Ellida (34 page)

I knew she expected an angry rant as soon as
she saw the rear spoiler of Ingmar’s truck, but I kept quiet. I
didn’t want to pick a fight in front of Ahmed, so we drove back in
a tense silence.

“We need to talk, Astrid,” I said calmly when
we came home, forcing myself to notch down my anger. She stood
across from me, hands braced on her hips, dangerously quiet. Her
dominant posture told me she’d realized it wasn’t going to be about
her unconvincing display of impromptu emotion for Darius Withali.
She was getting ready for a fight.

“Let’s talk, then,” she hissed through
clenched teeth.

“For God’s sake, Astrid, why did you tell
him?”

“How can you let him believe he could go mad
like Seth?! That’s unspeakably cruel! He’s your ally, Jack! The man
who’ll take your father’s killer down!”

My resolve to stay composed went down the
drain. “I’m not doing it because I like it!” I shouted. “Right now
this is keeping him alive! The man has a temper! If he knew the
truth, he’d try to kill Seth with his bare hands right away. If
Seth knew the truth, Darius’s life, and your mother’s and who knows
how many others’ wouldn’t be worth a dime! Have you thought about
that?!”

“I didn’t tell him Seth wasn’t his father,
damn it! I told him he is not mad like Seth!” Now Astrid was
yelling, too.

“
After
I clearly warned you not to
tell him. That’s another problem, Astrid. You ignored my direct
order.”

Werewolf hierarchy had never been Astrid’s
favorite topic. She frowned, eyebrows almost touching in the
middle, her green eyes darkened and her lips pursed into a
sneer.

“I’m not trying to manhandle you, Astrid,” I
said. “But I’m the Einhamir of the Red Cliffs clan, and this
includes you, too. You can tell me your opinion in private, and I
promise I’ll always consider it, but you must not disobey me
publicly. That can set a bad precedent. Do you understand?”

She let out a sigh and ran her hand through
her hair. “Then we have a problem, you see. I am the Ellida of the
same clan, and therefore, I outrank you. Today I superseded your
decision because I thought mine was better. I still do. So what
will we do now?”

“Okay, let’s forget for a moment you ignored
my orders. I’m not happy keeping Darius in the dark, either. I
might even agree with you. It’s Morgaine’s decision—”

“The last time I checked,
I
was Red
Cliffs’ Ellida, not Morgaine!”

This was an Astrid I hadn’t seen before.

“Besides,” she continued, “I repeat, I didn’t
tell him Seth wasn’t his father, only that he was not going to go
mad!”

“Darius is an intelligent man, he may connect
the dots.”

Her open hand slammed down on the table with
great force. “Damn it, Jack, I didn’t ask for this power! I didn’t
want this authority! But I’ve got it, and God help me, I’m going to
exercise it
when I decide it’s necessary! Do I need to
remind you that I am your military leader?! Don’t you think I
should, maybe, take a more active role in your little war games
against Seth?”

This definitely wasn’t an Astrid I had seen
before. And she was clearly showing me she knew how to fight her
own battles. I liked her new confidence and self-awareness and the
way she stood up for herself and defended her decision. I even
liked her anger, but she needed a reality check before she went
overboard.

“Your military title is a formality, baby.
Like me being a sheriff here. I have an office and the
uniform
.” I paused, hoping for a tiny smile or a spark in
her eyes, but she didn’t bite so I continued, “I’m the sheriff only
on paper, right? In reality, Mike Kowalski is sheriff. Astrid, your
role as Ellida is not a formal one. It’s enormous, but if you’re
imagining leading the troops to Copper Ridge riding on a white
horse, well, it’s not going to happen. I’m not saying it wouldn’t
be a sight, though.”

She smirked, not amused at all.

Of course she was capable of doing it, but
the idea of Astrid storming Copper Ridge with us scared the living
daylights out of me.

I tried a different approach. “Oh boy, how do
I explain this? As an Ellida, yes, you are above the pack
hierarchy. As an Alpha female, you’re not. We both rule, and our
responsibilities definitely do overlap sometimes, but that’s very
rare. And today, it was my call, not yours.”

