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Chapter Twenty-Two

The Unfamiliar Damsel Role

Clover

“If you grip that steering wheel any tighter, fur is gonna burst out of your knuckles,” I joked, but Bellamy was so tense it was stealing the oxygen from the cabin of his truck.

“Not sure we’re ready for this,” he grumbled, looking straight ahead.

“I know this won’t be easy for you.” I felt for the bear. The last time he’d been on clan land, I’d rejected him in front of everyone who was important to him.

“This isn’t about me.” He looked at me only for a second, but it was long enough to send a chill through my bones. He definitely wasn’t ready for this visit. “We’re mid-assignment. The leads we have on the locket are barely tangible, at best. And we have no idea what’s happened to the clan while that magic is in someone else’s hands.”

“All good points.” I gulped. Maybe I was the one who wasn’t ready for this visit because I’d been so focused on how the clan would react to the two of us strolling in together like nothing had ever gone wrong. “An element of surprise might go further than we think. If my mom actually took my magic from me, that spell should’ve broken when she passed, right?”

“Makes sense to me.”

“I should know the answer, and I’m pissed that I don’t.” I turned toward the side window. Bellamy was firmly on my team, but I hated admitting that I needed him so much right now. Wanting him was perfectly within my personal rule book, but this situation kept putting me back in the unfamiliar damsel role. I didn’t want someone to feel like they had to save me, damn it. I wanted to be pursued for nothing more than lust and desire. “If the spell was broken, then the elders have been working overtime to keep my magic from me.”

“Paying them a visit should give us some answers on that front.”

I blew out a shaky breath. “What if it changes me?”

He chuckled. “I don’t think any magic is that powerful, Clover.”

“I didn’t have my magic before. When I rejected you,” I clarified, hating that it felt so cruel. “And with the magic, I want you back in my life. What if the elders try to take that from me? Or they’re using me as a weapon against you? That’s what scares me. I hurt you once, and I don’t want to do it again.”

I could only see his profile, but his face brightened, and those knuckles, so tense before, loosened their death grip on the steering wheel.

“Now that I know this wasn’t your choice, I won’t let anything keep me from you. Ever.”

The growl in his voice warmed my body, and the heat pooling in my core was about to cross over into the danger zone. It would be so easy to tell him to pull over to the side of the road…

Focus , my bear said. Get this over with and then the bear can be your sweet reward.

I hated to agree with her when I was this turned on. “We’re getting close. We should probably have a plan going into this.”

“This is a temperature check,” he said, all business like he hadn’t just turned my insides to liquid lava. “We’re not there to tell them what we know. More importantly, what we don’t know. We’re there to see how they react to an unplanned visit, and for the information they give us you might not have known to look for before you left.”

“I hate treating my own clan like they could be my enemy.” I hugged myself, but it didn’t make me feel safe. “I’m not sure how I’ll react to seeing them, now that I know that my whole life has basically been a lie.”

Bellamy glanced at me before he turned onto the gravel road that led to clan land. “This is your chance to take back control.”

He was right. And I only had moments to figure out what that looked like for me. I always thought I was in control, but in reality, I’d been played like a marionette doll.

“I don’t understand why Nana would have me look for the locket if it meant I’d find out the truth,” I said. “Or why she would’ve sent me to you.”

“She may have overestimated her own magic,” Bellamy suggested. “The power’s gone to her head, and having you go fetch the thing that gives her control over you…and me…is a pretty big flex. Or she’s trying to finish off the Lynwood clan, once and for all, and she knew this would be the way to provoke them.”

My heartbeat intensified as our village came into view. “Or provoke me. But still, why? Had she never sent me looking for the locket, everything would’ve been business as usual.”

Bellamy pulled to the side of the road, and a cloud of dust rose around us as he parked the truck. “Maybe it’s better than whatever would have happened if you didn’t find out this way.”

