Anya grimaced. “That would be the most effective, yes.”
Caden and I sat in horrified silence. Was that why I had been led here? Was I truly supposed to find my mates only to risk their lives and steal their magic like my ancestor had done to her lover?
Tears slipped over my cheeks and I tugged down the collar of my chef’s jacket, revealing the fresh bites.
“How many?” Anya asked.
“Five.”
“I don’t want to say you have to, but that creature isnotgoing down quietly. Fiona’s coven lost twenty powerful and experienced witches during the first binding when they sealed it away. If you fail to fix what Fiona created, the magical community could suffer grievous losses. You and your mates are first on the menu, so you need to talk to them. Better for everyone to lose their magic than their lives as well, right?”
I wanted to scream.
How could I ask them to give up the essence of their beings, to lose their shifting forever? But as the monster shrieked, maybe somehow knowing we were discussing its demise, a more pertinent question forced its way to the forefront.
How could I afford to keep silent, knowing we were the only ones who could stop it?
My eyes refused to focus. Something inside me had broken in the midst of all we were learning from Anya, and I didn’t know how to repair it. Logan’s hand in mine was a lifeline that kept me from drifting away, barely.
Rachel had sought me out because of my ancestry. Seth, too, apparently.
“Did she…” I trailed off, unsure if I could make myself say the words.
“Speak your mind,” Anya said softly. “I’m losing my desire to protect her the more I learn.”
“Did she ever actually love me?” My throat was tight as I forced the question out, my whole chest aching.
Anya frowned, chewing her lip. “We didn’t talk much about it, to be honest. She was relieved that you were handsome and seemed kind, said she could make it work for the sake of healing the rift and hoped for love over time.”
“And my brother?”
“She didn’t say a lot about him, just that her plan didn’t work out and she needed a new identity ASAP.” Anya rubbed her hand over her face with a sigh. “She hid the bond from me. I can’t believe she’d have gone through with one for this. I’m sorry, genuinely, that I played any part in what she did.”
“How did she hide the bond, though?” Logan asked. “I don’t understand that part.”
“It’s possible she tried to break it,” said Anya, “which is why you felt like she died. There’s some old, complex magic she likely used to silence it from her side when she failed to break it, and if that was applied right after the failed break, you wouldn’t have been able to tell what actually happened. If she’d asked me at all, I’d have told her not to. Magic like that is dangerous, which is why a bond is never supposed to be undertaken unless you truly want it.”
I supposed that explained why it was so easy for her to leave me. She had never really wanted me to begin with, and when she couldn’t force herself to love me she had moved on to Seth, trying for a second time before disappearing entirely. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the layers of lies and betrayal, the falsehoods I had bought into so easily.
“What—” I swallowed hard. “What do we do now? I haven’t bonded myactualmate because of this connection to Maeve.” Calling her that name was strange when I had fallen in love with Rachel, but she could have a hundred names for all I knew.
“In all honesty, that will probably save your magic. Everyone connected to Logan through a bond will be risking everything to put this monster to bed for good.”
“I don’t care about any of that. Maeve has cost me my place in my pack.”
“She hasn’t,” Logan insisted. “You’re pack with or without a bond because I love you.”
A traitorous snake of a thought slid through my mind. “Do you actually? Or is this some fucked-up ancestral remnant drawing us together?”
I hated myself the second the words were out. Logan’s eyes filled with tears and she yanked her hand from mine. “How could yousaythat?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t—I don’t mean it, I just…” I never should’ve said it, but confirmation that she and Maeve shared a bloodline, that I had already been targeted by one of them because of this monster, made me question everything no matter how much I hated it.
“Okay, okay,” Anya piped up, another flying book almost taking her out before she caught it and laid it flat on the desk, its pages frantically flipping. “Let’s figure this out.”
Anya read, eyes widening with each passing second.
“I think Maeve’s theory may have been correct. In part, at least.”
