No voices, then. If anything odd was happening in her head, that question would have made her pause. So did that mean her sister would be okay? Had she escaped the curse after all?
“Good. Now, why don’t we talk about your birthday? This year I can give you anything you want. The biggest party, a car, name it.”
It would be Jackson’s treat. It was the least the man could do for keeping them apart.
“I don’t want a party. And I don't want a car,” Brit sighed. “I just want to go home.”
“This is home, Brit.”
At least until she went off to college.
Brit made a face and looked away. “I live with strangers. It’s not home.”
“Things seem pretty cosy here to me.”
Brit’s cheeks coloured. So she was right; something was going on.
“Where’s your baby?” Brit asked, changing the subject.
“With her father. Do you want to see her?”
Brit nodded. She smiled and stood, pulling her little sister up with her. In a way, Brit had been her first baby. She was the only mother figure Brit had had since she’d been a little girl, so she hoped she would love the new addition to their little family.
“When will you tell me what’s really going on?” Brit asked as they walked out of her room. “Even mum doesn’t say anything.”
“Because there’s nothing to tell,” she lied.
As they walked down the steps, Jackson came out of the sitting area holding a freshly changed Hope in his arms. Brit stopped, and then her gaze lowered, just like the other wolves did.
Could that be a sign? Was the wolf inside her instinctively recognising Jackson’s strength? She had been on the fence about how she would feel if her sister shifted, but she couldn’t hide that having Brit with her would make things much easier. And since her sister preferred to work with facts, perhaps the truth would be easier to digest.
“You’re not here to get close to any of the boys. Do your school work as we agreed, and then go to college,” Jackson said. “I’m sending Josh away.”
And then Brit lifted her gaze full of fire, and any hopes she’d had that she had a wolf inside her died.
Brit turned around on the stairs and then marched back up.
She sighed and looked at Jackson.
“Do you not know anything about teenagers?”
“She can’t get attached, Layla. Not until we know for sure.”
They had a few days until she turned eighteen, and there was absolutely no sign of a wolf inside her sister. Jackson’s statement sounded like it was a warning to her, as well. The thought of having to cut herself off from her sister for good brought her mood down.
“We’ll figure it out,” Jackson said again.
Chapter 69
Layla set the cake in the middle of a table and turned to watch Brit holding Hope in the shade near the pool. Since Brit had refused to have a party to celebrate her birthday and also for writing her last paper, there was no one else around. It was for the best, anyway. She was anxious about what would happen that night.
“You said it can happen at any time, right?” she asked Jackson when he came out to set more snacks on the table.
“Yes, anytime around the eighteenth birthday if she’s going to shift. If she’s a half-blood, she won’t, but she’ll start having issues with her wolf half when she’s older,” Jackson answered.
She sighed and turned away from her sister to look at Jackson.
“And she could be like me,” she stated.