Chapter 13

[ 853 words ]

Magical barrier

13: 13.

Magical barrier Aria

The living room upstairs looks completely normal.

Which somehow makes everything worse.

A couch.

A coffee table.

A lamp.

It’s the kind of room where someone should be watching Netflix.

Not discussing supernatural creatures.

Liam sits across from me.

Kade leans against the wall.

Barric brings coffee.

I stare at the mug like it might explain my life.

“Start talking,” I say.

Liam exhales.

“Our family has shifter blood.”

I blink.

“Of course it does.”

He ignores the sarcasm.

“We think it’s from Dad’s side.

No one knew earlier because people like us, who don’t have shifter blood on both sides, don’t always turn.

I did it for the first time when I was fifteen.

Pretty late by most shifter standards, actually.”

“I guess we should just be lucky you didn’t turn into a toad,” I intone.

Kade snorts.

Liam shoots him a look.

Then he continues.

“I didn’t want to leave you and mom, but it was the only way to keep you safe while I adjusted to my new reality.”

That gets my attention.

“You say that like you were going to turn into the big bad wolf and start finding out the best ways to eat us.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he says quickly.

“ What I’m talking about is other things.

Enhanced senses, strength, and yeah, the random shifting I had to learn to control.”

“It isnt safe for a new wolf to be amongst humans,” Ronan says without preamble.

“It could hurt the wolf almost as much as the potential to reveal our existence to outsiders.”

There it is.

This is what Theo was talking about when he said our lives don’t fit together anymore.

My mind hazes as Ronan goes into a basic explanation of packs, hierarchy, and specializations, but all I can focus on is Liam.

He was never going to tell me.

He was just going to accept his life without me and leave me none the wiser.

My brother can shift between human and wolf.

He has a whole other existence living alongside his own.

It’s genetic.

It’s ancient.

And my family has been hiding this from me my entire life.

Is that what kept mom up at night?

Knowing what Liam had… inherited.

“There’s something called the Veil,” Liam says, bringing my thoughts back to the present

I rub my temples.

“I hate that word already.”

“It’s basically a magical barrier,” Kade explains.

“It keeps humans from learning about shifters.”

“Why?”

Barric answers that one.

“Because humans used to hunt us.”

My head lifts.

“Hunt you?”

“They called themselves hunters,” Liam says.

“They thought shifters were monsters.”

I laugh.

The sound comes out brittle.

“Right.”

No one answers.

The silence stretches.

My chest tightens.

“You kept this from me,” I say quietly.

Liam’s shoulders tense.

“You abandoned me,” I continue.

“That’s not—”

“You got this whole other life,” I say, gesturing around the compound.

“And I got nothing.

No explanation.

No warning.

Just… silence.”

“Aria.

It isnt like that.

I couldn’t tell you we have rules—”

“Screw you, Liam.

Did turning into a wolf make you lose your autonomy?”

“No Aria—”

“I would have fought for you.

I wouldn’t have let anything come between my family and me because that’s what you do when you love someone.”

“They would have killed you if you knew the truth!” he shouts.

I pause.

My world feels like it’s being suffocated in cellophane.

“Then maybe there are monsters among you.”

The room goes quiet again.

I stand.

“I want to go back with Barric. I have to get up early tomorrow.”

Liam looks surprised.

Ronan appears in the doorway like a shadow.

He studies me for a moment.

Then he nods.

“Fine.”

***

Morning comes too fast.

Kade drives Liam and me to the law office.

No one talks much.

The tension from last night sits between us like a brick.

The office is quiet.

Professional.

Normal.

I cling to that normalcy.

There is no need to talk.

When I woke up this morning, it was like all the things Ronan told me came flooding to the front of my mind.

He’s there, Alpha.

That’s why they listen to him.

Not that I know what else that means for them, but it sounds archaic.

We reach the office at ten, and Liam and I are quickly brought into Meldoy’s office.

The tternoey has apparently been working with mom for the last thirty years.

I sit awkwardly in the pompous wingback chair across from her desk.

The older woman looks exactly like a character of an attorney.

Black, pinstripe suit, hair so neat she must have a pound of hairspray actively fighting gravity, and eyes that look like they are assessing your weakness.

“Mr.

and Ms. Vale.

Thank you for taking the time to come in today,” she says, pushing a folder to each of us.“ This meeting will be rather quick.

Your mother left all of her estates and assets quite clean.

If you open up the folder, you will see she left each of you considerable assets,” she explains.

I flip through the documents.

Numbers jump off the page.

Huge numbers.

My eyes widen.

“That’s… a lot of money.” I keep reading and notice something else.

“Is that the Starlight Diner?”

Liam looks over.

“Indeed, it is. Your mother was the silent partner of a few businesses in town. She left one for each of you based on your individual interests. Of course, once you sign as the owners, you can continue or sell. Their choice is yours.” Melody says.

She presents us with two pens.

“Just sign and initial, and we’ll get you ll sorted.”

I take the pen and scribble my name across the line.

My stomach twists.

Because one question keeps echoing in my head.

Where the hell did our mother get that kind of money?

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