Chapter Text
FIRST IT WAS YELLOW. A bright, lemony thing, glowing like fireflies in the dark, warm with innocence and youth. Lilith can’t pinpoint the exact night the dreams started, can’t even say she remembered them for sure, not until they became recurring, until it’s every time she closes her eyes. It’s a short journey. Before long they shifted, the yellow being swallowed up by this intense, cold blue; the color of the sky before storm clouds could cover it. The color of solitude. Glistening with tears and pain and so much hurt.
The blue stayed for a while.
She’s updating the family’s Bestiary when she comes across it: the chapter on werewolves. Having been a natural witch her whole life, she’s had years to acquaint herself with all sorts of supernatural creatures. She knows instinctively not to invite just anyone inside her home, to carry mountain ash, vervain and wolfsbane in her purse at all times. She’s had a few encounters over the years, especially after taking over her family’s botanical shop. Emissaries seeking help for the werewolf packs they’re guiding, vampires asking for daylight rings, wendigos buying potions to control their hunger.
Most of the time, though, the people who go in and out of Belladonna Apothecary are just regular humans, believers and non-believers who want to buy crystals and potions for luck and love and mental sanity. Supernatural creatures tend to stick to themselves, anyway. Something about magic makes them uneasy, especially the natural kind, the kind of magic born from a deep connection with nature, the gifts coming from the very elements that make up life on earth. It’s easy to be intimidated by power, however pure it ought to be.
Werewolves were even rarer to come by. They have their own packs, families that like to huddle close together and function as units. Their protective nature keeps them aloof from other supernatural beings, most of the time relying on their emissaries to help them navigate the world. So Lilith can’t say exactly why she was drawn to the short chapter on the lycans in her family’s Bestiary. But something in her gut tells her to pay attention to the carefully crafted words.
The dreams aren’t always clear. Sometimes she just hears a voice—low murmurs, angry grunts, the rare laughter. Sometimes it’s vague shapes and images of a house well-lived in, the warmth from a roaring hearth, the smell of home cooked meals. But Lilith remembers the night the color shifted to red vividly.
It had been raining in Boston for the past couple of nights, and so Lilith would return home from the shop soaking wet no matter how big of an umbrella she brought. That night was particularly grueling, the thick fabric of her coat weighing her body down, the cold sticking to her skin. Her shower’s heater wouldn’t work, and she’s too exhausted and sleepy to use magic to keep herself warm, so Lilith powered through a brief, freezing shower before tucking herself under the covers. She’s out like a lamp in the next minute. And then she dreams.
The first thing she registered was the feeling of extreme anguish; the combined grief and anger tied together by resignation. She had felt grief in her dreams of the glowing orbs before—intense grief, encompassing and world-shattering, even—but never with this tinge of struggle. As if the grief was painful yet welcome. As if it would tame the beating rage. And then the glowing blue circles became enveloped with red, hot and searing and powerful.
It’s then that Lilith realizes what she’s been dreaming about this whole time; eyes. Glowing. Once yellow, turned blue, and now red.
A werewolf.
⟡☾⚝☽⟡
She’s finishing up with bagging an order of dried mugwort when she catches sight of the Spellman Bestiary once more, laid on top of her desk behind the shop counter, closed but almost mocking in its proximity. Lilith thinks about werewolves again, and of her recurring dreams; she thinks of the lunch breaks and late nights she’s spent going over all that her family has on them, individual words coming to mind: Alpha. Beta. Omega. Hunters. Full moon. Mates.
She turns towards her cousin, Rowan, who is busy taking inventory of their boxed teas. “Tell me about the curse again.”
Rowan stops what she’s writing on her little notebook only so she could look at her incredulously. “What?”
“The curse,” Lilith repeats, tying the package of mugwort haphazardly before pushing it on the counter towards the unsuspecting customer.
Her cousin frowns, but she closes the notebook she’s holding to pay more attention to their conversation. When she speaks, her voice is hard like concrete. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love.”
“Come on, Rowe,” Lilith almost laughs. “When would I even get the time?”
Rowan isn’t phased, eyebrows pulled tight together. “Why else would you ask about the curse? What about it have we not heard since we were, like, literally four?”