“I remember what you said once: ‘If you are
ready to give orders, you need to learn how to take them.’ I
understand that, Jack, believe me.”

“Astrid, I’m not sure you did Darius a favor.
He might try to kill Seth before we are ready, and before he’s
ready. That’s the problem.”

“You are using Darius for your own
purposes!”

“Our goals are similar. Plus we have you to
protect. We need him and he needs us.”

“I gave him hope, and now he’ll have more
reason to live. He won’t be reckless with his life. Have Morgaine,
or you, for that matter, thought about that? Have you considered
that he might, perhaps, prefer to die fighting against Seth than to
live, because he thought there was nothing worth living for? For
Crissake, Jack, the man made you promise to take his life before…
before…”

Her voice broke off, and she suddenly looked
tired and sad.

I sighed. What right did I have to be mad at
her? She felt Darius’s unhappiness and despair and responded to it
in her own way, the only way she knew—by healing his wounds.

I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her
tight.

When she looked at me, her eyes were shiny
with tears. “I love you, Jack, and I couldn’t imagine my life
without you, but sometimes I feel this is too much for me. I wish I
could go back to Rosenthal and to my house, and keep pretending my
life is normal.”

Her words slammed into me like a freight
train.

“I have to go now,” she announced after a
long, stony silence.

“Where?!” I yelled, as if she’d indeed
decided to go back to Rosenthal right this moment.

“I’m working tonight, did you forget?”

“Can’t you ask someone to cover your shift?
Let’s stay here tonight.”

She shook her head and tried to pass by me. I
caught her hand and pulled her against me. She was warm, soft, and
she smelled good. “Don’t go, baby. I need you.”

She kissed me softly and freed herself from
my grip. “Will you give me a ride? I’ll be ready in fifteen
minutes.”

WHEN I picked her up from the Clinic the
next morning, she was still distant, lost in her own thoughts. I
liked it much better when she was angry. I decided to distract her
blue mood with exactly the same weapon she’d attempted to use on me
the previous day—a faked jealousy fit.

We finished breakfast and stood in the
kitchen, looking at each other warily.

“I hate to bring it up, baby, I know you had
enough yesterday, but, you see, I think you were a little bit too
cozy with Darius. If you know what I mean. You’re my wife now—not
formally, of course, but that’s a separate issue now. I know how
you feel about him, but you really can’t behave like that, being
Alpha female and all.”

Astrid’s usual self would’ve immediately seen
through my charade, but she wasn’t her usual self. The good news
was that her face instantly reddened and arrows shot from her
eyes.

“And what exactly do you mean!?” she
said.

I carried on with my diversion. “You hugged
him,” I started counting on my fingers. “You let him kiss you—”

“On. My. Hair.”

“It was still kissing. When I came back to
the room after he asked me to leave you two alone there, what did I
see? You two cuddling on the sofa, and then you frenched him in
front of everybody. How do you think I felt?”

She tilted her head and zeroed in her green
eyes on me. “And don’t forget I told him I wanted to know him
better.” She threw her head back and laughed wholeheartedly. It
sounded like the most beautiful music.

I pulled her into my arms. “Welcome home,
baby.”

JACK, JAMES and Ahmed continued to publicly
train Jack’s ‘elite unit’ during that spring and early summer. A
retired SEAL, Adam Mackenzie, Jack’s childhood friend and his
partner from their special mission days, had come to help train
Jack’s little army.

This was what Jack wanted Seth Withali to
know.

Behind the curtains, Livia and Tristan were
on alert, as well as Ingmar, Dinah and Gerald. The Winston warriors
and a dozen of Livia’s Tel-Urugh friends were ready to show up in
Red Cliffs on short notice.

PETROLEUM-ENGINEERING diploma in her hands,
Maggie came home in mid-June, after two weeks in Europe, courtesy
of her oldest brother. Eamon had graduated from high school and
decided to take a year off before going to Italy to study
ethnomusicology. In the last couple of months, he’d grown
noticeably taller and his face had lost the last traces of teenage
awkwardness, becoming angular and masculine. His shoulders had
broadened, hips narrowed, and he looked strong and confident.

Peyton and Ingmar had continued their
incognito dating.

