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I wasn’t supposed to be using physical movements to control the magic anyway.

I sighed and leaned back in the chair, easing up my control over the fire in the fireplace, letting it go back to dancing merrily.

“A little,” I agreed. “Can you... would you tell me about being bitten?”

She lifted a brow at me. “Why do I suspect you’re not talking about vampires?”

“Vampires? Vampires are real?” That made me sit up once again, because cool. Yes, yes, sparkly vampires were an embarrassment to high literature or whatever. Hadn’t stopped me from devouring books about them as a teenager, and wasn’t that what fiction was for? It didn’t have to be classy and highbrow, as long as it told a good story.

She sighed, rolling her eyes at me but not moving from her spot, knitting something with a handful of thin, pointy wooden needles. Maybe they were to protect her from vampires...

“Yes, vampires are real,” she finally said, looking up at me only momentarily, then back to her stitching. “They’re nothing terribly impressive or unusual. Some are rich, though, and those will pay a pretty penny for mage blood, if you’re ever hard up. Just be careful and bring someone you trust with you, like one of your wolves.”

That was both good to know and terrifying, but it also hadn’t been what I’d truly wanted to talk about. Though now I did want to know more. Why was mage blood worth buying? Did it make vampires magical? Was it just especially tasty?

Nope, didn’t matter. Werewolves.

“The werewolf bite,” I corrected. “I meant werewolf bites.”

She flinched at the idea, so clearly she had the same notion as Jax. It was maybe the first time I’d ever seen her react like she thought something was a little scary. Usually she was the most unflappable person I knew.

Now? She seemed oddly... flapped.

For a moment, she bit her lip, staring at her knitting, then looked up to meet my eye. “You’re not thinking about trying to become a wolf, are you? It’s... you should know it’s not likely. Magic and the wolf, they don’t get along terribly well. They fight each other.”

“Fight each other?” I asked back. “I don’t—that is, I don’t know what I’m thinking about. I don’t know enough. That’s why I’m asking.”

Nodding, she set her knitting aside on a table and leaned forward, toward me. “The wolf and magic, they’re... one is made of the other. There’s not really room for both in one person. There are legends of wolves who learned to manipulate magic, or the witchwolf, who managed to survive the bite with his powers intact, but they’re just that: legends. We don’t have proof any such thing ever happened.”

“So if I were bitten, it might not even work?” That was inexplicably disappointing.

“It’s not that. It can work. One in four, perhaps one in five times, it works. The mage becomes a wolf, and their magic is gone.” That was basically what Jax had been talking about, but the way her head was bowed made me think that wasn’t the whole story, so I just sat there and waited. After a long time, she sighed and shook her head. “Most of the time, they kill each other.”

“So no magic no wolf?” I asked, and yeah, that was a whine in my voice. “That’s disappointing.”

“No dear. No person. There’s no situation where the mage blood wins, or where nothing does. Everyone loses. If you got bitten, you might become a werewolf, but most probably, you would die.” She waved in my direction. “You’re not a weak mage, either. Usually the ones who survive and become werewolves are the ones with barely any magic, so the wolf easily defeats it. Your magic is too strong to go down without a fight.”

Death.

Well shit, that wasn’t what I’d been expecting at all. Jax had implied death was an option, but he hadn’t said it was the most likely option, by, like, a large margin. Then again, he didn’t seem to know all the intricacies of being a mage—it was why he’d known to bring me to Prudence.

I let myself fall back in the chair and stared at the fire again. “That’s why Jax is so worried. Why he keeps worrying about his instincts to bite me.”

“I would imagine so, dear. He’s an alpha werewolf. If you’re for him, then he wants a bond there. More than just promises and rings like humans get. I’ve heard tell it’s stronger than even the way that mages blood-bond when we marry. That wolves can feel their packs always, know they’re well and safe and healthy just on instinct, because they’re pack. He’d want that with everyone he cares about. If he thinks of you as more than pack? Well, not being able to feel that with you would be nearly maddening, I should think.” The way she said it all was ever so light, but the words themselves...

Frankly, fuck my life.

I’d finally found a great guy, one who liked me as much as I liked him. To call Jax a catch was frankly a massive understatement. But apparently being with me was going to be a giant fucking headache for him, at best. Constantly forcing his instincts away, not allowing himself to get as close as he wanted—needed—to.

Could I do that to Jax? Force him to live a whole life of pushing back on his instincts? I had feelings for him. They were growing every day. But we were a new thing, only a few weeks old, and if we were going to walk away, we should do it soon.

Twenty percent chance of being a werewolf, eighty percent chance of death. Only, Prudence thought it was more like a hundred percent.

Damn it all, what the hell was I supposed to do with that?

I couldn’t ask Jax to take that chance even if I decided it was what I wanted, because if it didn’t work, he was the one who’d be left alive, dealing with my death.

All because I’d been selfish.