Chapter Two
Lucas Parker sat at a large wooden table that was nicked and grooved with time, surrounded by eleven other councilmen. The rock home sat on acreage in the Texas Hill country and had been built in the early nineteen hundreds, making it only barely older than some of the council members.
Their bodies, some stooped with age, were mostly frail, yet their minds were sharp. Or Lucas had thought so until these last few months.
His patience, like a used rubber band, had been stretched to the brink of snapping. The Council didn’t take kindly to snapping.
Checking his phone, he saw it was already noon. He kept seeing the disappointment in Kylie’s eyes, kept feeling his resentment growing toward the Council, kept hearing the sound of impending doom for his own people. And that—the impending doom—was what had him holding his temper.
Until about two months before, Lucas had felt secure in his place on the Council. He’d seen progress. Then out of the blue the Council started reconsidering every small change he had implemented.
How many times could the Council go over the same thing?
Glancing around the table, he sensed Jeremiah Holmes and Sabastian Rozo were the culprits. The other nine councilmen were at least more open to change.
What they refused to see was the lack of change was already crippling their community.
Unable to remain silent, he leaned in. “Did you not just state your concern that the were people no longer respect the laws that govern us? How many more of our brothers and sisters will you lose by forcing them to choose between their wives and husbands or the were community? Why would they want to be a part of a society that would not accept their children? If we are to survive in this new time, we have to adapt.”
Jeremiah slapped his gnarled hand on the scarred table. His eyes grew instantly orange, the color of frustration, anger, resentment. “They would not have to make a choice had they chosen their mate correctly. In my day—”
“Which is exactly my point.” Lucas’s frustration bounced against the rock walls. “This is not your day. Our people do not live in your day. They live in today. Do we not fear the rumors of groups of weres breaking off from our union to create their own? Rules like this will not only encourage it, but guarantee it.”
“And I say let them stray,” Sabastian spoke up. “We have no need for their kind. What power will they have?” The old man raised himself from his chair, speaking down to Lucas as if he were a pup. “They will mate the infidels, and their children will not change with the moon. Someday who we are will be forgotten by our own people.”
“The fact that you see them as infidels is—”
Antonio cleared his throat. “Sabastian’s point is concerning.” Italian like Sabastian, Antonio sat across from Lucas, meeting his gaze with something resembling empathy. But his words said something else entirely. “Perhaps you should recuse yourself from this vote.”
Lucas bolted up, his heavy chair crashing to the stone floor. The clatter climbed the white walls all the way up to the sixteen-foot ceiling and vibrated in the room like thunder.
“Why would a member of this council recuse himself from voting when it is the whole purpose of being a part of the Council?”
Sabastian, with contentment in his aged gray eyes and a barely-there smile on his lips, lifted his hands as if to raise his point higher. “You deny you are prejudiced when you are committed to a non-were girl?”
“I deny that my prejudices should be considered. In fact, it is in part because of my different beliefs that I am on this council. I am here to be the eyes and ears of the new generation of weres. To unite us and prevent the Council from losing sight of what it means to be a were in this time.”
“I fear that you have lost sight of what being a were is about in any and all times.” Sabastian’s accusation hung in the tension-filled air. “You live in the human world. You study at the human schools.”
“As do over half our people.” Lucas seethed, fearing things had gotten worse than he’d thought. His goal, his life quest, of making a difference to his people felt threatened.
Jeremiah stood. “Let’s not forget that the girl you call your life mate is half human.”
“And her other half is chameleon which means she has the blood of all kinds and can become any supernatural. On top of that she is a protector. How can you discount her?”
Sabastian shook his fist at Lucas. “Because she isn’t pure. Besides, you even work with the FRU, the very organization who hunted our kind not so long ago.”
“That time is over,” Lucas spoke between clenched teeth. “And holding on to hatred does not behoove us.”
“Sit. Everyone,” Antonio said.
Lucas snatched up his chair and dropped down into it, but not once did he remove his gaze from Sabastian. Though the tension in the room now came from all angles. His hackles rose. His shoulders stiffened. He would not back down.
“How long has it been since you had a sabbatical from the human world?” Jeremiah asked.
Lucas looked from one council member to the other, unsure exactly how many of them were now against him. “The truth I know is that to follow the old ways will destroy the union of weres. It will divide us. Weaken us as a whole.”
