Wulfric

"So, you make any progress today?" Safiya asked, strolling into the dining room casually, like she wasn't trailing smoke.

"Um... yeah," Argo answered. He watched her suspiciously, and Safiya looked down at herself only to laugh a little when she saw the smoke emitting from the hem of her skirt, which looked seconds from bursting into proper flame. She grasped the fabric and shook it out. Trails of magic danced down from her fingers and quenched the flames. She sat down across from us at the table like that whole scene was nothing.

We had been staying with the sister witches for three days now, and I was still adjusting.

They both lived lives imbued with magic. It was woven into the fabric of their day-to-day, yet they were completely unphased by it all. I don't know what I expected witches to be like, but it wasn't this.

"I think Roderick was right, after all," Safiya said. He was her husband, and I had been more than a little alarmed to learn he was the only witch among the three of them who had any formal training whatsoever.

Roderick insisted the best way to change a curse was to go through the person who had laid it. I didn't hold out much hope of that person being around, because I refused to believe I could be so lucky. Edmund thought the chances were good, since who would lay a curse of immortality on someone without making themselves immortal, too?

"I called Father again, but he didn't answer," Edmund said quietly.

Our father was at the root of the whole curse. He always avoided answering any questions about how it came to be, but he knew. It was obvious from the way his shoulders sort of sagged when we asked, the way his complexion went ashen, and the way his brows would draw inward with guilt. Sometimes, he even cried tears he was quick to hide from us. I never pressed the issue, since it seemed obvious to me who had done it. All I didn't know was why.

His name was Benedict. Dad's best friend, closer to him than a brother. They had done everything together. They even married sisters. But Benedict had always been a little out of touch with reality. He made us leave out offerings on nights of the new moon and was shamelessly superstitious. Standing close to him felt like standing in the heart of a storm, charged and a little dangerous.

I wasn't sure what he was, exactly, but once my eyes were opened to the supernatural world, I was certain he wasn't human.

The trouble was, no one knew where Benedict went after our curse set in. One night we woke up thirsting for blood, and in the morning, Benedict was just... gone.

He even left his family behind, though they joined him not a week later. Their whole house, packed up and emptied overnight. Never a farewell, though they were our family, too.

What could father have done that was so bad it caused a man to do such a thing? Uproot his wife and children, curse the man he loved as a brother along with his nieces and nephews? Children who were cousins to his own sons and daughters?

Whatever Father did to him, it must have been truly terrible.

"Father probably doesn't know where Benedict is, anyway," I said. Why would he, after all these years?

"He stands a better chance of finding him than we do," Edmund retorted. "I wouldn't even know what continent to begin with."

Okay, fair point.

"We could do a tracking spell," Safiya said. "But we would need something of his to make it work."

Edmund and I exchanged looks. He looked defeated. "We don't have anything of his," I said. It was a lot milder than what I wanted to say, which was "In what universe would we have something belonging to the man who cursed us hundreds of years ago?" But Edmund was already strung out enough without me provoking a fight.

"Wait, who's Benedict, again?" Arlo asked.

It wasn't surprising he didn't know the name. Edith hadn't liked discussing the curse with her children or grandchildren. Edmund answered, "He was our uncle. Through marriage, anyway."

Safiya snapped her fingers. "I have an idea! It's a long shot, granted, but it really could work. He had children, yes?"

Edmund nodded.

"GLENNA!" Safiya hollered for her sister with truly earsplitting gusto, and Edmund and I both clapped our hands over our ears. Arlo snickered when Safiya mouthed "Sorry."

"Yes?" Glenna asked, sweeping into the room. She carried a tray of cookies, like she'd just been waiting for the perfect time to make her entrance. Arlo looked at her like she was his salvation and took two.

"We need to do a blood-to-blood spell. Would you mind doing it?"

"Of course. I'll get started after dinner," Glenna said with a little smile. She didn't even ask why, which was probably a product of living with Safiya for so long. The woman was so all over the place, you'd run yourself ragged trying to keep up. Better to just go along with it.

"I should have known the vampires would need us to do blood magic," Safiya said a minute later with an immature snicker. Arlo joined in and even Edmund and Glenna cracked little smiles.

