8 Chapter 8: Focus

I run all the way to Syd's, longing to shed my clothing and revert to my werewolf shape, just to escape the scent of Sage clinging to my skin. Why did I give in and sleep with him? I'm so weak, he makes me so. If I can't say no to such a base urge with someone I shouldn't be with in the first place, how will I ever survive as queen of the werewolves?

I pause at the driveway, bend in half, hiding in the shadows of Syd's shrubbery as, for the first time, I curse my friend for waking my emotions. Where they'd been welcome earlier, surrounded by my witch family, I now long for the silence of my conditioning, the walls and locked doors of the training that used to keep me safe from what I felt.

I could rebuild those walls, find ways to cut myself off again. My body shudders as I straighten, wiping my sweating face with both hands, perspiring not from the run, but the control it takes to keep from going back to Sage. My wolf prowls inside me, unhappy, restless. I have to get out of here and away from any chance of seeing him again.

Focus. I have to focus. And, as with every other time I've done my best to pull myself into cold calm, I think of my mother. But unlike earlier, when Miriam's embrace made me long for love lost to me, this time it's her firm hand and self-possession I miss. It had been so long since I saw her, since the night she died at the hands of the Black Souls as punishment for her rebellion. I shouldn't be able to call up her face. But there she is with me, as clear and crisp as ever, smiling kindly at me in my mind, though with her own hardness I've always done my best to emulate.

"Never show them," Olena Moreau told my brother and me from the moment we could understand. "Never let them see you are hurt. That you feel anything. Or they will use it against you." She meant the Black Souls. But it applies now.

I've shown Sage too much. I gave too much. I'm done giving.

That's better. Hard edges form around the pain, quieting my pounding heart, slowing my pulse. The sweat dries on my skin in the soft breeze of the cool fall night, my jaw setting. I feel the meditative stillness I used to practice so easily return to me, though I am aware it will take some time to solidify it again.

I have time. And I am willing to use it. Especially if it will keep my heart safe from now on. I'm kidding myself, thinking I will find what I need among my people. That I can gain what Syd and Meira have with a werewolf. We are a hard and savage race, our centuries of servitude showing beneath the bare veneer of civility my grandfather insists we cling to. I may find a partner who can rule next to me and be the prince consort I need him to be, but I need to shake off the illusions I've created any werewolf I mate with will be as willing as I am to submit to emotions like love and caring.

More likely, I will mate for power and position and will simply have to make the most of it.

My mind returns to my mother, to the last moment I saw her, my final memory. She screams at me as the Black Souls drag her away, the first night my heart really hardened. The slam of a huge door, cutting her from my sight. The howl of her wolf. And silence. Anger rises in place of pain, simmering and old, feeding the walls.

Do I want to return to the girl I had been, resentful and bitter? Hopeless, caught in an endless loop of despair dulling everything but duty? Using my abilities only to survive, not to thrive and grow? I have little choice. I think again of my mother, how my father and grandfather refused to show me her body, what the sorcerers had done to her. Merely telling me she was dead and to show no one weakness at her loss. My brother was better at it than I, at least at first. He taught me to be strong as much as she did. And when Danilo died, the Czar sending me his bones, I leaned on the memory of my brother's strength to keep from falling apart.

Even the air around me chills as I draw my anger to me again, an old, welcome friend. Very well then. This is how it shall be and no other way. I can survive. And I will. For the sake of my people, I will sacrifice my happiness and my own chance at freedom to give them theirs.

The front door opens, driving me further into shadow, eyes narrowing, suspicion returning with the reawakening of my training. I don't want to see anyone at this point, but I do need to get home. A conundrum I must solve somehow. The very last person I wish to see will only crack my newly returned walls of protection. Syd will see right through me and undo what I've done here in the dark of her driveway. I cannot allow her to tear me down again, not when so much is at stake.

I have to risk it. It's a long walk home to Ukraine and I don't have the means to travel through the veil. It's a major frustration of mine, an irritation I wish I could rectify. It just adds to our lack of status as a species, being forced to request witches or sorcerers to taxi us to our destinations. Perhaps I will make that my focus-my magic is strong. Surely I can figure out a way to free my people from this last indignity.

With a quick, steadying breath I stride with confidence to the door. A pair of witches scuttle by, smiles of greeting fading as I walk past and I realize I must be further into my old persona than is good for me right now. But dialing back my resolve could mean the difference between breaking down and making it home in one mental piece.

Quaid's concern I can handle. Miriam's, even. Shenka, the coven's second, I'm sure she won't be an issue. But please, please. Just let me not see Syd.

I almost exhale in relief as Shenka turns and smiles at me from the middle of the bright kitchen as I enter, Ethpeal and Demetrius looking up from their conversation with her. I see the sudden concern in Ethpeal's face, the frown of curiosity creasing her partner's brow. But Shenka's warm, worried smile is far worse than I expected.

She tries to hug me, but I dodge her embrace. "I hate to impose," I say to Ethpeal, "but I need to go home." I don't tag on "now", but I put urgency in my stare. Glare, actually.

"Of course," Ethpeal says, light and emotionless, as though I didn't just come to the brink of insult. "We were just waiting for you."

Shenka's arms drop, sorrow on her face. "We didn't get a chance to talk."

I nod, no longer meeting her gaze, turning from her. "Next time, perhaps."

I've hurt her, slapped her with my words. But it doesn't matter. There won't be a next time. I can't keep coming here if I'm to succeed in my plan. The very love and caring they taught to me, this family offered me, is the weakness I need to shed if I'm to be a queen.

I leave in silence with the two sorcerers, this time stepping first into the black tunnel at the end of the driveway. I embrace the cold darkness, welcome it, hope it will go further to cool the heat all my softness created in me. Anger and dispassion for everything else. I have to remember who I used to be and forget who I was becoming.

Ethpeal and Demetrius don't offer hugs as they exit the tunnel with me.

"Thank you." I bow to them, turning away before they can comment, and head for the line of trees. I should check in with my grandfather immediately, but I can't face him yet, nor does tossing and turning appeal to me. Not with the last of the new, loving, shiny me still glimmering, begging for more life. I feel the pair of sorcerers depart as I reach the edge of the forest, shedding my clothing down to my underwear before forcing my body into were shape.

It hurts, much more than returning to human form, but I welcome the pain, speed the transformation until I'm gasping, and begin to run. The wolf pack appears almost immediately, the white and her alpha keeping pace with me. They are welcome, a part of who I am.

I was wrong, I know that now, as I race through the familiar trees. I don't need to return to who I used to be, just shed the weaknesses I've adopted lately. I need to be an even newer me, stronger, more powerful, more heartless. Take the lessons Syd taught me and use them to my advantage, as tools. To be the wolf, more than the girl, understand emotion without falling victim to it. Accept the practical above the emotional. And to no longer think in terms of me alone, but of the pack.

That is where I lost myself. Selfish and lonely, I failed them by trying to be someone who put herself first. But that's not how wereculture works, and to rule them, I must adopt fully the ways of my people.

Charlotte means nothing. The pack is everything.

***