Inevitably Yours

QUINN

“What about an addition to the whole building?” Nic suggested. “We could add rooms to your floor too.”Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.

“I don’t think a weapons room is necessary,” I rolled my eyes.

Her shoulders slumped. “My closet is so full. And Diane’s is too. Now we have Taylor to add.”

“I just don’t know if we can afford a whole addition and a renovation,” I told her honestly. We were discussing what we wanted to do to the packhouse to accommodate her and Taylor. Michael wanted them to have a space like we did, and I thought it was a perfect idea. According to Melvin, it had been a few generations since a mated Beta lived in the packhouse with the Alpha family. I couldn’t imagine Nic and Diane living anywhere else, and I feared the day we’d be leaving the packhouse to Junior and his chosen Beta.

“What if Taylor and I helped to pay for it?” she suggested.

I didn’t get to answer because someone knocked on the doorframe. We both looked up to see Marshall smiling at us. “Good afternoon Luna, Beta. I hope I’m not interrupting anything too important.”

“Hello, Marshall. Please come in! What do you have there?” I asked.

“Actually, it’s something I think only you can read,” he said, holding out the large book in his hands as he approached my desk. Nic looked intrigued as I grabbed it.

“It’s okay,” I assured him. “She knows everything.” Marshall smiled and held out his hand to Nic.

“I don’t think we have been formally introduced,” he greeted her.

“Pleasure,” she said, taking his hand. I let the book fall open on the desk. Sure enough, there were blue lines of text in between the black ones. This was another Fae cypher.

“So, can you see anything?” Marshall asked. I scanned the pages; the text was about weapons and fighting techniques.

“Yea, there is definitely stuff here. But I don’t think it’s going to be much help to me,” I said.

“What’s in there?” Nic asked.

“Well, this has stuff about fighting. I think there is both hand-to-hand and weapon-fighting stuff in here,” I said, flipping through some more pages.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Nic said, pulling out her karambit.

“Wow, that’s a beautiful knife!” Marshall said, catching sight of her blessed weapon’s soft green glow.

“Thank you,” Nic smiled confidently. She loved that thing.

“Can I take a look?” Marshall asked. Nic shrugged and handed it over. I continued to flip through the pages of the book. “Can I ask why it glows?”

“I’m not sure,” Nic shrugged. “After it was blessed, it turned green.”

“And you’re a werewolf, right?” Marshall pushed.

“Of course she is,” I laughed, giving him a strange look.

“Well, my father’s human,” she admitted. “But I am a full wolf.”

I went back to the book, skipping further ahead. Something interesting caught my eye while Marshall and Nic continued to talk. “So, have you ever heard of a druid?” Marshall asked, still examining the knife.

“I think Melvin said something about druids when we blessed our weapons,” Nic answered.

“Druids are magic users who derive their power from the earth itself. Sometimes they are confused for witches, but they aren’t the same. You wouldn’t happen to have magic users in your family?” Marshall explained.

“Well, not on my mom’s side, for sure. I don’t know much about my dad’s side, really,” Nic answered.

“Luna, would you mind if I used your computer for a moment?” Marshall asked, handing Nic back her karambit.

“Uh, sure, go right ahead,” I said, looking up from the book. I pulled the power plug from my laptop and let him take it. I went back to the book, intrigued by the passage about methods of carrying weapons.

“If I could be so bold to ask, what is your father’s name?” Marshall asked Nic. I half listened while Nic gave Marshall information about her father so he could look him up. I knew Marshall was a historian by trade, so I assumed he might be looking for something that could help him figure out if she had any magic users in her family.

“There, that’s him,” Nic said. I looked up to see her bent over looking at the computer screen with Marshall. A few clicks later and he smiled.

“See that,” he said, pointing. “Your paternal grandmother. She has two names listed here. This one uses letters from the druidic alphabet. I would say it’s a fair bet that your grandmother was a druid.”

Nic stood straight with a look of disbelief on her face. “I never knew anything about them,” she said.

“I bet you have some druid capabilities within you as well. You see a lot of skipped generations with druids, and they can be very far spread,” Marshal went on. “I did a two-year research project on them. Met some truly fascinating people.”

Nic and Marshall went on to discuss druids, but I stopped listening. The book was describing ways that Fae were able to carry their weapons out of sight. Some had enchanted objects like pouches or bags but others…

“Nic, I think I know how Michael can take his swords with him.”

MICHAEL

“I believe you have been trying to see me for some time now?” she asked when I opened the door to the packhouse.

I’d researched the woman so thoroughly that I knew exactly who she was. Blue eyes looked at me from beneath the dark bangs covering her forehead. Pouty lips and rounded cheeks made her look young, but something about her felt much older. Something was off, but I couldn’t tell what.

“She’s not human,” Eros growled. “I don’t feel any malice or ill intent from her, but the scent is familiar. I just can’t place it.”

“Ms. Doyle?” I asked as if I hadn’t already memorized her face.

“Yes,” she replied a bit awkwardly. “Are you going to invite me in, or do you want to have this conversation on your front porch?”

