Chapter 3
“You don’t have to do this right now,” Avery pleaded with Darrell as she paced in her parents’ living room. She didn’t care that the power her father’s magic held surpassed most warlocks, looking to a person’s memories was dangerous and had other side effects besides death. “We can wait one day for the Royal Council to meet.”
“I know you’re nervous about your father—”
“And you, too.” Avery stopped at the end of the sofa, hands on her hips, and glared down at Darrell.
Everything about him made her insides melt and her outsides rattle with a combination of anxiety and desire. The schoolgirl crush she had on him for all those years bubbled from her heart, only nothing about what she felt for him was childish.
No.
Her grown-up body wanted to savor every succulent flavor that floated off his skin.
“Sit down.” He patted the cushion.
She let out an exasperated sigh, plopping herself on the couch. As she bended her leg, the cold, sharp pain, like an ice pick jabbing her joint, ricocheted to her teeth. Instinctively, she grabbed her knee and groaned.
“Are you injured? I noticed you had your ankle and knee wrapped at rehearsal.”
“Overuse injury,” she said, though honestly, she had no idea what was wrong, and she hadn’t been to a doctor. It would have to wait until after this performance because no way was she letting Olivia have it. Maybe in a year or two, Avery would be ready to step down and move onto something else. “Happens all the time,” she lied.
“I noticed how you favored it.”
She turned her head, lowering her chin. “Nice try, but I’m not letting you change the subject. What you are about to do is dangerous.”
“Doing nothing is more dangerous.” He slipped his fingers through hers. His silky skin kissed her palm, causing her heart to thump heavily in her chest. She could understand why she’d be drawn to him, but what the hell was he doing? All the touching, kissing on the cheek, and picking her up in front of her father?
Talk about weird.
And then there was her father’s reaction to all this. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you know what my father meant when he said he had a stake in this, too?”
Darrell closed his eyes, dropping his head back. “It’s not important right now.”
She bit the inside of her mouth. “But you know why he feels like he has to risk both of your lives right now.”
“If I said no, would you believe me?”
She let out a curt laugh. “Tell me why.”
He didn’t get a chance to answer as her father and brother-in-law, Jackson, strolled into the room.
She pulled her hand free while Darrell sat up, running his hands up and down his jeans. While she felt a strong bond to him, a wave of awkwardness rolled through her body.
“This is Jackson, and he experienced a bit of what you will be going through last year.” Her father carried a small vile in his right hand.
“And what is that, exactly?” Darrell asked.
“To make a very long story short, Alfred’s sister cast a couple of spells on me to keep me from mating with Amanda. We had to banish them, and it’s quite painful,” Jackson said, sitting in the wing-back chair. “And then my lovely mate put her father’s magic in my hands, and I almost died. Let’s hope Avery here doesn’t have to do that to you. I didn’t get the chance to imprint until after the banishing—”
“Perhaps we should get started,” her father said.
But her mind kept playing Jackson’s words over and over again.
“You imprinted? On who?” she asked, staring at Darrell. She understood the concept of how wolves took a mate. She’d done a paper in school on various rituals, but focused on the concept of imprinting, which normally happened during the dating process, but sometimes, it happened without either party having any control.
Fated mates.
Soulmates.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” Jackson muttered, glancing at her father. “You didn’t tell me she didn’t know.”
“Know what?” Avery asked, glaring at Darrell. “And don’t you lie to me either.”
“Right this second, it doesn’t matter.” Darrell shifted to the corner of the sofa. “If we don’t find the source of the spell, I’m going to be dead within a few months, so my imprint on you will disappear anyway.”
She bolted from the sofa. “You did what to me? When? The day we danced?”
Her father placed a firm hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. “You claimed me when I was five? How the hell would you even know I was the girl for you?”
“It was fated, like Jackson and your sister,” her father said in that deep tone he’d used when he’d been disappointed. “We don’t necessarily know why, but there is purpose to your mating. Nothing you can do to stop it.”
“Sure, there is,” Darrell said as he stood, facing her father with a puffed-out chest. “She can reject the imprint. It won’t kill either one of us.”
