Page 74 of Mated Exile

"Let me just grab my purse."

Slipping out of his grip, I step around the open door to reach for my bag, and catch Cat eyeing me with a smirk on her face. She's been paying close attention to the developments of my dating life, as tiny and minute as they might be. Throwing her a goodbye—and ignoring the look she gives me—I slip out onto the front porch with Roarke.

"So, what should we expect tonight?" I eye him as we head towards his car, and decide I've overdressed a little, based on his casual tee and faded blue jeans. "I imagine the council will be taking up business about the Summit, for the most part."

"We'll be talking about the new alpha who's coming to town." At my frown, he adds, "I know you plan on lifting the curse before then, but we can't just cancel on him."

"I know. I wasn't expecting that." Clearing my throat, I ask hesitantly, "But do you think I should maybe tell the pack about... me?"

Roarke unlocks his car and slides in before answering, waiting for me to get in the air as well. "I think it would be wise, given that we only have a week and a day until the Summit."

I swallow. "I guess I've been putting it off."

"You can't control their reaction," he points out, his voice kind. The engine rumbles to life as he turns his keys in the ignition. "But I can't imagine that they'll be as harsh or fearful as your father was worried they would be. Especially since you're going to be announcing your intention to fix the curse at the same time—or at least, I assume you'll add that."

Stomach rolling, I admit, "Neither of the books on curses that Kieran gave me have given me any definitive answers. I can still roll the dice and be paired with a mate—it does seem like that will save us for another seventy-seven years, at least. But from all my research, it seems likely that the hybrid just... made up the spell she cast."

Roarke drums his fingers on the steering wheel as we roll to a stop at a red light. "I'd feared as much. It seems like the only way we might be able to figure out the true history of the curse is to talk to someone who was there."

"The elders." Mentioning them again makes my stomach coil. Would they disapprove of me, I wonder? Given what happened to the pack all those years ago, it seems likely. "Have you found out anything about waking them up?"

"Not much that we didn't already know. It seems they have been woken up by non-alphas before, especially during times of perils, or between an alpha dying and a Summit being called. But there aren't any definitive answers as tohowto do it, at least none that I found. I'm hoping that one of the older pack members may know."

"Did you ask Niall about it?"

Roarke is quiet for a long moment, eyes focused on the road. "No. I haven't spoken to him since that night he told you the truth about your birth."

A fist of pain blooms in my chest, and I have to breathe deep to swallow it down. "You should talk to him. He might know."

"I'll do it if you're asking me. I just... can't believe how much he's kept from us all this time." Roarke's mouth thins. "I can't decide if it was cowardice on his part, misplaced loyalty for your father, or both."

Licking my lips, I tell him, "It doesn't matter now, does it? What's done is done. We have to look to the future for the pack's survival."

"You're more forgiving than I am. When I think of all the pain you could've been spared..." A growl bursts past Roarke's lips. "I'm just glad you came home when you did, so we could all find out the truth."

"I'm glad too. And I'm not really that forgiving—just pragmatic." Heart twisting, I admit, "Niall isn't the one I'm the most angry with, anyway."

My anger towards my father is a dark, black thing that I've buried deep, where it can't hurt me. If I think about what he did for too long, I won't be able to move forward or do anything productive. So I focus my mind on other things.

After the Summit is over, and all of this has passed, I'll let myself unearth those long-buried emotions and feel them once again.

* * *

The werewolf council holds its meetings in the middle of the Mating Circle, our most sacred land, located in the heart of the pack's territory just at the outskirts of Juniper. Roarke has to park some distance from the stone structure, which rises hundreds of feet into the air, visible from far away. There are no roads to the Mating Circle, and tourists are kept far from its magic, which is meant for werewolves alone.

Standing beside the trail, I raise my eyes towards its distant stone peaks. The setting sun is to my right, bathing the wilderness of the pack territory in streaks of orange and pink. To my left and just ahead of me, Roarke stands, still and solemn, his sunglasses perched on the tip of his nose.

In a small voice I admit, "I haven't come this way since..."

"Since you left," he supplies, finishing the thought. "I hadn't imagined that you would've, given all the memories."

"Is it safe here?" I cast my eyes around in the darkness of the thick trees that surround the circle. "We have no idea where the vampires are these days, after all."

"The magic here still protects the stones. That, at least, remains intact. If we'd lost even those protections, I'm not sure the pack would still be standing."

A sobering thought. Our magical borders are all that protects us from outside invaders—and the only thing that saved our species from extinction when humans hunted us. The bonds that bring the pack together are magical in nature, and they also extend to the land we form as our territories.

Normally, the land will repel invaders. Winds buffet those with bad intentions, cracks form in the earth at their feet, and even the rivers and lakes will rise up from their beds to drown the unwary. With the pack in disarray, our females dead, and mate bonds severed, vampires have been able to get in and drain so many of us that blood rot has settled into the earth. Thankfully it seems that the rot doesn't extend all the way to the heart of our pack's most treasured resource, the birthplace of our magic: the Mating Circle.

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