Griffin

"Did you know your spell was going to kill us?"

Wulfric stopped moving at Roderick's words, and I couldn't rip my eyes away from him. He looked bewildered, and his eyes darted from Roderick to his father to me. When he saw me, I sagged into Pop's arms. I didn't like what it said about me, that I doubted my mate's good intentions even for a few seconds, but that doubt evaporated as soon as our eyes met. If the spell the witches agreed to help us perform was lethal to them, Wulfric hadn't gone in knowing that. His bafflement was too genuine, and I could see how worried he was about my reaction.

I released a shaky breath and nodded slowly at him. I believe you, I thought at him, but of course our mind link wasn't active yet so he didn't hear it. I thought Wulfric understood, anyway, judging from the way he relaxed.

We were too focused on each other. I didn't realize Roderick was moving to lay crystals in a circle at Wulfric's feet until the last one was placed and a cage of red light appeared around him. I fought against my father's hold on me, and caught him by such surprise that I made it two steps away from him before he yanked me back again, so hard that it ached where my arm joined the shoulder.

"Stay back!" Dad yelled, throwing himself in front of me while Pop pulled me back. He looked over his shoulder at Wulfric and added, "I don't know if those crystals are spelled with enough power to kill you, but they'd certainly do some serious damage and they'd kill the rest of us. Keep away from the edges while we get this resolved."

Trust Dad to keep his head during a time like this. Me, I was about to lose my mind knowing my mate was trapped behind such a dangerous barrier. Maybe logically, I could have understood. Maybe. But logic really didn't matter here when I was terrified and just wanted to be with Wulfric.

"Let me in with him," I pleaded with Roderick.

"What? No!" Wulfric snapped at the same time as my dad said, "Griffin!"

"No way," Roderick said. "That barrier doesn't come down until we get to the bottom of this."

I looked frantically around the room for help, but no one stepped forward to argue with him. Glenna had her hands over her face now while she cried, and Safiya hugged her tight while glaring at Wulfric. Meanwhile, Wulfric's father was watching with a disconcertingly neutral expression. Arlo and Edmund were trapped, too, but at least they looked worried about Wulfric. And my dads were obviously too preoccupied with keeping me from touching the glowing red barrier to offer up any solutions.

If they were going to help at all, I needed to calm the fuck down. I took a few deep breaths, then looked back to Pop. "It's okay," I assured him. "I won't touch it."

Pop and Dad exchanged looks, then I was released and led further from Wulfric. We didn't go to the couches, which was probably for the best. I didn't know how any of them felt about me right now, after almost being tricked into dying for me. Better to stay away from Glenna and Safiya for now, or Roderick might restrain me, too.

"What now?" Dad asked.

Roderick looked at his captives and shook his head. "Now we get to the bottom of this."

"What exactly happened?" I asked. Roderick looked my way and I shrank under his hard-eyed gaze. I never thought of him as scary before, but I knew from my parents that Roderick was a lot more powerful than Glenna and Safiya were. He had gone to some fancy magic school, while the sisters had figured out a lot of witchcraft on their own. That made him the biggest threat.

Roderick held up a notebook. It was small and looked like it was made from really old leather, all cracked and faded. "This contains the immortality spell."

He flipped the book open and pointed to an illustration of a red circle full of symbols I couldn't recognize. "Here is the spell's sigil, which acts as a conduit for magic. A witch can funnel their power into the sigil, and the person standing here" – he pointed at the center, where everything converged – "receives all of the power that goes in, charged and formed by the sigil."

I nodded to show I was following.

"This is rooted in blood magic," Roderick said, pointing at one branching symbol in particular, almost like a tree. "It directs the spell through the target and into all of their close blood relatives."

I already knew that this spell had been used to curse John and all of his children.

"That's easy enough to change. This symbol could be removed without doing any damage; in fact, it would make the spell much easier for the witch performing it," Roderick continued.

Then he went around the rest of the symbols, decoding and explaining them. Basically, there were no surprises until he got to the last one. It was fascinating, understanding how a spell could be crafted this way. The possibilities seemed limitless, and I wished I could do magic like that. Here in the circle for a trained eye to read, it explained how Wulfric's close family was looped in, how they were to have their youth and health preserved. There were symbols to enhance their hearing, sight, and strength. These, Roderick explained, had to be balanced out. Everything has a price and no magic is free. Wulfric's enhanced abilities were offset by sensitivity to sunlight and the inability to consume anything except blood. I wondered what other prices could have been paid instead, and how Wulfric's father settled on blood-drinking.