“But you’ll be miserable for the rest of your lives.” Her father had always told her that happiness and love were the greatest commodities in the world. When you were blessed with them, you should never let them go.
“And that brings us back to why I’m here. We won’t get the chance to find out if we are compatible if I’m dead,” Darrell said.
She covered her mouth, hoping to muffle the gasp. In the grand scheme of things, the imprinting thing could wait.
“Avery, I think it’s best if you go to another room. Your mother is in the kitchen,” her father said.
“Nope. No way. I’m staying since this does affect me.”
“No, you’re not.” Her father pointed toward the hallway. “If I need you, I’ll call you, got it?”
“Dad, since we all now know that—”
“Can I have a minute with Avery, please?” Darrell stood, resting his hand on the small of her back. The familiarity of it melted the anger into tiny pieces of forgettable angst.
“Sure,” her father said.
She took Darrell by the hand and led him into the main dining room, closing the door.
Resting her hip against the table, she folded her arms, even though she wanted to wrap them around him, pressing her lips on his, feeling his velvet tongue twirl around in her mouth.
“I’m sorry you had to find out about the imprinting that way.”
“I’m more pissed you told my father before me,” she said, her words laced with the venom of a snake.
“I didn’t want to tell him, but he suspected and called me on it, wondering if you knew.” Darrell pressed his hands on the back of a chair, his dark eyes pleading with her to forgive him.
But what was there to forgive? Fated mates were destined to be together. Their bond stronger than any others.
True love.
“When did you plan on telling me?”
“I don’t honestly know. If I wasn’t faced with my entire pack being wiped out, I probably would have after a couple of dates, but most wolves I know who mated by imprint, their mates knew as they fell in love.”
“But you’re already in love with me.” She swallowed her breath, clearing her throat. “Based on what I’ve read.”
He smiled, and it made her heart skip.
“Love needs time to develop, so while deep in my soul it’s true, we don’t know each other very well and if your father can figure this shit out, maybe we’ll have a chance.” He took a few steps closer. The heat from his muscles coated her body. “The day we danced, my life changed. Everything I did was leading up to the moment I could walk back into your life.”
“Why’d you wait so long?” She chomped down on her tongue, wishing she hadn’t asked the question. It implied she wished he had come for her sooner. “I mean, you could have contacted me at any time.”
He reached out, taking her chin between his thumb and index finger. “You’re the best dancer I’ve ever had the privilege of being paired with.”
“I was five. I’m sure there were other principal dancers—”
He gently brushed his lips over hers like a paintbrush making the first stroke on a canvas. “No one has ever been better than you, which is why I’m concerned about your knee and ankle.”
She pursed her lips, knowing it also scrunched her nose. A look she wasn’t fond of. “I told you, it’s overuse.”
“You know there is something wrong, and I fear it has to do with me.”
“Why do you say that?”
He ran the back of his hand across her cheek. “Is it a cold, sharp pain?”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. The cold sensation in her knee started a few months ago. It came and went, but lately, it had increased in intensity.
“I have that same feeling in all my joints. My father, near the end, the pain was so excruciating, and nothing the doctors gave him helped. We need to find out if what you’re experiencing is in any way related to this spell.”
“Wait a minute. You imprinted on me while we were dancing, right?”
He nodded. “It’s not like I had much control over it, and while it made me happier than I’d ever been in my life, it scared me a little.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“I spoke to my dad about it,” Darrell said, dropping his hands to her hips.
Instinctively, she leaned into him. “What did he say?” A wave of sadness coated her heart. She’d never get to meet his father.
“That when it happens that way, so young, it means something important and that you were one special, young woman.”
She closed her eyes as he kissed her forehead, circling his arms around her waist. Inhaling deeply, she let his wolf scent of freshly chopped wood seep into her bloodstream. That smell had mesmerized her years ago, but she’d been a child and didn’t understand why it made her feel so good inside.
“Wait.” She cocked her head back, blinking. “If my pain is from this spell, my father would be able to tell that… come on.” She took him by the arm and scurried off toward the living room.
