Seduced by Innocencey(14)

One look in the mirror told me she had more skills than I did. "Thanks, Sis."

I slipped on my suit jacket and hoped I wasn't overdressed. Perhaps I should have told her where we were going so she'd know what to wear. I didn't want to make her uncomfortable on our first date.

Oh, God. Now I sounded like a girl. I needed to get this chick out of my head. Maybe sleeping with her would do the trick. But even as I thought it I knew I couldn't use her in that way.

The clock in the hall chimed six times. I still had over an hour before I needed to leave to pick up Rose.

I turned to Tammy and presented myself. "Do I look okay?"

She rolled her eyes. "You know you do. You have women eating out of your hands. I'm glad I'm your sister, because I'd hate to be one of your conquests!"

"That's just wrong, Tam. I can't think of you that way."

"Why are you so nervous about this girl? Is she special?"

I considered her question carefully before answering. "Yeah, you know, I think she might be. Which is really bad."

Tammy flopped on my bed and made herself comfortable. "Why, because it means you might have to stick around awhile?"

"That's exactly why. I'm not ready to give up my life just yet." I slipped my watch on and checked to make sure I had cash in my wallet.

"Is our life here so bad that you just can't imagine being a part of this family?" She tried to keep her words light, but I heard the hurt behind them.

"It's not you guys, it's me. I'm just not cut out to follow in Dad's footsteps."

"Then don't. Stay, but live your own life. He's not an ogre, you know." She stood and crossed her arms over her chest. "He's not going to force you to be something you don't want to be."

I thought back to when I first left home. "That's not what it felt like last time we talked about it."

"You're like an old man with a grudge, you know that?" Her eyes brightened as her anger took over. "You get in one fight with him and decide nothing here is worth keeping. He's human. He made a mistake. Don't you think it's time to give him a chance to do better? Or are you so perfect that you've never said something you regretted later?" Now her eyes had a feral quality to them, and I could feel her power surface as she channeled her inner animal.

"Are you going to shift and challenge me for successor rights?" I meant it to come out as a joke, but it sounded more like a plea.

Her face fell. "Dean would have, if you'd really wanted him to."

I pulled her into my arms. "How is he?"

"The same. It's like he has nothing left in him, but every now and then I feel something, like a shadow of who he was." She frowned. "It's almost worse when I feel that, because it gives me hope, and I don't think there's any hope in his recovery."

"They should pay for what they did to him. Those witches are out of control." I let Tammy go and stormed downstairs and into my dad's library.

"Dad, we need to talk."

He looked up from his book and stood. "Of course, Son, what is it?"

"Why aren't we getting everyone together to go after the witches and destroy them for what they did to Dean? Why are we just sitting here on our asses doing nothing?"

My wolf roared inside of me, and I fought off the desire to shift and then to hunt.

"Derek, you know that's not our way. We are guardians of vast power, and with that comes—"

"—immense responsibility," I finished. I'd heard this bullshit too many times growing up. "But they're dangerous. Don't we have a responsibility to protect ourselves and other innocents from their misuse of power? Someone in that coven is powerful enough to strip Dean, a powerful Druid and shifter, of his life, while leaving his body functional. Doesn't that scare the crap out of you?"

He sank into his chair and covered his face with his hand. "You have no idea how scared that makes me, and how grief-stricken I am about this. Your mother is devastated and is hardly eating or sleeping. Everyone is deeply affected by what has happened to Dean, but we have to use our heads and not run in half-cocked and ready to destroy them. We don't know who did this or why. We don't know how many members of the coven are a part of what's happening. Would you want to destroy innocent lives by mistake?"

I hadn't thought of that, that there might be members of the coven who weren't involved in this. But that didn't change the fact that we had to do something soon. And we had to find a way to fix my brother.

But looking at my father's face, at the lines that had grown deeper even in the time I'd been home, the way his eyes had dulled, I couldn't bring myself to keep arguing with him.

Dad stood, hugged me, then let me go. "I love you, Son. I love all three of you more than you'll ever know. But you know the Druid's have a violent history. Do you remember what I taught you?"