Wanted by the Alphas(35)
Lucien pauses. He is deliberating how much to tell her again, Shannon knows.
He clears his throat and continues:
“The only thing they found was a circle around him scattered in chalk dust. The circle had symbols in it. It was a witch’s circle, something my ancestors would have used to contain a dangerous being.”
“Is Kyle a dangerous being?” Shannon says carefully.
She knows she is onto something here and she has mostly put everything together, but she also knows Lucien will never reveal all his secrets.
“Is any human being dangerous?” Lucien smiles. “We are living in the Pacific Northwest which is known for its vast number of serial killers. So yes, every person is potentially dangerous. You, me, anyone.”
She nods at his deflective answer.
Lucien says, “My family history is in the annals for anyone who wants to read them. We have never covered up the fact that we had ancestors who were accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake back in New England. But it doesn’t mean we are the only witch family in Dolphin’s Bay, and it doesn’t mean we are practicing witchcraft. We should not be held culpable for the deeds of our ancestors.”
She agrees. Except that she doesn’t quite believe that the Walkers have stopped practicing witchcraft. She remembers the change that had come over Lucien when he was arm-wrestling her brother. Was that witchcraft, or does Lucien have innate powers he will not speak of?
She says hesitantly, “Lucien, I remember the day we met.”
He nods.
“I saw you watching me. I kept my eyes mostly on you, if you remember. You were the most beautiful thing I’d seen in a long time.”
She flushes. No matter how many times she has received a compliment from him, she will never get used to it.
He continues, “Your brother is very strong. The strongest man I’ve met so far since – ”
He trails off. Shannon supposes he is going to say Kirk Fitzpatrick.
“Are you a witch, Lucien?” she asks.
He doesn’t reply for a long while. They have come to the ocean on one side of the drive, and the sun dapples the wave caps with dazzling highlights.
He says, “I have inherited certain powers that I have some control of, and others I have none.”
She licks her lips. She has known this all along. “What powers?”
He gazes at her out of his brilliant blue eyes. “I can enhance my strength, speed, agility, memory when I choose to. It’s like taking a booster. An immense booster. But it doesn’t last, depending on how taxing the circumstances are.”
“Do you know witchcraft?”
“I won’t deny that when I was a child, I was very curious about it. There are books and tomes in the library back in my father’s home with spells in them. Some of them require a coven to perform the incantations.”
She has her answer. So he knows witchcraft. A sliver of anxiety trails down her backbone.
“But I don’t practice witchcraft, Shannon,” he says gently. “I don’t live in my father’s house anymore. We have no need for witchcraft. We have money. It’s ‘fuck you’ money, the kind which can buy off islands and small banana republics. We have the world at our feet. We have no need for witchcraft.”
“But your father and sister use it from time to time.”
He doesn’t reply to this for a while.
Then: “They have never used it to harm someone. And they certainly didn’t kill Kyle Fitzpatrick.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know. The police investigated it for a long time, found no evidence to link this to any of us and anyone else in town, and left it as an unsolved crime. So the Fitzpatricks have no grouse with us. I won’t deny some sort of witchcraft has been involved in killing Kyle Fitzpatrick, but we are not the only witches in the vicinity.”
“Who else is a witch?”
“Those are not my secrets to reveal.”
They have come to a scenic outlook which is placed on the promontory of a cliff overlooking the ocean. Lucien parks the Mustang and they both get out. Part of her wonders, irrationally, if he would push her off the cliff now that he has told her his secrets.
She shivers in the wind.
This is Lucien! her brain tells her. Lucien who held you and made sweet love to you only this morning, and gazed into your eyes with such ardor and passion and love, even though he has never uttered the words.
He says, looking out into the ocean, “Your brother, Jared, has powers too, doesn’t he?”
It’s no use denying it.
“Yes.”
“Witch?”
“Shapeshifter.”
Lucien holds his breath, and then releases it. “Then he would not be alone here.”