Dangerous Beauty

Chapter 7: Bedtime Stories

                With Aiden gone I’m left with nothing to do but sit and ponder the extent of my newfound abilities. Biting my lip, I walk to the living room window a look out at the forest in front of me my eyes turning toward the tops of the trees as a light breeze ruffles the autumn leaves and needles of the evergreen trees. I clear my mind and focus my attention on the treetops and try to picture the wind blowing strongly through them. Nothing happens. With I sigh I consider giving up just as a strong gust of wind rushes through the trees and shaking the window in its frame. A smile creeps its way onto my face and I try again. The air responds almost immediately with another strong gust of wind.

                “This is amazing,” I say out loud to the empty room.

                I stand and test my affinity for the wind for a few minutes longer before turning away from the window and heading into the kitchen. The first thing I see is my grandfather’s journal sitting on my kitchen table. My fingers graze over the thick leather bound book and my mind wanders back to the stories inside. With the intention of reading further I turn and fill he kettle on my counter with water and put it on the stove to boil water for tea before sitting down at the table and picking up the journal and turning to the next entry.

                February 10, 2002

                I saw Luther today. He was lurking around the edge of my property watching Lilith and I as we fished. As soon as I saw him I gathered Lili and raced with her back to my hunting cabin and called for the others. I couldn’t leave her alone to go fight Luther, there could be others watching, waiting. All it would take is me dropping my guard for a second, just one second, and everything would be over. I would lose Lili and getting her back would lead to a m******e. It didn’t take long for the others to arrive and chase Luther off. He was alone this time, just watching us. Probably waiting for the opportunity to try and snatch her from me to try and make her join him and his followers. But that can’t and won’t happen, not if I can help it.

                The sound of the kettle whistling startled me back to reality. I set the journal down and stood taking the kettle off the burner and poured the steaming water into a mug and placed a bag of Twinning’s jasmine green tea in to steep, covering the top of the mug with a saucer. After two minutes I pulled the tea bag out and mixed in brown sugar and milk before sitting back down at the table and staring at the open journal in front of me debating reading further. My eyes lingered over the page and the rest of the entry. With a sigh and a sip of tea I picked the journal back up and began reading again.

                After Luther was gone I took Lili home to her mother and father and charger Joseph with the task of watching their house for the night. Meanwhile I have scheduled to meet with the elders to discuss how best to deal with Luther and his followers. They must be stopped at all costs. But I’m not sure I have the strength to do it alone. Nor do I think I ever will. Our only hope at this point is my little Lili. She is already so strong I can’t even imagine how strong she will be when she comes of age. I noticed her power first when she was still small. When she threw a temper tantrum I would notice how the wind would pick up and rage through the trees. Her mother never noticed only passed it off as coincidence whenever I would bring it up. She always thought that I was overly superstitious. But she believes now too and it makes things so much easier.

                 The sun is setting. Before too much longer it will be time for me to leave to meet with the elders. I need to prepare.

                And with that the entry ended. A glance at the stove clock told me it was already 8:00 p.m. and the sun had long since set. Gathering up the journal and my cup of tea I stand and head to my bedroom Hades following knowingly. I set my journal and my tea on my nightstand and go to take a shower. I stood beneath the hot water for a long while letting my mind wander before getting out and getting ready for bed. I almost jumped out of my skin when I walked back into my room and saw Aiden sitting on my bed.

                “What are you doing here?” I asked him breathlessly.

                “I need you to come with me,” he said his tone serious.

                “Why what’s wrong?”

                “I’ll explain on the way you might wanna get changed,” he said walking out of the room.

                I quickly changed out of my pajamas and into jeans and a t-shirt before leaving the room and finding him waiting in the living room.

                “Follow me,” he said walking out the front door.

                I follow him quietly out the front door closing it on Hades as he tried to follow me out the door.

                “Where are we going?” I asked him as we walked toward the forest.

                “To meet the elders,” he answered not turning around.

                “What? Why?” I asked jogging to catch up to him.

