Page 25 of Pack Rage (The Splintered Bond #4)
Chapter 24
Names
FLOR
I t took a hot minute to get everybody to stop trying to kill everyone else, and I was well past pissed when the cell finally got quiet enough to let them know it. “Honest to goodness, I never seen so many grown-ass adults throwing fits like it’s an hour past your damned naptime. Now y’all hush the hell up, before I start kickin’ your butts and blessin’ your hearts the old-fashioned way.” I stood on a chair, glaring at every one of the idiots who’d been wrecking the already messy room. At least the food was still mostly on top of the table, and not under it.
In the far corner of the room, Margarette was holding Bradley back from attacking Grigor—again—and agreed. “If you can’t calm down, Bradley, I’ll help her.”
“What does she mean by blessing our hearts?” Grigor asked Finnick, wiping a fleck of blood off his lip. He’d let Bradley get a few punches in, I was pretty sure, but they hadn’t fazed him. He was biting the inside of his cheek, trying to keep from laughing.
“You don’t wanna find out,” I promised, hopping down to check on Mama, who’d gotten agitated and started acting like her old self again, crazy and muttering. My heart sank.
“What’s wrong with her?” Margarette asked after a moment. “Silver poisoning?”
“I don’t know. She’s got silver in her system. But that’s what’s been keepin’ her sane. I thought, anyway. But when she was with my dad, she was clear-headed. Now… Yeah, this is the mate sickness she’s had most of her life, and all of mine.” I sighed as Mama pressed a hand to her gut, and another to her temple, like she was hurting in both places. She probably was.
“I’ve never met your mother,” Margarette said hesitantly. The last day I was in Northern with her, she’d more or less admitted she knew who I was, in relation to Callaway. “I thought she was…”
“Yeah, so did I.” I sighed, but relaxed a little when Mama seemed to settle. “Where are my manners? Margarette, this is my mama, Lily. Lily, this is Margarette Hillier.” I didn’t add their titles, since I wasn’t sure how Mama might react to me saying it out loud to Margarette.
“She’s your mother. She’s the Alpha Mate of Southern,” Margarette breathed, taking in all the silver scars on Mama’s arms and legs as she crawled around. “Poor soul.”
Mama kept muttering as she looked for something. “Heads and hearts. He’s not our Alpha. His wolf is weak.” I didn’t think she was talking about Callaway, though.
“Maybe something happened to Callaway?” Margarette let Bradley go, though he still looked like he might attack Grigor.
Brand stepped between the two males again, taking Bradley’s arm. “We should catch you up on a few things, while you finish eating.”
The Northern Alpha moved stiffly back to the table, like he’d aged a few decades since the last time I’d seen him. Eventually, after he made sure Margarette had eaten all she could, and that Grigor wasn’t close to her, he moved over to the corner along with Finnick to listen to what Brand had to say.
Margarette listened to their conversation with half an ear while I tried to get Mama to return to the sofa. Instead, she went to the low bed and scraped around under it with an arm. “Ha!” She pulled out the short sword that must have been kicked there during the fight, and stood, one hand still pressed to her abdomen. “I don’t know you,” she said to Margarette, her eyes moving over the long scar that stretched across Margarette’s face. She traced one of her own scars and sniffed, her eyes glowing gold. “Your wolf is strong.”
“Hello, Lily,” Margarette replied with a soft smile. “I’m Margarette Hillier, Alpha Mate of the Northern pack. My son Glen Hillier is mated to your daughter, Florida Wills.”
“Boreal, a strong pack,” Mama said after a few seconds. “I’m Alpha M…” She stopped speaking mid-word, her eyes dimming, her lips getting tight. “Florida? Florida Witch?”
I was surprised no one could hear my heart break as I watched her completely slide back into the mama I’d known for so long. When her eyes went wild and landed on me, clouded with hate, I covered my mouth with a hand to keep from making a sound.
To everyone’s surprise, Grigor stepped over to her, holding out an arm, and bowing in that odd courtly way he had done before. We all ignored Bradley’s growl in the corner, listening to Grigor’s formal words. “You are Lily Rain, Alpha Mother of Occidens. Mother to my wolf’s true mate. Heart of the Tenebris pack.” She eyed him suspiciously, but didn’t seem afraid now. Maybe a little wary, but he was blood-spattered. “The Florida witch is long dead. That witch’s daughter is alive, but I vow I will kill her, and keep your child safe.”
