Chapter 17: Chapter Seventeen

I sat beside Ben on a suede couch in the middle of my mother’s voodoo room. It was about as horrifying as you could imagine.

Though I had never given much thought to bringing home a boy, I certainly never entertained bringing a boy home to a room where my mother lit bundles of sage and chanted throatily to any goddess who would listen.

It was a little weird.

Ben was polite as he sat on the couch, sipping my mother’s terrible herbal tea. I was stiff beside him, nerves and awkwardness taking root in my body.

My aunt was perched on the chair beside me, appraising Ben with cheeky looks while twisting her engagement ring.

My mother sat at her table, her tea untouched beside her. She had her chin resting on her palm, her eyes roaming over Ben as she sized him up.

She sighed and furrowed her brows, thinking something over with a lot of careful consideration.

“Mom,” I hissed, “can you stop?”

Ben cleared his throat beside me and sipped his tea.

I watched him struggle as he fought the urge to spit the tea right back into his mug. It was terrible and bitter and not good tea to make conversation over.

My mother blinked and sat up straight. “So you’re my daughter’s…mate.”

Ben smiled as friendly as he could. “Yes.”

“Well, he’s one of them,” my aunt corrected, playing with her frizzy red hair.

Ben looked over at me, but I refused to meet his eye. I just glared at the matrons.

“Benjamin,” my mother said slowly, testing out his name.

“Ben,” he corrected, “Ben works well.”

“Benjamin,” my aunt insisted, “what do you do for a living?”

I widened my eyes at her. “Are you serious?”

Ben laughed and shook his head, setting his mug on his knee. “I’ll be honest with you. I’m sort of a fugitive at the moment, on the run from a group of jacked up werewolf bounty hunters.

“I live with a group of guys who are also on the run from their packs. So, at the moment, I guess you could call me unemployed.”

I stood up, nearly spilling my mug of tea. “Cookies?” I hurried into the kitchen, excusing myself from the nightmare in the living room.

I rummaged through cabinets, searching for some sort of sweet to present to them. Hopefully, my aunt shoved a whole sleeve of cookies down her throat and choked on them.

I walked back into the room and threw the plate of cookies onto the coffee table. They went untouched.

“What is this?” I asked, crossing my arms. “Some sort of interview? We don’t grill Aunt Robin’s lovers like this.” Ben nearly choked on his tea.

My mother waved me off. “We’d be here for hours if we were to interview every single one of Robin’s love interests. Maybe days.”

My aunt rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so jealous, Lila, just because your love life—”

My mother held up her hand. “Don’t,” she warned.

“I’ll be honest with you, Benjamin, the last son of the moon I encountered was the Beast of Gevaudan in France during the seventeenth century,” my aunt said.

“He wasn’t a particularly cool dude. For starters, he was a murderer.”

I groaned. “Really?”

“Now I’m not saying you’re like Gevaudan, though you are as handsome”—she ~winked~—“but Morda’s mother and I are concerned.

“We’re not too fond of wolves, and as Morda is our next Clan Mother, it’s in our best interest to keep her safe.”

Ben looked down at me, surprised. I shrugged in reply.

“I’m sure you’re sweet, Ben,” my mother said gently. “I just don’t want Morda to get caught up in your world when she hasn’t figured out her own yet.”

“Ben’s a part of my world,” I countered. “He’s my mate.”

“So is the other werewolf,” my mother reminded me, “but where is he?”

My aunt grinned. “Love triangles,” she gushed, “the curse of Venus.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ben isn’t a monster, he isn’t ~the Beast of Gevaudan~, he’s just Ben. You don’t need to grill him like he’s on trial for something.

“As for his world, I’m already in it. And trust me, I can handle myself around wolves.”

My mother raised an eyebrow at the same time Ben looked down at me. “What is that supposed to mean?” she pressed. I thought of Dane, of how I burned him.

I shrugged. “I ran into the Alpha of Cerberus, Dane or whatever. He threatened me, so I told him off. That’s all.”

My voice betrayed me as it shook. I wasn’t stupid, I understood the gravity of that moment, understood the possible consequences.

“What?” Ben spat.

“Are you serious?” my mother shrieked.

“Wicked, punk,” my aunt praised.

I lifted my hands in defense. “It wasn’t a huge deal. He caught me on my own after Ben and his pack left and Grant took off.”

My mother glared at Ben. “You left her while these…savage wolves were hunting you?”

Ben paled. “I—”

“It wasn’t like that, Mom,” I complained, “it was—”

All at once every flame in the room doubled in size, and then every candle was extinguished. My mother stood from her chair, fire crackling at her fingertips.

