Hyacinth (27 page)

Selene hid a
small smile in his chest. “You do have a bit of a suspicious nature,” she teased.

Griffin chuckled.
“As with everything else, I suspect we will learn to trust each other
together.”

“Together,”
Selene repeated. The thought filled her with a warmth that did even more to
melt the ice block around her heart.
I like that
, she thought to
herself.

Griffin twitched
in her arms. “Hey! I heard that!”

“Heard what?”
Selene looked at him puzzled.

“Your thoughts.
You like the thought of together.”

“Well… yes?”
Selene was slightly confused by his gleeful response.

Griffin smiled.
“Usually I can’t hear anything you’re thinking. You block me out. And I know
that most of the time you do it without thinking or trying. I’ve only ever
heard you when you’ve consciously let down your mental walls, and I can almost
feel you will them away. But this I heard despite those walls.” His eyes lit up
in a way that still had a crazy effect on her heart rate.

“Oh!” She
chuckled.

Griffin gathered
her into his arms and rested his chin on the top of her head. Both of them
happily remained there, content to just be.

Lila kept an eye
on Ramsey, keeping her ability to sense and heal emotions focused toward him.
The whole family was sitting outside the newly-repaired double doors to the
chamber, where Selene was currently talking with the High Council.

Griffin used his
telepathy to hear the conversations inside the closed room and repeated
everything he heard to the others. While he could project his own thoughts into
others’ minds, he needed Ellie to project
all
thoughts, and, unfortunately,
she and Alex were away on their honeymoon.

Lila could feel Griffin’s
increasing agitation as he paced like a caged lion, and her heart went out to
him.

“Adelaide,” Griffin
said. “She needs you in there.” He ran his hands through his hair. “This would
be much easier with Ellie here.”

Adelaide gave
him an apprehensive look but stood and let herself into the chamber.

*****

Selene turned and
ushered Adelaide into the room with an offered hand.

“Adelaide, thank
you for coming.” She gave the younger girl a reassuring smile. “Could you
please explain to the Council how your gift works?”

Adelaide licked
her lips. “I have the ability to see relationships – past, present, and future.
When I concentrate, they appear to me as shimmering lines connecting souls. The
relationship between those souls determines the color, thickness, and strength
of the line between them.”

“That is
fascinating, my dear.” Sara leaned forward, steepling her hands. “What
relationship do you see between Oren and Selene?”

Adelaide glanced
at Selene, who nodded. With a breath she focused, her eyes moving between them.

“I see several levels
of relationship between them. The strongest is that of a father-daughter
relationship, though not bound by blood.”

“Anyone could
tell that who’s known them five minutes,” Xavier scoffed. He stood beside a
window, arms crossed defensively.

Adelaide dipped
her head, looking at the ground. “There’s more,” she said quietly.

“Please go on,”
Selene prompted.

“There is
friendship. There is that of a mentor or elder from him to her. Very faintly
there is the wolf pack link, although that runs between all of you. And
finally, even more faint but still there, is something hard to discern. I
haven’t seen anything quite like it before.

“Has he saved
your life before?” Adelaide asked Selene.

Selene shook her
head slowly, her eyebrows knitting in a frown. “Not unless you count being
there for me during Gideon’s reign.”

Adelaide
concentrated harder. “It must be a future relationship then.”

Her eyes
darkened, causing Selene concern.
“Griffin,”
she thought.
“What did
she see?”

“I don’t know,”
was his
response.
“She stopped thinking about it before I could catch it. I wasn’t
focusing on her thoughts, knowing how private she is about that.”

Selene kept her
expression neutral. “Council, are you satisfied with the evidence of her
ability?”

A murmuring rose
through the room until Thomas said, “Yes, we are satisfied. Why have you shown
us this?”

“Griffin,”
she thought,
“Please
come in.”

Immediately the
doors to the Council chamber opened. He moved swiftly to her side but refrained
from making physical contact.

“Adelaide, what
relationship do you see between myself and Griffin?” Selene asked.

Adelaide
frowned, but centered her focus on them. After a second she gasped, as Selene
dropped her barriers, allowing Adelaide’s power to work on them.

A full-blown grin
broke out across Adelaide’s face. “I knew it! I just knew it!”

“Knew what,
peanut?” Griffin asked her affectionately.

“You’re
te’sorthene
!”

A shocked gasp
ran through the room, cutting off what Adelaide would’ve said next.

“No!” Xavier
declared, springing to his feet. “Absolutely not.”

Adelaide closed
her mount with a snap, glancing uncertainly at Griffin and Selene.

“Go on outside,
Delia… we’ll handle this from here.” Selene reached out and squeezed her hand.
“Thanks.”

“The Vyusher
will never accept a non-wolf as their king,” Thomas stated quietly.

“They don’t have
a choice.
Te’sorthene
cann
ot
be separated,” Selene declared.

“They set this
up,” Xavier accused wildly. “She’s just trying to get out of marrying my son.”

“Father, I will
not marry someone who has found her
te’sorthene
,” Dez’s voice sounded
from the back of the room, although he was nowhere to be seen.

All the heads in
the room whipped in his direction as Dez dropped his invisibility and instantly
appeared. He leaned against one of the tables, feet crossed, and appeared
completely at ease.

“This is a
closed Council, young man,” Thomas chided him.

“I am aware of
that, Councilman. But this matter very much involves me. I will not stand idly
outside those doors to be handed my future. Especially one that is forced.”

