“I’ll give you a moment,” Esther said, her voice less-alpha-ish than usual, and more understanding. She went to a table in one corner, where I had half a puzzle finished, sat down, and quietly began to work on it.
I released a slow breath and turned back to my daughter. “We will figure this out, Till.” It wasn’t a newsflash or even a worthy headline. This was just a mother struggling to get her very overwhelmed daughter to spill the details. And it was killing me.
“I was dating Andy Springhill. He was cute and funny. Mostly sweet. Or so I thought,” she began, and the look on her face said everything. He’d hurt her.
If ever I got my hands on him…
But I let her continue without speaking my threat aloud. “But then, one night, he bit me.” She shook her head like she still couldn’t believe it. “Hebitme.” She repeated it, and I wasn’t sure if that was for me or for her. “He was muttering about how he’d seen guys hitting on me and this was the only way we could be together forever, that I wouldn’t have any choice but to be with him.”
“That sounds scary,” I whispered.
She nodded; eyes filled with tears. “I was too scared to ask him to leave that night. I just wrapped up my neck, and lay next to him all night, heart racing. The next morning, he was gone. I was going to go to the police and show them what he’d done, but the bite was gone. I thought I was going crazy. I told some of my friends that he’d been scaring me, and they, apparently, cornered him and said he was never to go near me again. But he was waiting for me when I came home, so I maced him, screamed a bunch, and the neighbors called the police. He was taken away in handcuffs, and I filed for a protective order the next morning. Then, I tried to set everything up for my next semester, making it all online, so I could come home and clear my head.”
“And that’s when you became a rabbit?”
Tilly shook her head. “No. I was a cat first.” And now she wouldn’t meet my gaze. “I used a litter box, Mom.” That wasn’t the most humiliating thing that could’ve happened, but I didn’t interrupt. “I wanted to come home, but I kept shifting. I didn’t know what to do. First, I was a cat. Then I was a…roadrunner, then a lizard. And he was gone, so I didn’t know what to do.” She shook her head and looked down. “I just kept changing.”
I nodded. There was a trauma associated with this, and I knew it firsthand. I’d been a giant dragon, for goodness’ sake.
“But we need to undo your oath to the pack.” That was a must. I couldn’t risk leaving her with them when they’d made a deal to turn one or both of us over to the vampire coven looking for shifters. I didn’t know what the vampires wanted with a shifter who had fae blood, but I couldn’t imagine that it was anything I would approve of or want to take part in.
Certainly not something I would want my daughter involved in.
Fae blood. That…I still hadn’t wrapped my head around. I knew only what the ladies had told me about the fae, that they were powerful and rare. That they never left their children with humans. But then, why had I been raised only by my mother? She certainly wasn’t fae, or our lives wouldn’t have been so crappy. The fae blood inside of me had to have come from my dad, but I knew nothing about the man who had abandoned my mother and me.
I’d needed to find out about him. But not now. Right now, I had to focus on Tilly.
Tilly shook her head. “I can’t undo it, Mom. It’s done. It doesn’t matter that they tricked me. Holly, the alpha…” She spoke as if I was unaware of the hierarchy of that damned pack. “Holly said that my oath was required and binding if they were going to save you from the vampires.”
Is that why she’d joined them? My poor, sweet daughter. All along she thought being with those idiots was saving me. This girl had too good of a heart for her own good.
I hated being the one to tell her the truth, but I had to. “Save me?” I shook my head, wondering if she still hadn’t put it all together. Did she realize when she was scared in those woods that they wanted to harm me? Probably. That’s probably why she was scared, but she still didn’t know the half of it. “Honey, they were planning to turn me over behind your back.” I shook my head. “And probably you, too.” I would die before I let them have her.
Esther turned and looked at Tilly. “Don’t worry, dear. We have that well under control. We’re going to find a way to protect you both.” And she turned. Her confidence gave mine a boost and I nodded at Tilly, then laid my hand over hers.
“We’re going to be fine. We have friends now. And we’re in this together.” I couldn’t give her more than my reassurances. They were all I had.
Esther grinned. “From now on, the Fascinators are going to be dedicated to finding out the truth about your parentage. It’s clear Bethany is half-fae. But now that we know Tilly can turn into more than one animal, she must have enough fae blood in her to use their powers as well. That means, both of you would be valuable in the wrong hands.”
“I never told them what I could do,” Tilly said, her voice no louder than a whisper. “When I realized that everyone else could only shift into one animal, I didn’t say anything. I just pretended I could only be a bunny.”
“Smart girl,” Esther said with a little nod, then looked at me. “The only way we’ll be able to undo her blood pact is going to be with some serious power behind us, some luck, and…someone will have to die.”
“Die?” The question squeaked past my lips.
Esther nodded. “The only time that a blood oath can be undone is if the alpha she swore to dies. Holly, therefore, must die. And it’s with no great sadness I say that. I’ve been part of the reason she’s lasted this long. The other packs felt she could only be silenced in death, but because of her difficult history, I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. Now, I can’t. Letting her keep a shifter with fae blood would be too dangerous.”
“Why?” I asked, having my suspicions, but needing to hear it.
She released a slow breath. “She will either trade her to the vampires, or she will use her in this dangerous scheme.”
“I won’t!” Tilly spoke up, her hand clenching into a fist.
Esther’s gaze was intense. “You won’t have a choice. As your pack alpha, she will be able to command you. Most alphas aren’t cruel enough to make their pack members do things they don’t want to do. We use our ability to control our members only in dangerous situations. But Holly will use you as she will. You’ll walk straight to the enemy and stand at their mercy. You’ll use your powers for evil, and not have a choice. This is bad, both of you need to understand that, really bad. With a fae, Holly might actually succeed in changing this town or even the world; in making shifters some supreme race and destroying the others in the process.”
“Are fae really that powerful?” I asked, shocked.
“More than you can imagine.” She cleared her throat. “Which is why the second part of what we must do is so important. When Holly is dead, before Tilly swears an oath to the next leader, there is a small window of time where fae magic could free her.”
