FORTY-ONE | BABYSITTER

Hale leads me away from Azure territory, well, sort of. Things have changed since I've been here last. Visually, everything's still the same, but under the surface the Azure Pack's territory has expanded. Now even the land my house is on is within their territory. Hale drives us back to the house while I'm preoccupied with this new revelation. We're there before I'm done trying to sense the extent of their territory.

"Come on, your mother's been waiting for you." Hale tells me, shutting off the car.

"How's she been?" I ask, staying rooted to my seat. Guilt's being a ruthless bitch, twisting my stomach and heart into painful contortions. Hale raises an eyebrow at me.

"She's been busy." He finally replies and lets out a sigh, his body sagging a bit into his seat. "You probably thought by leaving Kiwina you'd distract the Reiniers, right?"

"That was part of it." I admit through clenched teeth, the guilt becoming more intense as I realize my plan must have failed. By the look Hale's giving me, I guess I'm right.

"Petra is ruthless." He says my grandmother's name bitterly, an undercurrent of loathing in one syllable. I don't blame him. "Only the Elite Squad followed after you. Petra sent others to Kiwina when they left. There have been a number of random attacks over these last few weeks. Luckily, no one's died, but there have been some close calls." I sit there, stunned. So I was wrong after all. My leaving didn't help anything in the end.

"How many?" I croak, my voice rough, mouth dry.

"So far, fifty," Hale mutters warily, looking at the front door to the house. "There was another attack while Zane was bringing you in, so that number isn't up-to-date yet."

"Fifty?" I shudder, shaking my head.

"The Azures have special protocols in place for monitoring their borders, including rotations. Only a few pack members have been injured more than twice during the attacks." Hale shrugs.

"B-but I've only been gone a few weeks-"

"We can talk about this more after you've eaten something and seen your mother." He interrupts me, leaning over to unbuckle me from the seat. I wince, not sure I'm ready to face her yet.

"How much trouble am I in?" I dare to ask. Hale lets out a dry laugh.

"On a scale from one to ten?" His lips lift up in a rueful smirk. "Seventy."

"So, I'm grounded?" I hedge, cringing a little. Mom's never had to punish me before. But she's a fully trained Wolven, not to mention the ex-Beta of the Reinier Pack. I'm dreading what kind of things she could come up with.

"I'll let your mother explain." Hale chuckles and nods at the front door. I glance up and see Mom waiting in the doorway, eyes scanning the trees around the woods.

"You're not coming?" I ask slowly, looking nervously from him to Mom. Hale raises an eyebrow at me.

"Nope." He gives me an amused look, his eyes sparkling with mischief and near-sadistic delight. "You probably don't want to keep her waiting." He warns. I give him a grimace before getting out of the car and taking a slow, deep breath as I walk up the driveway to the front door.

"Hi." I mumble, to my Mom, who's glaring at me. She looks a little different from when I last saw her a few weeks ago. Her eyes are sharper, more of an icy blue than ever, and red-rimmed...and puffy. I swear there's also five years of that've suddenly aged her, but her familiar scent tells me she's the same person I knew before I left. And yet...her scent is also different. No, in-transition.

"*Hi*?" She asks quietly, and it's somehow worse than if she'd screamed at me. That deadly-quiet tone. I duck my head, cringing into myself and lowering my head even more. "You were gone for eighteen days and all you have to say is *hi*? Do you have any idea how worried I was?" She suddenly wraps me in her arms, squeezing me tightly in her warm embrace. I feel my whole body stiften in surprise, then relax as she starts sobbing into my hair.

"I'm sorry." I tell her, my heart aching with the echo of her pain. It's not from the bond, but my own emotion reflected. "I missed you, too." Mom lets out a sound that's half-sob and half-snort.

"Who said anything about 'missing' you?" She scoffs, releasing me and guiding us into the house. "When was the last time you ate?" She asks briskly, wiping at her tear-streaked face.

"I don't really..." I blink, feeling the ache in my body once again now that all the excitement has gone. "Must have been a few days, I guess." I murmur, letting her lead me to a stool by the island.

"That's unacceptable, Wisty." Mom scolds me, a dark scowl transforming her face once again. "You know we need a lot of calories just to keep from starving on a day-to-day basis, even if you were trying to hide, you shouldn't have neglected your body."

"The west was a scary place." I shrug, resting my chin on my palms as I watch her go through the kitchen to get food together.

"The west," Mom grimaces, pausing in front of me once again with a few fruits in her hands. "I'm astonished you went to such extremes." She sighs, shaking her head as she set the fruits down in front of me. "Eat, I'll make you something else once you finished those."

"Stew surprise?" I hedge, feeling a spark of hope shudder through me.

"Maybe." She narrows her eyes at me, but the expression is softened with a small smile. "Fruits first. You look malnourished."

