An Alpha for Valentine

ELEVEN

DEVIN

The Delicate started with the chairs. Her hands caressed the wooden benches and I saw the dim glow of her body shift as she continued onward. “I see him,” She finally spoke. “He is dressed in black and his eyes are red and puffy. It looks like he was crying.” She withdrew her hand from the chairs and looked at me and Jason. ‘He was in grief. One borne from love.”

At least we knew she was legit. We also knew that Satake made it to David Blossom’s funeral. “What else do you see?” I asked her. “Who are the people around? How many are they?”

The Delicate nodded and sank into the floor, her golden hair covering her face and reminding me of Valentine again. Her fingers clawed into the floor. It was almost as if she was trying to get dirt into her fingernails. The dim glow that emanated from her skin got brighter. She was getting something. “There are not many guests. I see a child. She looks young. But I can tell she is beyond her years. Her gait tells me she is Fae. There are three others too. Two are witches and one is human.”

The mention of other witches being present caused alarm bells to ring in my head. Lilith and Ginger’s mother had somehow discovered that Satake was a relic. A discovery that Satake had not even figured out himself. We had kept that discovery a secret, even from the Primrose coven. But witches hungry for power would find something eventually. I did not want to think about it. But those witches could as well be the missing link. I was about to ask the girl to look more into who the witches were when she cut the silence.

“The Fae and your brother talk. It is about David. David Blossom. She is angry and blames your brother for his death. He’s staggering to the front.” She said, crawling towards the altar. It made things very real. I had not realized it had been that bad. I was angry. I was mad at myself and Jason for thinking whatever our brother and the warlock had was just a fling. It was clearly more. Satake must have loved the boy, “He is angry. He is angry. He is angry at himself and witches.”

Of course, he would be angry. The warlock had sacrificed his life for his sake and the reason David Blossom was put in that situation was because of the selfishness of another witch. I looked at Jason as I pondered about what Yasmin Maplewood had put our family through. If Jason had been the one in Satake’s shoes, Wentworth would be on fire. The eye of Cassandra had hinted at it. “I never got to ask,” I said to him. “What happened to Ginger Maplewood after the arrest of her mother?”

“The Primrose coven took her under their wing,” Jason answered. “She is their business now.”

“She is not her mother. You should not hold Yasmin’s sins against her.”

“But she knew,” Jason cut in, still keeping his eyes trained on the Delicate as she forced memories out of the floors of the church. “She knew and she didn’t bother to tell me. We were close. She knew how important Olamide was to me. She knew how important family was for me and she kept her mother’s plans a secret. My mate would have died. Our brother would have died. That is not something I can forgive. The girl should be lucky that she is alive.”

Jason was not wrong. Had the scenario been twisted. Had it been my shoes, heads would have flown. It was not my place to tell him who he could forgive and not forgive. I nodded in understanding and returned my undivided attention back to the Delicate. She was now standing by the altar. She touched the space just below the altar and spoke.

“He stood there. There was a casket just before him. It was open. The smell of flowers filled his nostrils as he looked at the body. He seems to care deeply about the man… No…He is no man. Magic still flows in his bones. Old magic. He is a warlock. Your brother reaches out for his beautiful pale face and falls to his knees. Like clockwork, the windows and the doors of the church slam back and forth as if they resonate with his grief. Clutching on the casket for life, Satake Crow looks at the sky as they darken. A storm seems to be happening. The dark sky occasionally turns bright white as forks of lightning tear through the sky. His grief vanishes. It turns into cunning.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Jason demanded. “Why would Satake’s grief do a whole 360? Did something happen? Did you miss something? Is someone else there?”

The girl stopped and looked at us. The look on her face was easy to read. She was nervous. “The shift of his emotions is strange. Too quick. Maybe I should take a break. Something feels off.”

If a girl who could read emotions and memories of objects and people through a simple touch said that something was off. I was going to believe her. “Alright. Take as much time as you need. We are not going any-”

“We cannot stop now.” Jason cut in, silencing my dissenting voice. “Do one more sweep through that moment. Do not focus on Satake. Focus on the voice and where it is coming from. That could be the person responsible for the disappearance. Let your reach be wide. Focus on the other visitors too. Especially the sprite and the witches.”

“Jason,” I tried to say. “Maybe we should listen-”

“No Devin. Why would we stop now? We are close to getting something. The longer we wait, the harder it will be for the Delicate to read through the memories.”

I understood Jason’s plight. But we can’t be cruel just because we bought her service. “She says there is something strange in his emotion shift.”

“She is a f*****g Delicate!” Jason shot back. “It is in their very nature to be delicate and extra. It is the name but I do not have the time to pamper a girl who cannot handle feeling everything. I just want to find our brother. Don’t you?”

“Of course, I want to find Satake. Why wouldn’t I?”

“So let me do this, Devin. Let the Delicate do her job.”

There was no fighting Jason when he was like this. He probably blamed himself for trivializing Satake’s pain. Of course, he would want to find out something. Anything. I put up my white flag and relinquished control to Jason.

“Look again.,” Jason told the Delicate now that he had permission. “Focus on the visitors. Forget about Satake’s emotional state. What are the others feeling? What are they doing?”

The Delicate nodded in understanding. She was probably used to it already. Her work was the tedious kind and I did nothing but allow it. We all played our part in life’s circle. She focused on the floor and touched it. Her skin rippled with light the second she did.

“What do you see?” Jason probed.

“The Sprite walks out of the door. The three visitors remain. One of the witches present feels grief. She must know the warlock. She walks up to the body and tosses a flower into the warlock’s open casket. She places a reassuring hand on your brother’s shoulder and tells him she is sorry. She then walks out.”

“That leaves the witch and the human. Feel them. What are their emotions in that moment?”

“I feel it again.” The Delicate whispered, her eyes fluttering open and close. “Cunning. Your brother’s emotions keep shifting. It is fast. Too fast.”

“Forget Satake! Focus on the other visitors.”

I noticed the glow on her skin was no longer dull. The light bouncing off her body was increasing with intensity. I stepped closer to where she knelt out of concern. Tears were pouring out of her eyes and her body was trembling. Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong. “Jason, I think we should stop.”

What happened next sent shivers down our spines. The Delicate's body went limp, her eyes rolling back into her head as she began to convulse uncontrollably.

"Is it not enough? Is the pain not enough?" she spoke in a cryptic voice that did not sound like her own.

I took a step towards her to try and snap her out of it, but before I could even touch her, her eyes suddenly burst with a blinding, white light.

“He doesn’t want me to look! He doesn’t want us to look!” she cried out in distress. She clutched at her face, her fingers digging into her skin. “Stop him, please, make it stop,” she pleaded, her voice strained with pain.

I tried to approach her, to comfort her, but she suddenly let out a blood-curdling shriek and began scratching at her eyes, drawing lines of blood down her face. Her eyes emitted a blinding white light, and a deafening sound followed, making me cover my ears and squeeze my eyes shut.

When I opened my eyes again, the room was plunged into darkness, and the girl was lying motionless on the ground. I hesitated for a moment, then cautiously approached her. The glow that had emanated from her body was gone, replaced by a void that seemed to swallow the light around it.

My heart sank as I saw that her eyes were gone, replaced by two empty sockets that seemed to stare into infinity. She was no longer breathing.