Lilith tries to choose her next words more carefully. Rowan didn’t always used to be so opposed to love. In fact, ever since she could remember, Rowan had been the more hopeless romantic one, writing off the curse as some spooky tale their mothers would tell them to keep them away from sex as long as possible. What does it matter that none of them grew up with their fathers? That Rowan and Lilith never even met them? Or that their mothers never remarried or dated again? What does it matter when Rowan still didn’t believe anyway? What does it matter when she meets Anna at seventeen and falls madly in love?
Rowan didn’t believe. But Lilith did. And so she was there to pick up the pieces when the fates decided they would only give Rowan four blissful, fearless years with Anna before planting a tumor in her brain.
“What does it say about…partnering with other supernatural creatures?” She finally manages to ask, keeping her eyes trained on the leather-bound book that’s been tormenting her as much as her dreams.
Rowan sighs. “They’re still mortal, Lilith. Supernatural or not. The curse stays.”
“Okay,” she replies, breathing out slowly. She already knows this, anyway. It’s the answer to her next question that terrifies her. “What happens if…if a Spellman witch becomes a werewolf’s mate?”
It’s like a string tightens around Rowan’s spine, making her stand up straight with a sharp inhale. Immediately, she heads to the front door, flipping the sign to ‘close’ before stomping back towards Lilith, face lined in concern. “Tell me everything.”
Lilith clenches her jaw, and then she talks, tells her about the glowing orbs changing colors that she keeps dreaming of, about the emotions tied to them that she feels so deeply it’s as if they’re her own. She talks about werewolves and the meaning behind the color of their eyes. Of them having mates: people destined to be their partners forever, fashioned and connected since their very births by the fates themselves.
“Is it possible?” She asks when she finally runs out of stories to tell.
Rowan pushes off from where she’s leaning against the counter. “Remember Aunt Rhiannon?”
“What about her?” The last Lilith heard, she’s leading a coven in Los Angeles, love and curse-free.
Her older cousin slumps forward to get closer to her. “Lilith, she was a werewolf’s mate. An alpha, in fact, from a pack in Ohio.”
She’s almost afraid to ask, but does so anyway. “What happened?”
“Mates are a curious thing,” Rowen says in lieu of answering. “It doesn’t matter if a Spellman witch hasn’t met and technically fallen in love with them yet. Being mates literally means you’re pre-determined to love each other.”
“Rowe, what happened to Aunt Rhiannon’s mate?” Lilith asks again, gripping the edge of the marble counter with her hands.
Rowan looks away. It takes Lilith a while to see that she’s staring at the Bestiary, too.
“She started having visions of him. She came to find him but it was too late.” This time, Rowan catches her eye. “He died before they could even meet.”
Lilith releases a breath, but she isn’t surprised. After all, she’s just one in a line of Spellman witches cursed to lose the ones they love to death.
⟡☾⚝☽⟡
She decides to leave the dreams alone.
Wouldn’t it be better never to meet and fall in love with him at all? It doesn’t matter anyway. If mates were truly fated from birth, then the werewolf who has the misfortune to be mated to her is as good as dead.
Lilith ambles through the next few weeks slowly, like she’s walking underwater. She’s out of focus, jumpy, and she almost set the shop on fire trying to light a lavender candle to calm her nerves.
“Are you okay?” Rowan asks her after dousing the fire that caught in the stray pieces of printed potion recipes on the counter with a wet towel. “No offense but you’re looking really rough.”
Lilith gives her a pointed glare. Rowan knows the truth, anyway. But not the extent of it. “The dreams are getting worse.”
“Worse how?”
She runs a hand through her hair and looks up at the ceiling for a few seconds, gathering her thoughts. “It’s getting more…vivid. It’s like I’m feeling what he’s feeling. Or like I’m right there with him. Some nights I could even feel him breathe against my skin.”
“You think we should call Aunt Rhiannon?” Rowan asks, eyebrows scrunching up together.
Lilith absentmindedly places a hand on her stomach. Last night, the dream was particularly brutal. She could see his figure–blurred, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out–hunched over the floor, a metal pole impaling him in place. And then there’s the flashes of his mouth dripping with thick blood, his eyes fluttering shut, dull now that he’s not transformed. Lilith thinks of the other day, when she accidentally cut her finger while chopping some herbs. “Do you think he can feel me too?”
