Her CEO Stalker and Her Second Chance Mate Chapter 197

Briar

My grandmother moved easily through the trees, I watched her avoid a limb here and a root there. The weather here was mild for early January.

“How do you see?” I asked her, confused.

“I have my ways, the mind’s eye sees more clearly than eyes themselves.” she said, hooking her free arm in mine. I didn’t know what to make of that, so I let it go.

“Now tell me, child, everything. My daughters did not visit me much since you were born. I know they are both dead, but I want to know how they lived and died. And I want to know all about you. So I told her about them as much as I could, while we moved through the trees. I gave her the short version. Explaining that Alice had been taken and killed by my father’s enemies and that Evie had taken on her identity to raise me only to die of cancer.

She became quiet as she absorbed it all until a smaller raven cawed as it flew overhead. My grandmother was disturbed from her contemplative thoughts as I let her sit with the information. We had paused by a stunning waterfall. I watched the water, absorbed in its beauty. The place seemed to hum beneath my feet. The bird flapped and landed on a tree branch cawing again.

“What’s your name?” I asked, already knowing from Misty’s information but wanting to try to get her to talk about herself and avoid having to tell her about me.

“Hazel, McBride if you assume I’m legally married to Colten. Smith if I go by the name of the woman who raised me.

“Your parents?”

“Never had none, the granny woman who found me on her doorstep took me in. Her name was Hattie Smith. I wasn’t born into this world by typical means. Her milky eyes stared at the pool at the bottom of the waterfall before she spoke again. “Alice and Evie were not entirely human. While Alice took after me, though she embraced it, she wanted more than this life. She was spirited and young, wanting to see the world and it swallowed her,” she said with sadness. Evie on the other hand took after Colton, and she hated it. Denounced it with every bit of fire she could muster in her heart. Her and her father were just too much alike to ever understand each other. Despite it all, Alice and her were inseparable. They were special, they understood each other on a soul level. I’m not surprised she walked away from her identity in order to take your mother’s place. They would have done anything for one another.

“What do you mean my mom was like you and Evie is like Colton?”

“There are more things than just wolves in this world, child. I can sense a spark of your mother deep inside you. However, the shifter genes in your veins is stronger, only because that is the side you now know to pay attention to.” What I am, cannot be placed in a neat category that’s easy to understand. I hold power in this realm and my gifts allow me to do the job I promised and was created to do. Many think those like me are witches, but that isn’t what we are. The very few like me are born to a purpose,” she said, looking at the water. “Colton is claimed by the wolves as one of them, but that’s not what he really is. At the core, his pack are Fea. They just happen to be a subspecies that has a tendency to shift into shadow wolves amongst other things at times. Perhaps the shifters think all the Fea have left to the other side so they must be shifters. They can believe what they want, as long as they leave us alone.”

“The council doesn’t bother you?”

“The council can go kick rocks, what I am trying to say is that your lineage is more than Clyde’s wolf, your mother held the ability to see more. However your aunt could shift into the most fierce shadow wolf I’ve ever seen and from me, that spark from Alice that she gave you; it will show itself if you open up to it.” 

“How do I do that?”

She took my hand and dipped it into the cool water of the pool and lifted it out. It wasn’t as cold as I expected it to be. My brow scrunched as I watched the glittering droplets fall from my cupped hand. A flutter stirred within me. Recognition, of what I wasn’t sure. I looked up into my grandmother’s cloudy gaze, a soft smile playing on her lips.

“Watch for it in the fluttering of leaves, the buzzing of insects, and the shimmers that run through the seams of this world.The movement just out of your vision. I may be a blind old bat  but I still see beyond the sight I have lost. These days people rush life. Slow down and take it in. It will come to you when you are ready, have faith in yourself. She stood then and I copied her letting the remaining water trickle out of my hand.

On the way back I found myself telling Hazel about all the weirdness of my youth and some of the things Jake gave me to cope with it just wondering if she would tell me anymore about whatever it was I may possess. The only thing she suggested is that my wolf may help me find the way to it.

When we returned, Carter and Colton were in a match against each other, chopping wood to pass the time. My mate’s scowl told me he was losing. I laughed inwardly. Colton seemed content with showing the young buck his ass.

The visit was too short; I still had many questions. Whatever it was, it was all I had of the mother who was forced from this world far too soon. I wanted to explore it on my own. It would be like getting to know her, and that was personal.