Arnaldur and Ella remained in Red Cliffs.
Astrid’s grandparents enjoyed the extended hospitality of the
entire town. Arnaldur was a sort of living legend here. His role
during the war with Warren’s outcast vampires was a part of Red
Cliffs’ collective memory. He was deeply respected for his tireless
work in the legal protection of the rights and freedoms of all
humanoid races.

HAYATO NAKAMURA had also arrived in Red
Cliffs. The physical likeness between him and Takeshi was as
striking as the differences in their personalities. Hayato was a
man who talked aloud, laughed a lot, and hummed the rest of the
time. Only when he was training Astrid would he resemble his somber
son.

And then, literally overnight, Takeshi
changed. The unsmiling, quiet young man had seemed to give way to
an energetic, vibrant creature with a throaty laugh and quirky
sense of humor. He was still religiously devoted to his martial
arts, but that didn’t stop him from embracing the pleasures of life
sunny-side up, with a radiant smile and lively sparks in his dark
eyes. Everybody knew that Athena Vangelis, a girl with a degree in
classical linguistics and medieval literature, and the owner of the
town’s best bakery, was responsible for this 180 degree turn.
Takeshi didn’t even try to deny it.

Astrid sometimes even missed her grouchy
master and his endless complaints, but the new Takeshi was so funny
and charming that he was hard to resist.

HAYATO WAS the last in the long line of
Astrid’s mentors, teachers and trainers, although his job was only
to test her newly-acquired skills. To Astrid’s surprise, he
approved of Takeshi’s strange mixture of fighting techniques under
the common name of ‘dirty fighting’. He was genuinely pleased with
Astrid’s sword and bow skills.

On the last day of her official training with
Takeshi, Hayato presented Astrid with a special gift—her very own
katana, forged by the Master Hayato himself.

The secret forging of a katana typically took
many days or weeks and was considered a sacred art that required
complex knowledge and skills. It was believed that only those with
the purest of hearts and the highest of moral standards could
become master swordsmiths.

“It’s made to accommodate your height,
weight, the strength of your arms, and your speed. May it serve you
well, my lady.” Master Nakamura bowed and held out the sword that
lay across his palms.

A FEW weeks after Hayato’s arrival, Red
Cliffs welcomed two visitors from Gelltydd Coch: Jack’s
grandparents Robert and Anwen Canagan.

It had been an emotional reconciliation
between James and Betty on one side, and Robert and Anwen on the
other. Robert and Anwen had accepted James and Betty’s offer to
stay at their home. Once close friends, they had grown apart after
Brian’s death and Jack’s refusal to become the Einhamir two and a
half decades ago. Now it was time, they all knew, to heal the old
wounds.

“I’m grateful you and Grandmother came,” Jack
had said to his grandfather as they sat in the Mohegans’ living
room after dinner.

“For a long time I thought you should have
taken your father’s position,” Robert said. “Now I realize you and
James made a wise decision. I owe an apology to both of you. We
should have set aside all our differences long ago, and it was my
fault that we didn’t. I’m thankful, Jack, that you’ve never given
up on us, no matter my stubbornness. You kept coming and listening
to an old man’s selfish ranting.”

Jack smiled. “You should thank James and
Betty. They insisted I should visit you whenever I could. Besides,
I love that
old man
.”

Astrid instantly liked Jack’s grandparents.
They were warm and caring people. Watching them, she briefly had
wondered how old in fact they were, but then mentally corrected
herself. When it came to age, she sometimes still thought in human
or wizard timelines. A werewolf’s life span was simply divided into
childhood, youth and prime age. Therefore, Anwen and Robert were
both in their mid-thirties. Robert was a good-looking, tall man
with a powerful frame, dark hair and light green eyes. His wife was
also tall, but slender and fair, with a beautiful oval face and
long, golden-blond hair. She had exquisite blue-green eyes with
dark rims around the irises.

Jack had told her once they seemed like
people from a different time, and he was right, Astrid thought. In
spite of their modern look, there was an aura of an olden-day glory
that surrounded them. Even their old-fashioned titles that nobody
used anymore –
Robert, the Lord Einhamir of the Northern
Lands
, and
Lady Anwen—
fit them perfectly.