Adversity (22 page)

“
The werewolves are gone.” I remembered the more important
event. I had barely missed the battle.

“
They ran, but not before they caught a good glimpse of the
newest member of the pack,” Opa said a little proudly.

“
And Nathan?” I said, leaving the question unasked.

They
exchanged glances. Opa ran his hands through his hair, suddenly
agitated. “He’ll get over it. Soon enough.”

“
Is it… is it bad?”

“
He’s hurting.”

“
Is Cú okay?” I bit my lip, praying I hadn’t killed
him.

“
Well, we’ll have to take him to the vet and try to explain how
he got mauled by a wolf, but he’ll be fine. How are you
feeling?”

I
shrugged, gazing at the house. “I don’t know. Different, and yet…
the same. I feel as if I was always this way, but my nature was…
hidden under the surface.”

Both of
them looked confused, and I knew they didn’t understand, but to me,
everything made sense. I was born to be wolf. Wolf had always
existed; I just hadn’t let her out yet. When Kali had given me her
essence, I was so distracted that wolf had taken her chance to
break free.

Now we
were all free. Nathan, Perdita, and the rest of us. We weren’t
cursed anymore. We weren’t destined for pain and loss. But as soon
as I saw Nathan’s face, I knew he wouldn’t see it that way. The
word pain wasn’t enough to describe everything he was feeling.
Byron sat next to him, and they looked almost like father and
son.

“
We need to figure out what to do next,” Jeremy
said.

“
Wait!” I exclaimed. Everyone looked at me, and I gulped. “I
have to explain… to tell you all what’s been happening. The story
about the curse… what we know… it’s all wrong.”

“
That makes no sense,” Opa said. “And we don’t have time for
this right now.”

“
Hear me out. Those dreams I’ve been having. They’re all real.
They’ve been about a real gypsy girl.”

“
The one who cursed us?” Byron suddenly sounded
interested.

“
No. The one who
mothered
us.” I shook my head in frustration at their
disbelief. “She was becoming the gypsy version of a witch, but she
was born the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. That meant she
would be the wolf mother, and that she would breed werewolves to
protect her people. No interrupting!” I snapped at Jeremy. “So
anyway, she had this big destiny, but her dad was all evil and
stuff, and she fell in love and ran away and had a baby—the first
one of us—but then her dad found her and cursed us. She cursed his
people and made it so that the curse would end when a girl was
born, but he killed her. And because of the black magic she used,
and because she didn’t get the chance to pass on her power, she was
stuck, watching us suffer.”

They
stared at me in silence.

“
Don’t you get it? We weren’t cursed to be werewolves. That’s
in our blood. But they cursed us to be hunted down and to lose
loved ones, and…” I gulped. “And to be infected with a kind of
madness when we did lose people.” I shifted awkwardly.

“
Why now?” Nathan croaked, his eyes on me. “Why did the curse
stop now?”

Oh, crap.
“Well… she asked me to allow her to pass her essence on to me. She
said that would end the curse. So I said yes. And it—”

“
Why would you do that to us?” he said, his voice low and
cruel. “Why wouldn’t you even let me say goodbye first? Why would
you risk hurting Perdita?”

“
I didn’t… I didn’t know it was going to happen right then that
second. I’m not psychic. And I knew you’d freak out about it.
You’ve been acting crazy lately, saying you don’t want it to end.
It has to end, or she’ll die. Don’t you understand
that?”

“
I understand!” he roared. “But you didn’t give me a chance to
deal with it. To even tell her what would happen. Now what am I
supposed to do?”

“
Talk to her,” I said slowly. “The only thing that’s changed is
her dying too soon. The curse is
over
.” Was he being stupid on
purpose?

“
Why would she want to talk to me? Her dad was attacked. She
probably feels as though she’s been stabbed, and my own sister
tried to eat her while the rest of us stood around like idiots!” He
was shouting, and the veins on his neck popped out disturbingly.
Byron held him close and whispered to him while Opa pulled me
outside.

“
Give him some space while he’s acting this way,” he said.
“He’s not thinking straight.”

“
You understand, though, right? I had no choice.”

“
You had a choice. But you made the right decision,” he
said.

“
He hates me.” I thought I was fixing everything. I thought my
family would love me for it. But instead we were all
miserable.

“
He hates the curse. He always has. He’s never come to terms
with himself. Now he has to face up to the fact that his other side
isn’t a curse; it’s a natural part of him.”

“
What about Perdita?”

He
hesitated, conflicting emotions crossing his face. “It would be
safer to keep her away from us. She has no way to defend herself,
and more werewolves will come. Of that, I’m certain. This could be
her way out of danger.”

“
I have to talk to her.”

“
Maybe. But today we must figure out our next move. You
remember what you did, don’t you? You tried to attack your best
friend. We have to help you control your wolf so that kind of thing
never happens again. First, you must eat. When the wolf is hungry,
we become agitated and angry.”

He made
me some food and sat with me while I ate. Jeremy joined us, closely
followed by Ryan. The red werewolf seemed smaller somehow, less
fierce than the time he had been part of the pack that attacked us.
He nodded at me, but his eyes were curious.

“
I followed the girl home,” Ryan said. “No signs that any of
the other wolves followed. She’s in pain, but you’ll be doing her
and Nathan both a favour if you keep her out of the way. You
realise that was merely a battle. There is still the war to be
won.”

Opa
smiled, and again, I saw in his eyes that madness Kali had told me
about. The curse hadn’t ended everything.

“
I’m counting on the war. We’ve challenged Vin. He has no
choice but to respond. And we have yet another werewolf on our
side,” he said proudly, gesturing to me.

