Second Chances

Chapter Three

Chapter Three: The Circle

April 1, 2011

Since Della’s shift ended shortly after lunch did, so Becky and Leigh went off with her to do God knows what. I, on the other hand, was forced to go meet with the Circle of Elders, which my crazy old bat of a grandmother just so happened to lead (and she was voted in, can you believe?).

“You’re late.” My dear granny (oh, the sarcasm) Jemima’s patronizing rang out, followed by a sharp silence.

“I am,” I replied icily, glaring as I looked around my grandmother’s small hut. Twelve other Elders sat in a circle (thus, they were called “Circle of Elders”). They were all psychic – a side effect of becoming an Elder.

“Why, Lucas?” The witch Elder Arianne – whose youthful attractiveness still shone in her green eyes despite her old age – questioned gently. The past three years she’d spent coddling me like she did her grandchildren, because of Brittanie.

“Alpha,” I corrected her harshly, walking into the middle of the circle.

Elder Arianne looked upon me sadly, her eyes so similar to all the looks I’d received since Brittanie’s death.

“Stop with the pity,” I hissed.

 “She is your Elder boy,” chided Elder Herb – who was the son of a witch, of course. “Respect her.”

“No, respect me!” I boomed in reply, spinning towards him angrily. Frankly, I was sick of being scolded like a child. I was no child. I was the Alpha, and he had to treat me as such.  

“I believe Becky told you this yesterday,” Jemima said, “but you best take these words into consideration. Brittanie doesn’t you like this. She doesn’t want her death to affect you like this. She still wants you to be the Lucas Montgomery she fell in love with. And how many times do I have to remind you she’s still here watching over you?” She said swiftly with such a matter-of-fact tone that was clear as the cloudless blue sky.

I was tired of her and everyone else telling me that. And it sent me over the edge. “She’s dead! Brittanie was murdered three years ago! A goddamned knife was stabbed through her chest, and she died right there in my arms! She’s gone!” I couldn’t keep my voice from cracking as I said, “Nothing but a decayed corpse six feet under.”

“Calm yourselves!” cried Elder Mary, one of the only full-blooded werewolves in the circle. “Jemima, you must stop torturing the boy about Miss Cotton. But Lucas, realize they’re all right, and you are the wrong one. Brittanie came back just to see you. She’s come back time after time.”

“Enough talk of her!” I shouted. “Enough of it! Now, we must talk about the girl that Tallulah sent here.”

“Todd’s old mate?” Elder Caleb thought out loud. I ignored him, as disrespectful as it was said to be. I was going to burn in hell anyways, so who really cares about respect?

“She’s joining us tonight,” I told them. “She’s with my sister now. But we draw the treaty tonight, then she’ll send word for Tallulah. Then, no more disputes. The border is to be shared, not to be killed over. We’re tired of dragging dead bodies back.”

Elder Mary looked down with my last sentence. The carelessness of those words must have stung. Her grandson was one of the boys killed in a border fight.

“We should be watching for Ivan, not pettily killing,” Elder Herb agreed.

I growled. Another sore subject. They seemed to love to pain me, because Ivan – who was supposed to become Alpha – had been the one to kill Brittanie because I took his position.

“He’ll be back someday,” hastily added Elder Ariane. “I’ve seen it.” She and my grandmother were psychics (which probably was what made them crazy, if it wasn’t old age).

“I want to stab his mate in the chest,” I muttered darkly. “See how he feels about that!”

“You have no sympathy for the girl?” snapped Elder Louisa, a petite half-human/half-wolf with a fiery temper. “My dear granddaughter Lisa is a good girl, Lucas! Don’t you dare harm her! Harm Ivan, if anyone!”

“Too much conversation,” I said tightly. “On with speaking to the oh so wise spirits.”

“They don’t appreciate your sarcasm,” lightly teased Elder Ariane, desperately trying to lighten the mood.

“Or the inner sarcastic monologue, Lucas,” she went on. “Shall we?”

A few mumbled replies later, I was once again seated calmly in the middle, as they chanted around me.

“Oh my Gods!” breathed both Ariane and Jemima as a fire suddenly began to blaze in the fireplace. No one but them could see what was going on, and I could see that whatever it was shocked them.

“Tallulah was summoning spirits,” murmured Jemima, intently watching. “Trying to get to Todd. Oh Gods.”’

“There’s Brittanie, standing alone. She looks scared, lost.”

And what was left of my soul shattered. This whole time, I could’ve seen Brittanie? She was just out of my reach? And why was she so frightened?

“She’s fading – Brittanie is. Then, she disappeared. Later, there’s a blonde woman,” probably Leigh, “standing beside the fire suddenly. Tallulah looks shocked.”

For the first time in so long, someone dared to touch my shoulder with a gentle and reassuring squeeze. I turned my head to see Elder Winthrop, the youngest and newest Elder. “I lost my Elspeth twenty years ago,” he whispered to me, carefully as not to offend me. “None of them have lost their mates yet, so they don’t understand your loss. But they will, Lucas. They will, unfortunately, have to live with the pain of their other half’s perishing.”

I nodded mutely, before looking back to my grandmother and Ariane.

Tonight, though, I’d do my damned best to forget Brittanie, and look to the future.

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