Chapter 44

Chapter 44
YARA
Breakfast started and ended with Vernon, unfortunately, sustaining no grievous bodily injuries from either me or Aiden. He hadn’t brought up anything dignity-shredding during it and though he and Aiden had had a discussion about what he was interested in doing, I could only say so much before the deadpan expression he’d had when he said that shit came to mind.
I should have put milk in his juice.
After breakfast, I’d told Aiden to head to the Leadership Joint without me so I could find somewhere better to hide my mother’s spellbook since I was moving into his room. Half an hour later, my spellbook had a lease behind the closet. Yes, yes, it wasn’t a great spot, but it was the best spot in the room. Once I properly explored the house and found a better place, I’d move it, but for now, it was rooming with darkness and dust bunnies.
It was now a couple of minutes after nine, and Elijah was taking me to meet Aiden.
“Aren’t you hot?” he asked, slight concern in his voice, and I pressed my lips together before giving him a small smile.
“I’m a bit chilly.” I wrapped my arms around myself and threw in a slight shiver to sell the lie, earning a weird look from him.
Despite the rain that fell for hours last night, it was actually rather humid now, so me wearing a jacket was a big-brain moment. But it was either wearing a jacket or a turtleneck sweater to hide the mark Aiden had left on me, and a jacket seemed like the less weird option.
Sure, I could also not hide the mark, but that kind of felt like holding a placard that said Aiden and I fucked. The jacket wouldn’t hide what happened between us if someone decided to take a good sniff of me, but I wouldn’t be the weirdo in that situation.
I was winning. But at what cost?
“You’re sweating.”
“I don’t think so,” I muttered, forcing myself to ignore the sweat sliding down my forehead as I avoided a puddle on the ground. Why the hell is it so hot?
The worry on his face grew, but I was pretty sure it was for my state of mind now. I gave him another smile just before a drop of sweat slid into my eye, and the salty bastard made my eyes water as I tried to blink the sting away.
“Oh,” Elijah muttered, his worry turning to pity, and I shot him a glare before averting my gaze, only to lock eyes with a group of women walking down the road.
They had to have been staring at me for a while because it seemed like they were whispering about me, and meeting their gaze got me scowls and eye rolls. Some even laughed, and I paused, feeling like a tourist attraction for a moment. But then the hostility in their expressions made me realize what they were talking about: their latent Luna.
…Did Estelle go door to door to tell people or is there like a pack forum or something?
“Ignore them,” Elijah said, pulling on my arm so I’d start walking again. Just as I did, I caught the gaze of the only person who didn’t radiate hostility in the group. She actually looked rather apologetic—probably even thought I was teary-eyed because of her friends.
Fuck, it’s hot.
The group was across the road from us, but as we walked past each other, they made sure their words reached my ears. “Falsefang.”
“Knock it the fuck off!” Elijah burst out as tears slid down my cheeks, and the women giggled like he’d just told them a joke instead. “Shit. Yara, I…” He trailed off while I glanced over to see his attention was now on me, panic evident on his face. “I’m sorry.”
“I can’t…”
“I’ll talk to Aiden when we—”
“I don’t give a fuck about them.” My voice came out louder than intended and when he blinked in surprise, I realized he thought the tears were due to what they'd called me. “Oh!” I wiped my face, smearing tears and sweat, before gritting my teeth and tearing the jacket off. “I’m practically melting. What the fuck?”
Once the jacket was off, a gust of wind blew past and I could have actually cried at that, not at their jibe. Maybe if I’d grown up in a pack and had people shun me or beat me up while calling me that word, I’d have gotten upset like they wanted, but the word meant nothing to me. If they’d called me a witch though…
Then the fact that Vernon was raised in this pack barged into my mind and my stomach churned at the thought that people could have treated him like this. Estelle seemed scared of him so I didn’t have to worry about her suddenly walking up to him and spitting the words at him, but what about others?
Aiden clearly didn’t feel the same way part of his pack did about latents—there was also the fact that a good number of the pack members had disliked him when he became the Alpha—and I knew he wouldn’t stand for this, but he couldn’t fix everyone’s prejudice. When Vernon had said witches and latents weren’t really welcome in the pack, though, it sounded like treating those two groups unkindly had been encouraged at some point, so I couldn’t help but wonder what Aiden’s mother had been like since she’d been the Alpha before him. He’d never brought her up.
If someone came up to my face to call me a falsefang though, they’d be eating dirt with their words.
Returning my attention to Elijah, I found his gaze fixed on the mate mark on my neck and heat flooded my face, but I kept my expression neutral. “One word and you die,” I said before he could speak—I didn’t even know if he was going to say anything, but better to nip it in the bud and all.
He shot me a look that said what the fuck? but kept his mouth shut and I returned my attention to the road, tying my jacket around my waist.