Page 57 of Fire Touched

‘It didn’t even occur to you to come home to her, last night, right? Because why would it? You’d think you’re not welcome.’

Thin patience waning, I inhale deeply. ‘Do you have a point?’

‘My point is, she’s your mate, and you’re hers. Act like it.’ With that, he turns away. I watch him head out into the courtyard with Elijah and Moira. From my view on the last step, I watch him steal Moira’s sandwich. She thwacks him with her book, sticking her tongue out, but otherwise doesn’t seem to mind. She’s leaning back on Elijah, and Carter sits opposite them. Just… fitting in. All… easily.

I hitch myself off the wall to stop staring at them like a weirdo and head into the kitchen. I see Ella’s scrawled note for myself and wonder how they’re going in the town centre, surrounded by wary citizens of Terran. The man who got up and shouted at me last night at the feast comes to mind. I hope they don’t encounter more like him.

I yank the fridge open, staring blankly.

‘I think we’ve taken Ella for granted,’ Elijah says, entering the room. He sits on the bar stool opposite me, offering a smile.

I close the fridge. ‘Definitely. What did you make?’

‘Peanut butter sandwiches,’ Elijah says. ‘They weren’t as good as that quiche Ella made yesterday,’ he says mournfully. He looks up at me. ‘Spill it.’

I lean against the bench, mentally kicking myself. ‘I didn’t know being a mate could be so hard.’ I never meant to abandon Katherine, but now that I think about it, of course it would have seemed that way to her. I didn’t even have the guts to walk her over to the feast. Then I held her, danced with her, and let her come home to wait for me. Guilt writhes in my gut.

Elijah slowly nods. To his credit, he doesn’t add, Well, yeah, when you fuck up a special bond she had, sure. Instead, he gets to his feet and silently gets to work. A minute later, he hands me a fresh sandwich. ‘What’s on the agenda for today, then?’

I eat gratefully. I’ve been up all night and missed breakfast. I could eat ten of these. I wonder how much bread there is. I follow Elijah back into the courtyard. ‘Um, I was going to go and talk with Verron.’ They don’t know about… about my mother. About the history brewing just beneath the surface of this place. At least, not my pack’s part in it. But I do need to know more.

Having inhaled my food, I set the plate aside. ‘Elijah, can you tell me about what happened here, eighteen years ago? The… the betrayal your dad spoke of?’ I try to keep my voice light, kind, but I know what I’m asking. How his mother died. Was killed.

Elijah’s expression turns grim, but he nods. ‘Yeah. I mean, I was a baby at the time, but I can tell you what I’ve been told. Just… don’t talk to my Dad about it too much. It still upsets him.’ Moira leans into him for support. ‘Eighteen years ago, things were a little different between the packs. There weren’t really any alliances or anything, but no one had started any fights for a while. I’m told things were almost… peaceful. Then, one day, Verron decided to try to make it official. Each pack’s lands could benefit from the other. We don’t have the skills or the materials to make much infrastructure here. We don’t even have a blacksmith. We just… don’t have people with those skills, or the materials. Every tool or machine we have is by chance, or through a one-off trade or peddler. Water have more resources, but less game than us. We thought we could trade. So, Verron reached out to Julian, but didn’t hear back. So, he reached out to, well, your father. He didn’t know much about what your pack has access to, but thought he’d extend the hand of friendship anyway. He must have agreed, because he came here.’

‘My dad came here, to Terran?’

‘Yeah. That’s what I’m told. Anyway, somehow, a representative group from each pack showed up—not sure how they worked that out—but they met up for, well, a feast in the hall. It was the eve of Winter Solstice, the moon high and bright in the sky. The Tide Witches and our Starlight Witches did a ritual on the beach together.

Then it all changed. I don’t know why, or who started it, or what went wrong, but it ended in slaughter. The other three packs, all their people, turned on us. We didn’t see it coming, even though we had plenty of guards. Our witches weren’t there to protect us. They took out a lot of our people, including my mother, before we took them down.’

‘Not my father.’

‘No. I guess he escaped.’

‘Do you know… if there was a woman with him? My mother.’

Elijah’s eyes shutter. ‘I… don’t know. I know he was the only one to escape.’ Dawning comprehension darkens his eyes. ‘I… I’m sorry.’

‘Wait, my uncle was there?’ Carter asks.

‘No, a Water representative. I don’t know who.’

Carter’s blue eyes widen, but he says nothing.

I shake my head. ‘My father was involved in a massacre.’

Moira sits forward. ‘Well, not necessarily. Think about it, that story has so many gaps. We have no idea who started it. Maybe he defended himself, that’s all.’

‘How did so many of your people survive such an attack?’ Carter asks Elijah.

Elijah’s face is wiped clean. ‘That’s… confidential.’

I blink in disbelief. ‘What?’

‘I can’t tell you,’ Elijah says firmly.

Moira gives him a look, but doesn’t ask.

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