Antonio spoke up next. “Perhaps Jeremiah is right. Perhaps you need to commune with the wolf inside you. We will postpone this vote. We will send you on a vision quest. If afterwards you still feel our ways are outdated, we will hear your argument.”
“I speak from my heart which is wolf,” Lucas said. The last thing he wanted was to go away. “I do not need to commune to know what’s right for my people. I speak for the younger generation. Those who refuse to let their lives be controlled by rules that were born from war and famine. In a time when we had no allies but only enemies.”
“But is your head too filled with chaos to listen to your heart?” Jonah, the eldest in the group, chimed in.
Lucas stared at the old man. Jonah had been one of his biggest supporters—the last person Lucas expected to speak against him. Why was the Council turning against him?
• • •
Kylie went to the cabin that houses Holiday’s office to talk to the camp leader about the ghost, but considering Holiday was Fae and could read emotions, she picked up on Kylie’s other frustrations faster than you could say “were Council.”
All it took was one little question. “What’s wrong?” And Kylie started unloading.
She flopped into the chair in front of the school leader’s desk. “I understand that being on the Council is important to him and that it’s part of his identity.” She gripped the hands of the chair. “But where do I fall on his list of priorities?”
Holiday tapped the eraser of her pencil on the desk. Thut. Thut. Thut. “I think you know that answer.”
“I know he loves me, but . . .” But it was two p.m. and she hadn’t heard a word, not one, from Lucas. “It was supposed to be our day. And I know it’s not his fault. I know he’s going to show up here any minute, and he’s going to tell me how sorry he is. And I’m going to forgive him, because . . . because that’s what I do. But every time it happens, I get a little madder. A little more resentful.”
Holiday’s eyes softened, but her mouth thinned. She tilted her head ever so slightly to the right. Kylie recognized that look. It always came when Holiday was about to say something that she knew might be hard to hear. And yup, the school leader had a knack for saying hard-to-hear things.
Things you didn’t want to face. The fact that she was ninety-percent right annoyed the devil out of Kylie.
“He’s living an adult lifestyle, Kylie. He’s working full time, going to school, and working with the Council. It’s hard to—”
“I know,” Kylie said. “It’s not his work or school.”
“So it’s the Council?” the fae surmised.
Surmised correctly. Though Kylie wasn’t eager to completely unload her Lucas issues.
“I . . . didn’t say that.”
Holiday just stared. She could stare the truth out of anyone.
“Fine. It’s the Council!”
Holiday almost grinned. “What’s going on?”
Kylie just blurted out, “Every date we’ve had in the last two months has been canceled, delayed, or shortened due to them.”
“Really?” Doubt filled Holiday’s eyes.
“I’m not exaggerating.” Kylie bit down on her lip. “I don’t make any other plans anymore because that might be the ten minutes he has for me.”
Holiday rolled the pencil in her hand. “Relationships aren’t always fifty-fifty. Sometimes you have to give ninety-percent. Then the tables turn and—”
“I know,” Kylie said. “And frankly, I’ve given the ninety percent for over a year. And just saying that makes me feel like a bitch. I don’t like feeling like a bitch. But . . . what the hell, just call me a bitch. Because I don’t like this. Don’t like that his being part of the Council is always going to take priority over me, over us.”
“I don’t think that’s the case,” Holiday said. “And I mean both the bitch part and about the Council being more important to him.”
“I can’t help wondering what it’s going to be like when I’m away at college. Right now, I’m available whenever he has a minute. But when I’m at school, fifty miles away, it’s not going to be like that. How little are we going to see each other then?”
“When two people want to make things work out, they make them work.”
“I know. And believe me when I say I know Lucas wants them to work out. But . . . but the Council and whatever they need takes priority.”
“You really feel that way?” Holiday asked, doubt giving her words a different cadence.
“Yes. No. Yes. I’m beginning to.” She kicked her right foot up and bounced her heels on the floor. “Seriously, I’ve spent less than eight hours with him these last two months. Last week he was called in seven times. The week before that it was eight. Always on his day off. Always when we are supposed to be together.”
“Seven times?” Holiday asked. “I mean, I know the Council has demanded a lot of him lately. Even Burnett mentioned it, but . . . Is something going on with the Council?” The light from one of Holiday’s crystals reflected back on the camp leader’s face. “Something that explains why it’s been so busy?”
