Tilting his head back, he gazed up at the moon and the lace-thin clouds that drifted in front of her glowing face. The sky behind it was so deep and close that he fancied he could sink his hand into it and pull back with inky fingertips. Alive. The wolf inside of him felt it too. Emotion, anticipation, and surprising joy welled up within with a sudden force that had him panting. He let the feeling crest and held it until his chest vibrated.

As a lone wolf, he was forbidden to do it. In so doing, he would be stating his intentions to the lycan world. But centuries of instinct could not be denied. A howl tore free, rising and falling in a long wave that spoke of his return and his promise to the woman.

Chapter Twenty-five

The sign on The Book Shop door said CLOSED. Daisy did not bother knocking. She was expected so the door was unlocked. The Book Shop. Ha! Leave it to practical Poppy to pick a name for her bookshop that was utterly lacking in any lyricism and so very… literal. As much as Daisy loved her older sister, she sometimes yearned to crack through her indomitable and proper facade.

Daisy’s heels clicked as she strode along the narrow hall, past the shop entrance, and toward the private areas at the back of the building. She left Tuttle and Seamus waiting in the carriage, though not without a bit of fuss, for they both feared for her. They needn’t. Not here.

The familiar scent of wood polish mingling with book mold and linen paper touched her nose. Light slanted in from the backdoor window, landing in a square block of gold upon the dark, wood floor. She moved through it and yanked the door wide open before slamming it behind her.

Before her spread a little green square of a garden enclosed by the walls of surrounding buildings. A quiet oasis in the midst of the bustling city.

Blinking in the brightness of the sun, Daisy lifted a hand for shade and found two sets of eyes upon her: one set gleaming green and curious, the other shrewd and brown.

“You look as though the very devil were on your heels,” said her eldest sister, Poppy.

Daisy opened her white parasol, lined with copper satin to keep the sunlight out, and walked toward her sisters, who sat at the little table nestled beneath the lacy shade of a budding willow.

“Perhaps he is.” She took her seat as Miranda set out a glass of iced tea and a plate before her. “Or perhaps the devil is a woman, and I am she.”

At that statement, she put away her parasol, helped herself to a ham sandwich, and took a hearty bite.

Miranda’s brow arched delicately. “Care to explain?”

Thoughtfully, Daisy chewed and let her sisters wait, but her eyes went to Poppy, who looked somewhat… hesitant. Interesting. Her eyes narrowed, and Poppy’s did in return. Daisy took a careful drink of deliciously cold tea, thankful for the way it soothed her sore throat, before addressing Miranda. “Well, dearest, it seems strangeness runs through our family after all.”

“No!” Miranda went pale but a smile tugged at her lips. “You didn’t!” She leaned forward in excitement. “You started a fire?”

“No.” Daisy shot a look at Poppy, who’d remained surprisingly quiet. “Nothing quite so… exotic… Dirt!” she shouted, no longer able to contain her ire. “Of all the gifts I could have received, I am left with dirt.”

She shoved back from the table and leaped up to pace in front of her shocked sisters. “Panda gets to play with fire, and I get filth. How very disgusting. Have you any idea what lives in dirt? Bugs! Worms!” She flung her arms up in disgust.

“Daisy, dearest,” Miranda pleaded, “calm yourself and explain.”

“Yes,” Daisy whirled about, “of course.” She stopped and clasped her shaking hands. “It appears, love, that when my ire is stretched to the limit, I can make the earth move. And… tree roots appear.” She flung her hands once more. “Honest to goodness tree roots shot from the earth and speared people!”

At this, both sisters went white.

“Tree roots?” Miranda intoned. She got up and caught hold of Daisy’s arm. “Sit and tell us what happened.”

Daisy let herself be led back to her seat. She took another sip of tea before recounting what had occurred the night before. Well, not all of it. She left out her kiss with Northrup. Miranda certainly wouldn’t approve. Despite not wanting Northrup when he wanted her, Miranda fervently objected to the idea that Daisy might get involved with him. Which both irked Daisy and made her love her sister for her protectiveness.

