NINETY-ONE | CHANGING TIDES

Paris has me by the throat, her glazed eyes triumphant and singularly focused. I struggle against her hold, but after that attempt to use the power I'd found before, I'm utterly spent. Only the weakness of human strength is keeping my knees from buckling as the rest of me aches and thrums. My head's swimming, though I don't know if that's from the botched attempt to control the strings of time or Paris' hand cutting off my access to air.

"Grandmother's dying to see you again," Paris grins at me, her grip on my throat tightening. I hiss at her, trying to fight against her strength, but something's different about her today. Her strength isn't her own. Before I can further analyze whatever's happening, Paris is moving with purpose to the west. Deeper into the woods. And I'm scrambling to keep up, lest she strangle me with her tight grip and kill me here and now. My eyes begin to swim, head throbbing from the lack of oxygen and red threatening to fall over my vision.

But then Paris releases me. Well, no. Not *releases* - more like *throws*. My body goes flying, hitting something hard and dry, making the world shudder around me. I groan, blinking as I'm able to breathe again - greedily sucking in lungful after lungful of- dust air.

I cough, hacking up whatever foul stale-ness I've just breathed.

"Don't be so dramatic, Scarlett." An old creaky voice, so familiar and yet- I look up, and into the deep sapphire blue eyes that echo my memory. Blood red hair strewn with so much silver it's almost lost all the color I remember it having, tightly wound into a bun atop her ancient head. Worn face, so much older than I recall, glowers down at me. Just like the night I last saw her, when she ordered my death. When she began this whole thing.

"Grandmother," I breathe, a slight reverence in the word, despite myself. Her thin lips twist into a snarl and she moves quickly - much faster than I thought she would be able to - and grabs my neck. She's so strong, lifting me off the floor and pressing me into the wall I'd hit. The wall of a cabin. I wheeze under her grip, my airways almost completely cut off by her hand.

"You lost the privilege of addressing me long ago, Scarlett." Grandmother rasps in that ancient voice. Still, the power of an Alpha, demanding respect and fear, assaults me. Slithering into my mind and forcing my revulsion into compliance. I shudder and lower my eyes, gritting my teeth even as I submit. The tiniest bit of defiance flares through me as I glare at her nose and don't allow my eyes to lower any more than that. "Still so stubborn." She hums, almost in appreciation. "Just like your mother," Grandmother let out a little huff and - with her other hand - presses her palm into my forehead.

Fire rages to life, deep in my bones, flowing up to the surface of my skin. A hum of energy so engrained in me that I can't recall a second when it wasn't there. The pain intensifies inside, but I can't move. Can't *breathe*. Even as my mouth gapes open - ready to release the embodiment of my agony - nothing comes out.

"Paris, come." Grandmother orders, and Paris comes over, eyes no longer clouded over like before, but dazed and blinking in confusion. Still, she doesn't say a word as Grandmother presses her other hand to Paris' forehead. I feel the energy leaving me and running through our Grandmother - and into Paris. Suddenly, it all clicks into place.

Like a latch in the back of my head, several things jump into focus. The weird words my cousins spoke, the way their eyes were cloudy - like they weren't aware or really there, the power- It was all Grandmother, or at least her influence. I feel it all now, like a veil being lifted from my eyes. Everything since the second time we fought - when I came back to Kiwina. When they all started acting more frenzied. So out of character...so *cruel. It was never them*.

Paris' eyes widen as the Alpha-ship flows from me to her, the truth thrumming through the bond. *Oh God, the bond*. Hidden, deep in the recessed of my body - so engrained with my nature as a Wolven, I'd never noticed it. *The hum of the Reinier Pack in my head that was always there*. The almost imperceivably one-way mirror the bond had turned into. Me never noticing them - but them having a front-row seat to the events of my life.

As Grandmother coaxes every last bit of the power of the Alpha-ship from my body and into my cousin, I can sense it. Feel the bond come to life and become a deafening roar of knowledge in my mind. The Reinier Pack all around us, engaged in a battle in the woods of Port Greene, allies of theirs and those of the Azures in the thick of it. They've been looking for me all night.

*Why didn't they find me earlier? I was bait, wasn't I?*

"Regardless if you were bait or not, Scarlett," Grandmother interrupts my thoughts, just as the last of the power leaves me. My body falls from her grasp and I can breathe again. I drag in breath after breath, ignoring the stinging burn of dust and urge to choke on each dirty breath. "We couldn't just leave your allies alive. Not after they disrespected the laws of nature."

"And what about your 'disrespect' of nature's laws?" I hiss, my eyes watering as I swallow the roughness in my throat. Grandmother's eyes flash and I have a split second to brace myself as her hand hits the side of my face. My head smacks against the wall, ears ringing as the pain echoes in my head. I wince, but turn to glare at her.

