She was hungry. Changing always left her starving, and so did drama. “I smell food. Is there any left?”
Hosteen smiled, and bowed. She saw some martial arts training in that bow. “I think they left you some,” he said, his face lit with mischief. “We could go see.”
Chelsea came out of her room to eat with them, making it a late supper for four. Kage was out working in the stables with all three kids. They had taken some horses to the show grounds that night and were planning on taking more in the morning. Maggie and Joseph had eaten in Joseph’s suite earlier in the day. Ernestine was in her room taking a break.
Chelsea had accepted the news that they’d found Amethyst and, probably, the fae responsible for all the trouble with a faint smile and a quiet “That’s good.”
Anna worried that she was being too quiet, like the calm before the storm.
Bran had developed a method designed to minimize the problems of the Change as much as they could be minimized. People who wanted to become werewolves petitioned Bran, the Marrok. They would fill out questionnaires, get testimonials from people they knew (werewolves), and write essays on why they wanted to be werewolves. Those with good enough reasons and stable personalities (although Anna had argued that anyone who wanted to be a werewolf on purpose could not be deemed “stable” on any level) were granted their petition.
The actual Change was done at the same time every year, complete with a set of ceremonies intended to weed out the bad seeds and the weak willed, the latter of whom would not survive the Change they were seeking.
Bran’s intention was to increase the survivability of werewolves. And it worked. Those who attended Bran’s version of the Change were much more likely to live, long-term, than those who were simply Changed by accident or attack.
They knew what to expect, they knew the costs, and they understood what they were getting into. The others, those like Anna and Chelsea, had to deal with the reality of being a werewolf on the fly. Chelsea looked as though she was having trouble adjusting. Maybe Anna could help with that.
She took a bite of very good lasagna and said, in as conversational a tone as she could manage, “I was trying to gently tell this guy that I had decided that we shouldn’t go on any more dates when he attacked me and turned me into a werewolf.” She looked at Hosteen. “This is very good; did Ernestine make it?”
He shook his head. “No. I did.” He smiled. “Part of my penance for riding off in the middle of things.”
“I’d love your recipe.” She took another bite.
“I’ll write it down for you before you go,” he said.
She nodded. “I’d like that.” She looked at Chelsea. “They had been looking for some time for an Omega wolf, because Omegas, among other things, can calm werewolves. The Alpha in Chicago, where I lived, was desperately in love with his mate. She was getting more and more violent; that sometimes happens to old werewolves. Anyway”—she forced herself to eat another bite and swallow it—“this was before werewolves had come out. I didn’t even know they were real when I turned into one.” The next bite stuck in her throat and she couldn’t talk.
“They kept her prisoner,” Charles said in a low voice. “Abused her because that was the only way they could control her. You know that packs are very hierarchical. An Omega is outside the pack structure like that. She—or he—doesn’t feel the same need to obey.”
Charles gave Chelsea a compassionate look, though Anna didn’t know if anyone but she could read him well enough to see the sympathy in his eyes. “Like the way that you felt you needed to come here and eat with us, only because Hosteen asked you to.”
Chelsea looked down at her plate, her jaw tight. Anna had thought she had a handle on what Chelsea was going through, but she’d missed that part of it. Maybe because, as an Omega, she’d never felt that need to obey someone more dominant. Yeah, she thought, that would rankle a woman like Chelsea.
Charles continued. “The Alpha is, or should be, the one most capable of protecting his pack. Not just the safety of the pack, but the well-being of each of its members. But Anna’s first Alpha only cared about his mate. He needed Anna to keep his mate from attracting my father’s attention. He knew that my father would have her killed because Isabelle was a danger to everyone around her, human and wolf alike. He couldn’t dominate Anna as he did all the other wolves, so he brutalized her. He taught her to fear him in an effort to keep her under his thumb.” Charles and Hosteen exchanged a look.
It was Hosteen who said, “That was a betrayal of everything an Alpha is supposed to be.”
“Yes,” said Anna. “I’m telling you this story, not as a one-upmanship kind of thing.” She dropped her voice and added a little radio announcer. “You think you have it bad, you have it easy compared to me.” And then returned to her own voice. “Because that isn’t true. You have it different. But you need to know that you aren’t alone; I do understand what you’re going through.”
She set down her fork because eating was beyond her. “Yesterday you woke up and were just grateful you were alive. That your kids were okay. Tonight you are beginning to understand the price that you are going to pay for that. You aren’t entirely sure it is worth it.”
“Dying is easy,” said Hosteen. “Living is brutal.”
“There are a lot of downsides,” Anna said. “You probably know what most of those are.” She wasn’t going to enumerate them. Nothing like taking a person who feels bad already and telling them how horrible their life might be to turn mild depression into suicidal. “The people who go to Bran to be Changed know what they’re getting into and they have time to make a choice. You and I? We didn’t get time to make a choice. But the downsides are only there because you’re alive. You have people who love you. And you have what will hopefully be a very long time to come to terms with what you are.”
Under the table, Charles put his hand on her knee. She swallowed hard. “You’re going through a period of mourning what you once were because there is no going back. Just keep in mind that there are good things, too.”
“One of the good things is that you don’t have to be afraid of the dark witches anymore,” said Hosteen casually.
Chelsea stiffened and looked up at him.
“You’re not dumb. Of course you are afraid of them.” He turned his coffee cup around between his hands, watching it instead of Chelsea. “If you’re born a witch and you don’t want to kill and torture for power, then you’re ripe for being killed and tortured yourself. That’s why you worked so hard to keep what you are secret. Kage worried for you. He didn’t talk to me about it, but he told Joseph, who came to me. I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t offer my help.”
“Maybe I am a dark witch,” she said hostilely.
“No,” said Hosteen, raising his eyes. “I can smell a dark witch from a mile away. No. You were hiding. But now you belong to a pack, and our pack can and will protect you from the dark witches.”
“Why now?” she asked, her blue-gray eyes lightening to near-Arctic white, like those of Charles’s brother, Samuel. “Wasn’t I worthy of protection when I was just Kage’s wife?”
“Yes,” said Hosteen slowly. “But I was not worthy of protecting you.”
“What does that even mean?” asked Chelsea, pushing away from the table abruptly. She stood up, clenching her hands into fists.
“It means that I am a stubborn old wolf,” Hosteen said. “And maybe I am more interested in my own opinions than listening to my grandson, who is a smart man. That is my failure. Perhaps one of the things that will be a good thing about your becoming a werewolf is that it has changed me, too. And that will mean our family is more welcoming, as it should have been from the beginning.”
“I can’t think,” said Chelsea, breathing hard. “Why can’t I think?”
“Mom?”
Anna had been so distracted by Chelsea that she hadn’t heard Max until he spoke from the doorway.
Chelsea turned wild eyes to her son and fell to the ground, convulsing.