“I apologize,” I replied, remembering my manners. “You just surprised me. I wasn’t expecting you just to show up here.”

“I do that,” she said with a shrug. “I’m sure you already know this, but my name is Eleanor. You can call me Elly, though.’’

“Why don’t we take this elsewhere? I’d like to speak freely without worrying about being overheard by someone walking through the packhouse. It can be a zoo here sometimes.” I offered, stepping past her onto the porch and gesturing to follow me.

“As you wish,” she said simply, following after me.

I led her to the blessing field and the altar that started all of this. It just felt like the place to tell someone our story. For some reason, I felt like I could trust her. Still, I needed her to say it. “I know you’re not human,” I told her bluntly. “What are you?”

She leaned back against the altar before hopping up to sit on it. It felt a bit disrespectful to the Moon Goddess, but I let it go for the moment.

“I’d rather keep that to myself,” she replied, looking at me intently. “All you need to know is I’m here to help you. There may be questions I can’t answer, but I will try to the best of my ability without telling you something that I cannot.”

“What can’t you tell me?” I asked automatically. “Why come here if you only intend to keep secrets?”

“There are some things that I can’t reveal to you, not right now, at least. Just know I come in peace and want the best for your family.”

I wished I had a lie detector in my head like Quinn, but this happened so fast I hadn’t asked her to come. Plus, she was with Nic working on the changes they wanted to make to the packhouse. Marshall mentioned stopping by today as well. I knew he’d probably want to see the professor, but he would have to wait. I couldn’t afford distractions right now.

“Why don’t you tell me your whole story from the beginning? It will help me understand what’s going on, and I have to admit, I’m intrigued by your mate. She’s an anomaly, even in the context of hybrids. The full-color hair, your children all gaining Fae b***d, the extent of her powers; it’s all very unusual,” Elly asked with the same bright-eyed expression Marshall got any time he got to talk about something academic in lodge meetings or outside of them.

“Can I trust you?” I asked earnestly. Very few people knew everything, and I felt like I was putting my family’s lives in her hands by telling her our story.

“Right now, I don’t think you have a choice,” she answered wistfully. “But, yes. I swear an oath that I will not harm your family or discuss this information without your permission,” she answered, pulling out a small knife. She cut her hand, showing me the b***d before pressing it to the altar. A soft glow emanated from the altar, and when she pulled her hands away, it was healed. If the Moon Goddess approved of this woman, who was I to question her?

“Fine,” I conceded. “I will tell you our story from the beginning.”

I told her everything from meeting Quinn to that moment. I told her about Quinn’s family and the Alpha records. We talked about Quinn’s powers, the odd medical problems she had, like wearing glasses and back pain, and most importantly, the threats we’d faced since the Fae appearance. Her face blanched when I described the Fae who stopped time, almost like she was scared of him. She recovered quickly, but I didn’t miss it.

“Wow,” she sighed almost longingly. “You two have really had a life together already. It almost feels inevitable you were going to end up together.”

I could help but smile, “That’s what I told her when we first felt the mate bond at prom.”

Her smile was soon washed away by a look of despair, “If you’ve been visited here by a Fae directly, and they’ve sent your own kind to kidnap Quinn, things have escalated beyond fixable. My theory would be they know about your children; Fae can detect magical beings, especially their own kind. She was asked to quit with the magic, but even if she didn’t mean to, she created three magical beings after that warning. That’s not even accounting for the food magic or blessing things…” she trailed off, scribbling in a notebook she produced from seemingly nowhere.

“Who is the Fae that came here?” I pushed. “Why now?”

She paused for a moment, breathing deeply before she answered carefully, “I have heard of the one who stops time. He can be very dangerous. I would generally heed his warnings, but we’re past that now. There is an order to Fae power, with royalty being at the top of the chain. Unfortunately for you, he is royalty and takes his orders directly from the king of Fae himself. As for why it took so long for them to act, you have to remember that the Fae are basically immortal. Ten years to the Fae is like a long weekend. Their concept of the timeline is very different from yours.”

“Then what can we do?” I asked. “I won’t give up my family to these magical f***s. They aren’t gods.”

She looked like she wanted to say something, but she stopped herself, “They have powers you couldn’t dream of. Quinn is most likely more powerful than she even knows, but she can’t unlock her full potential in this realm. Your Moon Goddess will not be able to help you with this, no matter how much you pray. I say run. Buy concealment charms from yourselves and the children, and start a life elsewhere.”

“I won’t abandon my pack either,” I growled. “How do I kill them?”

Elly laughed in a way that made me uncomfortable, “A werewolf kill the time stopping Fae? Good luck!”

“I’m not as weak as you think I am,” I retorted. We were far beyond the average pack, and from fighting other Alphas, I was above average in that department too. Then, there was the added advantage of Quinn making me stronger…

“I’ll go back and see if I can research some sort of spell or protection against the Fae, but in the meantime, you need to stay alive.

“I’m pretty good at that,” I told her with a smile. “Thank you for helping us.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” she stopped me. “I don’t know how much help I can really be.”