Chapter 90 - Violet

I went into the house and walked toward our room. I could feel Simon following a few strides behind me.

“Violet, wait.”

I didn’t stop until I reached our room and closed the door behind me. I didn’t lock it. I knew that if I did Simon would bust through it eventually. There would be no point. I just wanted to inconvenience him enough to have to open the door himself. I sat on the bed, staring at the floor in front of me.

Simon stopped in front of me, “I’m sorry, Violet.”

Even when I was angry at him, when he said my name, it tightened my core and made me want him. Even though I wanted to punch him in the face. I finally looked up at him. “Just so you know, I’m taking this very seriously.” I said with a frown. “The lives of not only your pack but my coven are on the line here. I need not only to protect your pack, but I have to save my coven. You just have to focus on your pack.” I wanted to hurt him and couldn’t stop myself from saying, “I could leave right now and focus only on my coven, if you don’t think I’m being serious.”

Saying those words made my heart drop. I knew full well that I couldn’t leave him. He was my familiar, at least Remus was. And Simon was my mate. Fate has us connected in more than one way.

His face dropped in pain. He asked me to promise him not to leave him. And I used it against him. I had no intention of leaving, but I wanted my words to stick. And they did. “Please don’t leave.” I could feel his heart breaking with those three words. His eyes were soft, I could see the tears welling up.

I scoffed at him. “I’m not going to leave.” I stood and started pacing in front of the window. He just watched me. “I need you to understand that there is more going on than just your pack. I fully understand you want to make sure they are protected, and they come first, but I have more responsibility than just that.”

Simon strode over and pulled me into his arms. I fought him, I wanted to continue to be mad at him. After a few seconds of me trying to push away and him not letting me I stopped and let him hold me. “I know that you have more going on than just this pack…our pack.” He laid his head on top of mine. “You are my mate, my Luna. I do have to think of the whole pack, but you take priority.”

I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see. “I shouldn’t take priority.”

“You do.” I could feel his heart pounding away. “I guess it hasn’t sunk in that you have more than one pack. You have two.”

“Yes.” I pulled away and looked at him. “And how they are living now is not great. I’m the only one that can save them. To be honest, I don’t even know how many survivors there are. After the takeover, everyone was separated. That could mean there could be only a handful of people left or hundreds.”

“You have me and our pack. We will stand by you in whatever you need.” He took my hands in his. “If you want to lodge an attack, we’ll be there. If you want to wait and plan an escape, we can. Whatever you need.”

I took a deep breath. “It’s really hard to plan something like that. Eli and his minions are powerful. I don’t want to lead anyone into slaughter. And that’s what I fear would happen. I may be powerful, more powerful than him, but he has tricks up his sleeve.” I bit my lip in concentration.

“If he’s looking for you, doesn’t that mean he’s not in your coven’s boundaries?”

I thought about that for a minute. “I don’t think he would go out looking for me. He probably would send Jeffers or someone else to look demanding frequent updates.”

He raised an eyebrow to the new name.

“Jeffers, he’s this huge witch who sharpened his teeth and looks rather terrifying.” I recalled.

“Hmmm, I bet I could take him.” Simon smirked.

“In the battle of strength, no doubt. But with his added magical power, probably not.”

Simon stuck out his bottom lip to pout.

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, you are the almighty Alpha of the Dark Forest Falls Pack. But magic would give him an edge.”

“But you do make a good point though.” I thought through the plan that was brewing. Simon just stood there and waited for me to finish my thoughts. “If he has his minions looking for me, that means he has fewer back with him. He’ll be weakened giving me the advantage.” I continued to think. “What if we set traps around to take out his minions leaving him weaker. Then when we inevitably raided, we would have the upper hand.”

Simon thought about that for a moment. “That could work. Do you know how many minions he has?”

I shook my head. “No, people would join daily just to make their lives bearable. He would torture people and give them the option to continue with their torture or sign with him.”

Simon winced.

“It wasn’t great. I could hear my peoples’ screams as he would torture them.” I thought back through the last ten years of my life. “He only tortured people in the manor, to keep me in line. Since I was a familiar witch, he didn’t want to harm me because I was of more use to him than the others.” I could still hear the screams for relief. “His minions occasionally went too far when I would wander somewhere I shouldn’t have been. But Eli didn’t want that, he wanted to harm me mentally.”

“That sick bastard.” Simon shook his head. He pulled me into his arms again. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

I let his warmth seep into me. I loved feeling his heartbeat. Being near him made me calm. It was crazy that something as small as a touch could make me instantly relax.

“Am I interrupting something?” Greta said from the doorway.

“No.” I said pulling away from him. “Just talking through some things.”

“Can I help?” She asked. “Remember I’m your Beta. Your right-hand gal!” Jared walked through the door and stood next to Greta.

“Actually, yes.” I looked at the both of them. “I need a headcount of how many witches are walking through the woods looking for me.”

Greta nodded. Jared looked from me to Simon. “Is there a reason?” Jared asked.

“We are doing some hunting.” Simon said with a smile.

“Hell yeah! Let’s take out some witch assholes.” Greta said punching the air. Jared only raised his eyebrows.

“What’s the plan?” Jared asked.

“Simon made a comment before, if Eli’s minions are out looking for me, that is leaving him vulnerable. If we can get a head count and take them out one by one that would leave him with less of an army. Once we took out enough, we could siege the manor and take the coven back.”

“What kind of traps are we talking about? Snare?” Greta asked.

“No, that would be too easy for them to escape. I am thinking something a little more magical.” I smiled at each of them.

“I’m getting a feeling you already have an idea of what you want to do and it’s going to be ruthless. I love it!” Greta gave me an evil smirk.

I walked over to my nightstand and grabbed the book. I laid it on the bed and started flipping through the pages. “When I was reading, I found a spell that could pretty much sap a witch of their powers, temporarily. If we can do that and take them out, we stand a better chance.” I found the spell and looked it over.

“I don’t get it.” Greta exclaimed. “The book is blank.”

“Yeah, this book is only for familiar witches.” I said as I continued to read.

“I can see the words.” Simon said. “But have no clue what they mean.”

“I’m assuming that since Remus is my familiar, you are connected to me in a way that lets you see the words as well.” I read over the spell. “Okay, so what this spell does is leave dead spots around, like a trap, and if a witch walks into it, it saps their power and energy. Essentially making them no more magical than a human.”

“Does it say for how long?” Simon asked, looking at the page.

“No.”

“Hmm, that could be tricky.” Jared said. “We would need to know how long they would be powerless just so we can get to them in time before they regained their powers.”

“I have never seen this spell done; I really have no idea.”

Greta inhaled slightly. “This spell only works on witches, right?”

I nodded.

“Jared said that a witch has come and is staying within our boarders…right?” Greta said. I knew where she was going with this and started to shake my head. “Hear me out. Since this is only temporary, we could ask her to volunteer so we can get an idea of how long this spell lasts.” She paused, looking at each of us. “I’m sure she would be more than happy to help since you saved her kids life.”

“She’s right.” Simon said, looking at me. “You can’t test it out on yourself because you need to cast it. And Meredith can’t read the book because she’s not a familiar witch.”