Chapter 51

Helen POV

The wizards and the Fae have dinner at one massive table. It’s a large event with dancers and magic and delicious food. We sit on small pillows around the low hanging table suspended from the larges branch of the pine trees above.

This place is beautiful, and I’m envious of their sense of community.

As a wolf in a pack, I was never allowed to eat let alone sit at the dining table with my so called family. But here they hand out plates to the little ones first, letting them pick through the dishes in the middle of the table before the adults can.

Wizard Olu, who had found Justin and I on the road, handed us a plate next while mentioning we are the Fae’s distinguished guest. Something tells me they haven’t been around many wolves, like we haven’t been around wizards.

There was a hint of tension, but it was small enough to ignore with ease.

They gawked at our every movement; Justin ridged in his movements while I hung onto the robe I was given to wear. It puddled at my ankles and the loose fabric pooled around me when I sit.

It’s the most beautiful shade of purple with a gold rope cord around my waist. I never want to give it back. It warm too, which is second in importance to the heap of food on my plate.

The Fae stands when everyone has their plates made, the large and singular table quieted down to the slightest flicker of the torches planted everywhere.

“We give thanks tonight to the moon, the sun and our many blessings in this world,” he hummed while holding up an ornate gold and black goblet. “And to our new guests, we are happy to serve as a safe haven to our species, no matter their histories.”

I leaned into my mate, watching everyone sip their glass accordingly. I feared the sight out it, recalling what the vampires were drinking in the club and terrified it’s something unselling to wolfen kind.

“You don’t want your juice?” The daughter of Olu asked.

Penelope scampered over to the open spot beside me, her father sat down beside Justin. I looked at the meek child and then to my glass of peachy colored liquid.

“It’s just juice? What kind?”

“Pear and Vervain.”

I pondered that ingredient carefully. “Do you know what that is, Penelope? I don’t think I’ve ever had Vervain before.”

The Fae sat at the head of the table, the spot where the seat in carved out of the thick trunk of the tree that hangs over us. He sips on his glass, cutting into our discussion while he is served his food on special silver trays.

“It’s a wizard’s plant,” Russo said smoothly. “It holds powers that keep my society going. It heals, calms, and when it’s in natural bush form, it wards off vampires.”

I am thankful for that aspect, at least. “It heals?”

Russo nodded, tending to his glass so quickly that it had to be refilled. “Yes, it heals mostly all species, except for those insatiable blood cravers. Your Lycan mate had mentioned you were poisoned. I can only assume it was wolfsbane?”

I shuddered in the memory of my body going stale, only fixed by the intervention of a vampire that wanted to keep me from my fated mate. We came too close to danger in Las Vegas. It pained me to reconsider the last few days of events.

“His father attached a device that would poison me if I tried to take it off,” I admitted in heavy whisper. “I couldn’t shift to help him fight off a vampire, and it was set off when I tried to remove it.”

Russo picked at his plate, while my hunger was overpowered by my grief.

“My entire flock was killed off and hunted for decades and you know who started the war that led to that death and destruction?”

I swallowed, shaking my head in minimal rebuttal.

“My family,” he said. He looked around the table thoughtfully, obviously very caring over the wizards of this community. “Fae’s are territorial over land and over power. When sources were better found on someone else’s territory, it was a battle to gain those supplies.”

“That kind of sounds like wolves,” I admit.

He smiled with that comparison. “Yes, much like wolves.” He waves his hand through the air, clearing that topic quickly before moving onto the next. “I was the runt of my family, the least powerful. But here I am now, the only survivor of that massacre.”

I leaned forward, fascinated with that claim. “You were the outcast of your family? That’s just like—”

My words caught in my throat and I couldn’t determine why. I saw a lot of his past in my present, but outcast isn’t a good enough description of me.

A Tiger Lily, first mate rejected, blood poisoned Lycan bait.

My head fell in shame. I’m worst than an outcast. I’m a damn leper.

“They treated me like staff more than they did like family,” I breathed in humiliation. “They chose my sister over me. Even my first mate—” I looked at Justin who was encompassed in his own conversation.

I cared for him too much to ever consider him as a second mate, even if it were true.

“I wish we had unity, like you and the wizards have,” I said to Russo.

He looked over his community like they were all his offspring, or his siblings, and it ached to think how my father and Alpha King Juden would never unify their pack like this.

It’s all about status, about coat colors, and other trivial indicators that made me the house staff of my family home and that made Diana the golden child of the household.

“It took time to gain this unity,” Russo said. “It seems easy now, but we’ve face tremendous lose and even more heartbreak than I was anticipating. We’re not perfect, but we’re striving for it. That’s enough for me.”

I liked that a lot. I’m not perfect, nor could I ever be so, but the effort in doing so is plenty satisfying.

“Relax, child, try some of your drink,” he offers. “Go ahead and enjoy yourself tonight. For tonight, as the outcasted rejects of our families, of our packs, we revel in small victory. Our existence is a feat of rebellion worth fighting for.”

As I sipped the drink, I felt a rush of warmth travel through my blood. It was delicious but also potent, my wolf coming to the surface for a breath while I finally attempt to satisfy my hunger.

No matter the danger from Juden, the looming threat of Scott and my sinister sister, I feel invigorated in this moment. Joy is finally back in my head, tired but alive, and I couldn’t be happier with it.

A Fae who was persecuted and pursued by the higher powers of his world has made it to this beautiful treetop paradise, the leader of wizards who obviously respect and adore him.

After seeing all of this, I know now that Justin and I will have the same fate.

But nothing good comes without a fight.

I settled into my mate’s side, his lips kissing my scalp between conversation lapses with Olu. Everyone was so settled in their world in the trees, no matter how crazy it may have sounded on paper.

It’s their new reality. I want a reality like it. A pack with strong community, no outcasted lepers and no coat-colored rankings. We should all be equal and happy and thriving.

Fuck, how I wish we could thrive.