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My mate has a guilty expression and I squeeze her hand. I don’t know if these assholes know she took out two betas from Silver Hills with her powers but if they don’t, they don’t need to know.
“We’ve arranged accommodations outside the village,” Greyson speaks up.
“Where?” Aviva asks.
“Across the lake,” Grey replies. “We’ll ferry you there when we’re done here.”
“If we could return tonight to the site where Lucinda and I pulled you out?” Aviva asks, eyes on my mate. “The area where you cast your love spell as well. Same area, I’m guessing. The area near the Holloway events of two hundred-odd years ago.”
“Riley and I need to speak privately before we agree to anything,” she replies and rises.
I rise as well.
My fury, my unease, it abates at her touch. Though I could’ve had this touch for seven years instead of just a few days, so it doesn’t diminish my anger much.
“Can Riley and I go talk now?” she asks.
“You don’t need to ask these people permission to leave, to talk to me, babe,” I say, my emotions very evident in my voice. “These fuckin’ assholes fucked our lives up, taking it upon themselves to make decisions for us, punishing us based on something you might or might not do.”
“Riley…” she whispers.
“It needed to happen this way, Riley,” Mitch states.
“Bullshit.” My blood is pumping harder. I’m on a razor’s edge here. “You people are fucked,” I snap.
“Baby,” she pleads, squeezing my hand.
“Things happened this way because they were meant to,” Lucinda states. “Fate uses us to facilitate its needs and ensure balance, just like it does with your soulmate.”
“Very much like the Young coven,” Aviva adds.
I shake my head with exasperated disbelief. “Seven years you stole from us. Seven years you left her wallowing in pain based on a hunch?”
Lucinda says, “You two weren’t supposed to mate until after Tyson and Mason. She jumped the gun. It had to be stopped.”
I cut her off. “We mated after Greyson. I was supposed to mate before he did so that sounds like a load of bullshit.”
“And has it caused problems? Have you had any mental difficulties? Because we requested the coven’s ledgers before we got here and looked through them. It was noted that their interference with the birth order among sisters who are fated to alphas one and two affected alpha two’s mental wellbeing.”
Mason shifts in his chair uncomfortably. Rikki gives him a look of apology.
“Alpha one is Tyson and alpha two is Mason. We aren’t numbers here. We’re people who don’t appreciate being fucked with.”
“You’re not privy to all the intricacies involved. Erica knows how these things sometimes unfold,” Lucinda defends. “The next seven will be different from this seven. And these seven have been slightly varied from the previous seven due to events with alpha one. Things are fluid in magic. We react based on the information we’re given, and on how the world changes, on how our visions direct us. There are many moving parts. We knew we had to stop the mating of the two of you seven years ago. We had to ensure that this one could mature to come into her power. Just like Erica and her sisters knew they had to facilitate keeping alpha two away from the second born Brennan sister until she mated with the first-born council alpha otherwise that would’ve gone very differently and your council of seven would be a council of six or even five.”
“What?” Mason asks.
There’s loaded silence for a beat before Vivica speaks, eyes bouncing between Ty and Mase.
“You two could’ve killed one another,” she says, “You’d both have fought to the death. I saw it. I got alternating visions of either you dead, Mason, or both of you, Mason and Tyson. We had to find a way to stop it.”
Mason rubs his forehead. Tyson’s eyes narrow. They exchange glances then and I’m shook, imagining our pack without one or both of them.
Vivica continues, “The tethered bond your council had over you worked when it did because there were multiple generations and other strong alphas present, but if that confrontation had happened sooner than it did, there wouldn’t have been enough of a tether and Tyson wouldn’t have been as open to listening to the strength of that tethered bond coming from many people. We calculated how long it might be before Mason and Tyson met and hoped it would be in a crowd. I saw the dance as the only location where it could feasibly work out. Thankfully, it did, although I know it was difficult.”
Mason and Ty exchange looks and I’m sure one or both of them are thinking about how wrong that night went.
Tyson’s lip curls and I give him a look loaded with meaning. Any anger he has about that needs to wait.
