Chapter 11: An Obvious Connection

Lilia POV

Jude Faolan held her mother's arm when they walked towards Cresta House. Always protective and gallant, he looked after women. But he clung to Ravyn tightly, as he had once done with his mate Emer when she was alive.

Escorting a group of wood elves who had traveled to pay their respects to Princess Thessalia and Prince Dirge, Lilia read the energy between her mother and Jude. Close. Familiar. More than they had been in the last three years.

They looked fresh and no worse for wear after being caught in the sandstorm. And when had her mother last smiled like that, except around her grandchildren?

Jude murmured something to her mother and Ravyn gave him one of her affectionate amused looks. The kind that she only gave to family.

Jude had communicated to them about Lilia's father vanishing in the sandstorm. Lilia didn't want to think about her father's return, and her heart went out to her mother ... but why were Ravyn and Jude suddenly getting so cozy?

Lilia pointed out Jude and Ravyn to the wood elves. "The Pack Mother, my mother, Ravyn Rolfe, has returned from a mission for the good of our pack, assisted by our close ally Alpha Jude Faolan of the Silverpaw Pack next door. That's the way we do things in the Shifter Federation. If you'll please follow me, I'll show you the Council Chamber ..."

She conducted the tour of the city highlights in record time. When the wood elves wanted a more extensive tour, she volunteered Weather Moon, the pack's tutor, and rushed back to Cresta House with her heart pounding.

Inside, she met up with Dane and hurled herself into his strong arms, which held her tightly.

"The wood elves can't have been that bad."

"Oh, Dane. I'm completely at a loss."

He squeezed her tightly. "Because of your father?"

She'd locked her father in a box where even Wise Woman Tulaska and Dane couldn't get to it. They didn't discuss the subject with her. Outspoken Tulaska had her limits, and Dane couldn't hear about Lilia's father without wanting to claw something to bits.

All she remembered of her father now was being six years old and standing with her nose pressed against the shop window, watching each customer, each passer-by, each traveling merchant in the hope that one of them was Daxius. She also remembered wondering what she'd done wrong to make him leave. And she remembered her mother's broken heart.

Thinking about the glow in Ravyn's eyes and the smitten look on Jude's face, she moaned, "That's not even the worst of it."

He kissed the top of her head, and she felt his wolfness surround her. "Whatever it is, we'll face it together as we always do. Come. Ravyn and Jude are–"

He broke off, and tilted her face up to his. "That's it, isn't it? The two of them have upset you?"

It made no sense. She shouldn't feel a wave of anger and sadness towards her own mother, who had done nothing but sacrifice for her and protect her and then be a devoted mother to the Evenhide Pack and a doting grandmother to Lilia's pups.

"Watch them," she mumbled. "Watch them around each other."

Dane shook his head in disbelief. "Jude and your mother?"

"Dane. Please. If you love me, tell me I'm wrong."

He cleared his throat. "Let's not jump to conclusions. We're all meeting in the Great Hall. Let's find out what this mysterious plan of theirs is."

In the Great Hall, Jude was congratulating Patch on his spy network. "The only thing they didn't know was that Daxius has learned new tricks in twenty years."

"They're good," Patch boasted, his brown eyes full of pride.

"You did inherit them from me," Jiro pointed out.

"I taught THEM new tricks," Patch began.

Lilia wasn't listening, and neither was Dane, because they both noticed Jude and Ravyn seated next to each other, with Ravyn leaning against him.

"If we could PLEASE skip the Cresta competition for once, I think Mother and Alpha Jude have something to tell us," she said in her most forbidding Luna manner.

Everyone's heads turned, eyebrows cocked, and all eyes were on her. She didn't care/ And yet she couldn't let on why she felt so impatient.

"It's obviously an unsettling moment for Mother and me," she added.

"Not just you," Azandra pointed out, her green gaze sharp. "This wretched excuse for a husband and father entered our territory without asking and harassed our family."

Lilia gave her a small smile. "Well, he indirectly helped us become friends."

Azandra snorted, crossing her arms. "That's giving him entirely too much credit."

Undoubtedly Azandra remembered Lilia breaking down the barriers of her jealousy using Ravyn's broken heart when Lilia was first mated with Dane, Azandra's ex-boyfriend. Lilia couldn't have predicted that Ravyn would become a second mother to Azandra.

Jude cleared his throat. "It's easier to show you than tell you–especially those of you who are either from the human realm or have spent a lot of time there. Daxius dropped this in the sand–it might have stayed buried, but Ravyn has a hunter's instinct."

Lilia heard the affection in his voice and noticed Jiro, Garnet, Patch, Anneliese, Thessalia/Thessi, and Dirge all staring at Jude with uneasy expressions.

Ravyn tossed a brass key on the table and it landed with a clatter in front of Anneliese, who picked it up and cursed in the witch language.

Patch's eyes narrowed–he understood the significance of the find.

"I would say this is an old key, but it looks like it was cut recently," he commented.

Anneliese nodded. "My parents had to get new ones made three months ago that look just like this."

Tulaska nodded slightly.

Thessi whistled. "The easiest place to stay unnoticed in the forest is the unlikeliest spot."