“I’ve heard enough, Morda, this has gone too far. Running around with wolves, threatening alphas? Are you ~serious?~ What happened to my daughter?

“The one who had a few friends and looked at life through a lens? What has happened to you to be so reckless?”

“That girl found out her mother had been lying to her throughout her entire life,” I said, sinking to the low blow.

“That girl found people who actually cared about her and weren’t her friend because they had no one else.”

“Morda—”

“You want me to become this powerful witch, the next Clan Mother, but you don’t want me to get into trouble, to navigate my way through a little danger.

“Being with the wolves only makes me a better leader, shouldn’t I learn as much as I can about the supernatural world?”

My aunt laughed. “If you really feel like that, we should send you to a vampire den.”

My mother glared at me, crossing her arms.

“I want you to be alive long enough to actually ~become ~Clan Mother, Morda. I am your mother, and if I don’t want you to hang around wolves, then you won’t. Is that understood?”

“Maybe if I was fifteen,” I countered, “but I’m eighteen. Legally, I’m an adult.”

“You live in my house,” my mom shot back.

“I don’t have to.”

My mother sucked in a quick breath, and the look in her eyes told me everything I needed to know. She felt betrayed. What she didn’t seem to understand was that she was leaving me with no choice.

Whether I was with Ben or Grant, they were in my life. Mates weren’t the same as flings, they were lifelong commitments. If I were to ever become Clan Mother, then one of them would surely be by my side.

“If I may,” Ben said, “Morda is an independent woman with a free will that she wants to explore. Yes, my life right now isn’t secure, but what in the supernatural world is?

“For what it’s worth, I think Morda is right. The more she learns, the more trials she overcomes, the stronger your clan will be once she is the matriarch.”

“I don’t expect you to understand,” my mother said, her voice laced with tension. “But witches have always been female exclusive.

“Clan Mothers do not take husbands, few men are complacent enough to be … the beta to the woman’s alpha. Frankly, Morda is the first witch to mate with a werewolf for…”

“A really fucking long time,” my aunt said, “and she’s got two mates!”

“You must understand,” Ben began, lips twitching upward into a smile, “that I am not a regular wolf. I am not burdened by the power disputes werewolves succumb to.

“I am a free man until the moon makes me otherwise. So you see, I am used to submission.”

“Ben,” my mother said softly, “you are a sweet boy. I have sympathy for the struggles you face, but I must warn you that whatever my daughter promises you now, she will not be able to keep you happy.

“You know as well as I do that you are cursed, that you will never find lasting happiness.”

I looked down sharply, pain spiking in the center of my chest. I bit down on my tongue, stopping the instant denial that flared inside me. Rationally, I knew my mother was right.

Emotionally, I fiercely wished she was mistaken.

My aunt was somber. “This mating is a curse disguised as a blessing. Morda will only ever be able to draw her full strength from the earth, and to do so, she must make permanent roots.

“You are a cursed nomad, doomed to travel until you die. You two will only have fleeting moments together, for you cannot thrive under the same circumstances.”

My heart sank lower with the anchor of truth, its beating restricted by the chain that had been wrapped around it.

Down it sank until it dragged along the bottom of my stomach, churning my insides until I was nauseous.

I felt Ben’s hand in mine but couldn’t muster the strength to squeeze it.

“I know the nature of my curse,” Ben said. “I know that whatever future we have will be fleeting. But I know that I never thought I’d have any future at all.”

My mother leaned forward, her dark eyes boring into mine as she took my hand. “I don’t say these things to hurt you, Morda,” she said.

“I am telling you these things because I wish to spare you from the pain I know will accompany this bond. You will not have forever with this man, you will only have now.

“If you can accept this, then I will bless the two of you.”

I turned to Ben and met his tawny eyes. I read the patience there, read the love, and behind both, I read the fear.

He was afraid. Afraid to love me, afraid to hurt me, afraid to only taste a future that he would never have.

My aunt smiled. “In my experience, now is always better than never.”

I grinned. “Now it is.”

Ben grinned back. “For now, then.”

Sadness sparked in my mother’s eyes before she concealed her pain with a smile. She released my hand and stood, moving toward her makeshift altar and touching the base of Aphrodite’s statue.

“Aphrodite,” she invoked, “Venus, Freya, Hathor, Clíodhna, Ishtar. Great Goddess of Love, bless my daughter and her chosen lover. Bless their relationship and bond.

“Offer them good fortune and happiness as they celebrate each other and the love they share. Offer them the wisdom needed to follow one heart and the courage it takes to embrace another’s.