“No. I don’t want him to worry about you.”
“He’s already worried, and he’s risking his life and powers for me because he believes royal witches have fated mates much like wolves do. He’s a romantic old sap, and he’ll do anything to make sure his girls have what he and my mother have. Besides, this might make it so he doesn’t have to peel back your inner aura.”
“That really doesn’t sound appealing.”
She let out a short laugh. “He still might have to do it.” She glanced over her shoulder. “But if what I suspect is true, he’ll know the right location.”
“Still doesn’t sound like fun.”
“Dad.” She stepped into the living room where her dad sat in his big chair, reading a magazine, waiting patiently. “Where’s Jackson?”
“Helping Mom move some furniture around so she can set up a crib. She thinks her grandchild will be staying over, often.”
Avery couldn’t wait for her sister to give birth, but right now, she had other things to deal with. “We need you to cast a matching spell.”
“Why?” Her father peered over his reading glasses.
“Because I think I’m infected by the spell because he imprinted on me all those years ago.”
Her father bolted upright. “Hold hands.”
She held up their already intertwined fingers.
Her father reached for a small box on the coffee table. “Out of the cauldron and into this case, bring a single spell into this space. Cast it back if not a match, but if it is, mix it for a batch.”
Darrell squeezed her hand as his body trembled. The coldness in her leg increased. She gritted her teeth as a tearing sensation lifted from her knee, floating into the box. A larger one popped out of Darrell’s chest. He let out a low growl.
“I have good news, and I have bad news,” her father said as he stuck his finger in the box, swirling it around.
“The bad news is what’s happening to me and my pack is also happening to Avery.”
“Yeah, that’s bad.” Her father set the box on the coffee table and continued to peer inside, moving it around, breaking it apart.
“How? Why?” Darrell asked as he tugged her to the sofa. “She’s not a wolf, and it seems to be only happening to males.”
Her body weakened from the spell, she caved into the soft cushions, rubbing her knee.
“That brings me to the good news.” Her father closed the box, sealing a piece of the spell. “First, I can probably match it to the coven.”
“Since you have it, can’t you do some hocus pocus and reverse it?” Darrell asked.
“It’s locked, so no, I can’t. But whoever cast this spell did so on the day Darrell claimed you as his mate.”
“Someone from the dance studio?” She blinked, remembering all the girls that glared at her that day. Deep down, she knew they all hated her. Sure, some tried to be nice, but during her entire career, others had been jealous. She’d learned to smile and ignore the looks and block out what everyone said about her behind her back. “That certainly narrows down the suspects.”
“It does, but whoever did this is either dead or dying,” her father said, rubbing his temples.
Not a good sign when her dad did that.
“Why do you say that?” Darrell asked.
“This is a spell that wipes out an entire bloodline by increasing the aging process. It’s doing the same thing to them, but quicker.”
“I don’t understand that part,” Darrell said, his hand resting on her knee, gently massaging, as if he knew exactly where the pain was. “Why cast a spell that will do the same thing to you?”
“If a child did this, he or she might not have known. But their coven would have to because this witch would have immediately aged and died shortly thereafter, and it would be happening to every witch, so with each death of theirs, one would die of yours.”
“Why did it start with my father and not me?” Darrell asked.
“I don’t know, but this coven found a way to keep the witch alive until recently because it took years for it to start happening to your pack, which means, they are probably doing that same thing with everyone who is getting sick,” her father said.
“We need to find this coven and their Book of Shadows so my father can unlock it and banish the spell.”
“I don’t understand why this coven wouldn’t do that themselves, since they are dying, too.”
“They can’t.” She curled her fingers over Darrell’s hand. “Only my father can unlock a Book of Shadows and if they were to go to him, he’d have to strip all of them of their powers, forever.”
Her father stood, taking the box in his hands. “I’ll work on seeing if I have enough of this spell that will tell me what coven we’re dealing with, while you two get me a list of every witch that was at that studio that day, focusing on anyone who might have it in for either of you. Then we need to find out who went missing, got sick, or is dead.”