"Grae, welco back. Do you really feel you'll be comfortable in a transitional position here?" Andreas spoke from his more formal posture sitting behind the antique desk. He looked up at Grae over his glasses.
"I think it's the best thing right now. I'm glad the elders agreed," Grae replied, although truthfully, being in this office again made his skin itch. Old mories—none of them good—were clawing to get out. But he would be strong and forge past them. He had a renewed purpose being here now, and he was determined to be strong for his mate.
"Yes, well this is all remarkably unexpected. I suppose we have to find our way through it. How is Miss Cady?"
"She is doing well considering," he said.
"Wonderful." Andreas gave him a tight smile.
"Are you going to enlighten about the alyko's involvent?" Grae asked.
Andreas paused in the middle of flipping a page on his desk before allowing the page to rest flat. He removed his glasses and stood, walking around the corner of his desk to rest on its edge before he spoke.
"One of the lead researchers at Eliade is not soone whose na is in the dia. Penelope Winter. Have you heard of her?" Andreas asked.
"As in the Winter alyko family?" Grae asked.
The Winters were a notoriously powerful alyko family that had splintered off from a lycan pack in Louisiana. They had far more alyko mbers than any other family in history, and they chose to live amongst humans—entering into different careers to help society with their unique abilities while keeping those abilities secret, of course.
Understandably, a Winter alyko succeeded at whatever profession they chose to enter, and they were spread across the continent. Grae wouldn't be surprised if their influence had gone global by now, though he hadn't kept track of them.
"Oh, co now. Don't you think 'Winter witches' has a better ring to it?" Andreas tilted his head in amusent. "Science and magic aren't at odds. Our witches liked to say that their magic was also a kind of science, am I right? Is it so hard to believe a Winter would be in charge at Eliade?"
Grae watched Andreas without responding. The old man was right. The alyko often insisted that theirs was a deeper, or different, insight and awareness into the natural world—that there was nothing unnatural about it.
A mory surfaced in Grae's mind of when he and Greta were young. They were outside Maggie's little cottage watching butterflies swirl upward around them in the air. Greta had been upset about sothing that Grae couldn't rember now, and Maggie had called on the butterflies to gather in hopes that it would make her smile.
"Maggie, it's so beautiful!" young Greta had exclaid, eyes sparkling. "But how do you do it? How do you speak to the butterflies? Is it your magic?"
Grae rembered watching Maggie thoughtfully as he always did, being a quiet child. Greta was always boisterous enough for the both of them.
"Is it magic when the birds flock together in the air and fly the sa way or when little tiny ants carry huge spiders along with them? Is it magic when we breathe into our lungs the very air that the trees exhale?" Maggie had asked patiently.
"No," Greta squeaked. "That's just nature, Maggie."
"So is this, Miss Greta," Maggie had smiled.
"But then why can I not speak to the butterflies like you, Maggie?" little Greta asked.
"Ah, well I imagine you could if you felt the breath of the butterflies like I do," Maggie replied.
"How do you do it?" Greta asked again.
"The Moon Goddess gave the gift of feeling the breath of butterflies and calling on them for company. She gave the gift of speaking to the trees and invoking the wind. Just like she gave you the gift of your wolf," Maggie explained.
"But I haven't gotten my wolf yet," Greta argued, as she was still too young to have shifted into her wolf for the first ti.
"Ah, but you will, my love. You will," Maggie humd.
Grae blinked back to the face of the elder in front of him. Andreas and others like him argued against there being anything scientific or natural about the alyko. The hate and distrust that had brewed for the alyko over generations was precisely because they were deed unnatural, so why was Andreas making the opposite point now?
Andreas continued. "Witches of course have an entirely different insight into the natural world, which coincides with the insight needed to achieve the human virus' ultimate goal," he said. "Of course, we don't care all that much what the humans do to each other. Saving the planet, if that is truly the mission, is sothing we would also benefit from. Fewer humans in general would be welco, should that be the only outco. The question is why is one of their experintal subjects suddenly paired up with you?"
"My mate is not a threat, Andreas," Grae replied in a voice so low that the warning in it was unmistakable.
"And you know this how?" Andreas' voice lowered to match. "We are being targeted for so unknown reason, Grae. Her presence here proves it. You leaving destabilized us, and we appear weak, which has brought this external threat to our door."
"Is this what I'm here for? A lecture?" Grae asked, his jaw clenching.
"I hope you're here to help us strengthen the pack," Andreas folded his hands in his lap.
"Have you considered that her presence may an that as well? Strength for the pack?" Grae tilted his head now. "I sohow imagined I would be forced to consider an offer from the elders to take up the role of Alpha with a Luna now by my side."
"Sorry to disappoint you," Andreas' eyes narrowed before he returned to his place behind the desk. "I don't think our pack mbers would be comfortable with an outsider in such a powerful role either."
"She is my mate, not an outsider," Grae growled through his teeth as Andreas smirked at him over his fingers.
"Shall we talk about what you can do here for us?" Andreas asked. "Few know about a small research team here in the council created a few years ago. It's led by a young lycan nad Zosi," Andreas said.
"Her na doesn't sound familiar," Grae said.
"She was a stray who wandered in from the Grimm. We found she held considerable… skill that could be put to use," Andreas answered.
"An outsider," Grae's chuckled. "Andreas, are you familiar with hypocrisy?"
"She's not the Luna of the pack, Grae," Andreas answered. "And she is very bright. I'd like you to consult with her about their project."
"And what project is that?" Grae asked skeptically.
"The alyko files."
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