Spurned Queen

Chapter 20: Urgent Summons

Lexi

I scowled, Logan and Cara munching on freshly baked muffins while dressed impeccably for school. I had a splitting headache from getting drunk last night, and Cindy and Tyler had taken it upon themselves to give me a hard time. Their devil spawn children had dragged me out of my room long before sunrise, demanding that I make them a "special breakfast." When I asked them why they couldn't just get their mother to do it, they happily informed me that said she-wolf had explicitly assigned me to them this morning. And I didn't even get the chance to go and kick her ass for it, since her little monsters kept me corralled in the kitchen.

"Mum!" "Morning Mum!"

I turned to glare at the proud woman who just strutted in while Tyler lingered at the entrance. She placed kisses in the two red-brown shocks of hair with motherly pleasantries, before sitting down and rubbing her hands together. She took a deep sniff.

"Mmmm, hot blueberry muffins for breakfast! How delicious!" With a sly smirk at me, she dared ask, "How's the headache coming along, Lexi?"

If possible, my glare sharpened.

"Aunt Lexi has a headache? No wonder she's so pissy," remarked Logan calmly.

My eye daggers switched targets. I wondered if Cindy would really mind if I relieved him of his liver.

Tyler grinned. "Is that so? Maybe a small bottle of wine would help cheer you up?"

"I would murder you two right now, but the kids would be traumatized by such R-rated violence," I growled over the link.

In my head, I heard them both cackling like old crones.

Carefully staying out of the twins' sight, I flipped them both the cheeky bird.

The meal progressed as it always did, with threats and scoldings and laughter. The twins made comments that dropped all jaws, I made threats that rounded eyes, and the Alpha couple showed small affectionate gestures that made their kids gag and pull faces.

As soon as we were finished and the twins ran upstairs, I felt a warmth stirring in my right wrist. A quick glance showed that the coven runes, normally hidden under the skin, were now faintly glowing and therefore visible.

"Shit, I gotta run," I said, spurred to a small sense of panic by the signal of urgent summons which my mom had sent me.

Tyler and Cindy saw the glow and understood. Cindy pursed her lips. They glanced at each other. "Can't be helped," Cindy sighed.

"What?"

She waved away my worries. "Nothing much. Just some Alpha meeting we had scheduled. I'll be staying here with my kids."

"Ask Dylan," I shrugged, rubbing the runes to get rid of the red glow.

"Nah, there's some stuff I need to finish up here anyway."

"Suit yourself," I said, before rushing up the stairs to get dressed to meet the Head Witch.

***

By the time I got to the coven, it was thick with tension. A strange sense of unease had settled over the place like a fog. We were only thirteen in the coven, but I had seen over fifty fingers twitch nervously just on my journey to see the Head.

She sat still as ever in her elevated seat, head high and eyes undaunted, as always. Rowan, her apprentice, stood tall and proud at the foot of the steps. When she spotted me, her lips flattened onto a thin line.

"Welcome back, Alexandra," she said formally, "though I am ashamed to say that so soon, having given you a week off, only to call you back before it was done."