“Bless them as they attempt to find in each other what so many spend their lives without. Bless their love with your own.”

Ben tugged on my hand as my mother and aunt chanted, burning yarrow flowers and placing crystals meant to reinforce romantic bonds around us.

I caught his eye out of the side of mine and smiled, appreciating his patience with the weird that was going on around us.

Somehow, over the throaty chanting from my aunt and the constant mumbling from my mother, I was able to hear Ben as he told me he loved me.

And despite the haze of burning yarrow and the glare from the candles that had been lit, I was able to see the absolute and firm emotion in his eyes as he waited for me to say the same.

I opened my mouth, eyes brimming with tears as I tried to drag the words from my chest. I only managed a weak exhale before my mother and aunt had wrapped up the ceremony.

And suddenly I was saying goodbye to Ben at the door, squeezing his shoulder as he pressed his lips to my cheek and closing the door as he left.

I turned and leaned my back against the wood, tension easing out of me the longer I stood there with my eyes closed. When I opened them, my mother was sitting on the staircase, my aunt nowhere in sight.

“Thank you for doing all that,” I said, running my fingers beneath my eyes to catch the stray tears that had escaped my eyes.

“I did it all with a heavy heart,” she told me. “I look at that boy and see heartbreak.”

I drew in a shaking breath. “I know.”

“He loves you,” my mother told me. “I saw it in his eyes.”

I ran my hands through my hair, tugging on the roots. “I know he does.”

“And you don’t love him back?”

I loved a lot of things about Ben. I loved how patient he was, how understanding and emotionally intelligent he was.

I loved his connection to the forest, loved the wildness that lurked underneath his skin.

I loved the way he saw me as his equal, loved how he never assumed I needed him for anything but understood that I wanted his help.

“How am I supposed to know what love feels like?” I asked. “Where is the guidebook on relationships? How am I supposed to know how to do any of this?”

My mother stood and made her way over to me, kissing the top of my forehead before tucking my face to her chest and stroking my hair.

“You are so ~young~, Morda. You don’t need to figure everything out immediately. Take your time with Ben, as much time as you can.

“Live in each moment and one day you will see that what you were afraid you didn’t know you had already learned.”

***

“Don’t you think it’s kind of ridiculous?” I asked over breakfast a few days later.

My aunt was nursing a serious hangover and sat hunched at the table, poking at her scrambled eggs and eyeing her water, which was bubbling with an Alka-Seltzer.

“What isn’t ridiculous to teenagers?” she retorted. “What’s ridiculous is that my fiancé asked for my ring back when I ended our engagement.”

She sighed and wriggled her fingers, appraising her latest engagement ring, which she had moved from her ring finger to her middle one.

“I don’t mean to be unfair, Mordy, but you are days away from your ceremony, and there are rules,” my mother said, standing guard over the toaster as she waited for it to pop.

I rolled my eyes and set down my tea. “You blessed my relationships with Ben, and then the next morning you tell me that I can’t see him until my ceremony is over.”

“She’s doing you a favor, punk,” my aunt said. “Men are…vermin! Good for nothing and nobody!” She speared her eggs. “If I ever see Paul again, I swear to the goddess I’ll hex him!”

My mother cast her a disapproving look.

“Paul is a good guy, he’s just slighted because you talked him into forever, made him drop a month’s salary on that foolish ring, and then ended your engagement three weeks later because you grew bored.”

“Can’t I just hang out with Ben for a bit?” I asked.

“I haven’t seen him for three days, and he only has so much time before his next shift. I want to know that he’s doing okay. There is a vigilante pack hunting him, remember?”

“Sorry, Morda,” my mother said, “but trust me on this. You want to go into this ceremony as perfectly as possible.

“The easier it is to break the bonds on your magic, the more magic we can invite into your body, and the stronger you will be.”

“Apparently boys ruin your chances at being a great leader,” my aunt said. “It’s why your mother is always so stiff.”

“Robin!”

“He left his pack for me,” I said, “and now he’s out there with no one.”

“He should get used to that,” my aunt mumbled, “being a wandering loner and all.”

The toaster popped, and my mother jumped, grabbing the butter and jam. “In a few days, we will hold your ceremony and your magic will be free. Then you can see Ben.”

She frowned at the crust of the bread. It was burned. “I invited Eveline over today. She has been quite persistent in her request to visit.”

I lowered my forehead to the table at the same time my aunt placed her face in her hands. “Really?” we chimed at the same time.

“Eve is a sweet girl,” my mother defended, bringing her breakfast to the table. “A little excitable but sweet.”

