"No, this can't be. This doesn't make sense. It must just be someone who looks like her."
"Rose, look at her necklace."
I did, and my heart sank. She wore the rose pendant that my grandmother had given Mother to pass down to her first born daughter. Me.
I reached for the pendant hanging around my neck and stroked the hand painted rose, custom made for my grandmother when she was my age.
My mother and the Druid's leader had been involved, and she'd lied about it all these years.
The horror didn't end as Ocean kept speaking.
"Maybe he's attacking us out of jealousy or something. But by all accounts, he's a happy family man with three kids and a loving wife. Not much is mentioned about them in public, but they seem like a solid family. Rose, I'm so sorry to say this, but what if we have this all wrong. What if there's something more going on than we realize?"
My mind couldn't process anything else in that instant and I lay back against the couch and closed my eyes, willing everything to just go away.
TWELVE
This Day's Black Fate
DEREK
This day's black fate on more days doth depend;
This but begins the woe, others must end.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
THE MOON HUNG low in the sky, full and bright. We had no more compulsion to shift on a full moon than any other night of the month, but it did bring out our more animal nature.
I'd tried to sleep, to read, to work out, but nothing could pull my mind away from Rose. Grabbing my phone, I gave in to the need to call her, despite the late hour.
"Hello?" She sounded dried out and scratchy, like she'd been crying.
"Rose, it's Derek. I'm sorry to call so late, but I had to see if you're doing okay."
I paced back and forth, leaving footprints in the light dusting of snow that coated the courtyard behind our house.
"Derek. Um, I can't really talk now. And I'm not sure I'll be able to make our date tomorrow night. I'm sorry." Her voice cracked and she stopped talking.
"Are you okay? What happened?" She hadn't said she didn't want to see me at all, so there was some hope.
"Someone killed a litter of puppies tonight. I'm the one who found them… " Her voice trailed off as if she'd left something else unsaid. But what she had said was bad enough. I wanted desperately to hold her and take her away from all the pain she'd experienced today, but that wasn't yet my role. I was still a relative stranger, despite a few intimate moments.
"God, I'm sorry. Do you know who's responsible? Can I do anything to help?" I silently begged her to say yes, that I could help by coming over and being there for her.
"No. Thank you, but I have to go. It's been a tough night. I'll try to call you tomorrow."
"I understand. I'm here for you if you need me, Rose. Get some rest."
I slipped the phone into my pocket and walked toward the one place I might be able to find some peace.
As I walked through the woods, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, as if someone were watching me. I looked around but didn't see or hear anyone. Using my shifter senses, I inhaled deeply to catch the scent of anyone unfamiliar, but got nothing. I shrugged it off as my own paranoia after the night I'd had.
A field of magic surrounded the hidden garden, and for a moment I worried that being away might have turned it against me, but I slipped through without a problem.
Inside I stood in awe at the beauty of this place. No matter how many times I came here, it always stilled something restless inside of me.
Exotic flowers grew side by side with indigenous trees. Mossy boulders had been placed strategically for sitting or leaning against. Ripe fruit hung heavy from trees long out of season, and in the center of it grew the most perfect rose bush I'd ever seen.
Roses of every color grew from one bush, always fragrant, no matter the weather, petals pristine and powerful.
Each rose color held different magical properties, and the tonics that we derived from them, and oils we culled from them, had made up the bedrock of my family's successful business at Rose Botanicals.
The few remaining Druids heavily guarded this power source, as it also held the heart of our power.
I didn't want to admit, even to myself, how much I'd missed being in proximity to these roses, to my family. Here my soul began to mend, filling out like a person starved and dehydrated who finally found their oasis. I couldn't allow myself to accept the truth of that, because if I did, I would have to choose this life, and then I would lose any semblance of freedom and choice I'd ever have.
Shoving those thoughts aside, I plucked the right combinations of petals to make the cream I'd need to help Rose heal her arm. Even her scar would heal almost completely, leaving only a faint line to indicate anything harmful had ever befallen her.