Nothing was unexpected, and I wondered why Roderick was so worked up until he pointed to the final symbol. "Everything has a price," he reiterated. "This is the price for such powerful spellwork. Immortality cannot be offset by anything but death, Griffin. A life for a life. This is one of the foundational tenets of witchcraft."

I shook my head, not completely understanding. I mean, obviously this was bad... but it also didn't make any sense. It didn't fit with what Wulfric had told me about his curse.

"If you want to make someone immortal, Griffin, their extended lifespan must be offset by reducing the lifespan of another. Granting eternal life goes against nature, and bears the harshest penalty: death. Anyone who performs magic like this must die."

I shook my head, hardly able to wrap my head around all of the implications. "That can't be right. The person who cast this on Wulfric and his family didn't die."

Roderick threw a glare over his shoulder at John. "Yes, he did."

I heard Edmund audibly gasp and he looked to Wulfric in shock. Wulfric, who sat in the center of his cage with his knees up and his arms wrapped around his legs, looked like a lost kid. His chin rested on his knees and he didn't look up from his shoes. My arms ached to hold him.

"Father?" Edmund asked shakily. "Is that true?"

They stared at each other for so long, I stopped expecting John to answer. Finally, he nodded his head.

Edmund's eyes widened in horror. "But... You said he went away. They all moved away."

"Benedict died performing the spell. His family suspected his death wasn't natural and fled soon after," John said, his voice impassive. I thought I saw a hint of sadness in his eyes, or maybe that was just wistful thinking.

"He was your friend," Wulfric accused, standing and stepping toward the edge of his barrier. "Your best friend. You were like brothers."

"And I honor him for his sacrifice," John responded. His jaw clenched. Pain? Or annoyance? I couldn't tell.

Wulfric turned away in obvious disgust.

"Did he know?" Edmund asked softly. "Did he know that he would die?"

John didn't answer, but he didn't need to.

"How did you not get caught?" I asked. And how had he expected not to get caught this time?

John glanced at Roderick and quickly away. "Sigil magic was archaic even when I was human. Its interpretation is a dying art. I spent decades of my life piecing together the knowledge to create that spell."

I noticed for the first time that John was wearing one of those cheesy Hawaiian floral-print shirts, and it took a few seconds to accept that someone so deceitful and selfish could come wrapped in such an unassuming outfit.

"How does it work?" Wulfric asked Roderick. I didn't know what he meant – after all, hadn't Roderick just taken a lot of time to explain exactly how the sigil worked? – until Wulfric continued. "Benedict died to make nine people immortal. With three witches performing the spell on Griffin, isn't it possible it wouldn't have killed all of you?"

Roderick was so mad, he glared with his whole face. Clenched jaw, bared teeth, slanted eyebrows. The whole shebang. "And that makes it better?" he demanded.

"No! No, of course not. I only want to understand," Wulfric answered.

Roderick held up the spellbook with the sigil drawing again. "See this line?" He pointed to a line connecting the final symbol, the life for a life one, to one from the cost section (which outlined bloodthirst, sun allergy, and so on). "If you only wanted to cheat death, one life would be sufficient. But that was not all your father wanted to achieve. He wanted you all to have life unending, which requires payment unending. A life for a life, Wulfric. Every day you have lived has come at the cost of another's. You can think of myself, Safiya, and Glenna as a down payment on Griffin's first century or so."

Wulfric shook his head, still clearly confused. I wasn't, though I wished I didn't understand. I clamped a hand over my mouth and fought back a wave of nausea.

I remembered the symbol, now, the one that was connected to the life for a life one. It was the symbol for blood.

The payment for each extended day came through the exchange of blood.

And I had been feeding Wulfric for weeks now. Had I given him weeks of my life?

My stomach lurched again.

Roderick looked sympathetic for the first time since we arrived. "Would you like to excuse yourself?" he offered me gently. Eyes that had been hard with censure even when directed toward me were now nothing but kind, and I wished I could go back to when he was angry with me, too.

I shook my head and walked on wobbling legs to sit on the couch across from Glenna. She rubbed the tears from her face even though they were still flowing and offered me a little smile that only made me feel sadder.

"What? What is it?" Wulfric demanded.

I couldn't tell him. I couldn't even look at him. I didn't want to see his face when he realized what we had done, what he had been doing to people for centuries.

Instead, I looked to John, who was turned away from me. Arlo appeared as confused as Wulfric sounded, but Edmund had already connected the dots. I could tell from the look in his eyes when they met mine. He looked... sad. Disgusted, too, and worried.

