16

Dear Amelia,

After Stella and I calmed the boys down, Devyn told us that he was investigating Colton. He found out that Colton took over the pack of the alpha who forced his father to challenge me. It made me think that maybe this whole thing was a revenge plot. But there was more to it than that.

Devyn’s beta, Alex, found out that Colton was arrested multiple times by human authorities. We didn’t know why, because the records were expunged. A part of me didn’t care, as long as he left me alone. But I could tell it would only get bigger.

Sadie had a cousin whose pack bordered Colton’s and she had gotten a lot of information from her. There was talk about weird things that were going on in the pack. Pack members ran away and sought refuge in other packs for unknown reasons. The ranked members disappeared, including the former alpha and luna. But their pack bonds didn’t break. More like dissolved.

They said it happened little by little over time until eventually, it was gone. What stuck out the most was that the former pack members said that when Colton took over the pack, the pack bond changed. They described it as a darkness filling the bond.

All of this information made me think that dark magic was at play and that it was more serious than I initially thought. It wasn’t normal. Stella’s theory of fae being involved started to become more real. I think that’s when I knew that the problem was going to be more challenging and bigger than anything I’ve faced before. Fae magic was foreign. I had no idea how to fight against it. Or protect myself- or anyone- from it.

Thanks to Sadie and Alex, we got valuable information. Devyn was the one who asked them to look into it, so if it wasn’t for him, we probably wouldn’t have had any information at all. As much as I wanted to just kill Colton and get it over with, it was better to get more information so we wouldn’t go in blindly.

That information came while we were still in Mexico. We had one night left, so we decided to enjoy it. Once it was over, though, we had to talk more about what to do next.

Amelia, I really wished that we didn’t have to deal with any of this. I wanted so badly to just relax for once in my life and enjoy life. But I couldn’t. It was always one thing after another. And I felt like things just kept piling up. That’s why I took everything so seriously when you were growing up.

I know you think that I was being extra and over the top, maybe I was. But the truth is, I knew how short life could be. I knew how much things can change in the blink of an eye. And I wanted to make sure that we enjoyed every good thing to the fullest.

I hope you can understand.

~Mom

MJ. B