Kira sucked in a deep breath. “I have lived here my whole life. That,” she nodded back toward the store, “was mild compared to what I used to go through. I know how to handle these situations. I don’t need you to barge in and start scolding me when you have no idea what it’s actually like.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
Kira bit her tongue.
Joshua frowned at her a moment longer, but when she didn’t say anything, he asked, “What was she talking about you being the problem with the demons?”
“Have there been more sightings?” Kira asked anxiously
Joshua hesitated, studying her intently, before he nodded once. “There’s been a couple of sightings from the other packs. No attacks have occurred yet, but we’re preparing for more. Right now, our priority is to work with the other packs to make sure that their defenses are stable.”
Anxiety ricocheted through her. It had to be a coincidence that she had just started being able to do magic, and there was a renewed demon threat. Right? It wasn’t because of her. But if anyone found out, they’d only accuse her more.
Especially the likes of Joshua. He was probably only defending her because he knew that these attitudes also fell back on Gwen. He was standing up for his buddy’s wife and the order of the pack, not because he wanted to protect her personally. And she wasn’t about to give him the ace up her sleeve. She didn’t want anyone to know about her magic.
“Again, why was she blaming you?” Joshua asked.
“I don’t know. Everyone knows I’m a witch descendant,” Kira said, channeling the twist of her gut into anger. She threw back her head and glared at him. “So that’s why. People still want to blame us for everything.”
It had been that way her whole life. Her chest tightened as the memory of the schoolyard taunts, the cruel pranks, came rushing back to her. Things had gotten better. So much better, in ways that once Kira wouldn’t have thought were possible. And yet, some things didn’t change. Somepeopledidn’t change.
As the tension tightened around her throat, she felt a familiar burning in her palm. She clenched her fists and backed away slowly from Joshua until she bumped into the side of her car. The energy hummed just under her skin, threatening to give way.Not now, she begged. She’d spent so long trying to get her magic to activate, and now, she needed it to stay hidden.
She reached for the handle of her car, and a few golden sparks fell from her fingertips. She gasped lightly, angling her body to hide them.
“Kira, what aren’t you telling me?” Joshua’s voice grew quieter, but no less authoritative.
Kira kept her back to him, her hands in front of her as she willed herself to get control again. What wasn’t she telling him? Everything! How she still hurt from his rejection. How terrified she was of the demons returning. Even her magic, something she had longed for, was almost a threat to her well-being.
“It’s the same as it’s always been,” she whispered, her voice shaking.
Joshua’s fingers brushed against her shoulder, so light and quick she nearly thought she imagined it. “What do you mean?”
There were no more sparks, and the energy had passed, so Kira risked turning around again. Joshua was closer than she thought, and it made something else, a different type of energy, jump through her skin.
“I mean, I’m a witch descendant,” she said, forcing herself to keep eye contact. “I mean that people still blame me and other witch descendants for everything wrong on the island. We’re the problem. The reason their happy little town isn’t perfect.”
Joshua’s jaw tightened. He shot a glare over his shoulder toward the store. “But it’s not. I thought we had changed the town’s perceptions.”
The anger in his voice caught Kira off guard. Yes, the three men had been working hard to make things better and more equal through the town, but she hadn’t realized that he felt so strongly about it on a personal level. It made her heart skip a beat, even as she scolded herself. It wasn’t because of her. It was never because of her.
Still, she couldn’t let him think that all of his efforts had been in vain.
“Things have gotten better. There are fewer people who talk like Jenny to my face,” she said, shuffling on the spot. Her tone was strained, like she didn’t want to tell him this. The truth was that she hated being this close to him. With his scent curling in her nostrils, she could feel the distant excitement in her chest. The sensation of her wolf battling its own weakness to get closer.
Kira wondered what Joshua would do if he knew that her wolf had never been stronger than those few weeks when she thought he loved her. Or that she had been unable to shift since the night he rejected her.
“Better,” Joshua murmured under his breath. “But it hasn’t fixed the problem.”
Kira shook her head slowly. “No. No, I don’t think that it’s something that can be ‘fixed’ just like that. Not when you’re fighting against generations of assumptions.”
“But they seem to accept Gwen just fine.”
“They accept Rafael. They accept Lianne. And they respect Gwen’s efforts to help them,” Kira said, folding her arms tightly now. “In their eyes, she’s proving herself as worthy of their acceptance. I’ve proven nothing to them.”
Joshua’s gaze returned to hers once more. His eyes were dark, intense as he stared at her. “Prove yourself? You shouldn’t have to do anything to prove yourself in order to be treated with a baseline of dignity.”
Her heart stuttered. Kira’s arms dropped as she processed what he had just said. He wasn’t looking at her, and she struggled to get her expression under control as he continued to speak in a low voice.