“Werewolves aren’t exactly my expertise, Lilith.” Rowan says, shaking her head. “What did our Bestiary say?”
“Nothing of substance about werewolves and mating. Nothing especially about werewolves mating with witches.” Lilith grumbles out the last part, feeling frustration flare up in her chest.
Ever since she was a little girl, when she learned about the curse affecting all Spellman witches, Lilith had been determined to never fall victim to it. She wouldn’t even give it a chance. Sure, she’d entertained men before, had casual relationships to pass her fancy. But the second she felt like they were turning into more, she pulled away. She’s not going to let someone die just because she foolishly fell in love with them. She’s not going to be like her mom or Rowan or Aunt Rhiannon. In her direct line, she’s determined that the curse will die with her.
Being mated to a werewolf shouldn’t have hindered her plans. In fact, she’d gladly live the rest of her life without knowing about him if not for those stupid dreams.
Something in her facial expression must have alerted Rowan to her frustrations, because her cousin immediately comes closer to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “What is it?”
Lilith grits her teeth. “It’s just…the dreams. I just want them to stop.”
Rowan says nothing, waiting for her to elaborate.
It’s selfish. She should feel guilty, but a part of her is more angry.
“I’ve been running from this curse my whole life, Rowe. And I’ve been doing just fine. I’m content to never fall in love, to be alone for the rest of my life if it meant the curse wouldn’t get to me. But these dreams?” Lilith quickly brushes off the stray tears leaving her eyes, as if wiping them away fast enough would mean they were never there at all. “They make me feel closer to him. Tied to him. And I’ve never even met him. It’s like no matter what I do, the curse will find a way to hurt me regardless.”
Rowan hugs her to her side, grip secure and tight and just a little bit angry on her behalf, too. “We’re calling Aunt Rhiannon and that’s final. Alright?”
Lilith nods, mind still wandering off to the piercing pain she felt in her dream, the silent scream she let out when she saw her mate bleed. And the part she won’t tell anyone, not even Rowan: waking up gasping for breath, throat sore, her shirt and bedsheets stained with blackened blood that’s not her own.
⟡☾⚝☽⟡
The turning point comes a few days later, when she’s cooking dinner for herself. She just finished putting her salmon inside the oven when this intense cold sensation overcomes her, making her eyes roll back. It lasts for a couple of seconds, maybe minutes, long enough to make her teeth start chattering. She sees his eyes again, bright red and powerful. But then something happens. She feels something like a tension rod snapping, and blue starts to bleed in with the red, spreading and spreading until his eyes have changed entirely. And then it just stops.
Lilith drops to the floor, wrapping her arms around herself to stop from shivering. Aunt Rhiannon still hasn’t gotten back to them, but screw waiting around. She’ll find the answers herself. She has to, because what she just saw meant that her mate was no longer an alpha, and the one thing she knows about werewolves is that alphas don’t just lose their status; it has to be taken from them.
She takes a few deep breaths before launching herself to her feet, taking practiced steps towards the dark oak bookshelf lining her living room wall. Her vision is still a little blurry after what happened, her fingers shaking even as she tries to steady them, running through book spines looking for the spellbook she needs. She tries to get a book but knocks the picture frame in front of it to the floor, the sound of glass shattering loud in her otherwise silent home.
“Fuck,” she hisses lowly, staring at her shaking hands and imploring them to stop. Lilith closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths, choosing to ignore the images of her unknown mate’s red eyes turning to blue that assault her the second she does. “Come on.”
Decided, she reaches deep into herself where her magic lay dormant, idly waiting for her to take the reins. She doesn’t use her powers too often outside of basic spells to make potions. It had been that very power that doomed their bloodline in the first place. Natural witches may get their gifts from nature, but too much of it is still unnatural. Their powers are merely borrowed. Going beyond means tapping into abilities that were never meant to be used by mortals.
But desperate times call for desperate measures.
Lilith pictures her magic as if it’s a solid, physical thing, glowing gold in the depths of her soul. She imagines gripping it with her hands, warm and pulsating under her skin. And then she begins to chant.
What is hidden, let it rise,
No longer masked by fear nor lies.
Let truth be clear, let longing show,
Where my soul leads, let me go.
