Page 16 of His Whispered Witch (Witches and Shifters: Scott Pack #6)

She thought back to that book of spells she found, the grimoire with the recipe for shifters. The twins surely didn’t know it, but they were sitting on one of the most valuable books in the world. Or at least, it was valuable to a bunch of shifters.

She thought about telling him about it but held off. She didn’t know if it was possible to change the spell. Plus, it would take a hell of a lot of trust on his part and the rest of his pack. It might affect them, too.

He was right; he was the one living alone in the woods. Presumably, the rest of his pack had jobs, success, and a home life, so maybe it wasn’t the snake at all. But she just couldn’t shake the feeling that if the fundamental facts of his life were different, he would be different.

She snuggled down, unwilling to think about it.

“Can I try again?” she asked.

“Try what again?”

“My magic? I want to try and talk to them.”

“Knock yourself out,” he said and froze. “Not literally, please. Don’t hurt yourself even the tiniest bit or risk yourself. If it looks like it’s going bad?—”

She kissed his sternum. “I get it.”

She closed her eyes and reached out with magic. It was a lot easier with so much of them touching.

She reached into him, delving for the animals she’d felt before.

Except, as soon as she sank past his skin, a connection snapped into place between them and power flooded her.

Her eyes flew open, and she tried to pull back, but he’d wrapped her in his arms, and she couldn’t get away.

“What the hell?”

“What is it?” he asked, glancing down at her. He must have seen something in her face because he let her go, and she flopped back on the bed in seconds, snapping the connection.

She stared at the wooden beams of the ceiling and gasped for breath.

“What did you sense? What’s wrong?” He closed his eyes. “Would you please talk to me?”

“I don’t know!”

“Not you. Never mind.” His eyes flew open. “Yes, you. Always you. What happened?”

“My magic connected to your wolf?” That wasn’t what happened, but she had no words for what happened. “And I started flooding with power.”

His face had no expression whatsoever. Then in seconds, he was off the bed, glanced down at himself and groaned, but didn’t try to clean up, just stood in the middle of the room, his hands clenched together.

“More magic,” he said slowly.

“Oh god, did I hurt you?”

“No. Hurt wasn’t the sensation…”

She heard a hysterical giggle and realized it was coming from her.

“There’s a…” he began, “old wives’ tale? Myth? A slight hitch in the proceedings?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Some pairs that I talked about can do that, share magic.”

“Like the wolf and the snake?”

“No, a wolf and a witch. Together. They can share magic between them. That’s how my mom could build wards by herself. It wasn’t by herself. It was with her, um, mate.”

“Mate?”

Finally, he turned and met her eyes. “Yeah.”

“Mate? Like dogs mating?”

“Well, we are all animals, but no, sex isn’t necessary. Just a connection. Not that sex isn’t great. Sign me up! But this is different. This is magic.”

“Between a witch and a shifter. So this happens any time we get near each other? Is that what the treaty was trying to prevent?”

“No. Maybe?”

What the hell was he saying? That they were now tied together, too? Now the messed-up trio was a foursome, and she was roped into it?

Without a conscious thought, she was standing up and pulling on her t-shirt, since her bra had gone missing.

“That’s not a thing,” she muttered. “This is not a thing that happens!”

“It was literally a thing that just happened.” Asher stood exactly where he’d landed and finally dropped his gaze. “Forget I said anything.”

“Do we have a choice?” Oh god, was this some kind of arranged marriage via magic, not just scheming aunts?

“No!” He winced. “Maybe.”

“So I don’t have a choice.”

“I don’t have a choice either! And yes, we absolutely do. I know at least one woman who completely rejected her fated mate.”

“Fate? This is fate?”

She felt sick. At least with an arranged marriage, everyone acknowledged it was for the coven’s convenience, not the pair’s. They didn’t ever claim there was some kind of real connection between prospective lovers. This was something else.

“I’m not trying to trap you,” he said. “I’m just trying to explain what you maybe felt. It’s not something I did or you did that we can control.”

“So we’re just ravening beasts, slaves to instinct and ancient forces.”

“No!” He closed his eyes again. “Kind of. That is certainly what it feels like to me some days.”

She froze by the door, remembering his pain. He seemed as bewildered as she, just as lost and threatened.

She had a vision of walking back to him and taking him in her arms, but his words echoed in her mind: mate, mate, mate.

“I’m not running.”

He pulled a travesty of a smile out of somewhere. “It looks very much like you’re running.”

“I’m coming back,” she said. She had promised.

She could not bear a world where she would never see him again, but nor could she bear to be in this cabin a second longer with a man she may have an unbreakable magical tie to.