Garnet clasped her hands together. "Hiding right in your hometown ... invading the territory you call home ... the man is suddenly determined to find you."

Cyran's amber eyes, identical to Garnet's, were contemplative. "Maybe he's aware of what he lost through his own stupidity and is working up the courage to make amends."

Ravyn smiled sadly. "He said, 'I'm not ready.'"

Cyran's expression was wry. "Neither was I–until I was, until I chose to take action."

"There's a world of difference between him and you," Dane snarled, making Lilia smile at how quickly her mate defended the man he'd once considered his mortal enemy. "YOU came back. You faced the people you hurt. You nearly died twice to make things right."

Cyran shot back, "I didn't put off my redemption as long as he did."

Kyon rested his big hands on the table. "His intentions are about as clear as the shifting sands he hid in."

Ravyn's eyes narrowed. "That's why Jude has agreed to accompany me to Wildefell–we have to find out for sure."

Lilia trembled. "I can go–"

"This is between your father and me," Ravyn said gently.

Jude agreed. "I'll protect Ravyn with my life."

And the way he said that, with that "mate" hint in his voice, made all the Crestas, who had known him forever, suddenly look away from him. Even Azandra, who was distantly related to him. For her part, Lilia suddenly wished that, trusted ally and friend or not, she'd never sniffed Jude's tail to welcome him to Evenhide three years ago.

But she also saw the determination in her mother's eyes and she knew that nothing could stop her mother–not even a Dark Goddess attack or the Wildefell Witch Council's disapproval. Or even Lilia's aching heart.

* * * * *

Ravyn POV

Either Lilia's daughterly sense missed nothing or Ravyn had touched Jude too much or smiled at him too much. When had she last done that with a man? Lilia understood the joys of a mate, the longing for companionship. So why did Ravyn feel like she was the naughty child for being with Jude?

And they hadn't been together, exactly. They were working together for the good of the Silverpaws and also the Evenhide Pack. Nothing different.

And yet here she was, half an hour after the meeting ended, examining fellenwort in Evenhide Pack Wise Woman Tulaska's home that welcomed visitors with its comfortable chaos. Tulaska sat sorting a fresh collection of plants from the wood elves. Azandra, as Tulaska's apprentice, had joined them for the sorting and cataloging.

Ravyn stroked the leathery fellenwort. "This is unusual."

"It grows sheltered by the forest canopy, but it stands on its own," Tulaska said in her usual enigmatic way. "It can stand up to a downpour, insects, and other damage and still help the forest, but it needs to nourish itself most of all."

"You borrowed that from Thessi, didn't you?" Azandra teased. "Between her plant metaphors and Naomi's animal references, those women have a message for every occasion." Her expression became serious. "How in Fenrir's name did the Wildefell Witch Circle not know that he was back in town?"

Ravyn smiled wryly. "I doubt he'd just walk into their meeting hall–and he would stay away from Edna Chalice."

Azandra organized exotic-looking grasses, separating them by color. "How skilled is he at disguising himself, magically?"

"He couldn't do it to save his life before, but that was quite some time ago," Ravyn replied. "He can master spells well above his level–very, very advanced magic. The Daxius I saw in the desert looked like the world had chewed him up and spat him out–"

"Or the Dark Goddess might have," Azandra interrupted.

Tulaska's smile was gentle. "Before he started acting like a stray animal coming in for food and occasional affection and then not coming around at all, was he this much trouble?"

Nothing less than total honesty would pass muster with Tulaska, Ravyn knew. "No–he was the sweetest man I'd ever met." She smiled reminiscently. "Even my parents welcomed him, and they had grown a hard shell because of protecting our legacy."

Tulaska nodded with a mysterious smile. "Well, the key to your present happiness may be found in the vault of memory."

"In the past," Azandra agreed.

"Does that mean we'll reconcile and resume our marriage?"

She wouldn't have dared to say that to Edna, or anyone else she knew, but Tulaska and Azandra didn't have the same history with her and Daxius as a couple.

Azandra snorted. "If you think that, then you probably think Jude will settle for a loveless political match."

"I'm bound and determined to show him he deserves better," Ravyn said, scattering leaves with her animated hand gestures. "We all know that without the strength of that union, even the most fearsome Alpha and the most majestic Luna will have trouble at home–which ripples throughout the pack."

With an appreciative smile, Tulaska said, "And Eirika knew this, which is why when the stubborn fool turned a deaf ear to her advice, she sent him to you."

Ravyn smiled. "Exactly! She said only a senior witch could–"

"Make him look like he slept peacefully for the first time in two years while a sandstorm is raging outside and there are dangers about?" Azandra asked.

"We were both exhausted," Ravyn growled, exasperated. "I from magic and him from hunting. And be careful with your words–Lilia might misunderstand you."

Tulaska smirked. "It's not so pleasing when the child parents the parent, is it?"

Ravyn pressed a hand to her head. "Jude has more problems with children than I do."

"Another reason Wise Woman Eirika is to be held up as an example," Tulaska said cheerfully. "So, when do you two embark together on your lovers' journey to Wildefell?"

"We are NOT lovers."

As Ravyn left Tulaska's, still dodging suggestive hints, Lilia awaited her outside. "Mother ... I need to talk to you. About Jude."