“It was my doing,” Daisy said to them. “I felt it in my bones. I caused the earth to heave and crumble. I caused those roots to burst free. It felt like want and power.”

She frowned, trying to explain, but Miranda nodded and clasped her hand. “Like a need trying to break free. And then a shiver of pleasure when it does.”

Daisy squeezed her fingers. “Yes, exactly.”

They shared a look in which they both grew distressingly misty-eyed before blinking their tears away and taking a bracing breath.

“I thought it only me,” Miranda said, after taking a moment to collect herself.

“Indeed.” Daisy turned her gaze on a silent Poppy. “I thought so as well. And yet one of us appears to be not the least bit surprised… Poppy Ann Ellis Lane!” She lurched forward in her seat, her fists rattling the plates upon the table as she glared at her sister. “You knew this might happen. Do not try to pretend you didn’t. You are the smartest of all of us. And the oldest. You knew, didn’t you?”

Silence filled the garden as the younger Ellis sisters stared at their eldest sister. Poppy had gone as still as the statuary gracing the four corners of the garden. She blinked back at them for one tense moment and then inhaled sharply as if bracing herself.

“I knew.”

Two simple words and the garden erupted into a volley of shouts, Miranda’s being the loudest. She stood to glare down at Poppy like an avenging angel, stray wisps of her red-gold hair stirring in the breeze.

“You knew?” Miranda hissed. “You knew how alone I felt with this burden. I felt a freak, an aberration of nature, and you knew it was not solely I who possessed strange powers?”

Poppy’s expression remained frozen, and her eyes were hollow. “It hurt me to keep quiet, Miranda. But it was not my place to warn Daisy or speak of your power unless absolutely necessary.”

“How could it not be necessary when I was turning things to ash?” Miranda shouted.

“If you had been seriously out of control, I would have helped you,” Poppy said calmly. “As it was, however, you handled the situation quite nicely.”

Another round of cursing broke forth but this time Poppy’s clear voice cut through it all. “Sit down, the both of you. Now.”

Something in her tone was so like their mother’s that Daisy found herself obeying, and Miranda shortly followed.

“Explain,” Miranda said.

“Of course,” Poppy said. “You are elementals.”

“Elementals?” Daisy parroted. The sun seemed too bright, the air too hot in the face of such discoveries but she was not inclined to break up the conversation to move indoors.

Poppy’s expression was serene. “Beings who can control the elements. In the past, elementals were touted as witches, many of them burned at the stake.”

Daisy shuddered and leaned back in her seat. “Witches. Lovely. Though with your temper, Panda”—she sent a small smile toward her irate little sister—“I can fully imagine the moniker.”

Miranda had clearly learned quite the number of colorful hand gestures during her time with Billy Finger and used one then. Daisy stuck her tongue out before turning back to Poppy. “How did we get this way?”

“You inherited it from Mother. Elementals are usually women, and the trait passed on to the daughters. It was she who forbade me to speak of it unless asked.”

“And you simply obeyed?” Miranda asked. “Even when you knew what it was doing to me?”

Poppy blinked. “I took a vow. As First Daughter, it was my duty to keep the secret. Only if you sought to do harm should I interfere. Only if you sought personal gain. You did neither but merely sought to suppress your talent, Miranda. What good would it truly have done to tell you when you didn’t even want to use it?”

Miranda’s teeth clicked together. “That statement is so utterly wrong that I don’t even know where to begin.”

Poppy looked away first, her fierce, straight brows furrowed with emotion. She was wrong, Daisy knew, but either would not admit to it or didn’t fully see the fault in her logic.

Daisy’s mind fairly reeled. Not just Miranda, but all of them were different. And their mother had known. She thought of her beautiful and ethereal mother who had died giving birth to their little brother; the poor little mite hadn’t lived past the first day. From the looks on her sisters’ faces, Daisy knew they too thought of that devastating loss. “What could Mother do?”

A long sigh lifted Poppy’s breast. “Her powers were a lot like yours, actually. She could influence nature. Remember the way she had with animals?”

Miranda’s lip wobbled. “God, I’d forgotten. She used to say that she ‘told’ the rats to stay out of our pantry.” Her voice broke on a laugh. “I always thought she was having me on.”