Roderick finally answered Wulfric, and I instantly regretted not leaving when I was given the chance. "To maintain the balance, you do not merely drain a person's blood when you drink from them. You drain their vitality. The amount depends on how frequently you feed, but it will be anywhere from days to weeks from their lifespan.

"No," Wulfric answered hoarsely, and I barely caught myself before I could turn and look at him.

"I'm sorry," Roderick said, and I heard something scraping on the floor. When Roderick moved into my line of vision to move a crystal out of place from the ring surrounding Arlo and Edmund, I recognized the noise and understood that he had let Wulfric go. He must have been satisfied through Wulfric's genuine horror that he'd had no part in deceiving them. It was good that Roderick believed him, but...

I wasn't ready to have the confrontation that Wulfric and I really, really needed to have. I would need a clear head for that, and right now I was feeling too much. I was shaken and sick and angry and scared. So scared about what I had unknowingly given up. I might not have wanted to become immortal, but that didn't mean I wanted my death to happen any sooner, either. I just wanted to live out a normal werewolf lifespan, was that too much to ask?

"I need to go," I said softly. It was pointless, whispering in a room where almost everyone had enhanced hearing. But I wasn't capable of speaking louder just then. "Please take me home."

Pop wrapped an arm around my shoulder and Dad moved ahead of us to open the front door. I loved how they didn't think twice or hesitate, they just listened to what I needed. They would have had me out the door in seconds, if I didn't drag my feet. I wasn't ready to face Wulfric, but I knew he had to be feeling sick and sad, too. I couldn't just leave without even looking at him.

I was almost through the threshold when I looked back, because I couldn't help myself. He was staring after me with a hand outstretched in my direction, like he didn't want to let me go. But Wulfric didn't say a word to stop me from leaving, and I loved him for it. I nodded at him in another wordless reassurance. His eyes tightened, and I thought he almost looked like he could cry. Then, Pop guided me through the doorway and away.

Pop opened the sliding door of their minivan for me and waited for me to buckle myself in before sliding the door shut again. Why had they taken the minivan? Usually, they didn't like to drive it unless they had all of us kids. Dad got into the back with me while Pop sat in the driver's seat.

"Did he drink from you?" Pop asked as the van started rolling.

My throat went dry and I looked out the window, away from my dad's concerned gaze.

"Felix, not now," Dad said softly.

Pop slammed the steering wheel once, and I jolted. It took a lot to get him that mad. "Damn it."

"Felix," Dad scolded again, his voice harder this time.

We rode in silence for the rest of the drive, and the silence was oppressive. It was better than talking, though. Maybe. When we got back to their place, I was torn between going in and heading back to my suite in the pack house. I didn't want to be alone, but my parents might actually be worse company than no one right now. But then, as soon as I climbed down from the van, Pop wrapped me up in a huge bear hug. It felt like I was little again, like he could protect me from the whole world and like he was never going to leave my side. It made tears finally fall down my cheeks, and I hugged him back like I was drowning and he was a floatation device.

It wasn't so far off. Dad joined in our hug and I sank into them. "Let's go inside. I've got a fresh loaf of banana bread we can warm up," Dad offered.

It would take a much shittier day than this to make me say no to my dad's banana bread. I gave him a wobbly smile and followed him into the house. Blair and Ty were watching Buffy in the living room and jumped up in excitement when Dad pulled the banana bread out of the bread box.

"Score!" Ty crowed.

"I thought we were waiting to eat that until morning?" Blair said curiously.

Dad smiled warmly at me, and I wondered what it was costing him to stay so calm and supportive when he was probably freaking out as much as me inside. "Change of plans," was all he said.

Soon, we were all settled in the living room, with me between our parents while Ty and Blair shared a massive armchair. They queued up the next episode, which was one of my favorites from back when I binged the show.

"You know, this show's kind of growing on me," Pop commented.

"Really?" I asked. I could not imagine my parents sitting down and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

"Yeah. That Spike guy is hot," Pop said, and I groaned loudly enough to almost cover the little slapping sound Dad's hand made when he swatted at Pop's head.

"He is," Ty agreed casually. Blair's eyebrows raised and I looked to my parents, trying to figure out whether this was news to them.

We must have all been silent just a bit too long, since Tyler looked around the room in consternation. "What?"

I snickered and slid down in my seat, slanting myself so I was leaning against Dad with my legs pressed against Pop. I'd stay just like this, I decided. At least until my head stopped spinning.