Hopping out of the truck, Violet approached the town line on foot, only to feel her feet suddenly become like sludge. She couldn’t lift them or move forward for anything.
Sam was still crying, and Violet wanted to help and comfort her friend, but suddenly, something else was a higher priority on her list.
“Sam, listen to me, babe. I’m going to call you back in a few hours, but I kind of have a small problem here. Don’t tell anyone what you told me and dry your eyes. We’ll figure this out.”
“What? Vi, are you okay?”
“Not really,” Violet said as she turned around and took an easy step back towards the truck. “It looks like I’m stuck in Garoureve.”
Chapter 23
Theonlywordthatcould accurately describe Violet’s current emotion was rage.
She was no longer hurt and upset. She was no longer angry. She wasn’t sad or alone. She wasn’t heartbroken.
She was filled with rage.
Her entire life, she had tried to be good enough. Not great, not the best: Violet’s entire goal had been to simply be good enough.
She wasn’t a wolf shifter nor would she ever be one, so she wasn’t blessed with supernatural strength or speed, but she had simply tried to keep up, or at least, not fall too far behind. She didn’t have any sort of natural grace, but she tried to always remain poised. The others always had a better sense of smell or taste or sight, so she tried to always remember the names and the properties and the abilities.
She tried to be good enough, to be useful.
And when she began training as a witch, at no point did she attempt something new or something extreme. She simply wanted to... have the abilities necessary to work with a pack. Not a large pack, not a pack taking new land, or on a larger leyline with crossings. She simply wanted to serve her mate’s pack, so they could always be together, she would never fail in her duties and be sent away, and she could continue being happy.
Good enough. That was all she had ever wanted.
And yet, she had struggled to even achieve a simple passing score. And why?
Because everything she had ever been told or taught or trained to do was a lie.
Candles were not a focal point of a spell particularly when you wanted to sever things. Water was not a conduit for opening and cleansing and healing. Were herbs even useful in medicine and healing?
Well, no, that part was probably true, given how they were used by humans in modern medicine...
Or maybe not! Maybe that was all show as well! Maybe it was all just a grand show.
So of course she had failed, because it wasn’t real. None of it was real. All of the meditating and the focal points... Sure, okay, yeah, she could understand why other witches might need a reminder on how to remain steadfast and how to keep their intentions clear, but that was for witches who couldn’t make up their freaking minds. She knew what she wanted, knew how to ask for it.
Was that why the town line had simply opened up? Because she said, hey town, open the fuck up, and actually been clear with her intentions rather than saying one thing, meaning another, and wishing for something else?
Oh, but, apparently she hadn’t opened it up, because now she couldn’t leave. She couldn’t fucking leave. She was trapped. Trapped in the very fucking town she had only just returned to.
And it didn’t make sense, because the town had been trapping people who had no reason to return. She had every reason to return. For starters, her soulmate was in town. Her mate. The other half of herself. The man she was destined to spend her life with, if she could even figure out how to physically be with him.
But also, her future in general. Could she keep sticking with tattoos on humans and the occasional supernatural? Sure. She enjoyed it. She liked it. But being a witch was what she was born to be. She had a connection to magic that only another witch could understand. This was her childhood, and taking over Garoureve as the witch was her legacy. Her mother had served here, and her grandmother as well. This place was in her blood, and in her magic.
Why wouldn’t she return?
What had she done wrong? How had she failed so horribly that everyone else could leave, but she was forced to remain?
How the hell had her intentions been unclear?
The door to Henrik’s truck opened, and Violet nearly jumped out of her skin, startled to look down and see the man himself standing there, looking at her with concern written all over his face. Why was he looking at her like that? What was wrong?
“What’s wrong?” she asked, almost scared something terrible had happened. Was that the problem? Was it not her? Had something happened that would keep her there?
“Violet... baby... I’m gonna need you to climb on out the truck. Slowly.”