Dez gave his
father a hard look as he moved next to Selene and Griffin. The casually
indifferent attitude that had appeared to be so much a part of Dez had disappeared
and instead there stood a man who was serious and confident.

“And I will also
not accept the throne should it ever be offered to me. I stand behind Selene as
my true and rightful Queen, as well as the leader who will take our people into
a future full of opportunity and promise.”

“But our people
will never accept her
te’sorthene.
He is not a wolf,” Mireilla pointed
out. “What if you must?”

Dez grinned
insolently, resuming his carefree mantle. “That is up to Selene and the High
Council to solve. Just know that you will not see me as King through any
means.”

With a jaunty wave,
Dez sauntered out of the room, leaving a stark silence in his wake. Xavier was
almost purple with frustration. Selene feared the man would drop dead of a
heart attack any moment.

“My Lady?” Oren
claimed Selene’s attention. “Might I suggest that we give the Council time to
digest this stunning news? Together we will devise a way to handle the
announcement to the Vyusher people.”

Selene nodded,
her hand tightening on Griffin’s.

“I would suggest
that we keep this situation a secret until such a time that we’ve determined an
appropriate course,” Thomas added.

Selene
considered his request. It went against the grain to have to hide the most
important relationship in her life. She was proud of her
te’sorthene,
and she wanted to shout her wonderful news to the world.

A light tug on
her hand had her looking toward Griffin. “
It’s the right thing to do for
your people,”
he assured her mentally.

Warmth made her
eyes glow bright silver.
“I don’t like hiding
.”

“Neither do I,
but it’s okay.”

With a nod, she
turned back to the Council. “We agree. We will keep silent about our true
relationship until the right course presents itself.”

“Something’s
wrong with Lila.” Ramsey burst into Adelaide’s room, barely bothering to knock.

“What?” Adelaide
sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Why do you—?”

“I can feel it.”

Adelaide raised
her eyebrows. “How—?”

“I don’t know,”
Ramsey cut her off again. “But it’s not important right now. I think she’s
hurt.”

Adelaide closed
her eyes. She remembered back nine months earlier, just days after Ellie and
Alex’s wedding. The last time she’d seen her sister face to face…

*****

“Are you sure
about this?” Adelaide had asked.

Lila glanced at
where her little sister was perched on her bed, knees drawn up with her arms
wrapped around them.

“Yes, I’m sure,”
Lila answered. She continued packing clothes into the suitcase. Her hands and
voice remained steady.

“Is it that hard
for you?” Adelaide’s voice trembled. The thought of not having her sister close
by was far too painful to imagine.

“Ramsey’s
emotions are overwhelming me, Delia. And my own are far too closely tied to him
for me to be reasonable. I need…” Lila paused in her packing as she searched
for the words.

“An emotional
break?” Adelaide supplied for her.

Lila bit her
lip. “Yeah.”

“So let me and
Nate come with you,” Adelaide insisted.

Lila suppressed
a deep sigh and raised a hand to her head. This was an argument the sisters had
been having for weeks. Ever since Selene had allowed Adelaide to see that she
and Griffin were
te’sorthene
and had shared that fact with the family.
The emotions spilling off Ramsey had been slamming into Lila as if she were
hitting a brick wall.

“What if Ramsey
needs you?” Adelaide tried a different tack.

Lila lowered her
hand and resuming her packing. “His emotions are all over the place right now,
and I’m not trying to help him calm down. He can handle it. He doesn’t need me
anymore.”

“So you’re going
to leave. Just like that?”

“Just like
that.”

“What if I told
you that the emotions you’re sensing aren’t final in terms of the relationships
in the future?”

“What are you
saying?”

Adelaide sighed.
“I don’t know, honestly. The relationships I see are being clouded by
something.”

“Then don’t tell
me,” Lila advised. Adelaide felt a pulse of comfort come from her sister,
soothing the near panic that was clouding her thinking.

“Listen. I need
to go. Selene is so grateful for the Louisiana tribe’s help. They’re going to
try to convince any
Svatura
out there that Maddox and not the Vyusher is
the danger. Maybe they can get the other tribes to call off their attacks,”
Lila began. “They need one of us to help them. Those tribes will never believe
a Vyusher. And Marcus believes that my gift in particular can help. Especially
since he has a telepath in his group. I can
help
.”

“But if you can
help, then so can I. And so can Nate,” Adelaide insisted.

Lila moved
around the end of the bed to sit beside her sister. “I know. But I really need
some time on my own. And helping Marcus, by myself… it’s exactly what I need to
get some perspective.” She leaned forward and gave her a hug.

Adelaide gripped
her tighter and then gave a shuddering sigh, relenting. “Okay. If it’s what you
need, I understand. I’ll miss you. But I guess I get it.”

Lila gave her a
squeeze and resumed packing. “I’ll miss you, too. But remember that between
Griffin, Ellie, Oren, and Selene, not to mention those newfangled contraptions
like cell phones and the Internet, I’ll constantly be in touch.”

Lila placed the
last items in her suitcase and took one final look around the room she’d shared
with Adelaide. She closed the lid and zipped up the suitcase. “Okay. That’s
it.”

The sisters
regarded each other for a minute, unspoken support and grief and love and worry
passing between them.

“Okay.” Lila
nodded as she said, “Time to go then.”

*****