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“Tomorrow, apparently.” He hesitated. “They’ll probably want to talk to you.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I suppose I’ve no choice, given the situation.”
He shifted so that he was looking at me more fully. “Why do you and Belle want to avoid any sort of witch authority?”
I smiled even as my heart began to race. I started eating, more to buy thinking time than because I was hungry. “The High Council doesn’t like having unvetted half-breeds like me and Belle running around willy-nilly.”
“Why?”
I shrugged, a casual movement that belied the tension growing within. “Because half-breeds can be born with full witch power, and if it’s uncontrolled, it’s dangerous.”
He frowned. “But you and Belle are in control of your abilities, which means you must have undergone some training.”
“We did, but even underpowered witches don’t go through the official appraisal process until they’re eighteen. If they’re deemed powerful enough, they go on to full training at the Halden University—”
“That’s the witch one, isn’t it?”
“And the only one in Australia.” I grabbed the chicken and cashew, and scooped some into my almost empty plate. Not because I really wanted it, but because it was the only way to not so obviously avoid his gaze.
“So why didn’t
you and Belle go there?”
I smiled, though there was little in the way of amusement in it. “Aside from the fact neither of us are powerful enough, we weren’t around at eighteen to be tested. We skipped out on our parents at sixteen.”
“How do you know you weren’t powerful enough if you weren’t appraised?”
“Because, as I’ve already said, I had a lifetime of my parents either telling me that I wasn’t good enough, that I’d never make it through regular witch school let alone university, or trying to force me—” I broke off and took a deep breath in an attempt to calm the bitterness before I said too much. It might have all happened a very long time ago, but it was a wound that had never really healed. “So when we could, we got the hell out of there.”
“I didn’t think your parents were witches.”
“The witch blood came down the line through Gran, so Mom did have witch blood in her.” I grimaced. “I’m the one who got the watered-down powers, though.”
Most of which was true enough, but the words still tasted bitter on my tongue. I hated not telling him the entire truth, and yet I simply couldn’t. I might like and trust him, and I was definitely attracted to him, but that wasn’t enough to counter the last twelve years of caution. Only when I found the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with would I finally admit who I was and what had really happened to make us both run.
And Aiden wasn’t that man. As Belle had said earlier, werewolves were a fun time, not a long time.
“Is that why the RWA mentioned the fact you’re not registered with them?” he asked eventually. “Because you’re unvetted?”
“We’re not registered with them because it’s only full-blood witches who are supposed to register on entering the areas of the various regional associations.” I ate some chicken and then glanced at him. “And you’ve neatly avoided answering my initial question—why do the council want to meet again tonight? Surely it would be better now to wait until the RWA witch gets here?”
His gaze met mine, and there was something in his eyes that made my breath catch in my throat. Its cause wasn’t desire. It was uncertainty. Maybe even trepidation.
“They’re making a decision about Belle and me, aren’t they?” I all but whispered. “That’s why you warned us last night not to do anything to jeopardize our position here.”
“Yes. They received a copy of the RWA’s final report on the vampire event. It included advice that the council asks the High Council for tenders to be sent out to fill the position of reservation witch, otherwise they’ll force the issue by notifying them we have a large, unprotected wellspring.”
“It’s rather unusual for the RWA to give them that option—especially given it’s now been a year since there’s been a full witch on the reservation.”
“I suspect they still believe Gabe is here somewhere, but know they can’t risk leaving the wellspring without an official protector any longer.” He half shrugged. “It’s their butts on the line as much as ours if something does go wrong, given they should have forced the issue when Gabe first disappeared.”
“But how does any of that relate back to Belle and me?”
Even as I asked the question, I knew. Any official report would have to mention our presence here. And while I very much feared the werewolf council’s reaction to us being called out as witches rather than psychics, I was even more worried about the report finding its way into the wrong hands up in Canberra. It was unlikely anyone on the council or even my direct family would be the ones checking it out, but I certainly had plenty of other relatives who worked with lower government departments. Two witches bearing the coloring of the Marlowe and Sarr lines but not their surnames might just raise some unwanted flags.
Whether those flags would result in the action I feared was another matter entirely. One I’d probably have nightmares about.
“The report finished with the comment that while the two unregistered witches currently on the reservation were quite capable and did seem to have an affinity with the wild magic,” Aiden said, “it would not be enough to either protect it or the reservation from the darker forces that will be drawn here.”
