She looked away. “There’s no one. I just want there to be. Someone who’s just for me. I want what you and Dastien have, but I haven’t found that yet. Even if Luciana is pressuring me, I’m not giving in.”
“You’re really cut off from the outside world here. You might need to leave to find the one.”
She sighed. “Maybe. But I can’t leave. Not yet.”
“We’ll fix the coven so you can. I won’t let Luciana’s mess hold you back.”
She blinked a few times. It must be hard living here. Feeling stuck.
We were actually a lot alike. Both stuck here. Both wanting something else. I could understand that. Somehow, I’d make sure she got out, but we had a lot to accomplish and the clock was ticking.
I put away the sandwich stuff and started up the stairs with Claudia.
“Night, prima.”
“Night.”
The second time I got in bed that night, I felt more confident about my path. I wasn’t alone here. I had family. Friends. I could do this. I just had to believe in myself.
God. I hoped I believed in myself enough to fix this mess.
Chapter Seventeen
I had nightmares all night long. They plagued me.
Images of death. Destruction. My friends suffering.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not by far. The worst were the images of Dastien cheating on me with Imogene.
Those had me waking up crying. Even when I was awake, knowing it was a dream, my heart still felt broken. The hurt lingered. I couldn’t shake it.
After that, I gave up on sleeping around five in the morning, and spent the rest of the time thinking about what I was going to do.
I had a plan in place and breakfast cooked by the time Claudia came down. I just had to convince her to go along with it.
As soon as Claudia was on her second cup of coffee, I decided it was time. “I want to go to the schoolhouse today. It’s the best place to meet people.”
Claudia set her mug down. “Luciana said you weren’t allowed.”
I gave her a stare that said I-really-don’t-give-a-fuck.
“She’s not going to like it, and more importantly, I don’t think anyone’s going to be friendly. Not in that setting.”
“I have to try. Otherwise, I say screw the whole coven, let’s grab who we can and run.”
She looked at the ceiling for a second, and I imagined her praying for patience. “There’s a lesson in an hour. I guess we could say that you need to learn whatever it is that they’re teaching. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out the rest.” Claudia took a dainty bite of egg.
I gulped down half a glass of orange juice as I tried to come up with how to ask my next question, but I didn’t see any easy way around it. “If this goes bad, then would you fight against me or for me?”
She set her fork down. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, say Luciana wants to fight regardless of anything we do. Whose side are you on? Can you fight against your own coven?”
She blew out a big breath. “In some ways being part of the coven is easier than having your pack bond and in other ways it’s harder.”
That gave me nothing. “How so?”
“Well, from what I hear, your pack bonds can be a bit on the invasive side. You can borrow power from each other, but you can also see too much of each other.”
Pretty spot on for someone who wasn’t in the pack. I’d used the pack’s power to help break Meredith’s spell, and I got a headful of Dastien’s emotions on a daily basis. “Yeah. So, the harder?”
She pushed her plate away. “I don’t have to obey an alpha like you do, but there are consequences for going against the coven. For trying to break away.”
“What kind of consequences?”
“I could lose myself. My soul. It could kill me.”
This was way more complicated than I’d thought. “Right. So, extreme measures have to be taken.” That made me wonder… “How did your mom get away?”
Claudia fidgeted a little.
It was probably rude for me to ask, but I had to. If my aunt could leave, then so could Claudia.
“I promised to stay and help Luciana if she’d let my mother go.”
“And your mom let you do that?”
“She didn’t know. I can enhance people’s abilities and Luciana would never say no to more power. I told her I’d stay, take the vow, and help her if my mom was allowed to leave.” I started to speak but she cut me off. “It was dumb, but my mom needed to go. If she didn’t, it was going to be bad. She and Luciana were fighting everyday and Luciana’s patience had run out. I was scared for her. So, I did it. And Raphael stayed to help me. He’s the only one that knows.”