By wind and flame, by root and star,
Reveal the wish that hides afar.
Brought by moonlight while shadows part
The true desire within my heart.
Lilith opens her eyes.
In her hands now holds a book, one she hasn’t opened in years but contains what she needs: the guide to a location spell. But her Desiderium Verum spell might have worked too well, because despite not having any open windows, she feels a cold breeze against her skin, and the book opens by itself, pages sifting until it stops midway, showing a map of California, a golden orb encircling the name of a particular town.
Beacon Hills.
That night, for the first time in probably months, Lilith doesn’t dream of her mate. Instead all she dreamt of was encompassing darkness. Everywhere she turned, her vision failed her. And the dark just kept coming closer and closer, pressing against her until she could barely move. And then there were the voices, whispering and crying and screaming and surrounding her, all saying one name:
Derek Hale.
⟡☾⚝☽⟡
Lilith is sitting behind the counter of Belladonna Apothecary, absentmindedly knitting a scarf when the door opens with a loud ring, Rowan walking in hastily and striding towards her with a purpose. “Aunt Rhiannon finally answered my call, but I hadn't even finished explaining your situation to her before she hung up on me! Unbelievable!”
“Well,” she begins to say, carefully placing her loom and yarn hooks on the counter before facing Rowan. “We can’t really blame her. What happened has to be pretty traumatic.”
Rowan rolls her eyes. “Yes, I know, I get that. But it’s basically happened to each one of us. The least she could do is make sure it won’t happen to you.”
“It’s going to happen to me one way or another,” Lilith sighs. “If there’s anything I learned the last couple of weeks, it’s that the curse always finds a way. Besides, we have more pressing matters to discuss.”
Her cousin looks like she wants to say more, but holds herself back. “Fine. What is it?”
Before Lilith can speak, Rowan cuts her off again, eyes lighting up in remembrance. “By the way, that reminds me, did you do any magic last night? Orpheus was going crazy and he only acts like that whenever there’s a spell being done nearby.”
“Your cat is a psychic,” Lilith mutters under her breath. “Yes. I did.”
If Rowan is surprised at her admission, she doesn’t show it, asking in a careful voice, “What did you do?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk about. Last night when I was making dinner, this…coldness just descended upon me. I couldn’t move. It’s like my energy was being sucked out of me by this invisible entity.” Lilith gulped harshly, avoiding Rowan’s eyes. “And then I saw my mate’s eyes. He’s no longer an alpha. It’s like that extra spark of power has been taken from him.”
Rowan approaches her carefully. “Is that possible? I mean, can alphas lose their status just like that?”
“I don’t know,” she shakes her head, clenching her jaw. “He could be dead already and I wouldn’t know.”
The other witch gives her a strange look. “Did lightning and thunder strike outside? Ones that are abnormally powerful and loud? Did all the lights in your apartment flicker out, until all you’re left with is this pool of darkness in the pit of your stomach?”
“What are you–”
“It’s the signal,” she continues, looking down to fiddle with her thumbs. It’s a habit Lilith has noticed she only started after Anna died. “That’s how you know that the curse has gotten to you. Ask every Spellman witch who lost someone to the curse and they’ll tell you the same thing.”
Lilith shakes her head slowly, processing what she just learned. “No. That didn’t happen. Had I known that, maybe I wouldn’t have done what I did last night. But something inside me just couldn’t rest until I did something. Not after what I felt. So I, uhm, I did a Desiderium Verum spell–”
Her cousin cuts her off with a gasp. “Lilith!”
“I know!” She rushes to say. “I know. But I had to. I was only supposed to use it to get the instructions for a location spell, but–”
“What did it give you?” Rowan asks, inching closer. Her eyebrows are furrowed together, and Lilith knows she doesn’t approve of what she did. Rowan’s been here before. She found love and it got ripped from her arms no matter how tightly she held onto it. But something inside Lilith is compelling her to seek her mate out. If only to make sure that he’s still alive. That he’s still hers.
“A place,” Lilith admits, biting her lower lip. She thinks of the previous night; the incessant voices repeatedly haranguing her until the break of dawn. “A name.”
She finally looks up, meeting her cousin’s eyes head on. “ I know who he is, Rowan. And I know where to find him.”