Poppy nodded stiffly. “Nature gave her strength. She yearned for the countryside. She hated London.”

They’d lost her too early. Some days, Daisy missed her so much it was an ache in her chest.

“And Father?” Daisy asked, breaking the silence. “I suppose it is the practice of elementals to keep their husbands in the dark?” She glanced at Miranda. “You are in trouble now, pet.”

Poppy’s mouth thinned in clear defiance. “Father did not know of Mother’s talents. Only of Miranda’s, for obvious reasons.”

“But not of yours, I gather,” Daisy supplied. When Miranda sat up straight, she gave her a repressive look. “Come now, she called herself the first daughter. You can’t have imagined she doesn’t possess one either.”

Poppy actually grimaced. “Or mine.”

“What is it?” Miranda snapped.

Poppy sighed again and then slowly moved her hand forward. Her long, blunt-tipped finger touched the tea pitcher, pebbled with condensation as it warmed in the sun. A shiver of air drifted over the small space, ice cold and clear. Before their eyes, frost moved over the glass. Laces of ice soon covered it, and the tea within froze solid.

“Well, at least that explains iced tea on a bookseller’s salary,” Daisy said. “Might we have iced cream next time, Pop?”

Poppy’s look was frigid.

“Does Winston know?” Daisy asked.

“No. And he never will.”

The threat was clear and chilling.

“Bloody hell,” Miranda muttered, still gaping at the frozen tea pitcher.

“Bloody hell is right,” Daisy snapped, crossing her arms in front of her. “You have fire, she has ice, and I have dirt.” When they both stared at her, she made a noise of disgust. “Fire and ice are elegant, brutal powers. I hate dirt! And, really, what can one do with it?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” murmured Poppy. “It sounds to me as though you used it quite effectively to fell your enemies.”

Daisy batted back one of the curls tickling her cheek and looked away, refusing to be persuaded.

“And it wasn’t the mere moving of dirt, was it?” Poppy said. “You mentioned tree roots. Which makes me believe that nature is attuned to you, as it was with Mother.” She glanced at the patches of spring crocuses growing along the borders of the newly budding flowerbeds. “I suspect you have more power than you think. Why not try speaking to the flowers?”

“Speaking to the flowers?”

How very ridiculous. She glanced about her. True, each blade of grass, every flower had its own scent, which she could detect as clearly as the tea before her or the lemon cakes on the stand. If she were very still, she could hear the little flowers stirring in the breeze and the tight buds straining to break free from the willow overhead. Cautiously, she took a little breath and let go of the strange swirling that somehow lived within her belly, a power that seemed to have always been there, had she thought to look for it.

The air about the table seemed to crack and writhe with a strange hissing sound that Daisy realized with a start was the growing of things. Something brushed against her ankles. Grass. Grass shooting from the ground, growing high. The timid little cluster of crocuses bloomed a full, deep purple. Miranda gasped as the rose vines attached to a trellis at the back wall exploded in a riot of lush, vermilion color and sweet, tender fragrances.

The garden darkened a touch, shade from the willow now in full bloom. Golden petals rained down like snow as its branches swayed in the breeze. The heady perfume of flowers and fruit thickened the air. Daisy sucked in a breath and cut the energy off.

“Well, now,” Poppy plucked a brilliant green apple from the tree at her side, “I wouldn’t call that display inelegant.”

“No, it was wonderful,” Daisy retorted airily, though her insides were shaking. “I shall be the belle of the garden club.”

Miranda chortled into her glass of tea.

Daisy tapped her nails upon the tabletop, drumming out a hollow rhythm. “What I don’t understand is why now? Why hadn’t I seen some hint of this talent before? I am older than Miranda. Ought I not to have come into my power before her? Bloody hell, she burned Father’s warehouse to the ground when she was ten years old.”

A thoughtful expression came over Poppy’s features. “It usually manifests during a time of great stress.” She looked at Miranda. “Panda was a special case, for she had it as a tot. For me, and others, the power made itself known when I felt great danger and the need to defend myself.”