Mama’s brow furrowed. “My… daughter. My…”
“Your Flor,” Margarette finished for her, as she reached out a hand. “She is such an exceptional young woman. Can I tell you what she did for my pack? How she saved us?”
“Y-yes.” Mama allowed Margarette to lead her to the sofa, and they sat together, talking softly about me. While the other males cleaned up the mess they’d made, I allowed Grigor to wrap his arms around me, his chest to my back. The little shocks that always came from our contact were muted through our clothing.
“It’s my name, isn’t it?” I asked. “Florida Witch Wills. She hates it. When she hears it, she thinks I’m her. ” I swallowed hard, trying not to let my pain show. “Is it because my father named me?”
Grigor pulled me over to the chair, lifting me to sit on his lap. He was the shortest of my mates, but we fit perfectly, our limbs twining together like we were holding each other up. “Witches can do spells. Both light, bright magic, fueled by the sun or the moon, or created by self-sacrifice. This one was not that kind of witch. Verbena Flock is what Luke said she was called, though her true name could have been something different when she was born. Her kind of magic requires blood, pain, or a sacrifice—but not one of her own.”
“Mama said the witch forced Callaway to promise not to kill me, after. He gave me her name, to force a connection between us.”
“If I didn’t know what an idiot your father was, I would think what he did was very clever. He honored the vow he made to give you her name, in a way. From what I can piece together, the witch your father contracted was the leader of her coven. She expected to break a bond, but your presence in your mother’s womb complicated the spell. Perhaps she sensed your strength, even then.”
The whole room had grown quiet, everyone listening to him. “Changing a name is no small thing, especially if it’s done through the power of blood, and with magic. If you’d been born Verbena Flock, and the witch had survived trying to break your parents’ mate bond, she would have had a hold over you no one could break. You would, in effect, have become a vessel she could pull from, and use.” I shivered at the thought, and he held me a little tighter. “She could have found you no matter where you might be hidden. Even after her death, it’s possible her coven could have pulled strength from you to do their spells.”
I laughed, a little hysterically. “But because my father was an idiot?—”
“Yes,” he said with a smile. “And you and your mother were strong. The witch died, in any case, and your father fulfilled his promise to name you for her, more or less.”
“Where did the name Wills come from?” Bradley was very carefully not looking at Grigor when he asked, but at my mama.
She whispered her reply. “Rose Willow was the name of my best friend when I was a little girl, before we had to run. Mama said we needed a different last name, once we got out of the packlands. They’d kill me if they knew I was…”
“A Rain, one of the descendants of the Alpha Mothers,” Grigor finished for her, when she had to stop for a moment.
She nodded. “Willow was still too close to the pack names, and my mama said Wills meant protector. Resolute protector,” she whispered. “She used her power to change my name.”
“So we really are Wills. I like it. I like knowing where it came from.”
Mama didn’t reply; she’d fallen back on the sofa, obviously in pain. Grigor stood, setting me down on the chair, and approached. He held a hand out to Mama, waiting for her to acknowledge him. “May I? I can ease your pain.”
“No… blood magic.”
“I have sworn to my brother mate, Brand, not to harm an innocent. I would never harm you, Alpha Mother.”
After a long, measuring look, she took his hand. “I’m not really an Alpha Mother. I never had a ceremony.”
“You never needed a ceremony, little blade. You were born an Alpha Mother, and earned the right to the title by fighting without cease for your whole life. You’re one to the shifters in your rogue pack; there’s no other way they could have escaped death, if you hadn’t been the mother they needed to help them battle their madness.”
“Tenebris,” she breathed. “I wish I could see those boys again.”
“I can help you heal, so you can try.”
With a sigh, she closed her eyes. “Call me Mama, then.”
His gaze flew to mine, emotions swirling so fast, I wasn’t certain how he felt. After a few heartbeats, he smiled. “Yes, Mama.” Then he closed his eyes, and I felt—almost saw—the magic moving from him to her.
