Page 242 of The Broken Aztec Princesses

“Who’s Aunt Nat?”

“Luna Natalia from Guardian Moon,” I answered.

“Why would we? Is she a healer?”

“Crud, you guys don’t know. Why didn’t you tell us?” Violet asked.

“I’m under strict orders not to tell anyone. Cade doesn’t want people to know he’s having trouble with his wolf. He feels they would attribute it to him not being born an alpha ,and try to come for his pack while he’s down.”

“But, you’re telling us, now,” Violet pointed out.

“I trust you. Besides, I’m not telling you, I’m answering Chris’ questions,” he answered, making me grin at the technicality. “Once his leg heals, and I can get him off the damn painkillers, I’ll make him listen to the voicemail and make him call Bells. If he’d known she called him, he would have been there as fast as his truck could go.”

“Ehh...” Violet stammered.

“What? Is it too late? Did she find her second-chance mate already or find someone else?”

“No. It’s just Bells isn’t available for a while. Have Cade listen to the voicemail, and then have him reach out to me. I’ll talk to my aunt. She’s a healer. I’ll have her go see him in a day or two.”

“Thanks, Vi. I-I hope they can fix this. I don’t like seeing him or Nyko like this,” he finished with a sigh.

“Trust me. No one is rooting for them more than we are.” Violet replied, a wry chuckle escaping.

No shit. They had a chance to be together and raise their pups. Cade was Bells’ chance to be happy, bond or not. Just like Violet was mine. If we could figure out what was happening to Bells and reverse it, they had a chance to talk things out, and have finally be happy.

“Alright, I gotta get back to work. I’ll talk to you later,” John replied.

“Night, man. Tell Cade we said hi,” I said.

“Will do, Chris,” he responded before hanging up.

Something about that whole interaction was nagging at me, and I couldn’t figure out what. I made Violet go to bed at two, but I stayed up a while longer, while I continued doing some research on the laptop in bed. At around five in the morning, I finally gave up and grabbed a couple hours of sleep. It was almost nine when I woke up. Violet was on the little table looking at the laptop, doing more research.

“You didn’t wake me, Little Warrior. We’re late for breakfast,” I chided.

“James mind-linked me earlier. They left us food in the microwave.”

I made a mental note to thank James for his forethought, and with the knowledge that I didn’t have to hurry to cook something for my mate, I walked to her, pulled her up and kissed her good morning.

“Why does a duck have a tail?” I asked.

“Why?”

“To cover up his butt quack,” I answered and watched her let out a little giggle.

I would take it. I knew things were dire right now, but I hated seeing her sad. I gave her another kiss and asked, “Do you choose me today?”

“Always,” she whispered instantly, looking up at me with love shining in her eyes. She gave me another small kiss, then sighed and placed her head on my chest. “Zi sent us an email. I was just about to read it.” She sat down, and I read over her shoulder.

After we came back from Montana, we took the book Violet found to Alpha Helios. He couldn’t recognize the language, so we took it to Ziomara, the gamma female of Crescent Moon and, one of the top security technologists in the pack’s company, to see if she could figure out the language and translate it, so we could begin to figure out what kind of spells Martha was doing. We knew it was blood magic. Hell, half the spells looked like they were written in blood.

“Oh, it was a cipher, not a language,” I mumbled as I read the email.

How she managed to figure that out, I had no idea, but the woman didn’t have the job title she had because she was mated to the gamma. She and Evie’s IQ were a couple of stratospheres above us normal folk.

“She’s sent what’s translated so far and she’s hoping it’s done by the end of the week,” Violet told me, as she finished reading, opening some pdf’s attached to the email.

“That’s good,” I answered, walking to the little printer we bought and turned it on.

---