Hyacinth - By Abigail Owen Page 0,6

I guess. So your parents had more than one each?”

“I inherited three and Gideon only one.” Selene noticed that she was clenching her hands in her lap and tried to relax. She took another deep breath. “My father was able to influence people to do what he wanted. It was a subtle skill and didn’t always work. He couldn’t force people to do something against their will or to go against who they truly were. He was a gentle man… a good man.” Emotion choked her voice.

“But Gideon inherited something a little stronger?” Ellie guessed.

Selene nodded. “Yes. Gideon’s power was the ability to make anyone in the pack do whatever he wanted without their knowledge or consent. It appeared to work best on wolves – something about the linked pack mind. I assume it’s why he spent decades recruiting wolves into the family, as he tried to do with you. He destroyed anyone else with powers, anyone he couldn’t control.”

“I’ve touched you,” Ellie said, “so I know that your biggest strength is the ability to turn off anyone’s power if they’re using it near you. Is that how Gideon defeated my clan all those years ago?”

“It’s one of the ways,” Selene confirmed regretfully. “Of course, he was forcing his will on all the Vyusher, and so he had access to many different powers during an attack. We were born in 1832, so I was relatively young when we fought your family…. I was still developing the skill, so it wasn’t as effective as it is now.”

“Wait a minute…” Ellie wrinkled her brow in confusion. “You said four powers. Is morphing into a wolf one of them?”

“No, actually everyone in the pack does that. I’m so used it, I forget to count it. I guess with that there are five powers between the two of us.” Selene took a sip of water.

“Okay…” Ellie tapped her teeth with her fingernail. “You can visit people in their dreams as well, right? I didn’t have enough time to explore what you do with it. Was it you who came to me in that dream and helped me find the Jenners and Pierces?”

Selene leaned back and re-crossed her feet. “It was me. Not even Gideon discovered that I had that power. You are very good at what you do.”

“Why did you send me that dream?”

“To protect you and to fight my brother,” Selene replied. At Ellie’s confused frown, she explained, “I’d been hiding you from Gideon for decades. He’d been looking for you since the night he attacked your family and you’d morphed into a wolf before his eyes. I knew you had no chance against him as long as it was just you and Griffin. So I tried to give you reinforcements the only way I could.”

“Wait a second, back up.” Ellie held up a hand. “You protected us?”

Selene gave a small smile. “My third ability, I can… hide… for lack of a better word, Svatura from our tracker. I can’t physically hide them; it’s more that I shield the existence of a powerful being.”

“Were you hiding us from Gideon?” Ellie asked.

Selene shook her head. “Sheila— she’s one of our more talented wolves and can find anyone with powers on the planet. It’s not the person that she locates— it’s the power itself. However, she does better honing in on them if they’re in large groups. And I did better hiding them in small groups. That combination created just enough of a loophole in Gideon’s system, and I took advantage of it when I could.”

“We figured out that someone was keeping Gideon from finding us. But we thought maybe Griffin was doing it. Something with his shield maybe,” Ellie said. She absently reached for the candy in a bowl on the coffee table and popped one into her mouth.

“Did you never wonder why you never discovered that aspect of his power?” Selene asked.

Ellie shrugged. “I’m still developing my own ability. I just assumed it was a gap or that he was unconsciously blocking me from seeing it. Wait. So why wasn’t I able to see that gift when I touched you?” Ellie asked. Usually if she touched people, she had instant access to their abilities to their full extent.

Selene grimaced. “For that reason, actually. After decades of hiding my other two abilities from Gideon and Sheila, it’s a very well developed skill. And a bit of a habit.”

Ellie accepted this information with barely a blink. “And how were you protecting us, exactly?”

“Initially, I kept