We hadn't seen much of Safiya's husband in our time here, so the atmosphere shifted toward uncomfortable when he walked into the room. Roderick beelined right for her and swept her into a kiss like I'd never seen outside the movies. It was so smooth, it looked rehearsed: the way he wrapped his arms around her and dipped her back, the way her arms came up around his neck. His hand deftly rose to take the band from her hair and it spilled down like they were filming a shampoo commercial.

They were captivating, and I was staring.

I glared at my hands, which were folded on the table, before deciding my time could be better spent on working toward a solution. I headed for the magic shop. Glenna and Safiya had granted us unlimited access to the little library they had put together in a space that doubled as a utility closet. This was how I spent most of my time, though the rate of learning had slowed down considerably after the first few books I skimmed through.

Simply put, a curse is a spell that changes or drives fate. It's a misconception that it has to be negative, though that was more common. They could be cast by most magic-users, though witches were the most common casters since they had the most access to raw magic.

Beyond that, most of the reading I'd done just left me with more questions than answers. Consider this: it was fated that Griffin and I would be together. But if my life had taken its natural course, we never could have met. We would have missed each other by hundreds of years. So, was reincarnation possible? Was there some earlier version of Griffin out there during my normal lifespan, and we had missed each other? Or was I meant to become cursed? Or, if the curse was never meant to happen, would one of us have been born in a different time?

And what did all this mean for Edmund? If we followed the curse, his soulmate would probably be born sometime in the next forty to sixty years. If we broke the curse, would he miss out on that connection? Or was it fated that we would break it?

I shook off those thoughts; they wouldn't help anything and, frankly, they just made my head hurt.

I was just on the threshold of the magic shop when the front door opened and the wards around the room flashed golden. Safiya and Glenna had keyed us into their wards when we started staying with them so we would stop setting off stranger-danger alarms when we came and went, and that allowed us to see the glimmering lines of magic woven around the walls that lit up whenever someone entered the house.

The wards were color-coded. Green for someone known to be friendly, red for danger, yellow for caution. The only time they flashed gold like this was when someone the witches considered family entered. So, who was this person who stood in the doorway, watching me with a stern expression?

He looked to be in his forties or fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a truly intimidating set of muscles. His skin was tanned, but with hints of paler flesh peeking out from the collar of his shirt that told me he must spend a lot of time outside. He was followed by another man who set of his own golden flash through the wards, probably of a similar age though he wasn't noticeably grey yet. This new one nodded his head toward me, and the hard set to the first man's expression turned fierce.

They had just started walking toward me when Safiya hurried in with a skipping step and threw herself at the two of them in a group hug. "Everett! And Felix, too! This is a surprise."

Everyone else had joined us in the living room by the time Safiya let go of the men and stepped back into Roderick's waiting arms.

"We came to help," one of the men said.

"Well, you know you're always welcome," Safiya responded happily. "Everyone, this is Felix and Everett. Guys, meet Wulfric, Edmund, and Arlo." Safiya pointed at everyone in turn, and I didn't miss the way Felix and Everett seemed to zero in on me.

"Can you stay for dinner? We made plenty," Glenna offered.

"That's alright, we already ate with the kids. I think we'll just jump in," Felix said, glancing toward me again.

Safiya opened her mouth to respond, but Glenna quickly jumped in, "Alright, we'll leave you to it. Let us know if you need anything!"

I wouldn't have thought her the type to drag people around, but she grasped Safiya and Arlo's arms and pulled them from the room. Roderick followed on his own, smiling fondly at the sisters. Edmund looked between myself and the two strangers and, thankfully, came to stand by my side.

They walked over and studied me. "So, you're Wulfric," Felix said.

"Yes." And I had a feeling who they might be. Or at least, who they were connected to. This had to be about Griffin.

"We're Griffin's parents," Everett said, confirming my suspicions.

I nodded and wondered what kind of response they were looking for from me. Thankfully, Edmund was there to fill the gap in conversation.

"I'm Wulfric's brother. It's wonderful to meet you both!" he said earnestly, and the two men's expressions instantly softened a little. That was the thing about Edmund – he had this way of coming across so genuine and so good that people couldn't really keep their guards up around him.

"You, too," Everett said with a little smile. I bet they were already wishing Edmund had been Griffin's soulmate, I thought with a little huff of amusement.

