Hyacinth (19 page)

Selene closed
her eyes, slowed her breathing, and concentrated on her gift. Sinking into a
trance-like state, Selene opened her eyes to find that she was standing in a
gloomy, misty nothingness. She knew exactly where she was… on the edge of
dreams where she could pick and choose whom she visited. So Selene willed
herself into Griffin’s head.

“Griffin?” she
called.

Before she could
enter the dream, Griffin shocked her as he came walking toward her in the mist.
He’d never found her there before.

“I’d hoped you
would contact me,” he spoke without preamble. “But I can’t talk right now.
Where I am, I need to keep half my mind aware while I sleep in case I need to
wake quickly. I can’t do that when I talk to you in our dreams.”

“I understand. Can
you just tell me –?”

Griffin jerked
his head to the side, as though he was listening to something.

“I have to go, Selene.
You have to let me wake up.”

The urgency in
his voice spurred Selene to act quickly. “Go. Be safe,” she called and let
Griffin’s mind drift away from her.

She opened her
eyes and stared at the intricately embroidered canopy above her bed. With a
long breath she flipped onto her side, determined to get some sleep before she
met her friends in the clearing. As she drifted back to unconsciousness, she
had one final thought,

Please let him
be okay
…

“Hey, watch it!”
Lila dodged as a fireball flew past her and crashed into a tree.

“Sorry!” Ramsey
called from across the clearing. He turned to Selene with a sheepish grin and
shrugged.

“You do realize
the goal is to try to herd our opponents, not to actually light them on fire, don’t
you?” she asked, her tone dry.

He held up his
hands in surrender. “I know, I know!”

Charlotte
silently teleported in, appearing beside them. She had Lucy in tow. “I still
don’t understand why you can’t just turn off all their powers,” Charlotte said
as she pushed back her dark hair that the wind had blown into her face.

This had been a
constant debate among the family members for the last two months. Two
very
long months with Griffin nowhere to be found. “These are not our enemies, Charlotte,”
Selene said patiently. “No matter how much Maddox tries to make them so. They’ve
suffered enough at Vyusher hands, and I won’t perpetuate that situation.”

“Besides,”
Ramsey chimed in, “Do we really want to be responsible for significantly
decreasing the numbers of our own race?”

Lila rolled her
eyes, and Ramsey frowned. Selene’s lips twitched in amusement as she cleared
her throat.

“Is everyone here?”
she called out to the group. After receiving a round of nods and yesses, she signaled
for Ellie to go ahead.

“Defenders, you
know the drill,” Ellie reminded everyone. They’d been secretly practicing
battle techniques for a while now. It was the defenders’ role to direct, guide,
or manipulate the offenders in such a way that no one got hurt.

“And remember,
the goal is to keep a full on battle from breaking out and, fates willing, gain
enough time to convince them of our relative innocence and future good intentions.
Ready? Go!”

Ramsey, Selene,
Lila, Nate, and Charlotte stood shoulder to shoulder. Ellie, Alex, Lucy,
Adelaide, Hugh, and Dexter charged, running straight at them. But they were
stopped short by a wall of flame that sprang up, blocking them from their
intended targets. Just as swiftly, the fire was doused. Selene nodded at
Ramsey. They’d discussed the use of his powers very specifically, finally deciding
that any action he took should cause no harm and be removed as soon as any
immediate threat was reduced.

Adelaide and
Hugh threw everything they could up in the air, directed at the defenders.
Dexter instantly turned those items into lead, and Alex used his power to thrust
them into a greater speed. The result was a steady barrage of heavy missiles.

Nate caught
every single object launched at them. His inhuman strength and speed allowed
him to easily deal with all their projectiles. Rather than tossing them back,
though, he dropped each one to the ground.

Ellie shifted into
the form of a massive midnight black jaguar. She gave a terrible scream and
charged at them, fangs bared.

“Hands!”
Charlotte yelled. As soon as they were all connected, she teleported them
behind the offensive line and out of harm’s way. As soon as they reappeared,
however, something froze them completely in place. Held immobile by Alex, they
watched as the offensive team charged yet again.

Selene reached
out with her mind. She saw Alex’s bright golden light and turned it off, like
flipping a switch. Or more appropriately, like cutting the power.

Free of the
force that’d been holding them, the defensive team backed up. Seeing their
movement, the offenders slowed their attack and then stopped altogether. Then
Selene saw Ellie’s eyes ignite, becoming twin flames of blue. She knew what was
coming next.

The dragon.

Selene reached
for Ellie’s powers, seeing a violet-blue glow inside her. Flipping this switch,
however, would prove to be much more difficult. The two women locked in on each
other in a silent battle of wills.

Suddenly, Ellie
stopped fighting and turned off the dragon morph herself. The offenders’
expressions became peaceful, almost zen-like. Selene glanced at Lila who
nodded, confirming that she was using her emotion-mending power on them.

“That’s enough I
think, Lila.” Selene laid a gentle hand on her friend’s shoulder. “We don’t
want the other tribes saying that they only agreed to peace because their
emotions were manipulated.”

Selene glanced
up and saw Oren’s image shimmer next to a nearby tree. She held up her hands in
a T, which she’d seen Nate do a couple of times when he was teaching the
younger Vyusher wolves how to play football.

 “That’s it for
now. I have to return to the castle,” Selene said. She walked over to Oren’s
transparent form. “Is it time already?”

He grimaced. “Unfortunately,
yes.” With a nod she started to turn away to go to Charlotte, when Oren’s voice
stopped her. “My Lady?”

She turned back.
“Something else, Oren?”

“One of the
Svatura
can turn items to metal?”

“Yes. Did you
see that?”