My aunt stood and grabbed her water. “I need to hide.”

“From what?” We all spun as Eve appeared at the mouth of the kitchen. Her caramel hair hung in two long braids over her shoulders, and her bright-green eyes were lined with a dark-brown eyeliner.

She smiled radiantly at us as she sat down at the table and poured herself some orange juice.

“Feeling virgin-like?” she asked me, wriggling her eyebrows. “The boy ban was so medieval.”

“Good morning, Eveline,” my mother greeted.

“What’s good, Clan Mom?”

Aunt Robin grimaced. “Has your voice risen in pitch?”

“Only in excitement,” Eve countered, “because our next Clan Mommy to be is days away from her big ceremony!” Eve grinned at me. “How excited are you?”

“Very,” I muttered.

My aunt sighed and exited the room without another word, chugging her water and rubbing her temple simultaneously.

My mother stood next, jamming the rest of her toast into her mouth and mumbling about Clan Mother business before abandoning me.

Eve perched herself on one of the chairs and poured herself some cereal. “How are you feeling? Nervous? Excited? A little nauseous maybe?”

“Annoyed,” I mumbled, pushing away my tea.

Eve nodded. “I was so annoyed before my ceremony. I had just started dating the ~cutest~ water sprite. The separation totally ruined the relationship’s momentum.”

“My situation is a little different I think,” I said.

Eve nodded, scooping cereal into her mouth and chasing it with her entire glass of OJ. She’d refilled and took a deep breath before speaking.

“I can’t wait until we’ve taken the oath and we can get straight to getting to know each other. I have so many stories—I bet you have loads too.”

“Mm,” I agreed, barely listening. My mind was tangled up in thoughts of Ben. I couldn’t help but wonder where he was, what he was doing.

He was alone without his pack and nothing to fill his day besides wandering in the woods and avoiding Cerberus. He needed me. I was sure he did.

I just wasn’t sure if he needed me enough to risk messing up my ceremony.

“—he was crazy about me. I guess tree magic really attracts satyrs. You know, it’s a very sensual magic. Very alluring to the opposite sex.

“I swear, sometimes I just cannot keep earth sprites away! Dwarves are the worst, you would not believe the catcalling—”

I was beginning to feel restless. All of a sudden my adventure had come to a screeching halt so my mother could spend hours lecturing me about the elements and the goddesses.

I understood that I needed to learn, but she needed to understand that I was caught up in supernatural business that was far more pressing than learning the seventeen uses for sage.

“—and you know I had to tell him that, though I absolutely loved the baskets he weaved for me, cutting down tree branches for art was so not cool. Like, respect much?

“And oh my god, don’t even get me started on the vamp I dated. I had circles under my eyes for months.”

It had been too quiet over the past few days. Nothing of Cerberus had surfaced.

Either they were stalking Ben and waiting for the right moment to attack or they had pursued Will, Fitz, and Oak in the hope that the quantity of the bounty would overshadow the quality.

“—I kept telling him, like, ~no, you can’t feast on my blood~, and he respected my choice, but I still had major hickeys that concealer just could not hide!

“Like, I appreciate the restraint, but what is it going to take for you to stop sucking on my skin like a crazed animal? Garlic?”

And then there was the matter of Kale and his planned witch trial. Of course, my mother had booked my ceremony for the same night.

That meant I had to find a way to make a fake love potion, sneak out, and deliver it to Kale before he held the event and risked pissing off a very emotional clan of witches.

“—so serious and sensitive all the time. Like, I get it, the fae have definitely not been treated fairly, but taking it out on every other clan? Like, get over it, you know?”

“We couldn’t get through one date without him launching into some rant or another.”

Suddenly, my problems were piling up, and I was stuck listening to Eve ramble while my mother made sure I stayed boy-free. My options were limited.

Either I came clean to my mom and asked for her help, which I couldn’t do. Not if I wanted to prove that I was strong enough to handle problems on my own. This was my test.

Without her help, I had to make things work myself. I switched my focus back to Eve, who was talking animatedly with bits of cereal flying from her mouth.

I smiled at her, which stopped her mouth from moving for a split second.

“So this Celestial Oath,” I hedged, “it creates a bond between us?”

“The most powerful and celebrated one in our world,” she told me, eyes sparkling. “Bonded, we’re able to power-share and cross-locate, both extremely useful.”

“But beyond that,” I said, “we’re bonded, right? Like siblings?”

“Like twins,” she offered. “When you take the oath, it becomes impossible to betray or harm one another. Trust is easy as well as essential.”

I grinned. “Would you like to take the oath with me, Eve?”