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“She’s a Moss witch,” Dante said in that same faraway voice. Laney Moss…as in the Moss family of witches. It was all making sense now. That was why he was so attracted to the blood of the women upstairs. They were her family. They shared the same blood. He didn’t know how he had missed it before. Of course, at the time he’d asked Laney what her name was, he’d been more worried about his own survival. “Just like your females.”

The weight of what he was finally admitting out loud was starting to hit him. He remembered the overpowering feeling of possession he’d experienced earlier when he was with the female. How much he’d wanted to hurt her, to make her beg and bleed, and yet when she’d thrown herself in his arms, he’d felt an overwhelming sense of relief that he wouldn’t have to. “Fuck. Me.”

Nikulas squatted down on his haunches in front of him. “Yeah. But it’s actually kind of cool. Being mated, I mean. The hardest thing about it is worrying about them all the time, and not just because you need their blood to survive. Because you get so damned protective overthem.”

“Why are they all witches?” he asked Nikulas. “Your mates?” If anyone noticed that he hadn’t included himself in the group, they didn’t say anything.

“A little caveat that Keira snuck into that curse that Luukas mentioned earlier, although I like to think they would’ve somehow ended up with us anyway.”

“Curse or no curse,” Christian said. “I, for one, am completely fucking grateful that Ryan found me. Fucking so many different females every night was seriously gettingold.”

Luukas cleared his throat. “Can we get on with things now? We need to find out what Dante knows.”

“Oh, one more thing. Leeha is dead, by the way,” Aiden informed him. “But I have her head if you’d like to pay your respects.”

Dante seriously wondered, not for the first time, what the fuck was wrong with the Brit. Of course, some would say the same about him. But at least he had a good reason for being as messed up as hewas.