                “They want to talk to you,” he said simply

                With that he fell silent as he led me deeper and deeper into the woods. We walked for what felt like hours before we came to a circular grove of ancient trees each tree intertwined with the one next to it. Through the overgrowth I could see the glow of what must be a bonfire that only grew brighter and brighter the closer we came. At first it there didn’t seem to be a way through the brush and into the center of the grove itself until Aiden lead me around to the opposite side and pushed aside a group of bushes and motioned for me to walk through. I stepped carefully through the opening an into the circle of trees. As I looked around I was awed to see a large group of people all standing around the fire enjoying themselves as they all talked and laughed and drank. But as I stepped into the circle their voices fell silent and all eyes fell on me. I stood awkwardly and scanned the space around me and spotted a decent sized tepee standing in the shadows opposite me.

                “This way,” Aiden says from my right as he begins to lead me toward the tepee. I follow obediently.

                As we reach the opening the circle comes alive with the quiet whispers of the people around me. I could still feel eyes on my back as I ducked into the tepee. Inside another small fire sits in the center of the room and around it sit a small group of four men and three women all looking to be in their sixties and some in their eighties.

                “Welcome Lilith,” says a small woman with black hair and kind, bright blue eyes, “please sit,” she says and I sit across from them, “My name is Elaina,” she introduces herself.

                “Why am I here?” I ask looking at each of them individually.

                “Because it’s time you learned the truth about who and what you are,” said a man who looked to be the oldest of the group.

                “What do you mean?” I asked.

                “What Orion means to say is that it’s time you learned our history and what is expected in our future,” explained Elaina.

                “You see,” began one of the other women, “You’re a very special girl Lilith,” she said, “you’re our only hope when it comes to defeating Luther.”

                I stared back at them in utter confusion. What could they possibly mean when they say that I am their only hope in defeating Luther?

                “How?” I ask.

                “We’ll start from the beginning,” says Orion, “It began long before you were born,” he began, “for as far back as our people can remember there have been stories of powerful alphas that would come along once every few generations called grand alphas. The last alpha we had like that was Luther’s great-grandfather and his three times great-grandfather before that. The assumption at the time was that the power was passed down through direct bloodlines so Luther’s father began grooming him to be the next grand alpha. For a while the outlook was promising, Luther showed promise, great promise in fact. We all thought he for sure would be the next grand alpha. But we were wrong,” he sighed mournfully.

                “Over time Luther became corrupt,” began the woman to the left of Elaina, “he assumed that once the power of the grand alpha was passed on to him that he would be the most powerful one yet. But he was wrong. Luther never came into the power and this angered him greatly. He sought to take the power by force by killing his great grandfather when he was no older than eighteen, but this did nothing. As the years went by Luther fought to make himself stronger and without the appearance of a new grand alpha he fought to take the place as pack alpha. He eventually succeeded.”

                Elaina sighed ruefully, “But Luther wanted more, control over the American packs wasn’t enough for him. He wanted total control of all packs through out the world and he was willing to do whatever it took to gain that kind of power, even if it meant sacrificing everyone in his pack to reach his goal. As you can imagine that didn’t go over well with the other pack alphas with whom we had made treaties with not to invade their land. However, Luther was still intensely powerful and overthrowing him was difficult. But your grandfather was able to do so and Luther was forced into exile for his crimes against the pack. And with him went some of our strongest pack members who believed in what Luther was promising them. For years your grandfather and our remaining warriors managed to fend off Luther and his followers with no indication of who the next grand alpha would be,” Elaina explained.

                “What does this have to do with me?” I asked quietly.

                “You see Lilith,” began Orion once again, “What no-one knew at the time was that the power of the grand alpha is passed on at random both direct and indirect blood lines. You my dear, are distantly related to Luther, and that power has been passed on to you, you are the next grand alpha,” he said, “And so far you are the most powerful one we have seen for many generations.”

                “Luther seeks to try and take your power from you by any means he deems necessary,” says the woman to Elaina’s left speaking up once again, “even if it means killing you.”

                My eyes go wide as I stare at the woman in disbelief.

                “Aiyana’s right Lilith,” says Elaina.

                The world around me begins to spin and I can feel my chest heave with heavy breaths as I begin to hyperventilate. The reality of the situation began to sink in as I sat there panicking. Luther was going to do whatever it took to get access to my abilities and he wasn’t going to stop until he had achieved his goal. My vision began to blur with tears that spilled uncontrollably down my cheeks.

                “Lilith breath, calm down,” someone commanded from outside my field of vision which began to darken around the edges.

                Before I knew it the ground was rushing up to meet me and the world around me faded to black.