Kylie didn’t feel she should share what she’d read on Lucas’s computer. Not when she hadn’t even told him she’d seen it. “How would I know? He doesn’t tell me what’s going on there. Half the time I worry it’s about me.”
“About you?” Holiday asked.
“Yeah. About him and me. They don’t approve of mixed relationships.”
Holiday’s chair creaked as she leaned forward. “I thought they had accepted it. Just a few months ago Lucas told me that with his influence, the Council was close to embracing mixed marriages.”
“I thought so, too. But . . . it doesn’t feel like it. Anymore.”
Holiday rolled the pencil between her palms. “Perhaps you’re reading more into this than there is.”
Kylie slid down into the seat. “Maybe.” But she didn’t believe it. Then her fear spilled out of her. “The Council is trying to break us up.”
“What?” Holiday asked.
“They only invade on his time when he’s planning on being with me. They don’t want one of their members to be bonded with a non-were.”
“Why would you think that?”
Kylie didn’t answer because then she’d have to tell about reading Lucas’s notes.
Holiday cocked her head to the side, and her green eyes studied Kylie as if . . . “What are you not telling me?”
Kylie had to think fast. A conversational U-turn was all she could come up with. “I had a ghost pop up at an ungodly hour this morning.”
The camp leader reached back and pulled her hair over her right shoulder, threading her fingers through it. “Did he or she communicate with you?”
Kylie nodded. “It was a woman. She couldn’t manifest completely. Her voice sounded familiar, but for the life of me, I couldn’t place it.”
“What did she say?” Holiday, also a ghost whisperer, leaned closer. The fae never hesitated to help solve Kylie’s issues with the dead.
“She called my name several times and then said, ‘Save him.’ She said it twice and she sounded . . . desperate. Like it could be serious. I asked who she thought needed saving, but she left.”
“And she hasn’t tried to reach you again today?”
“No. With my luck, Lucas is going to be back and when we’re together she’ll drop back in. You know how much he loves it when ghosts stop by.” Kylie frowned.
Holiday smiled. “He’ll get used to it. Burnett has.”
“I sometimes think Lucas is a smidgen more stubborn than Burnett.”
“That’s not possible.” Humor flavored the fae’s words.
The sound of determined steps clunking on the porch filled Kylie’s ears.
She titled her head and listened to the cadence. Lucas? She turned vampire and sniffed the air, testing it for a familiar outdoorsy scent. Yup, it was him.
“I should go,” Kylie said. “Thank you.” She stood and started for the door.
“Kylie?” Holiday’s gentle way of saying her name had Kylie pausing.
She looked back over her shoulder. “Yeah?”
“I know it’s your nature to avoid conflict. But . . . things like this can fester. Talk to Lucas about how you’re feeling. I’m sure you two will work it out.”
“I will.” Kylie stepped out of Holiday’s office door at the same time Lucas stepped into the cabin’s main door. He carried a bouquet of daisies and an expression that begged for forgiveness.
His eyes said he was sorry. His posture said he was sorry. His bad boy charm said he was sorry.
She was such a sucker for that charm—a sucker for Lucas.
“I know you’re mad.” He held out the yellow flowers and inched closer, cautiously optimistic and armed with male charisma. “And you probably want to kick my ass, and I’ll let you.” The slightest smile appeared on his lips, and he braved it by taking another step. “But you’ve got to forgive me.”
“Don’t do that,” she said.
“Do what?” he asked, now so close only the bunch of daises came between them.
Make it hard for me to talk about our issues. “Be cute.” She felt her anger evaporating.
“Oh.” He smiled in earnest. “I can’t help that. I was born cute. Just like you were born beautiful.”
He leaned in and brushed his lips against her forehead. The softest of kisses, the hardest kind to refuse. The easiest to get lost in. “Let’s go hiking.”
“I thought I was going to get to kick your ass?”
“You can.” His words came with a chuckle. “We hike for an hour. You kick my ass for an hour. We make out for an hour.”
“What makes you think you’ll be able to make out after I kick your ass?”
“Ouch.” His lips pressed against hers. Moist. Sweet. Promising. When he pulled back, he whispered the words. “I’m so sorry.”
If an apology could be perfect, he’d just delivered it. Her need to have the talk lessoned, but she heard Holiday. Things like this can fester.
Mind made up, she inhaled. Somewhere between the hiking, ass-kicking, and making out, they were going to talk.