, both literally and figuratively.
It was their physical blows that curbed any forgiveness in her heart. That and the months spent living through their punishing treatment. Now hatred consumed her every waking thought, like a poison. And there was no antidote, except for vengeance.
It was this vengeance that brought about the situation at hand.
Merida thought it poetic her revenge would take place at the spot where she had her first clandestine meeting with her then lover, a beautiful birch tree on the farthest-reaching side of the village. The moon was high and full in the sky with the Goddess’s children basking in her glory deep in the woods. All except one.
This wolf was bound by its legs and writhed against its restraints amongst the tree’s roots. Its muzzle was bound tightest of them all.
“You forced my hand,” she informed the wolf. “You did this to yourselves. There must be reparations, and if your pack is unwilling to give it freely, I must take it for myself,” she reasoned.
The wolf struggled against its binds. It comprehended the magic around it different than its human counterpart. Where the human felt the sharp sting of otherness in the air, the wolf felt deep foreboding and danger. Instinct told both to break free by any means possible and run, but it was much too late for that and them.
“It is far past time you and your kind learned your place at the heels of your masters.”
Merida’s eyes went distant as the fresh spring air turned bitter.
“You must learn, Garret Blanc,” she uttered. Memories of her torment by the hands of this wolf among all the others plagued her mind. He was the third son of Edmund Blanc, and the last.
The wolf released a pained whine and that brought the witch back to focus. Its eyes rolled back in its head as it watched blackness seep into her eyes. The wolf's ears flattened against its skull as words arose upon the wind and wrapped around its body and soul.
Merida stepped forward, powerful words dropping from her mouth as she approached the laden wolf with blade and moonstone in hand.
"By all that is powerful and just—hear my blood claim!”
Merida slowed her advance to drag the blade across her palm and raise it high above her head. Blood poured out in copious amounts, more than was natural to the wolf’s perception.
"Brious macab aos;
Folle d’astalle lios.
Brious macab aos;
Folle d’astalle lios."
The wolf struggled. Within the connection to its human counterpart, darkness was encroaching. The wolf whined and fought further, its fearful gaze lighting upon the haggard witch as she closed in. In its mind, it screamed for its brothers and sisters help and their courage, but there too a dark haze lingered, blocking it from assistance.
“Brious macab aos;
Folle d’astalle lios.
Brious macab aos;
Folle d’astalle lios."
Merida’s head fell back as she dropped to her knees before the wolf. The wind whipped wildly around her. The wicked seed of hate spread its roots inside her and turned each vein to black. Scoring pain scratched down every limb, but her intent had never been more sincere.
As a pack, they had made her suffer and plotted murder against her.
As a pack, they would face the consequences of their actions.
"Brious macab aos;
Folle d’astalle lios."
A force struck back against her magic, making the wolf whine in relief. The dark possession of Merida’s magic resisted. They had come this far… there was no going back. It would be the wolf or the witch, and Merida had no intention of dying tonight, not when the prospect of their faces torn with grief would finally assuage her need for vengeance.
A different voice appeared on the wind, foreign and just as powerful as the magic pouring out of Merida. This voice was nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Merida did not relent.
Was this sacrifice willing?
“No,” Merida proclaimed.
In an instant, her body lurched forward and then back. Unstable magic wreaked havoc across her body, torn in its decision to obey and take life unwilling. But that flare of indecision was crushed by the darkness inside Merida.
So mote it be.
“Brious macab aos;
Folle d’astalle lios."
The moonstone rose high in the air.
A symphony of howls ricocheted off towering trees as the blade struck into the heart of the wolf. Merida’s eyes remained black, and the hex that tumbled from her mouth was a voice not her own.
“Tov mal sintave!”
Magic tainted the air, its noxious fumes culminating in a plume of evergreen smoke that rose from the fallen wolf and spoiled witch.
It is done, Merida thought. Her body slumped forward, drained and aching from her dark spell. The moonstone followed suit. It fell down between the witch and the wolf, its milky-blue luster gone. The witch took the cursed gemstone in hand and rose, then retreated into the shadows of the woods as if a specter.
Echoing through the branches was the thunderous stampede of paws. Of brother and sister calling to arms against a new enemy. Merida did not feel the joy she anticipated... not yet, and so she smiled grimly as she vanished from sight.
Her work was done.
New Acquaintances
Chapter 7
However callous it may sound, I thought myself immune to the heavier hits of guilt when it came to carrying out my parents' wishes. After all, the Adolphus pack isn't the first set of wolves my parents have requested I gather information on or from.
But this request has been different from the start, with doubt plaguing my conscious since my acceptance.
I suppose it's to be expected, this gnawing beast at my gut and nervous system. I did agree to sabotage my happily ever after.
And now there's this on top of it all.
I'm unaware of the quick succession of my steps across the frozen pavement. I'm merely attempting to keep pace with the racing of my heart. It is only when I register the tossed looks I get from the random assortment of townspeople outside that I force myself to a normal gait. This does not, however, stop my heart from beating with its erratic enthusiasm.
They knew.
I come to a halt. My leather-bound hands shoving aside the strands of white curls that fling themselves into my vision.
By their contemptuous glares alone I know this fact to be true. Why else does my presence cause such deep cuts and lines across their aging faces as I step into their home? And who is the third amongst them? She looks young but owns the eyes of a woman who has seen far more than one at her age should.
They knew.
They must have dissected Aunt Mo's reading, and now they too believe I'll get someone killed. But what does that even mean? How will I get someone killed?
What do I do? Tell my parents and face their wrath over my failure?
Or do I tell Atticus the truth and lose what weak ties and trust we've built over the past days? No—not days. Years. Damn you, Luna, for being right. I fight the tears that threaten to fall, wiping away the sheen that gathers in my sights.
Remember, Winter, never let them see you weak. You are stone. Nothing can break you.
