Page 32

“Right. Maybe we can leave the kissing for later.” She scrunched up her face. “Or, maybe we should leave the breakfast for later. Kiss now.”

“What are you saying?” he chuckled. “You wanna leave and go somewhere more private?”

Alana nodded, her cheeks turning a delicious shade of red. “Yeah. Maybe it was a bad idea to come here this morning.”

“How about we eat breakfast, fake an argument, and then go back to your place to make peace.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“Don’t forget that we do need to find a solution for the magic,” she added.

His heart sank. “Fuck. For a second, I completely forgot that we had to do that.”

Alana laughed softly. “You’re the sheriff. How could you possibly forget that?”

“No clue,” he answered.

But the heated gaze he sent her way was answer enough. Cohen was incapable of doing much thinking when Alana was this close to him.

She was her own brand of magic, of that the wolf shifter was sure.

FOURTEEN

ALANA

The backroom of Wixx would never be the same for Alana.

The space was set up like a living room a long time ago by her Nana. The intent was to have a place that was comfortable and inviting for customers should they want a reading.

Now that she looked around her safe haven, she couldn’t help but see all of the things Cohen had done to her the night before. The things she had done to him also featured in her thoughts.

It didn’t matter that a night had passed and that they had agreed they would see each other. Alana still didn’t fully comprehend what was happening between her and Cohen.

It really didn’t help that the man in question sat in the chair where they had sex the previous night.

He lounged back, his arm on the armrests, his long legs spread in front of him. His eyes were narrowed in focus as he stared at the carpeted floor. Neither one of them had spoken in a little while as they tried to find the first step to fix the magic.

“Let’s review,” Cohen grumbled. “We can’t go to another witch.”

“Nope.”

“Remind me why?”

“For a bunch of reasons. We can’t ask another witch to cast that kind of heavy magic. She would have to pick up her whole life and live here. And even if we did find someone to do the spell, it would leave us vulnerable to our enemies because we would have no way of knowing if the witch was casting the right kind of spell until it was too late.”

“And there is no one you trust? Not another witch in your family?”

“Both Nana and my mother were only children. I have no cousins. I don’t actually have a family in the broader sense of the word.”

“So that really is the extent of what we can do with magic.”

She nodded. “Because there is no way I can hold it together.”

“I still don’t believe that you’re not powerful enough to do it on your own, but I will take your word for it. Is there nothing we can do to boost your power?”

Alana considered this for a few moments before going to stand in front of the library. She ran her fingers down the spine of the books, and finally, she pulled one from the shelf. “There might be a couple of things we can do to heighten my power, but I make no promises that it would be enough.” She handed him the book. “Read this, will you? Anything catches your eye, let me know.”

He pursed his lips at her. “And just how am I supposed to spot a magical solution that could work?”

“Because you’re an intelligent man. I trust you not to miss a thing.”