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“Think about it, then,” Alana said. “You’re a man who can shift into an animal whenever he wills it. How is that not magic? Not the kind of magic I can do, nor the kind anyone in my family could do, but that doesn’t mean it’s not something otherworldly.”

He laughed again. “If my wolf is anything, it is otherworldly.” He repeated her choice of word, amused by it. “What did you mean, Alana? What kind of magic could your family do? It’s different than what you do?”

She nodded, but there was a reluctance in her movements. Cohen could tell she didn’t want to share this part of her story. It was either too private, or she hated him so much that she didn’t want to develop any sort of connection.

“Look, you don’t have to tell me. I get that I don’t understand witches all that well, so maybe what I just asked you was out of line. If that’s the case, I apologize. I really don’t mean to hurt you when we disagree.”

“Lila and Jade call it fighting.”

“But what doyoucall it?” The words were just out of his mouth before he realized what he had said. The question was loaded. A whole lot hung on her answer.

That would have to wait. Mrs. Francis stood on her front porch, waving them forward impatiently.

ELEVEN

COHEN

The small but cheerfully decorated living room was cramped with elders and council members. Of course, Mason and Parker were there with their ladies too. Mrs. Francis was joined by the other elders, shifters who had lived their whole lives in Half Moon Key.

“Well, what do we know about the earthquake?” Frank asked Mrs. Francis.

The elder shook her head. “That’s what I would like to know. Cohen, what have you got for me?”

Cohen was quick to take on his role of sheriff. He nodded and faced the others. “Before I even start talking about the earthquake, I want to know what the hell happened here for you to decide to cast a spell on a whole town collectively.”

Mrs. Francis snorted audibly. “Oh, no, you don’t, my boy. You’re not going to judge us. We did what we thought was right.”

“But why?” he pressed. “I don’t understand.”

“How could you? It’s not like we understand any more than you do. When we asked the witch, Alana’s grandmother, Helena, to cast the spell, we didn’t know that it would come with so many consequences.”

“Consequences?” Cohen frowned, his tone cold as he wanted to know the truth right away.

Mrs. Francis either chose not to answer, or she hadn’t heard him. “We couldn’t foresee that technology would become such a big part of everyday life. We also didn’t know it would affect shifters.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Affect shifters,how?”

Mrs. Francis shrugged. “It blocks the mate sense.”

Cohen’s entire body tensed. All at once, bits of information clicked into place. Mason, Parker,andJack were his friends. All of them were shifters. They hadn’t sensed their mates until much later in their relationships than was usually common for shifters.

“How?” he growled at her. “How is that possible?”

“As far as Nana knew, it was a flaw in the protection spell. For some odd reason, the magic thinks the shifters in town need protection from the mate sense,” Alana explained.

“I only knew Lila was my mate after we saidI...“ Lila’s elbow cut off the rest of Mason’s sentence.

Cohen didn’t register what was said, though. He was too busy trying to breathe through the waves of anger. “Why in the hell would you need to protect the town this badly?”

“Because the world isn’t always kind,” Mrs. Francis answered. “When the town was first established, we thought that we would have our own little Eden forever, but it didn’t take long for bad seeds to find us. They wanted to take root here, just like the rest of us.”

“Exactly,” Frank, the fisherman, said. “They brought all kinds of trouble, and we didn’t want any of that in our town. This place is our home. What were we supposed to do? Let them overtake us with crime? Ruin the natural beauty of the lake, forests, and mountains? We wouldn’t have a safe community. They had to be kept out.”

“They had to be,” Mrs. Francis repeated as if that answered all of his questions.

It didn’t. How could it? Every two seconds, he thought of something else he wanted to ask, something else that he needed to know.

“And your grandmother fucked up the spell on top of it?” Cohen wasn’t being fair, and he knew it. It wasn’t Alana’s fault. She wasn’t involved in the casting of the spell.