“Blue,” Brand muttered, moving to my side. “The magic. It’s blue.”
“You can see it?”
“Yes. You can’t?” He wrapped his arms around me.
“No. I can feel it in here, but I can’t see it.” I pressed a hand to my heart. “I don’t have your eyes.”
Those silver-white eyes moved over my face. “You have every part of me, little one.”
We watched as Mama’s features softened. She fell asleep, smiling, and Grigor rose, a little shaky, as Margarette carried Mama to the bed and laid her down. Once she was lying quietly, Brand murmured, “We need to talk. Outside.”He led us all into the hallway.
To my surprise, Bradley and Margarette rushed to me, and before I knew what was going on, they’d enfolded me in a group hug. “Oh, Flor, we’re so glad to see you again. We just wish it weren’t under these circumstances,” Bradley said, before Margarette cut him off.
“I wish I could tell Glen how happy it makes me that he has you—that you all have each other.”
My eyebrows flew upward. I wasn’t sure what had changed, but something had made her get onboard with the multiple mates thing.
“And if you need us to help you disentangle from that one …” Bradley said. “He may have saved my life, but that doesn’t mean he gets to ruin yours.”
Someone growled softly, and everyone went quiet, but when we all looked to see who it was, the growling one wasn’t my wizard mate.
It was Brand. “We are together. Flor, me, Glen, Finn, Luke… and Grigor. Treat him with respect. We need him; she needs him. There will be no more discussion.” His pale eyes bored into Bradley, and it had never been clearer who had more power.
Bradley’s shoulders dropped a split second after his gaze did, and Margarette hmphed. “Well, we’d better discuss a few things before morning. When the moon rises tomorrow night, we won’t have the chance. We need to figure out what weapons we have, both non magical and magical, it seems. We need to plan what to do if…” Her eyes moved from me to each of my mates, and I shook my head.
“Don’t say it. It’s not going to happen.”
“Flor. It’s hard enough with one mate. When Bradley was dying…” She swallowed audibly, but went on. “I would have gone with him. You need to be prepared.”
“I am,” I declared. “I’m prepared to kick witch ass from here to the Atlantic if I have to, maybe see if water really does make them dissolve.”
I thought they’d laugh, but Grigor just mused aloud, “Water, no. But salt could be useful, depending on how much we could lay hands on.” His fingers started moving, like he was doing some mental calculations.
Margarette swallowed again, looking like she was trying not to cry. “I just can’t see how it’ll be all right. If that bitch gets her hands on even one of you?—”
“We’ll just have to hope that doesn’t happen,” Finnick interrupted.
“Hope?” she scoffed, and it was so much like the tone I’d had in my voice every time I’d said that word in my life, up until now, that I couldn’t help but smile.
“Yeah, actually. Del always told me to use every weapon I had. You know what I figured out since I left Northern? One of the strongest ones I ever had was hope, even if I didn’t know it. I always had hope that I’d get out of Southern, so I never gave up running when the bastards hunted me. I hoped that I’d find a place that was safe, so I kept fighting, and hiding, and taunting Ivan when I was kidnapped from your packlands. And I found that place, at Mountain.”
She winced slightly, probably remembering how she’d promised me that safety at her pack.
I gave her a half smile in return. “I even hoped for the impossible. That Brand could be Alpha of his pack, but not have to kill his father to get there. And that came true.”My gaze captured hers, and I saw a dawning understanding. “I hoped for friends, and I found them in the last place I’d ever imagined. My own shitty pack. I never knew that all those years, while I was struggling to stay alive and away from the males, that the girls, the women, were helping me in secret.
“And I’m their hope, Margarette. Without me, without my mates, there is no good world for them. So, I’m going to run with it. I’m gonna let that hope fuel me, and give me the strength to fight for a world they deserve.”
I felt Brand’s eyes on me, then Grigor’s arm slid around my waist. “Let’s find a quiet room and rest for a while, my little blade.”
“We’ll watch your mama,” Brand promised, gently escorting the Hilliers back into the room. I blew him a kiss before Grigor led me down the hall and away, Finnick following behind.