He nodded and
then frowned. “I vaguely remember that your brother had access to someone who
could manipulate metal like that. I believe it’s one of the reasons we have so
much gold in our coffers. I’ve only ever known of that one person with that
ability in all my years.”

“Ah,” Selene
said, comprehension dawning. “Dexter would’ve told me if he’d been associated
with Gideon, so I doubt it was he. But I admit it’s a little odd that we’d meet
another one. Worth checking into further. Thank you, Oren.”

Oren gave a
formal little half-bow. “My pleasure.” And then his image faded away.

Selene made her
way over to Charlotte so she could teleport back to the castle.

“Um, Selene?”
Nate cleared his throat. “Do you know your eyes started glowing blue a minute
ago? Like Ellie’s do when she goes all dragon?”

Selene blinked.
“No… but maybe that happens when I’m trying to turn off a particularly strong
power?”

“We should test
that theory out,” Ellie suggested.

She nodded.
“Worth a try. But we gotta get back now. Charlotte?” She held out her arm, and
the others reached toward her. A moment later they were standing inside the
library.

Selene didn’t
betray by even a twitch exactly how much she dreaded returning to the castle.
She’d lost count of the times she’d gone head to head with the Council, and
they were still no closer to making any progress or decisions. Selene’s
feelings of ineptitude in regards to her ability to influence the Council also
continued to escalate.

“You’ll be
fine,” Lila murmured for her ears alone, as they walked through the corridors. Selene
raised her eyebrows, and Lila merely shrugged. She tapped her heart. “I can
practically feel your emotions as physical waves beating against me. Despite
the fact that you shield me from most of what you feel. Won’t you please let—?”

“No.” Selene
shook her head. “I need to face them alone. It’s the right thing to do. I’ll
just have to find a way.”

 “You could at
least let me work with you outside of Council hours on controlling your fear.
Maybe while we’re at school… away from here?”

Selene was so
surprised by that statement, she did a bit of a double take. “What do you mean?
I’ve been controlling my fear all of my life. I had to with Gideon as a
brother.”

Lila grimaced.
“From what I can tell, it’s not that you control your fear. It’s more that you
push it so far down inside you that it just doesn’t show. But you’ve been doing
that so long it has built up in your system, like a toxin. That’s what’s
holding you back. We need to find some way to purge that poison from your
soul.”

Selene stopped
walking and turned to her, trying not to laugh. “You think my soul is
poisoned?”

Lila frowned and
rolled her eyes. “Me and my big mouth. That’s not really what I meant, exactly.
You’re a good person, inside and out. My mother, my sister and I— we all have
gifts that allow us to see this about you. But what your brother put you through
—and I know you haven’t shared even a fraction of the reality with us—has left
a wound inside you that continues to fester. Maybe poisoned isn’t the right
word, but you’re definitely hurting, whether you realize it or not. And we want
to help you.”

Selene gulped. “You
think you can fix me?” she whispered.

“Not on my own
yet, not completely. It’s a skill I’m still developing. But with Ellie’s help,
yes, we can heal you.”

Selene took a
deep breath, shocked at how much these words affected her. She’d always assumed
that she was damaged goods, but having it confirmed had been like having an
icy-cold hand reach inside her chest and squeeze her heart.

“Thank you,” she
murmured as she hugged her friend. “Tonight? After the Council meeting?”

“I’ll meet you
in your chamber and bring Ellie. Adelaide, too,” Lila replied.

Selene smiled
briefly and then headed off to argue with the Council yet again. But this time with
a lighter heart.

“To do nothing
would be the equivalent of signing this pack’s death warrant,” Xavier snapped,
glowering at Selene.

Selene remained
composed despite the antagonism directed at her. “I don’t believe that
do
nothing
were the words I used,” she declared. “I said –”

“We all heard
what you said, Princess,” Xavier cut her off. “We’ve been listening to you and
getting nowhere for months now.”

“You cannot, in
all fairness, put the state of this Council’s indecision on my shoulders alone,
Xavier,” she countered. Her voice remained soft, a stark contrast to Xavier’s harsh
tones. It gave Selene a small amount of satisfaction to witness how the calmer
she remained, the louder and more agitated Xavier became.

“You said it. I
didn’t. I only said we’ve been listening to you speak a great deal.”

“I’d say we’ve
been listening to you shout a great deal more,” Oren said, stepping in to
defend her yet again. His posture mirrored his sardonic tone, elbow thrown
casually over the back of the chair, eyebrows raised mockingly.

Xavier narrowed
his eyes, as the other Council members chuckled.

Selene took advantage
of the momentary break in tension and pressed the point she’d been trying to
make. “I think we should send an envoy to the clans Maddox has turned on us.
Try to negotiate a peace with them.”

“After what we
did to them, peace is not an option now, and you know it. Besides, we already
tried that and got nowhere,” Xavier growled. His eyes glowed with an eerie sort
of light as he gave a small demonstration of his wolf. Xavier was an alpha by
nature and had only deferred to Selene’s father, and then to her brother,
because they’d been more powerful alphas.

Selene averted
her gaze. She forced herself to keep from ducking her head as well, though that
was her first instinct. Technically, she was an alpha too, but she’d never felt
powerful enough to directly confront Xavier. She hated this aspect of being
part of a metamorph wolf pack… all the hierarchy drama.

“I agree with
Selene on this point. Sending envoys to seek peace with these tribes is the
appropriate step,” Sara, one of the other members, spoke up.

“I can’t agree,”
Thomas’s gruff voice sounded before Xavier could turn on Sara.

Selene hid her
disappointment behind her calm façade. Thomas rarely spoke up in Council
meetings, though when he did, the others tended to listen. He and Ida were the
oldest members and possibly the oldest people in the pack. The two of them were
true elders in every sense of the word. Selene had hoped that Thomas might be
counted on to be reasonable at least.