"Fine." I huff, and select a bright red apple. I bite into the crunchy, juicy thing, chewing quickly as the explosion of fresh taste revitalizes my body. I can't remember the last time I ate something so healthy.

"Anyway," Mom turns away and starts gathering various ingredients as I finish up the apple and move onto something dark purple. I go through the next three fruits by the time she's put all the ingredients into the pot on the stove. "Now that you're back, things are bound to get a little more dangerous...so," Mom crosses her arms over her chest, eyeing me warily. "Mikyle," Mom calls and the vampire materializes beside her, reading some sort of document.

"Yes, M'lady?" He asks without taking his dark red eyes from the page. I blink in surprise, wondering how close by he's been if he was able to hear her. *Will I get super hearing, too?*

"Keep tabs on my daughter." Mom orders calmly. I raise an eyebrow at them.

"Will do." Mikyle nods, finally removing his eyes from the paper and glancing at me. He blinks a few times and frowns, looking me up and down several times before returning to read his paper. His expression, though brief, was one of disgust and annoyance. I feel my own reflection of those emotions shudder through me.

"Mom, you can't be serious." I stage-whisper to her. Even though I know he can hear me, I don't want to say it too loud.

"I am." Mom replies in her no-nonsense tone, crossing her arms over her chest again and staring at me cooly.

"I don't need a babysitter-" I scoff, feeling my lips twist into a snarl.

"Hey, now, I'm usually paid for my services," Mikyle hisses at me, narrowing his eyes at me. "Lady M, I know I have already agreed to this task, however-"

"You did already agree. I'm trusting you with my *only* daughter's safety, Mikyle. I'm counting on you." She says the last part slowly. Those words seem to ease Mikyle's ruffled feathers and he stands up straighter before raising his hand to his head and saluting Mom.

"Of course, M'lady!" Mikyle nods adamantly. He looks at me with a little smirk. "Looks like we'll be seeing a lot of each other, princess." I show him my teeth, thoroughly annoyed.

"Anyway," Mom turns back to the pot of stew and gives the thing a good stir. "For the rest of the semester, you will be doing your school work from home." She fishes in the drawer beside the stove for something.

"Wait, what?" I blink at her.

"Your seventeenth birthday is just around the corner," She explains absently, finally pulling out a small, curved blade. "There are some aspect of your Blooming-transition that aren't safe around humans. Also, you will be meeting up with Doctor Blythe once a week for examinations, since you don't seem to want to visit your father's Coven." She adds, again, using her not-up-for-debate tone. I groan, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my palm.

"That's going a little too far, isn't it?" I whine. And then the sweet, irony scent of fresh blood fills the air. My hands fall from my face, and I stare at Mom through the red curtain distorting my vision. She's sliced open her palm, letting her blood fall into the stew. I gape at her, the shock of what she's doing banishing the red from my vision and striking horror though me.

"Don't look at me like that, Wisty. Now that you're getting older, I may as well also divulge some of the secrets I've been keeping from you. This will be the first one," She sighs, stirring the stew with the ladle in her uninjured hand. "Ever since you were a baby, I've laced at least one meal a day with blood. Either my own or that from donors."

"What?" I choke out, my eyes widening.

"Honey, what did you think the 'surprise' was in 'stew surprise'?" Mom gives me a patient look, wrapping her now healing hand in a black kitchen towel. "Surprise." She sets a bowl of my favorite meal before me, and for the first time in a long time, I don't want to eat it.

"Wh-what else have you been feeding me?" I rasp, my stomach churning, but my mouth watering at the wonderful smell as the steam from the stew fills my nostrils. *I must be a monster. How can it smell so good?* Now that I know the secret of stew surprise, I should be revolted. The smell alone should make me want to puke - but it doesn't. And maybe it's because I'm five seconds from collapsing from hunger, or that I've finally started to accept that I'm really half-vamp, but I'm actually relieved. It explains a lot.

"Those cinnamon-sugar cubes Hale brought you," Mikyle takes the seat beside me. "Yeah, their not just cinnamon and sugar."

"W-will it help? Keep me under control?" I ask him tentatively, glancing from him to the bowl before me.

"Yeah, princess, it'll help." His expression softens the tiniest degrees before he looks over at my mom. "Can I have some too, Lady M?" He asks, back to his oddly cheerful demeanor.

"I suppose." Mom sighs, and serves him a steaming bowl of the vampire-tailored stew.

"Thanks for the meal!" He grins at her before picking up his spoon and looking over to me. "Eat up, princess, you're gonna need your strength."

"Yeah," I hear myself say, turning my attention back to my food. "I guess I will." That tiny spark of hope I thought I'd extinguished comes back to life, burning like a singular flame in the vast sea of uncertainty that has become my life.