I briefly explained my situation to her, and in the span of time it took us to eat our breakfast, she somehow became my biggest ally in the house, next to Xander. Camille took me under her wing in a way and helped me learn the basics of being a caster, which I had no real clue about.
It was nice to have a better grasp of that part of me. I mean, the spellbook Dev gave me was incredibly useful, but didn’t replace the feeling of having someone actually teach you and help you through your mistakes.
The second biggest surprise during that week was I didn’t see Irna, not even once. She was notably absent during meals and even during the casting circles. I figured she was working, but I thought she would have been hounding me to “study” me.
I had ended up talking to Xan about it when we went to bed the day I talked to Irna. I told him what she told me about mixed race couples being incompatible as far as procreating went. He sat in silence for a long time, lost in thought. He held me through the entire night and was even hesitant to let me go the next morning. It was as if he knew something I didn’t.
I tried to talk to him about it, but he just kissed me and told me everything would be alright. He had a plan and I needed to trust him.
It didn’t take long after that for Xander to be invited into strategy meetings with Di and her inner circle, which I learned was all part of his plan. He never really told me what they talked about, but I knew that it wasn’t about me. Xan was good at playing along when he wanted to, but I didn’t think he could ever hold back if he felt like I was in danger.
So, I let him work on his plan. I knew he’d come to me when he felt like he needed to. I continued to work on my magical abilities with Camille and my new caster friends, and shifting with Xan, when he wasn’t in a secret meeting. Life was definitely becoming peaceful in a way, and that made me more nervous than before we even got to the house.
After all, my life was never meant to be peaceful. I knew that the moment my mark added to itself for the first time fifteen years ago. It would always be chaotic, and I accepted that. But peace during an unpeaceful time, I couldn’t believe. Not even a little bit.
Chapter Seven
“Hey, Emelia,” a soft voice called out to me, breaking me out of my thoughts. I turned in my chair by the pool to see Irna standing there, wringing her hands together nervously. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Hi,” I replied with a smile. “Sure. Do you want to sit down?” I gestured toward the lounge chair next to me and she awkwardly sat down, crossing her feet at the ankles and tugging at the hem of her wrinkled dress.
She was very nervous. More nervous than when I had talked to her the week before and told her who I was.
“How have you been?” I asked, trying to get the conversation going.
“Me? I’m fine. I’ve been fine. Why do you ask?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Just making conversation. I haven’t seen you since that day about a week ago, after I told you about myself, so I just wanted to see how you’ve been doing.”
Irna sat back in her chair and began fiddling with the hem of her dress again.
“I’m sorry, I’ve been busy…”
“With your work?”
“Huh?” She looked up at me as if she was lost in thought. “Oh! Yes! With work! I’d like to talk to you more about what you told me, if that’s alright.”
“Sure, I guess.”
The whole situation was odd, to say the least.
“So how have you survived all of your life being half caster, half shifter? I’m honestly surprised you’ve lived this long with the Council’s decree and all.” Her eyes went wide when she realized what she implied. “Oh! No offense.”
“None taken,” I grinned. “But I don’t think of myself as half caster and half shifter. I can fully shift into my dragon and I have all of the abilities that come with it. I can also do everything that a caster can do with advanced skills. I seem to be a full shifter and a full caster all in one body with a mate for each part.”
“Fascinating. You have two mates?”
“Yeah,” I looked out over the pool as my thoughts drifted to the caster mate who wasn’t mine. He was what I was thinking about when Irna approached me earlier, so my mind returning to him wasn’t too hard to do. I shook my head, getting back to the conversation at hand. “Anyway, you wanted to know how I’ve survived this long.” She nodded her head and waited for me to continue. “Well, the truth is I’ve only been this way for about a month.” Her expression faltered to one of confusion. “Did Devlin tell you about my mother, his sister, Lucia?”
“Briefly. We didn’t really get to know each other very well when your uncle found me and we agreed to mate.”
“Well, she was fated to mate with Michael Ironshot. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.” She nodded her head quickly. “My mother despised him and he made her life miserable when she refused to mate with him. My father, a dragon shifter, helped her out. They fell in love and I was the result.”
“Fascinating,” Irna repeated.
“My mother raised me as a caster child, never telling anyone who my father was. They all assumed he was a caster like her, for obvious reasons. That was, until I reached puberty and I had my first shift.”
“Oh no.”
“Yup. Someone saw