"I allowed you to live, you *ungrateful* creature," Grandmother seethes, her face twisting in furry. "I allowed you to live for years before I had your cousins come find you!" Ice dumps into my veins at this news. *She knew. The whole time we were 'on the run' she knew exactly where I was*. "I allowed you to hope until it was time to collect that power you've helped grow and nurture. The Alpha-ship would never have grown so strong if I had simply killed you all that time ago. Paris wasn't strong enough to grow it." Grandmother rasps, as if Paris isn't in the room with us, her eyes wide and filled with as much horror as I feel rising in me.

*So that's it. That's why she let me live*. Not because she had a spot of pity or love for me. But because it suited her cause. She thought Paris couldn't, for whatever reason, grow the power of the Alpha-ship. Couldn't be the Alpha our Grandmother wanted. That was the only reason they let us be for so long. Only coming to find us out of some twisted sense of keeping the illusion alive. To keep me and Mom in check all these years. Under Grandmother's rule. Afraid. Dashing our hopes. Year after year. Time wasted in fear when it was never ours to begin with.

*We've never been free*.

And now, when the power's finally become what Grandmother wants, she's here to collect.

"You're a monster." I breathe, my heart twisting at the cruel realization. Again, Grandmother's hand hits my face, but I'm ready for it. This time, only a little less painful, but my head doesn't bob around and hit the wall like a ragdoll. I grit my teeth and rise from the ground, glaring at the woman who cause me and my cousins so much pain.

"That's enough," Grandmother growls, a note of hysteria in her eyes. A look I've only ever seen on one other person. Craven.

And just like that, another piece clicks into place. Through the bond, I can sense it. More truth, coaxed from the depths of Grandmother's mind, flowing into me so quickly I doubt even Grandmother's aware of it until it's too late. She's been using her power and status to control Craven. For years.

Years of her in Craven's head. Years of her voice, her will being exerted over our eldest cousin. Twisting his mind, his soul, into what he is now. Feeding him lies and bathing him in paranoia. Revulsion twists at my stomach and a strong sense of respect for the man I've hated and feared as long as I can remember. He's certifiable...cruel...but how much of that was him and how much was Grandmother? Yet, after all this time, he's seemed to hold onto pieces of himself. His eyes weren't like the others. Not until these last few weeks.

"He's stronger that I thought, but his soul was weak." Grandmother hisses at me, the hysteria growing in her eyes as she tries to explain herself. "He never would have been able to be Alpha." Nausea fills me as snippets of what she did flutter behind my eyes. The moment Craven was born, the eldest of the new generation of Wolven, Grandmother had forged the bond in his mind. Wanting him to be the future Alpha, she nurtured him - flooding his young thoughts with all he would need to know to lead a Pack. Driving him to the brink of madness.

He was so young. Too young. And then, just as quickly backing off when she realized her mistake. But the damage had been done. His warped sense of morality began to center around the 'good of the Pack'. He was the perfect candidate, strong, decisive...until he turned ten and discovered his mate. A human.

I gag as the roar of memory surges. Grandmother ordered him to kill her. For Craven to destroy the one pure thing left in his world. That's what finally broke him. *The night he came back after ripping out her heart, empty and soaked in blood*- Reminding Grandmother of the way her son looked at her the night she killed him. The horror of that secret exploding through me without warning.

Paris' father, my mom's twin, found out what I was. What Grandmother decided and everything she had kept from the Pack. He threatened to expose it all to the Pack, to set things straight, to right the wrongs his mother had made. And she had killed him for it. Blaming his death on the Hale's Coven. Blaming Ritska. Using the ensuing fall out to hunt out every supernatural creature and destroy them all-

"Wh-what?" Paris looks at our Grandmother in astonishment. Her whirling emotions swirl through me. Confusion, fear, a deep driving sorrow. Her heart breaking.

"It had to be done, Paris. You'll understand when you're Alpha." Grandmother tells her resolutely, ignorant to my cousin's inner turmoil.

"B-but... you said it was the vampires. You *said*-" She's shaking her head now, looking a little green. Grandmother's form blurs and Paris' head is suddenly whipped to the side, a bright red imprint of our Grandmother's hand blooming on her cheek. I move to go to her aid, but it's too late.

"Insolent child!" Grandmother hisses, narrowing her eyes at my cousin. The angry red mark immediately starts to bruise a nauseating purple-black. And I know it's going to be weeks before the mark fades.

Paris is frozen in place, eyes wide in shock. I don't think Grandmother has ever laid a finger on anyone but me before.

"It had to be done." Grandmother nods to herself, slowly, then increasing in tempo. "Yes, I had no other choice," It takes me a second to realize she's not addressing me or Paris. She's talking to herself. "Ike," Icy dread floods my veins as I watch her reach out to the empty air, caressing the face of a man who died decades ago. Our Grandfather, Ike. I swallow, looking up to meet Paris' equally frightened gaze. "You know, Ike. You understand. For the good of the Pack." Grandmother breathes her one-sided conversation to the illusion of her mate. She's insane. Completely and utterly, by all standards of every creature I've ever known.