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I drop my head and study my dress pattern as I ponder what to do about all this.
38
Riley
“What are you doing here?” Greyson’s father Graydon asks after cutting the engine on his lawnmower. “You’re supposed to be locked down with your witch for a couple more days, aren’t you?”
“The Young coven is responsible for deciding when a new council takes over?”
He looks taken aback at my question and then answers hesitantly with, “Yes. Are they appointing a new council? You haven’t identified the next generation yet.”
“Why have we, the current council, not got a relationship with the coven?”
“I guess you do now,” he says sourly.
“I need answers, Graydon.”
He looks around and sighs, then takes a bandana out of his back pocket and mops his brow.
I lean against his car in the driveway. “I’m now waiting on a meeting with Mitch Blakely and a couple SCC members who are coming here to talk to me about my mating. About shit that’s obviously been kept from me. Did you know they sentenced my mate to staying away from me, to letting me believe she’s dead for seven years?”
“What? Why?”
“They did that to punish her for using her magic on a love spell to make me hers.”
“No,” he states looking genuinely surprised, “I didn’t know that. Absolutely not. I’d never keep something like that from you. None of us knew.”
“I need information here.”
“I don’t have any, son. We knew nothing about your mating other than what your father told us. He said you found her but lost her. A couple months after you left town we got notice to hand over the reins by a certain date and so we prepared for it and that’s what we did. But you were all named for the next council when you were teenagers.”
The council meets every year to study the pack’s youth in competitive situations. Some years there are a few stand outs. We’ve done it the past five years, me and the other five before Ty came back, but nothing has stood out with seven young pack members at once. We’ve all been expecting it’d happen after we mated, as their future kids got to their teens. After losing her seven years back, I didn’t think I’d have kids. Before that, we’d all been sure it’d be our kids together. Grey said he felt it and we know Grey’s got half witch blood, so it seemed like his hope was more of a premonition.
“You told us you were turning things over because the six of us were ready.”
“We turned things over because we were told you were ready.”
“Why didn’t you introduce us to the coven when we took over?”
“I pulled back on the relationship when my first mating was severed. They backed off as well. I wanted that family to have nothing to do with my son. They didn’t push. I’ve dealt with Lyrica a few times over the years when I’ve had to, and it was never pleasant. Luckily, I haven’t had much reason to deal with her. Nobody’s bothered us from that coven much between Greyson’s biological mother’s leaving and now.”
“Clearly the relationship is entwined.”
“Clearly,” he parrots. “This pack exists the way it does because of that coven, you know that.”
Jase pulls over on the road, gets out of his car, and jogs in my direction.
“Everything all right, Rye?” he asks, tossing me a pair of shorts. “Code orange, buddy.”
“I’m not stayin’,” I advise.
He says, “You don’t seem all right. Tomorrow the week is up. Things not smoothing out?”
“I’m not all right, Jase, but things are smoothing out with my mate. But I need to get back to her right now. Can you call a meeting for me? Seven of us go for a run in the morning and we’ll talk in the cave after?”
“Yeah, sure,” Jase replies. “I’ll get word to the others.”
“Thanks,” I mutter.
“Mated life okay?” he asks, looking a little green. “I mean… beyond everything. All the shit you’ve had to deal with.”
I drop a hand on his shoulder and squeeze. “It’s everything, man. When you know it, you know it. Don’t matter what tries to get in the way. You’ll figure it out. Got a lot to talk about. Tomorrow though. Yeah? Gotta get back to her.”
He doesn’t lose the green look to him when he nods. I clap him on the back. ”Nothing I can say will convince you. You’ll look at her and you’ll know, brother. You’ll just know.”
“You’re not supposed to be here!” I hear.
Bailey is yelling out the upstairs window.
“It’s all good, Bail,” I tell her. “Bringing her home tomorrow.”
Bailey smiles. “Good. Glad to hear it. Hi Jase.”
“Hey squirt,” Jase answers without looking up because he’s watching Linc approach.
“Hey boys!” Linc greets. “How’s things, Rye? Are you supposed to be here?”
“I’m on my way back now. We’ll stay at Ty’s one more night and I’ll bring her home in the morning.”
