“You would never have left yourself in the dark,” he told me once we were digging in. “You learned what you did andchanged it, Jasmine. You went to the leader of a goddamn country and changedeverything. That is not a person who allows themself to be kept in the dark. I’m not judging her, and from what you’re saying, she did a lot of good to start.”
“But we’re not as similar as I feel,” I accepted, hearing him when he said it differently from Elijah.
“You are, but I see more differences,” he replied honestly. “I understand your… Solidarity with her. I see the attachmentand—you had a similarstart,but your stories are completely different. A few chapters sounding similar do not make the same book. Even the ones that are compared and mocked as being copies of each other.”
I nodded, knowing well that just because there was an epic quest, everything wasn’t Lord of the Rings and every character wasn’t Frodo. It was ridiculous how people reached for similarities and made their conclusions that way.
I told him the rest, and I felt better when I saw he was conflicted as well. Without making a joke about movies or books about gray… The world wasn’t black and white. It was a lot of gray.
A lot of everything and nothing was easy.
“I think the answer lies in her,” he said gently. “Some people aren’t willing to pay the penance. I have. You have. The question remains, is she strong enough to pay the price of her mistakes? Will she spend the decades and decades paying thedebtshe owes this world taking those lives. That’s the real question. Some aren’t willing to and want the out.”
That was the answer I needed to hear.
The answer wasn’t completely on me to figure out.
“This is why I came to you,” I admitted, smiling when he seemed shocked. “Thank you.”
“Always.”
“What’s on your mind?” I asked when we moved on to the next course, feeling his desire to pick my brain as well. I winked at him when he chuckled softly. “Hey, I want to be here for you too.”
“I know, I just—I never want to be selfish with you and I have been.”
“No.No, you were overbearing and didn’t listen as you should. That’s different and a mistake you’ve worked to correct,”I argued. “You thought you knew the answers and just rolled with them. You were never selfish with me.”
Dylan had been, and Aidan was now worried he had been too, which honestly made him more amazing than I’d realized.
I listened as he talked about the council and where they were getting stuck—old fools in ruts. And after seeing how my old “fools” were so willing to adapt and restructure our very new and thriving everything, he was beyond jealous. He was tired of the status quo and the way things had been.
“The problem with your councils—all of them even—is it’s always unbalanced,” I told him. “You’re involved. Gavin always in. A few others I see and know the names, but most I wouldn’t even remember their faces from that first meeting. That’s what needs to change. That’s the bullshit that needs to stop. Some doing everything and others getting credit.”
“I’m assuming you have a suggestion?” he hedged.
“Always,” I chuckled darkly. “And it would be better even coming from you—suggest it to the out councils too or ISLE.”
“I’m all ears,” he promised, sounding too tired which touched me.
That he would be so real with me to not hide it at least.
“There should be a weekly meeting with ISLE that one council member attends, and that rotates. Everyone is informed and invested. Not one liaison who reports to your meetings. For that week, the ISLE contact is that person. They handle the shit, and that way everyone knows what’s going on and the process—the pain and reality.”
“That’s going to be a hard sell,” he worried after a few moments.
“Is it?” I challenged. “Maybe in your council, but every council has a handful just like you that are tired of the lazy fuckers who do nothing and take all the credit.We’reso productive when we’re only seven because we all pull our weight.Are you saying the vamps can’t be as good as demons? When we run Germany and it’s better than your covens and safer?”
He blinked at me for a full minute before bursting out laughing. He laughed and laughed and looked so much younger somehow, the worry and stress melting away as he now had the answer.
I knew that feeling.
I knew that feelingwell.
But thinking back honestly—without my own traumas painting over what was in front of me—maybe it was time to accept that I was doing better than I’d thought?
22
That idea of trying to realize I was doing better than I thought stuck with me the next few days. It made me take stock even as I finished up all the choreography at corporate.
