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When they joined everyone downstairs they were all in the kitchen around the dining table. The scent of baking cookies had Jade’s stomach rumbling, and though the sound wasn’t overly loud she knew they all heard it with their sensitive ears.
The dark-haired woman at the sink turned and Jade couldn’t hold back a frown. Her aura was broken like shards of glass around her and the colors were all wrong, muted in some spots and unnaturally bright in others.
Noticing the frown two of the men at the table shifted in their seats their behavior instantly protective. It was obvious the one was Ryan’s brother Jace. They were near carbon copies of each other with only minor differences that would be easily missed if you weren’t paying attention.
“Is there something wrong?” Jace asked, his tone deceptively cool.
“Sorry, no I was just caught off guard.” Jade chose her words carefully knowing they all watched her expecting an explanation.
“Hi Jade, I’m Sara.” The other woman greeted her holding out her hand to introduce herself and Jade was again struck by how off Sara’s aura was.
“Hi. Did Clay tell you all that I’m a witch?” she asked refusing to beat around the bush. It wasn’t how she’d planned to introduce herself but with only six days before the full moon, she didn’t have the luxury of time to waste.
“Yes, but what does that have to do with you giving our mate the stink-eye?”
“I wasn’t trying to be rude and I don’t mean to give her the stink-eye I swear it’s just that there is something off about Sara that surprised me,” Jade realized that they might be offended by her claim that something wasn’t right with Sara so she quickly explained the broken aura and strange colors that she was seeing when she looked at Sara.
“So what does that mean? Am I in danger?” There was a note of fear in Sara’s voice that caused Jade a pang of regret.
“I don’t think so, but honestly I’ve never seen anything like this before. We’ll figure it out though I promise.”
With her vow of further help, Jade realized that she wouldn’t be leaving Clay at least not anytime soon. Whether she meant to or not she’d just tangled them together more and she’d added another challenging mystery to the complex mix they were already dealing with.
***
Lycan’s could eat. It was their high metabolism that they needed to be able to change into their wolf forms. Jade watched in awe as they all packed several plates away eating more in one sitting than she would be able to eat in a week. All that was except for Sara. It was another clue that there was something different about her.
“So how do we get to the bottom of our fertility issues?” Jace asked sharing a look with Sara and Caleb. “We’d like a bigger family eventually.” He said as an explanation for his enthusiasm.
“Not only that but if we don’t figure out what’s going on and do something about it our race won’t last much longer,” Ryan said highlighting the bigger picture.
Kelly covered his hand with hers in a silent show of affection and support that had Jade casting her eyes to the side so she wouldn’t intrude on the private moment. She was still upset about how physical Kelly had been with Clay but seeing her interact with her mate made Jade realize that there was an underlying heat between them that hadn’t been present when she hugged Clay. It helped her start to change her opinion of the other woman.
“I had planned to ask my coven to help with a counterspell. They can be complicated and require more energy and power than one witch can typically wield alone. Unfortunately, that isn’t an option now that we had to leave unexpectedly.” Jade shuddered thinking again about the siphoning.
“Your coven seems like an interesting bunch,” Caleb remarked the urge to defend them surprised Jade. His comment hadn’t been an insult exactly, and he wasn’t wrong. To outsiders, the actions of the coven would seem strange, perhaps even cruel and they were but the coven was also all Jade knew.
She skipped over his comment choosing to focus instead on what to do about the magic that was impacting the fertility issues. She could see traces of the affliction in Jace and Ryan almost like a thin film coating them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Realizing that two of the three people in the mated trio had issues Jade started to wonder if what they were experiencing was related. It would be very coincidental if the two were completely separate problems. Jade wasn’t a gambler but if she had been this wouldn’t have been a bet she would take.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but did your pack piss off a witch?” Every head at the table swiveled her way wearing shocked expressions.
“We didn’t even realize that witches were real before Clay told us about you,” Ryan said “I don’t see how we could anger a group of people we don’t even know existed.”
It was more than possible but Jade didn’t want to say so and make a worse impression than she already had. So instead she focused on Sara’s aura explaining to everyone that it seemed to be fractured.
“Can it be fixed?” There was a renewed note of fear in Sara’s voice when she asked the question making Jade feel guilty for scaring the other woman.
“I’m sure it can. It’s just with magic like this it’s important to unravel it correctly otherwise unexpected things can happen.”
If Jade was going to be performing her magic alone she would need to wait until the full moon when her power would be at its peak to identify the spell and attempt to reverse it. Each spell left a footprint of sorts that she could use to identify the spell and craft one of her own to counteract or reverse it. It likely wouldn’t be easy though since many witches took precautions to mask their magical footprints especially when the spell they were casting was nefarious.
She didn’t bother to explain that the unexpected things were more likely to impact her rather than Sara, not wanting to alarm her any more than she already had. She intended to help Clay and his family despite any risk to herself but knew Clay wouldn’t approve and would try to stop her if he realized that there was any danger to her. She didn’t need their mating link to be intact to be sure of that. She only had to glance over at him and she could see his worry, not to mention the protective stance that he was taking next to her using his body to physically shelter hers from the others around the table. People who were supposed to be his friends and family and their closest allies in this. She knew it would be a thousand times worse if she was actually under threat.
It also wasn’t lost on her that he was keeping his distance from Kelly, she didn’t need the bond to know it was largely for her benefit either.
