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Alana shook her head. “I don’t know. The dream didn’t say much about him, and I don’t remember my mom and Nana talking about him at all. I don’t think he would be a very good person if he was after me. He was, though. He wanted me, but not to be a parent. He was after me for my magic.”

“Butwhydid he want your magic?”

“To steal my powers, I think,” she responded with a wince.

Cohen’s eyes darkened. “Like hell. That won’t happen. You’re not gonna remove your magic from yourself.”

Alana nodded. “I know it’s not ideal, but the first thing we need to do is get that protective spell back up. Without it, my father, whoever he is, will be able to find me. I don’t think that would be a good thing for Half Moon Key.”

If she thought that his eyes were dark before, they were black holes now. Alana was pretty sure she saw the hint of a wolf in the depths.

She wasn’t scared.

In fact, it was quite the opposite. Alana thought she might just be loved.

TWENTY

COHEN

Cohen was way out of his depth. He might have been a shifter and a sheriff who could fight his enemies better than most, but he was a wolf.

He wasn’t a witch.

He didn’t have magical powers, either. He had no clue how in the hell he was supposed to protect Alana from a threat that he didn’t understand. Not completely and not enough.

As he and Alana made their way to the wooded path that would lead them through the woods and around the lake, Cohen asked, “Do you think we should call the rest of the gang? Tell them what we’ve learned. Maybe ask them for some help.”

Alana shook her head, wincing. “No. I don’t want them involved. They aren’t magical. They wouldn’t be able to help me with the magic I need to do. They would just end up distracting me as I try to explain what I am doing.”

“That’s not the part that I’m worried about,” he grumbled. “We might need help.”

“What are you worried about?” she pressed. “Not magic?” She turned a few shades of white. “What else are you concerned about?”

He shrugged between two bites of the to-go breakfast she had prepared for them. “If your father shows up, what are we supposed to do? Fight this possibly magical creature? Just the two of us? Not to make myself seem weak or anything, but I am awolf, Alana. I can’t fight magic. I don’t know how. It’s just not a skillset I have.”

She stopped walking, turned to face him, grabbed his breakfast, much to his consternation, and cupped his face in her palms. “Listen to me, Cohen. I don’t know or care who my father is and what kind of powers he has, but he will not harm you.” She waved off his mumbled response and continued. “He won’t come here, anyway. Why would he?

“So the magic barrier fell around Half Moon Key. So there is no more protective spell. That doesn’t mean my father is still out there in the world looking for me in the hopes of stealing my powers or whatever the hell he wants with them ... with me. It will be okay,” she promised before kissing him softly.

The moment her lips pressed against his, there was a sharp electric current in his bloodstream. His entire body was alive under her touch, and he wasn’t sure, but he asked anyway. “Did you just do magic?”

Alana grinned, but she blushed deeply. “I might have used some of my powers to put a protective spell on you.”

“But ...”

“If you’re about to lecture me about your shifter self and how strong and powerful you are and that you don’t need me to help protect you, I am going to go bat-shit crazy on you, Cohen. I know you’re a shifter, and you’re not as vulnerable as other men. You heal fast, but you can stilldie. Not that I believe for two seconds that my father will suddenly show up after all of this time. As I said, he must’ve given up on me and stealing my powers by now.”

Cohen wasn’t convinced about that. “So why put a spell on me?”

“Because you’re important to me, and I don’t want anything to happen to you. It’s only a precaution to keep my mind at ease. It was more for me than it was for you.”

“If you think so …”

Magic was power, and a power-hungry person didn’t stop craving power all of a sudden because his super-powerful daughter fell off the face of the earth. Whoever this man was would be considered a threat until Cohen deemed him otherwise. All of his instincts ... from shifter to sheriff ... screamed at him that he should tell the rest of the Half Moon Key pack that something was happening. At the very least, they were members of the council, and they deserved to know that Alana had found a potential solution for the protective magic.

While they kept on walking, Cohen discreetly took out his phone and texted Mason, telling him he should message Jack and Parker. The other shifters weren’t exactly his pack, given that they were a mix of canine and feline shifters, but that didn’t change how Cohen felt about them.

He knew what it was like to be in a pack and how he felt with his fishing buddies. It waswaybetter. The other fellows would have his back, and he had theirs. No matter what, no questions asked. As they continued to walk on, Cohen wasn't able to check to see if he had any responses because, soon enough, they were standing at the foot of the strange rock formation that rose from the forest ground.