Connor wraps his arms around my waist and gives me a comforting squeeze. “The pack will help. You smell different than average witches.”
“That’s why she smells different?” Rand exclaims with the relief of someone who’s been puzzling over something for months and finally has an answer. He quickly looks over at Mei. “I still like your scent more.”
“You better,” she retorts before she has a chance to think. “I mean, whatever. Again, the scent thing is weird.”
Rand gives her a knowing smile. “And you like weird.”
She blushes as she gives him a playful shove. “Quiet, you.”
Felix takes a bite of Nolan’s leftovers, the only one seemingly not put off of food by the conversation. “When you find all of them, how are you supposed to help them come into their power? Are they bound like you were?”
“I don’t know,” I answer, not considering the possibility until now. It would explain why the goddess would need me to find them. “If they are bound, then I should be able to help them. Hopefully it will have less volatile results than when mine broke. The goddess only mentioned that they would need to bleed onto their family arcane focus.” I pull out the pale blue stone hanging on a chain from under my shirt. The front is covered in small hairline fractures, while the back has a stylized wolf carved into it. “Each main bloodline has one of these.”
“Since you’ve met your Lyncas grandmother, talking with her may be a good place to start your search,” Kaleb suggests, putting his squished sandwich on top of his paper lunch bag. “If the potentials are anything like you, I imagine their unique abilities would put them on a matriarch’s radar.”
“About that…” I focus on the careful removal of the rest of the crust, unable to meet anyone’s gaze. “Turns out I’m the high priestess for both the Volkov and Lyncas bloodlines. That’s why I was chosen.”
Kaleb’s voice is full of scholarly curiosity when he asks, “Does that mean if you acquire the Lyncas arcane focus, unlocking it will make you more powerful?”
Nolan looks at Kaleb, his expression shifting to one of exasperation. “She brought Felix back from the dead, saved me from a soul sucking curse, and cut two witches off from their magic. How much more powerful does she need to be?”
“According to Mischief, I’ve only scratched the surface of what I’m capable of,” I admit, once again feeling overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of what I am and what my future requires of me.
Nolan gets up, hops over the center of our oblong circle, and sits down, squeezing in between Mei and Connor. He steals one of my hands from their very important fidgeting duties. “Listen, my love. I don’t fear who you are or what you’re capable of accomplishing with your magic. Not anymore. I’m worried that the more powerful you become, the less control you’ll have over your own life.” He rubs his thumb along the back of my hand. “Just because you’re capable of doing what the goddess asks, doesn’t mean you have to. Your future is for you to choose.”
“If I don’t find and help them, then they are as vulnerable as I was before all of this.” I squeeze his hand as I gaze up at him with an appreciative smile. “As much as I want to choose a quiet future, if I have the power to protect those who can’t protect themselves and do nothing, then I’m just as bad, goddess or not. These potentials are spirit witches. They are in danger from the council. With my help, they’ll have a fighting chance against them.”
Nolan sighs and kisses the back of my hand. “I wish it wasn’t you. You’ve been through so much, and this will only put a bigger target on your back. If the council finds out what you’re up to…”
“I’m toast,” I finish, a grim frown pulling at the edges of my mouth, “but even if I don’t do anything, too many peoplewitnessed what I really am. Yeah, they all promised to keep it a secret, but the council will eventually start sniffing around when my grandmother returns to the witching world sans granddaughter. I doubt Neva or Gina will have any qualms about reporting on me, assuming they haven’t already.”
“Even if they tried, I imagine a disgraced coven leader and her daughter don’t have much clout to get through the bureaucracy to speak to anyone important,” Mei chimes in, shifting closer to Rand to give Nolan a little more space.
“My point still stands,” I argue, leaning back into Connor’s chest. “I’m on borrowed time. I should use it to help the potentials if for no other reason than we’ll be stronger together.”
Donovan clears his throat and runs a hand through his thick hair. “Speaking of futures that we can’t escape… I’ve been tapped to start my demon fighting career early.”
“What?” I screech, causing both Connor and Nolan to wince.
“What happened with the two undead vampires last October got back to the Concilium. At the nephilim retreat, it was decided that my skills were being wasted by going to human school.” He crosses one arm over his chest and grips his shoulder, as if he still feels the pain of his broken wing from that night. “They settled on allowing me to stay for now, but I’m responsible for any demon activity in the area.”
Nolan rubs his brow with his free hand, the other still securely wrapped around mine. “Well, as long as it doesn’t get out to more demons that you’re the last Morningstar, I doubt any of them would have any interest in Twin Cedar Pass.”
It’s clear the memories of that night wash over us all. While I was taking out the previous alpha, Donovan wasdecapitating Nolan’s demon possessed sister, Letti, to keep her from murdering Nolan, and Kaleb was fighting her equally terrifying companion. My gaze touches on each of my guys, thinking about how much two demons marked them. Donovan still sees visions of Letti’s ghost, while Kaleb doesn’t talk at all about what happened, but sometimes I catch him staring at his hands as if they are stained in blood. Felix and his family were murdered simply because it would affect Nolan and Donovan. Connor feels guilty because he didn’t somehow save them, even though he had no way of knowing the Jacobs were even in danger. Nolan has so many invisible wounds that are still healing, leaving me unsure how that night’s events measure on the scale of all he’s suffered.
If that amount of destruction can occur with two demons who had a very specific vendetta, then I fear what would happen if it got out that Donovan is right here in easy reach. He wouldn’t be alone in his battle, but the casualties could be massive before all the demons were stopped. The thought alone pushes me to want to get better at my magic. My ancestors protected continents. I, at the very least, should be capable of protecting a small town from a possible demon invasion.
Felix finishes all of his food like he’s a bottomless pit and then guzzles his drink until it’s empty.
“You okay?” I ask, worried as he drops the bottle to the ground.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” he answers, rubbing the back of his neck—a clear sign he isn’t fine.
I send a pointed look toward his neck and then up into his nervous eyes. It doesn’t take long for him to break.
“Okay, okay—yeesh, that look could get a spy to spill their guts.” His gaze shifts to Nolan and then back to me. “So… I, uh,don’t know when it would be a good time to bring this up, but since you all just talked about a bunch of stuff in front of me that if the wrong people knew, all my memories would definitely be wiped, now is probably a good time to, uh, bring it up.”
“Which is?” I make a circular motion with my hand to encourage him to continue.
