Chapter 244

Grace

My lips twitched. "They were... mates?"

He nodded. "Werewolf-Lycan mate pairs, in general, are different. It's hard to explain, but you should know she was happy with him, and he with her. We went to the wedding, and she decided to stay here to help him run Mooncrest. As I said before, I had no idea about the curse. It wasn't until recently that Stormclaws had even started to mingle with werewolves."

"Prejudice?"

"Distance," he said nonchalantly. "Stormclaw is farther inward of the territories, on the other side, in fact."

I nodded. I couldn't help but imagine my parents. The way they looked at one another. They had always seemed so in love.

"By the time I figured it out, she was pregnant with Eason." He shook his head. "The borders opened again in time to get her to a witch hospital."

"And...me?"

"It was too late to do for you what we managed to do for Eason, but we did everything we could," Ascher said, his voice heavy with regret. "The ritual we had for Eason gve him a better chance of fighting the curse. No one expected him to turn out to be a healer, or be more witch and lycan than werewolf."

He looked at me. "No one had expected you to turn out the way you had either..."

"What does that mean?"

"My line is matriarchal," Esme said. "I always thought if she was to have a girl, she'd be a witch since it hadn't passed on to her, but..." She chuckled. "Lycan genes seemed to have won out for the most part."

A sliver of understanding went through my mind. The ritual had given Eason a fighting chance.

"The spell I'd cast on you was supposed to give me time," Esme sighed. "I hadn't imagined any of this would turn out this way."

"The second born is usually weaker," Gracian said. "It's what made Helen, ultimately, not have much of a fight for living among werewolves."

I frowned and looked at him. "Younger? She always said she was older."

He snorted. "In her dreams. We're twins and Mom has long since cleared the confusion. I'm the eldest." His eyes twinkled. "Glad to know she was still passing along that propaganda."

I swallowed and nodded. "What do you know about the oaths he took?" I looked at Esme. "Charles' seems certain that there was nothing else he could do, but..."

Esme smiled. "The oaths that Ethan swore are just as serious as Charles thinks they are. Probably more, actually. Whoever he apprenticed under in Selene would have scanned him for magical abilities. They would have seen his potential, and they would have given him options." She looked down at her hands. "It just so happens that Eason knew himself well enough to know that he needed to safeguard anyone and everyone he possibly could from himself."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that he can't use his healing ability to harm. Or, rather than it's very hard for him to. He's aligned himself and his magic with the core reason for healers in the first place. The Goddess' intentions for healers and so many other things... He was telling you the truth when he said that honestly, his elves control his magic more than he does. I've been working with him on it, but... the urge to save your life overwhelmed in a dissent that he could have put up."

My mind raced. I felt guilty. I could see him crying in my mind's eye. The guilt on his face wasn't about taking my life inside for me. It was about not being able to find a better solution.

"He's been pushing himself really hard, hasn't he?"

"I get the sense that he always is." Esme chuckled. " It might also be a part of his house, but I'm not sure."

"But why not tell me before it came to this?" I whispered. "Why keep me in the dark about my own health? He had to have known. He said it himself."

" He was searching for a way out," Esme said softly. " When I told him about the curse. We became pretty apparent that he knew that there wasn't as much as he hated it. He'd been fighting off that trance for days if not longer, and that's hard."

"You're saying that when he did it that was the only option he had." Esme nodded. " And you want me to believe that?"

"I want you to consider it," Esme said. " You're allowed to feel how you feel about the situation."

"Why wait until now to come? You could have told me ages ago..." I looked at Esme. " You've been here all this time and never once that you mentioned that you were my grandmother."

"What good would it have done?" She cocked her eyebrow. " you wanted my entire case to be stuck because we're family. You do know that's part of State law, don't you?

My lips twitched. "You broke the law for me?"

"I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

Ascher's gaze met mine, a storm of emotions swirling within his emerald depths.

"We… were protecting you, Grace," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "You and Eason. Your parents wanted you to grow up as normally as possible."

"Spoiled and all," Gracian said.

A bitter laugh escaped my lips.

"Even if we told you... nothing would have been different. I'm sorry, but that's the truth."

His words hung heavy in the air. As I looked at Ascher, a wave of emotions washed over me – anger, confusion, but also a sense of resignation.

He was right. There was nothing I could do to change it. I could only move forward. The path ahead was still shrouded in uncertainty. It felt too short to be real, but I grab my floor, decided to eat. There was nothing else to say.

I didn't have the time to worry about the past. As soon as I was done, I grabbed my phone and called Eason. It rang once, twice, before he picked up.

"Hello?" his voice came through, laced with a hesitance that mirrored my own.

"Eason," I said, my voice surprisingly steady. "It's Grace."

A beat of silence followed. This seemed to stretch on forever. It seemed like he wasn't going to talk first this time.

"... How are you feeling?"

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. "Terrible. I made it by her grandparents... and our uncle."

There was another pause, then Eason spoke, his voice thick with emotion. "Grace, I…"

"I know why you did it, Eason," I interrupted gently. "I may not understand everything yet, but I understand you did it because you didn't have a choice... Whether you gave me more time than I would have had otherwise doesn't matter. But thank you for trying."

For a moment, the only sound on the line was silence. Then, a soft sob. I heard George in the background.

"No..." he said. "I'm fine. I want... I'm fine."

"Let's start over, Eason," I said, surprising even myself with the conviction in my voice. "Back to when we first came up with that crazy plan to take over Mooncrest. Alpha and Beta, brother and sister, co-presidents… remember?"

A ghost of a chuckle escaped him. "How could I forget? I really did want to be your beta, but I figured no one else would put up with you, or save you for yourself."

"Funny how you ended up doing that... In more ways than one." A smile tugged at the corners of my lips. "Now... you're the magic, and I'm... the elderly woman."

He laughed. "You can pull off salt and pepper, but I know a stylist that can make you full gray."

"Really leaning into that elderly lady, huh?"

"Well, your boobs aren't getting any perkier."

"Eason!"

"Charles likes it. Deal."

We both laughed a shaky sound that echoed the tentative bridge we were building. It felt fragile, this newfound trust, but it was a start.

" I still want that to be our legacy."

"... me, too."

"Good, because... I'm a mess. So," I continued, my voice turning serious once more. "I... I don't want this year, the rest of it anyway, to be eaten up by the past. I want to tackle the reformulation, disbursement, and clinical trials of the longevity drug. We need you on that team, Eason.... I need you. You have the magic for it and a lot of the knowledge I'll need for all these requests I'm getting for R&D... So... get your ass to Northfall and get your letters ASAP, alright?"

He let out a soft gasp. "Yeah... Yeah, I can do that."

I swallowed. "If you're still up to writing my speeches, that would be great, though."

We laughed again. It felt light and real in a way that set my heart at ease.

Maybe, just maybe, we'd reached a real point of reconciliation.