Page 205 of Gift from the Wing

“If you’re reading this, baby girl, it means that it’s your time.

Your time to learn who you are, who we are, our gift, and what that will mean for your future.

Before that begins to reveal to you, though, I just want you to know, Willow, I am so sorry. So, so sorry. To you and your brother. Nothing about any decision I ever made was made lightly or without the two of you at theforefront of my mind. If I could’ve, I would’ve chosen a thousand lifetimes to be with both of you.

I’m sorry that I never expressed my emotions and feelings about you to CC. I know if I had, he would’ve had more to share and explain. I never want you to think it was because I didn’t want to talk about you or because of how you came to be. It was simply the fact that I had to keep you safe. Not that I didn’t trust him with my true feelings. I didn’t trust the realm. I didn’t trust what could’ve been pulled from his mind. All the snippets of information we’ve had to leave for you, it was a risk I wasn’t taking.

I feel bad for doing that to my old friend, but for you, your brother, there was no limit I wouldn’t go to protect you.

CC worked very closely on ending the Mastery. He was in dangerous situations all the time, and he has kept that from you and his family for his whole life. You all may be aware now or at least assume it, but the fact of the matter is that back then, his knowledge was a threat to the Mastery, and he was in the trenches of the war. Right smack in the middle of it.”

I breathe heavily as I read those words. They stick to me like glue and there’s an inkling tickling my brain that I just can’t grasp and pull out.

“CC, is that true?”

“My old friend is a snitch.”

“Well, are you going to explain yourself?”

“Not at this time.”

Groaning, I roll my watery eyes, then wipe them so I can focus on the words that continue to appear.

“Regardless of that, I want you to know, there’s no other in the realm, aside from my own Nexus, I would have wanted to look after you. Knowing Franklin, I know you weren’t protected from everything, but in my heart, I believe that CC gave you a piece of life you needed just as I asked him to.”

He did. I promise he did.

I know she can’t hear me, but I don’t stop myself from mentally confirming it. He made life so much better. He took amazing care of me until he couldn’t anymore.

“Thatleads me to my next point I’d like to discuss with you, and this is a difficult conversation, but you deserve the truth and much about your life to come.

Since my parents were on the run with me, I had to grow up far faster than many in Elementra. I didn’t go to an academy. I didn’t get to have other friends, just my parents. They did everything they could to prepare me for anything.

Then the day I emerged.

All the women in our family emerge at fourteen. It’s always been unrecorded for our protection. Our Nexus members usually emerge earlier than most as well, except for yours. Yours emerged at fourteen to prepare for your coming. They had their own paths they had to pave before your arrival.

We knew and were ready for my emerging. Or so we thought. What we didn’t expect was for Elementra to appear to me and tell me what the future of the realm held. What my future held. Her power coming through caused the entirety of mine to explode out far stronger than we thought possible.

I shifted into my wolf immediately and ran faster than the wind while she talked to me. My animal’s mind was at the helm, running free, while I sat in the back and talked to Elementra. It didn’t stay that heightened after she left me, but the consequences of that had started the timekeeper on my countdown.

I knew that day, everything, well, mostly everything, that was going to happen to me. That includes you.”

Oh no.

Picking the book up off the floor from where I’ve basically hovered over it to read it, I lean back into the trunk of the tree so I can sit crisscross for this. I don’t want to miss a thing, but I also feel like I need to be grounded to hear it. Whatever she writes, whatever she felt at the time, she has a right to those things.

Fuck, she was only fourteen, finding out pretty much her whole life.

“I convinced myself that since I knew it was going to happen, then I could accept it, not let it get to me and I would be fine until I could return to Elementra. Grit my teeth and bear it.

And that’s what I did. I was fine while I was in the nonmagical realm.

Coming back home and meeting my men shattered my jaded reality.

The first time one of them touched me willingly, I panicked.

Our bond stepped in and calmed me, reassured me I was okay, and that helped, but my men took it upon themselves to shut down any more sexual attempts made by me. They wanted to reteach me what it meant to be loved.

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