The Chase

22 Evie

Luca and I spent the entire day locked up alone in the cabin. Someone we didn't know brought us a lunch. The normal way, by knocking at the front door and delivering a very fancy looking picnic basket. There was another note inside,

Hope to see you tonight at the BBQ. I made you guys some lunch.

-Melody

She had signed her name with a very large flourish. "Who is Melody?" I asked starting to take out the paper wrapped sandwiches on crusty bread. Some cookies, muffins and other snacks. Everything smelled delicious. We ate, in a not uncomfortable silence, giving me some time to think over everything Luca had been telling me. Everything that had happened. When we first started talking I thought he was taking too long to answer my questions, when I wanted to rush forward.

It didn't take me long to realize Luca wasn't slow, he was being thoughtful. He didn't want to say the wrong thing. I started to fill in my mental map of Luca. The man he was, as he told me where we were. About the pack who had taken us in. While I tried to figure out what was real and what wasn't anymore.

He told me about his own pack, which was werewolf code for super family I decided was the easiest comparison. I had a lot of vocabulary to learn it turned out. I had gained the basic lay of the land over an afternoon. I hadn't read as much as I wanted to. Even I had read enough to know this all sounded like a fantasy.

The hardest things to accept were what he was saying about me. I was a Pixie and could steal magic. Which explained Ash not wanting to touch me if she was essentially an all powerful sorceress, could do almost anything with magic as far as Luca knew.

My roommate and her family could all turn into big cats.

Sara had set Rocket after me, in a fit of jealousy and rage.

Luca was my soulmate.

He was going to keep me safe until some kind of super elite fighter club killed Rocket.

Because Rocket was a vampire now. The smell of his flesh burning in the sun haunting my memories. It was all real. His red, terrifying eyes were real.

A very adorable tween boy with thoughtful dark eyes delivered a phone for me midafternoon, introducing himself as James, Melody's son, exiting quickly on legs that were a little too long for his body right now. The awkward years were hard on everyone. Luca had taken my new phone and installed a safety app, mirroring his own set up. "Its a geofence and map of the pack. Keep the phone on you, and if you get close to the border the phone will sound an alert." I looked at him confused, what good was an imaginary line on a map on a phone going to protect me from?

"Apparently a different witch set a ward around the entire pack lands here. Nothing magical can get inside the border, unless they have been invited on the grounds by one of the five people with a key right now." Before I could even ask who, he answered. Getting faster, knowing I rushed everything. "Raven, the Luna, leader of this pack. Her mates, Louis a dragon, and uh Melody's step brother, Royal, human. Actual human." He smiled at me. A little joke, I didn't feel like I wasn't human yet. Accepting that was going to take me some time. "Melody and her mate Alexander, the former Alpha. He renounced the title in favor of his sister, man it was a big fucking to do when that happened." Luca smiled remembering the storm it had started once the news got out that Raven had run the pack for years before anyone announced it.

I looked at him, "Wait, it was a big deal that a brother didn't want to lead and got his sister to step up instead?" I did not like the sound of that. There was a strict penis on top anything with tits on the bottom hierarchy at Rocket's club. I would not be made less than again.