Hyacinth (2 page)

Selene nodded in
response to Oren’s summons and rose gracefully from the ancient oak table. He
led her from her room and through a series of hallways to the chamber where the
Council had gathered. The Vyusher lived in an immense medieval castle currently
located in an isolated region of northern Canada. This had been her people’s
home for centuries, moving with them from place to place. They were lucky that
one of their more talented members had the ability to move entire buildings
anywhere they wanted. The castle had originally been built in Austria. Selene’s
gaze took in the familiar cold, dark hallways as she followed dutifully behind
her surrogate father.

As they neared a
pair of massive double doors, a large male hand reached for her elbow, gently
slowing her to a halt. She turned to face Desmond O’Moore, the son of a high-ranking
Vyusher. About her age, he stood several inches over six feet, lean and muscled.

“Desmond,” she
acknowledged.

“Princess.” He
gave her a mocking little bow. He knew how much she hated people pandering to
her. “So when are you going to call me Dez?”

Selene ignored
the question. She always called him by his full name. Using his nickname felt
too… personal. But her insistence on formality only amused him, and now he
teased her every chance he got.

She kept walking.
“What can I do for you?”

He offered her his
arm, and she accepted. “I don’t suppose I can change your mind?” he asked, falling
into step beside her.

“About what
exactly?” Selene gave him a cool glance.

“About what
you’re about to ask the Council.” He nodded toward the massive double doors
down the hallway.

A frown puckered
Selene’s brow.
How could he possibly know?
She’d spoken to no one about
her plans, and Desmond did not possess any telepathic abilities. At least none of
which she was aware.

“I must go.” She
released his arm and turned toward where Oren stood patiently waiting.

“Princess?”

Selene gave him
one last glance over her shoulder.

“Don’t do
anything I wouldn’t do.” He winked and then strolled back down the hall,
whistling an off-key tune.

Selene’s lips
twitched in amusement. Dismissing Desmond from her mind, she turned back to
Oren, serious once more. He opened the doors with a flourish and announced her arrival
to the assembled Council members.

Selene glided
silently through the doors into a large round chamber, once the original Great Hall
of the ancient castle but since modernized for more practical purposes. Before
her, assembled in a ring around the chamber, stood the decision makers of her
pack. Some were in their wolf form, but most appeared as humans. Now that
Gideon was gone, Selene had noticed that more and more of the pack preferred
their human form for day-to-day activities. She’d also noticed that the Council,
without Gideon’s influence directing them, had a great deal of difficulty in
making decisions. Although that wasn’t why she’d gathered them today.

Damn you, Maddox!
Selene mentally
castigated one of the lead wolves who’d abandoned them when Gideon had died. His
departure had cast a shadow of doubt on her rule of the Vyusher. Now she was forced
to take a step that part of her questioned, part of her wanted—an internal
battle of wills she suspected would rage long after the decision had been
finalized. Regardless of right or wrong, she’d have to handle this moment with delicacy
and tact—traits she secretly feared she didn’t possess.

“My Lords and Ladies,”
she spoke in her mellifluous voice, commanding their attention. “I have
gathered you here to put forth a request of a personal nature….”

Selene paused
and looked around, careful to make brief eye contact with each person in the
room.

“My request is
to leave the pack for a period of time,” she announced.

A loud murmur
buzzed through the assembled group. Selene stood calm and still, waiting for
the mumblings to quiet. “I have felt for some time that my presence is a cause
for concern,” she continued. “As we all continue to regain our true memories
and realize the extent of what Gideon did to us, my relation to my brother
makes it difficult for our people to trust me. And that directly impacts their
ability to trust you. After a great deal of thought, I know in my heart that
this is the right thing to do for the pack. So I ask you to allow me to go.”

The quiet
emotion in her final plea caused many of the Council members to pay closer attention.
Their princess never showed visible emotion. The fact that she allowed herself
to do so on this occasion indicated the seriousness of her petition. The
assembled Council members regarded each other.

“Where would you
go?” Oren asked. Selene’s heart ached at the sadness in his eyes. She hadn’t
shared this decision with him beforehand. She couldn’t. It would’ve been too
difficult.

“I thought maybe
I’d go to college. It’s an opportunity I’ve never been granted, as well as a
plausible explanation for an absence of a decent interval. When I complete my
coursework, then we can discuss the possibility of my return.”

“Princess…” Xavier,
the head of the Council, rose from his seat and moved forward. “If you would
step out for a moment, we will discuss your request.”

“Of course.”
Selene projected a calm she wasn’t feeling as she turned and left the room. Once
outside in the hallway, she refused to allow herself to pace as she waited for
the Council’s decision. Instead she stood silently, her hands folded gracefully
in front of her, back straight, head held high. Her serene countenance gave absolutely
no sign of the internal turmoil that was rolling through her.

The reasons
she’d given the Council for wanting to leave were legitimate; however, she deliberately
failed to mention the most important reason – the nightmares. She knew deep
down that something was off about the dreams.

The doors slowly
opened, and she was ushered back in to the room. She hid her anxiety behind a
cool expression. The importance of the Council’s decision weighed heavily on
her.

“Hey, Griff!” Without
knocking, Ellie barged into her brother’s room and plunked herself on his bed.

Griffin briefly paused,
stuffing his laptop into his backpack to look at her. One would never guess they
were twins. Ellie was pixie-like with long black hair and striking violet-blue
eyes. Griffin, on the other hand, was tall with golden hair and tawny, almost
leonine eyes. As children, their mother had nicknamed them Artemis and Apollo
after the mythological gods who’d embodied the moon and the sun. Although Ellie
definitely had the sunnier personality. Especially lately.