He came around to my side of the truck and opened the door. I’d been too shell-shocked to move. My legs had turned to jelly, and the gravel crunching under our feet was the only thing that broke the tense silence.

We didn’t have a plan. Bellamy might have had one, but my thoughts and emotions had tied themselves together into a knot I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to loosen. The emotion I was least familiar with was fear. I’d been privileged enough to think I always had a safety net, but now that I realized it was made of spider’s silk, I had no idea what would happen once I fell through it.

That’s not new , my bear reminded me. That feeling is the exact reason you rejected this gorgeous bear in the first place.

If I’d accepted his claim, would I have found my power that much sooner?

Heads turned and our friends and families stared at us as we walked down the road that led to the heart of our little village. Bellamy reached for my hand and squeezed it. The bear was on a mission, and I knew exactly where we were headed.

I blew out a breath as we stepped onto Nana’s front porch. It was the house I’d grown up in, and where I’d learned about clan history and our magical lessons.

Lies.

It felt weird to knock on the door. Normally, I’d walk right in. But nothing was normal right now.

“Clover,” my sister Sage exclaimed as she opened the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Why wouldn’t I be here?” I asked. “Where’s Nana?”

“She’s with the elders. Weekly ritual.” She might as well have punctuated it with a duh .

“Good.” I stepped closer, expecting her to move aside and let me in, but she didn’t. “We need to talk.”

“Yeah, we do.” Her gaze was focused squarely on the bear beside me. “Good to see you, Bellamy.”

“Good to see you too.” But I could feel he was on edge. “What time will that meeting be over?”

She shrugged. “It starts at noon and ends when they’re finished.”

I took advantage of her distraction to hook my arm into hers and get into the house. Bellamy followed, closing the door and standing in front of it like a barrier.

Sage’s brows raised. “Why are you two acting like this is some sort of ambush? And since when do you even like each other?”

“We can talk about that later.” I eyed Bellamy, who’d crossed his arms and rumbled. His body looked massive in my Nana’s tiny and cluttered cottage. “Are we the only ones here?”

“Yeah. The kids are at school. What in the world is going on?”

There was no way she was this oblivious, and she usually didn’t hang out at Nana’s house in the middle of the day by herself. “That’s what I want you to tell me.”

“Everyone was worried sick about you when you didn’t come home. The rumors were pretty wild, which is a stretch, considering you were the subject. Like how do you still manage to top yourself? It’s a talent. Some people thought this guy was holding you hostage.” She motioned toward Bellamy. “That he was working with a rival clan that was trying to destroy us. Some bears thought he stole the locket.”

“What did they say about that rival clan?” Bellamy asked calmly, like my sister hadn’t just accused him of theft and treason. I had to hand it to him, because her allegation had my blood boiling.

Her eyes widened. “Why don’t you tell me? You’re the one who disappeared without a trace.”

This wasn’t like my sister. Sage was the golden bear, the clan darling, the one who made good decisions on a regular basis. She had the mate, the two kids, the gorgeous cottage on the lake, and the perfect body. I’d called the she-shed in my Nana’s backyard home while I’d saved up to open that spa that was perpetually out of reach. She didn’t usually call me out for being a card-carrying member of the hot mess express. My big sister usually was the one to bail me out of my bullshit.

“I want to know about that clan too,” I answered before Bellamy had a chance to say anything. “What did they say?”

She shook her head. “Most of the focus was on Bellamy. The story got more dire every time it was repeated.”

I stepped closer to her and lowered my voice. “Has Nana done anything unusual? Like new rituals or spells?”

“I have to be honest, it goes in one ear and out the other when she talks about it. I wish I understood the magic, but you know how it is when you don’t have it.”

Okay, something was definitely off. Sage would never say that.

“You do have magic.” I held my hand up before she had a chance to protest. “It was stolen from you, just like it was from me. And I need you to cooperate with me, because I’m gonna try to show you how to get it back.”