‘Can’t say I recall,’ Catherine replied. ‘That was a while ago. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, you know.’
It was a fair point.
‘His name was Wyn,’ I reminded her, clutching her hand and trying to let her know how serious this was. ‘You said no dating until after my birthday so I didn’t tell you that we saw each other again. As friends.’
‘Friends? Is that right?’
She looked about as impressed as any grandmother who had just found out her sixteen-year-old granddaughter had been sneaking around with a boy against her wishes.
‘Maybe more than friends,’ I confessed. ‘But he’s so wonderful, Catherine, you would love him. I know keeping it a secret was wrong but he’s in a lot of trouble and you’re the only person who can help us.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
I bit my lip and cast my eyes downward.
‘Wyn is a Were.’
Catherine looked as though she might faint.
‘You couldn’t have fallen for something as straightforward as a petty criminal,’ she muttered. ‘No, that would’ve been too easy.’
‘I didn’t know,hedidn’t even know.’ The words were falling out of my mouth so fast I could hardly keep up with myself. ‘He’s been gone but now he’s back and he’s going to phase for the first time tonight and I don’t know what to do.’
‘You send him away.’ Her order boomed around the room, all the happy birthday excitement gone from her eyes. ‘Emily, this is the most important night of our lives, yoursandmine, and you brought a Were into this house?’
She looked at the door as though she was expecting to see him standing right there and I shook my head so hard my vision blurred.
‘He’s not here, I sent him to the Powell house. Virginia is out of town for the weekend and I asked Lydia if he could hide in their old stables.’
Spurred into action, Catherine rose to her feet. ‘Those buildings won’t be able to contain a first-phase Were. You need to bring him back here.’
‘Here?’ I repeated. ‘But you just said—’
‘I know what I said and I was wrong,’ she interrupted, squeezing my shoulders. It should have been reassuring but I was sure I heard my bones crack. ‘There’s a woodshed in the garden, old but well built. We can’t stop the phase but there are some herbs, some rituals that will help keep him calm if we can get to him before he changes. Once he is a wolf, he will not know you and we will not be able to help him.’
‘His family will be looking for him.’ My voice dropped away into almost nothing at all. ‘And for me. The wolf I killed in Bonaventure—’
‘Was part of his pack,’ she finished, breathing in as she planted her hands on her hips. ‘Oh, Emily, this just gets better and better. You couldn’t have gone and messed around with the Powell boy?’
‘If we could control who we fell in love with, life would be a lot easier,’ I reminded her and she laughed bitterly.
‘Touché, honey. That sure is true.’
She clapped her hands then pressed them together in a prayer. ‘Hiding the boy from his pack will be easy enough but if they sense your ceremony, they’ll find us in a jiffy and I doubt they’ll be so understanding about the fact you killed one of their own in self-defence. We can’t have your wolf here and perform the Becoming ceremony at the same time. We need a plan B.’
My mind spun with possibilities, almost all of them ending in black flames and green skies. All except for one.
‘What if we leave?’ I suggested. ‘If we’re apart and I’m off Savannah soil, my magic won’t manifest. If I leave for the airport right now, I could be two oceans away before the full moon rises.’
My grandmother stared at me in abject horror.
‘You would do that?’ She was as white as a sheet. ‘You would abandon your Becoming, give up your magic?’
‘To save Wyn? In a heartbeat.’
If she didn’t understand me before, she did now. I needed her to take me seriously and I knew there was nothing she took more seriously than our magic.
‘You would let it all go.’ Catherine forced out the words as though she was in physical pain, both palms pressed to her stomach to stop her from doubling over. ‘Your heritage, your legacy, all the witches you’re destined to awaken. You would sever our connection to the blessing, all to save a wolf?’
