Inevitable: Shifters Forever Worlds (Only After Dark Book 5) by Elle Thorne

Chapter 1
    O utside the boundaries of Black Glade Bayou, Louisiana

    “ M émé , I don’t want to go to New Orleans to see her.” Leandra told her grandmother, Latrice Mathieu.
    “She’s your mother, chère .”
    “Then why did she drop me off with you and never comes to see me? Why does it feel like she can’t wait to leave when we go meet her in the café?”
    Mémé shook her head, braids secured to her head, her dark skin glowing in the sunlight, her profile majestic.
    Leandra glanced in the mirror, and studied her pre-teen features. The dark skin. Her full lips, her eyes—eerie and glowing.
    She cast her gaze down. The mirror was her enemy. It reminded her of everything she was that she didn’t want to be: The light glowing eyes that betrayed her witch heritage—a sign of the Mathieu witches. The dark skin that boasted of her slave heritage—and the reason her mother rejected her.
    Mémé ran her fingertips over Leandra’s loose hair. “Let me put this up for you.”
    “Why? To make her happy? To appease her? In case her gentleman or one of his friends might see us?”
    Mémé tsked. “You’re too wise for one so young.”
    Too wise.
    When Leandra wasn’t much older than a toddler, Rochelle, Leandra’s mother, had left her with Latrice, her own mother, the one Leandra called Mémé. She’d left her, and yet she’d stayed in town—in New Orleans, living with the gentleman who wouldn’t give her his name, but was more than happy to provide Rochelle with the trimmings of a high society life.
    This was provisional of course. It depended on Rochelle not flaunting her roots.
    It wasn’t her witch roots that worried him as much as it was her slave roots. No, the gentleman never said as much, but Rochelle knew he prized her for her lighter skin.
    Oh, yes, even as a child, Leandra knew. She knew what it was her mother did. She knew why her mother did it. She was no stranger to life, the impact of skin color, and even the carnal nature of mankind.
    Though thanks to Mémé’s security, Leandra had never been exposed to the ugly side of carnality. She’d been sheltered from the decisions her mother had made at fourteen, leading her to a life far from their home in the bayou, far from the coven she should have been a part of, far from Mémé’s protectiveness.
    “Ouch.”
    Mémé was running a brush through Leandra’s unruly curls. “One moment more.” She gave it a final swipe. “Now. Let me style this into something that doesn’t make you look like a swamp rat.”
    Leandra was torn between giggling at Mémé’s terminology, or snarling at her grandmother for making her more presentable for Rochelle.
    Rochelle, because she couldn’t bring herself to call her “mother.”
    “Mémé, can we go already?” The sooner they went, the sooner they’d get it over with and Leandra could return home to Mémé’s cabin in the swamp and take off the shoes that hurt her feet and the dress that restricted her breathing with its high collar.
    “We’re going, ma belle. Relax.”
    Leandra harrumphed.
    To which her grandmother responded with a playful smack.
    “Mémé!” Leandra whirled around. “I’m too old for spankings.”
    “You’ll never be too old for spanking, ma chère .”

    * * *
    M émé’s grip on Leandra’s hand was tight. She squeezed Leandra’s fingers like a cottonmouth taking a frog hostage in the bayou.
    Maybe it’s because she knows I’m half a heartbeat away from running out of here.
    “Here” was the coffee shop they met Rochelle at, on those rare occasions when Rochelle could make time to meet them. It was almost always just after dusk, and Rochelle invariably kept her face in the shadows. Every so often, candlelight would flicker just right and Leandra would get a glimpse of her mother’s pale ethereal beauty.
    Leandra plopped into the plush chair in the back of the coffee shop, a private room that was reserved for them when they met with Rochelle. She wondered what the