"Fen already filled us in on your situation. He says you're looking to modify your curse so it won't trigger when you meet Griffin," Felix said. "Is that right?"

More or less. "Yes."

He nodded, and smiled warmly at me. "Then we're here to help."

Everett wrapped a hand around Felix's arm and nodded, smiling at me too. Their easy acceptance of me, so simply given that it went completely unspoken, made me uncomfortable. Were all werewolves like this? I had spent a little time reading about the species after everyone went to bed, when it was just me and Edmund left awake. I knew the normal course for a werewolf's life to follow was for them to meet their mate and live happily ever after together. These men would have expected the same for their son, and it probably didn't even occur to them that this might have a far different ending.

God, they probably already thought of me as their future son-in-law or something like that.

Edmund led us all to the sitting area and started explaining the blood spell Glenna would be working after everyone ate dinner. "It's a bit of a long shot," Edmund admitted, "but if it works, we'll be one step closer to finding a solution."

"Blood magic," Everett muttered, looking concerned. "I don't know. Isn't that supposed to be really dangerous?"

"It'll be okay," Felix assured him. "Glenna's careful."

"Wait, what kind of danger do you mean?" I asked.

"I'm not sure, exactly," Everett admitted. "I've never heard the specifics. I just know you aren't supposed to mess around with blood spells. They're supposed to come with a high price."

A price? I certainly didn't like the sound of that. "Who pays?" I asked.

The men exchanged looks and Felix shook his head while Everett shrugged. That was not comforting.

"I trust Glenna," Edmund spoke up. "She didn't seem worried at all, so we shouldn't be either."

I wasn't sure I agreed with his logic, but I nodded and let the matter drop for now.

I probably shouldn't have, because it left an opening for Edmund to ask, "How is Griffin doing with all of this?"

Everett looked down and Felix laced their fingers together before answering. "He's handling it all better than we could have hoped for. But you should know what this costs him."

Everett cleared his throat and said, "Mates shouldn't be separated."

But was that a philosophical thing, or something more? Fen had implied this could be hurting Griffin physically. Especially with his parents sitting in front of me, wanting to help... it didn't sit well with me.

"Hopefully this works and we find a way to change the terms of the curse," Edmund said.

That, it seemed, was the cue for Glenna to enter the room. I could still hear clattering silverware and the murmur of conversation from the dining room, but she gestured for us to follow her to the magic shop.

We all watched as she got out a jar of something that looked like sand, only it shimmered and was white. Salt? She poured it out into a neat circle on the floor and held out her hand to me.

"Wulfric, you need to make sure you stay inside the circle at all times. The rest of you, stay outside of it. No one crosses the border or things might turn bad, okay?" she instructed. Her tone was calm and assured, but that wasn't enough to keep me from feeling unease at her words.

"What happens if someone crosses the border?" I asked, taking great care to lift one foot then the other as I stepped in.

"I'm going to be using you as a conduit. The magic is channeled through you, through your blood, and calls out to your kin. Like to like." She held up a map and said, "The map will fill in with locations we can check. We'll have to move quickly once we do this, because people don't stay stationary."

Roderick and Safiya walked in, trailed by Arlo. "Fen's going to be here in a few, and-" the wards flashed golden, and Safiya cut off. A tall man, obviously fae, walked in with surprising poise. His waistcoat was impeccably fitted and he looked around with a kind of self-assurance that was rare to find.

"Luin!" Glenna said, delighted.

"Safiya said you need people to help you teleport...?" he said uncertainly. His eyes landed on Felix and Everett, then warmed with affection. "I didn't know you two were going to be here. Is this for you?"

"Yes," Everett said, surprising me. I hadn't expected him to go as far as to claim my problems as his own.

Luin's smile widened. "Then I'm even happier to help."

The wards flashed gold again, and Fen appeared so close to Luin that they almost fell down trying to dodge each other. "Sorry!" he squeaked.

Safiya was quick to fill them in while Edmund pulled Arlo aside and explained who Felix and Everett were. This was getting to be too much of a party, and I especially didn't like when all the activity and side conversations died down as everyone looked to me and Glenna as though we were putting on a show.

"Is everyone ready?" Glenna asked. She received a chorus of yesses and nodding heads, so she turned to me with a little smile that, for the first time, looked shaky. "Let's get started."