“What’re you
doing here this early in the morning?” Griffin asked, as he continued to pack
his laptop and books in his bag.

“Nothing
special.” Ellie shrugged.

Griffin paused
again. “Okay. What’s up?”

Ellie wrinkled
her nose, giving an exasperated huff. “Why does something have to be up for me
to visit my brother?”

“You only block
my mind reading when you want to hide something from me.” He zipped up his bag
and slung it over his shoulder. “Alex here, too?”

“Yup. We just
finished a run. He’s downstairs letting Lucy stuff him with breakfast.” Last
year when Ellie’d moved to Estes Park, Colorado, she’d met and fallen in love
with Alex Jenner. Alex had thought Ellie was just a regular high school girl at
the time. That was before Griffin and Ellie had helped save Alex’s family from
the Vyusher. Now they were engaged to be married.

Ellie hopped up
and followed Griffin out of the room. “Where’re you headed?”

“Library. I have
to finish this last paper for my economics class.”

“Hmmm. Makes me
glad I didn’t do summer school this year. I thought you got that paper done
last night?”

Griffin grunted.
“I need a little more quiet than this mad house affords.”

As
Svatura
,
their family required very little sleep. Griffin lived with Hugh and Lucy
Jenner and their two daughters, Lila and Adelaide. The Jenners acted as Alex’s
adoptive family. In the house next door lived more
Svatura
, Charlotte
and Dexter Pierce, and their adoptive sons Ramsey and Nate. Lucy used her gift
to sort of collect people with powers, forming their hodgepodge but now tight-knit
family. With so many people around, there was usually constant commotion, even
late at night.

Ellie laughed. “You
could always move back in with Alex and me. It would be quieter there at least.
I guess we were all up pretty late last night playing Trivial Pursuit. You
should have come down and joined us.”

“What, and be a
third wheel to new
te’sorthene
? No thanks!”

Alex was more
than Ellie’s fiancé. He was her
te’sorthene
, a word literally meaning
a
friend bonded by heart or sprit
. But to the
Svatura
, Ellie and Griffin’s
clan of gifted people, the term equated to soul mates. It was a bond between
two people that was fated… and unbreakable.

“Hugh and Lucy’s
house suits me very well. Most of the time, at least.” Griffin stopped at the
top of the stairs and turned to her. “Hey, Elle? You’d tell me if Selene
appeared to you in a dream, right?”

“Of course!”

“So she hasn’t?”

Ellie rested a
hand on the banister and frowned. “Not since we killed Gideon.”

“Okay.” Griffin
started down the stairs, missing his sister’s worried look as she followed
behind. When he reached the bottom, he turned and gave her a peck on the cheek.
“See ya later.”

“Have fun.”
Ellie decided to keep her concerns to herself. She gave her brother a casual
wave and wandered off to find Alex.

Griffin let
himself out of the house and walked to the shed where he kept his motorcycle. He
hopped on the bike and headed into town. Most days he loved this ride. The
winding road through the mountains had spectacular views, with vibrant hues of
blues and greens. But lately the magnificent sights had been lost on him. His attention
was inward. He hadn’t wanted to bring up Selene to Ellie, but after last night…

It’s got to be
coincidence,
he reasoned with himself. Selene hadn’t been in his dreams since the last time he
had seen her. And that had been over a year ago.

His history with
Selene flashed through his mind. The Vyusher were responsible for massacring
his clan of
Svatura
almost a century earlier. And she was Vyusher. Hell,
she was their leader now. Ellie and Griffin had barely survived and had spent
the next several decades in hiding. During that time, Selene had frequently appeared
to Griffin in his dreams. But in all those years, he’d never thought she was
actually
real....

Then a dream had
led Ellie to the Jenners and the Pierces, and the twins had joined forces with
them to kill Gideon, the leader of the Vyusher. And Selene’s brother.

An image of
Selene standing in a field in the mountains, regal and gorgeous with her
silvery hair floating in the breeze, continued to haunt him. It was the first
time he’d seen her in the flesh and realized that she
did
exist… and not
just as a figment of his male fantasies.

But then she’d
walked away from him. And he hadn’t seen her since.

Initially, Griffin
had convinced himself that he never wanted to see her again. Despite the fact
that he was positive she was his
te’sorthene
, he couldn’t overlook the
atrocities her people were responsible for… things
she
was responsible
for.

But he missed
her. Despite himself.

He’d believed
her to be just a fantasy, and now that she no longer appeared to him at night
when he closed his eyes, he missed her. And he hated himself for it.

His dreams
lately, however, had featured flashes of a white wolf.

I only know of one
white wolf, but there’s got to be more out there… right? Maybe it’s just a
coincidence.

But he didn’t really
think so. The images that came to him in his sleep were never very clear. Only
flickers, like an old-timey movie, but with more time between pictures. And
last night…

Last night he’d
heard sobbing.

*****

After finally
getting approval from the High Council to go to college, it’d taken her nearly
a month to get all of her ducks in a row. Now Selene had finally arrived in the
mountain town of Estes Park in a state of emotional turmoil. School was starting
in just a few weeks. But before she did anything else, she had something
important to do first. Today was the day, and she was already dreading it. And
yet another horrible vision that’d kept her up half the night hadn’t helped any
either.

In addition to
those blasted nightmares, Selene was worried about the family she’d left behind
and sad at the reasons that had driven her away. But, at the same time, she was
also excited for a chance at some independence after living so long under
Gideon’s oppressive rule, and this, in turn, made her feel guilty for wanting
to leave her family.