Family

"My dad died seven years ago," Claire answered coolly.

Jocelyn smirked wickedly and feigned embarrassment. Shaking her head, she replied with the same bubbly tone she had used when first meeting Claire in the cage, "My mistake! Of course, your dad is dead. But your father." Her eyes twinkled as she laughed mischievously, "Your birth father, however, is there."

Claire stood, dumbfounded. She had no witty retort because for some reason, she knew that the old woman was not lying. "How?" she whispered, unsure of what else to say.

"No, no. That is not how this will work." Jocelyn took her seat again, clearly happy to be back in control of the situation. "You will get your answers in turn for cooperation."

Claire's eyes narrowed, but she was not surprised. She sat on the floor, realizing just how exhausted she was. Closing her eyes, she ignored the witch. If the old woman wanted to be cryptic, then she would simply just not be responsive.

After a few moments, Jocelyn impatiently snapped, "Well?"

Claire opened one eye lazily and forced a yawned. Stretching, she replied, "I thought that I was not to ask any questions."

Once again, the witch smiled at the tenacity of the young hybrid. "Robert," she called through the door.

Claire opened her eyes but made no other movements when the metal door creaked on its hinges. In walked a man in his fifties with short, thinning, blond hair. He was tall and lanky with a growing beer gut. His glasses were out of style, but they matched with the rest of his wildly outdated look of flared, tight jeans and a collared short-sleeve shirt. Claire noticed that they both had thick eyebrows, wide noses, and blue eyes. But other than that, she could see no resemblance.

The man, Robert, looked at her as if she were a ghost. "You look just like May," he whispered as if he did not expect her to be able to hear him.

Jocelyn turned and gave him a silencing look. "Claire Green, meet your biological father, Robert Drusus."

Claire's eyes widened as she looked away from her birth father. Drusus. "No," she murmured.

"Yes!" Jocelyn exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "I'm your grandmother!"

"Where's my mother?" she asked cautiously, unnerved by the excitement oozing off the witch.

At the mention of the woman, who Robert had called 'May,' Jocelyn's smiled disappeared. "No one has seen that bitch since she stole you away from your family thirty years ago," she spat. "I hope she's dead."

None of this made sense to Claire. She had been a young child when her parents had adopted her, yes. But the note her mom had left with her said that she was a young mom who wasn't ready to be a parent. That her bio-dad had left when she got pregnant. That she had no money, no family, and couldn't give her a good life. Why would her mother take her from her family only to give her away? She had so many questions, but the only one she could think to ask was, "Why?"

Jocelyn's cruel smile returned. To her, this was the only cooperation she expected from Claire. A trade-off of information for good behavior. Claire was her prisoner, and Jocelyn felt drunk off the power she had. It had been a long time since she had this much control over an individual's life. She missed it.

"If you want answers, we will have to make a deal."

Claire's eyes narrowed at the prospect. Deals with witches were second in danger only to deals with fae. And Claire could make an educated guess on what her deal was. "And if I refuse?"

Jocelyn shrugged, "Then when The Council meeting is called, I will bring you and make the strong case for your immediate death."

Robert, who had not said a word since his mother's silent admonishment, lifted his head up in surprise. He looked at his daughter, who he had long assumed to be dead, and back at his coven's priestess. But Jocelyn only smirked and nodded her head. "Well?"

Claire watched her grandmother and father with curious eyes. Cocking her head to the side, she replied with her own sly smile, "And what makes you so certain that I care if I live?" Neither could hide the shock on their faces. "I've spent the past nine years barely alive and in constant pain. The only person who helped me is the one who made me feel that pain. What if I'm ready to die like I was supposed to a decade ago?"

As she spoke, Jocelyn's smile returned. "You were not supposed to die. Witches cannot get sick with illnesses such as cancers. Our bodies do not fall to such. Not naturally, at least."

"What are you implying?" Claire growled, feeling the instinct to defend her sire. She hated it.

Jocelyn stood up with the file and opened it. "Claire Green, age 22, dropped out of her senior year of college due to an unknown illness that had her in and out of the hospitals. At 23, diagnosed with stage two sarcoma breast cancer, the rarest kind of breast cancer; not to mention how rare breast cancer is for someone so young. Despite a year of aggressive treatment, in what is usually a fairly treatable cancer, it continued to grow, metastasizing to the kidneys. After another year and the removal of one kidney, the sarcomas developed lung metastases. Age 25, Claire Green was given about a year to live, while expected to spend the rest of her life on dialysis and oxygen. At 26, she died peacefully in her sleep. No autopsy was performed, but everyone was aware of her desire for assisted suicide and looked the other way." Jocelyn looked up from the file and asked, "Did I miss anything?"

Gritting her teeth, Claire replied, "Only the answer to my question. What are you implying?"

Jocelyn closed the file and said, "If you had been with your coven, like you were supposed to be, we would've known that you had been cursed. And you would've lived."

"Elias has no magic," Claire argued weakly.

"But he knows many who do," she shrugged. "And most owe him favors. You know how he loves to collect those."

There was no arguing with Jocelyn's sound logic. The doctors had marveled at how her early-stage cancer had progressed in unheard-of ways. She was the worst-case scenario for everything. And Elias had appeared in her small town, miles away from his home, and found her. Found her in her moment of desperation and offered her a way out.

Claire turned and looked again at her birth father, who had not spoken other than when he walked in. He was watching her with the same caution as the Priestess, but there was a softness to his expression, one his mother did not share. "What do you get for this deal?" she finally asked.

Jocelyn's blue eyes lit up with excitement as she replied, "If I were to train you, then you must owe allegiance to my coven. It is the same promise every coven offers."

She was telling the truth, and Claire knew that. But she could not help but think that there had to be something that the old woman was leaving out; a witch's allegiance to a coven was not as strong as any other bond within the supernatural world. It was more of a familial oath than anything else. There were far more binding contracts that could be signed.

Before Claire could speak, she heard a low, loud snarl followed by a high-pitch whine. For some reason, the sound shook her to her core, and she jumped to her feet. "What is that?!"

Jocelyn waved her hand, brushing off the noise. She wanted to continue negotiations with the hybrid. But Claire was no longer listening to her grandmother, instead trying to confirm what something deep within her knew; it was that wolf, Colin.

Claire got the confirmation first from his scent down the hall, and then moments later when his limp, nearly-naked body was brought in by three witches, two men and an older woman. They tossed him into a cell on the other side of the room, which Claire had not even noticed existed. He groaned and turned his head as he hit the ground, but made no other movement.

Seeing him like that hurt Claire deeply, though she did not understand why. Panic took over as she ran to the side of her cage. She saw the gentle rise and fall of his chest and sighed in relief.

Jocelyn, Robert, and the other witches left the room when they realized that Claire would not respond to them. She only watched the wolf breathe, waiting for him to come to. She needed to make sure he was alright. Staring at the wolf, she whispered to herself, "What are you, Colin?"