“
You expect me to fight?” I blurted in shock.

“
You want us to win?” he replied sharply.

“
I don’t… I don’t know how to make her listen to me.” Panic
swelled at the idea of letting wolf run loose.

“
I could help,” Ryan said, “with controlling the urges.” His
face paled, and I wondered what he had gone through when he first
turned. “But I think it would be worth exploring teaming up with
lone wolves in case the war is bigger than you expect.”

“
I’ll go,” Jeremy said immediately. “I could take Willow. She
might be useful.”

Ryan
glowered at the idea of being separated from his pack mate. “I
don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“
I would join them if it made you more comfortable with the
idea. That’s the most pressing issue right now.”

I gaped
at my grandfather. “I think me trying to kill people is a pretty
pressing issue, Opa.”

“
Ryan already offered to assist you with that. The sooner we
deal with Vin, the safer we’ll all be.”

I
couldn’t argue with him. It was becoming urgent that we get Vin off
our backs, once and for all. Maybe with the curse ending, his pack
would be less inclined to hate us.

“
I’ll go, too,” Nathan said from the doorway.

“
Are you… fit enough?” Jeremy asked.

“
I’ll deal with it.” The coldness in Nathan’s voice scared me.
Did he succumb to the curse after all? Had I brought the madness to
my own brother?

“
What are you going to tell Perdita?” I asked, regretting it
immediately.

“
You’ve all already decided you don’t want me near her, so I
won’t go there. But don’t expect me to be part of this
family
when all of this
is over.”

He hated
me. I knew it. He stormed out of the room, leaving only tension
behind him.

“
He’s never going to forgive me.” I looked to my grandfather
for guidance, but his mind had obviously already moved on to other
more “pressing issues.”

Byron
made a frustrated sound. “Everything’s raw. Give him a chance to
deal with it.”

“
It’s settled, then,” Opa said, as if nothing had happened.
“I’ll take Jeremy, Nathan, and Willow. Byron, you and Ryan stay
here and deal with Amelia while you watch out for any unwelcome
visitors.”

“
When are you leaving?” I asked.

“
A couple of days. We need to hurry.”

“
But what if they come back while you’re gone?”

He
hesitated. “I’m confident they won’t, but I’m sure you three can
handle any surprises.”

He and
Jeremy left, leaving me with Byron and Ryan.

“
How are you feeling now?” Byron asked me.

“
Fine, I suppose.”

“
No headaches?”

“
Nope. They eased off as soon as I ate, um, meat.”

“
So you’re fit enough to explain to me what’s been going
on?”

I rolled
my eyes. How could I cram everything into a couple of sentences?
The stuff with Kali hadn’t been exact, I was pretty sure of that. I
had a feeling she sent me images, and my own brain only took some
of them to work them around in a way I would understand. But she
was gone, so I had nobody to ask. I did my best to explain
everything to Byron, actually feeling better by the time I was
done.

“
What were you thinking, messing around with spirit
boards?”

“
I just… I mean…”

“
And why didn’t you explain all of this to me?”

“
Nobody cared!” I shouted. Even
I
flinched at the sound. “Nobody’s
looked at me since I let Mémère die!”

He gripped my shoulders tightly, and I noticed Ryan slip from
the room. “You didn’t let anyone die. Never say that again. It
wasn’t your fault. We’ve tried to protect you. We wanted to keep
you innocent, so you wouldn’t be afraid. But her death was a
mistake.
Our
mistake. Not yours. Do you understand me?”

He was
practically shaking me. His eyes were fierce, but every word he
spoke was a balm to me and exactly what I needed to hear. The tears
fell before I realised I was crying, and relief flooded through me
as, for once, I was able to believe what he said. My grandmother’s
death wasn’t my fault or my responsibility. I didn’t need to prove
myself to anyone.

“
I thought everyone hated me,” I admitted through hiccups. He
held me then, Byron, actually hugging, and I sank against him,
holding him tighter. I imagined he was my dad. I imagined he loved
me, and everything felt as though we might improve as a family. I
wished I had figured it all out sooner, or that I had figured out a
way to make the curse end smoothly.

“
Nobody hates you.” Byron’s voice was thick with emotion. “And
Nathan will find a way to get past his loss. I’ll help
him.”

“
But he’s leaving!”

“
And he’ll come back. In the heat of the moment, we all say
things we shouldn’t. There’s no reason for you to hold that against
him.”

“
What about me? What if I hurt someone?”

“
We’ll stop you. Changing so suddenly was a shock to your
system. You were ill, and you weren’t expecting it. You were pushed
into the change before you were prepared for it. There’s nothing
wrong with that, Amelia. And that’s what we’re here for… to help
you.”

“
What about the other stuff?” I asked, sniffing
loudly.

“
What other stuff? The so-called war?” he asked
wryly.

“
Well, that too. But I’m talking about me. The… thing she
passed onto me. She said she was haunted by black magic and was
trapped when she used it. What if I somehow used it? Accidentally,
I mean.”

“
We’ll find out more about it. Maybe her power is latent; maybe
all she had to do was release it. Do you feel any
different?”

I shook
my head. I really didn’t. I remembered how Kali’s power had felt.
There was nothing similar to that inside me.

“
Then there’s no need to worry about it. We can do some
research, and try to find out more about this kind of… witch
power.”

I
laughed. “That sounds odd, coming from you.”

He looked
at me seriously. “Everything is going to be fine. You are. He is.
We’re all going to be fine. We’re all going to figure out a way we
can live together without ripping each other apart. It’s going take
some time. And effort. And compromise.” He winked at me, and I
giggled.