Page 31 of Prey

Shit. How am I supposed to walk in here and tell my mate that her father might be alive? Let alone his mate. But how has the mate bond been broken? That’s something that doesn’t make any sense. Eloise clearly behaves as if the mate bond is gone.

I decide to go to Winnie and talk to her first. Walking back in, I catch her eye and motion for her to follow me. She stands, telling the rest to wait just a moment and though I can tell that Shasta wants to argue, she finally nods.

“Can you put a silencing bubble around us? No one else can hear this just yet.” I ask her.

She looks at me like I have two heads but nods and creates the bubble. I can hear all the noise around us instantly go silent until all I can hear are our hearts beating and our breathing.

“What I’m about to say is going to shock you, but is there a way someone can break a mate bond and make it feel like the other person is dead?” I ask, watching her reaction closely.

She looks at me in shock, but I can almost see the gears start turning in her head as she starts to pace within the bubble. “Only witches can break a bond and it’s only the bond between a witch and someone that has forced a bond with them. There are no other exceptions. That said, I have heard of spells that can cut someone off from their bond, or if the person is being held captive in a cell that blocks all magic. Since the bonds are a form of magic this would cut off the bond as if they had died, similar to how the restraint chair in the basement works.”

She stops pacing and looks up at me and I see shock on her face as she realizes what I’m suggesting.

“Joaquin says there is a sense he picked up from the box of something like coercion and guilt and that whoever wrote that letter wrote it recently based on the power of the emotions coming from it. Is there a chance they are holding her father captive?” I ask solemnly.

Her hand raises to her mouth, and she gasps. “The car accident that he died in…,” she says. “The car and the driver burned beyond recognition. There wasn’t a way we could identify the body and there was only just enough of the car left to identify. The timing was also right when Eloise felt the bond break, so we never questioned it.”

Shit, how the hell are we going to do this and keep what’s left of Eloise’s sanity intact?

Almost as if she read my mind, Winnie immediately says, “We can’t tell Eloise. If something happens and he really does die, or if it isn’t him…no, we can’t tell her. Shasta can handle it but not her mother. She’s more herself these days than she has been in a long, long time. I can’t risk having her go back to that. If it wasn’t for someone from the Coven sitting with her every single day for the first three years, I don’t think she’d be here right now.”

“Okay, so can you grab Shasta for me and have her come in here with Ethan, if you don’t mind? Can you keep the bubble up for us?” I ask.

She nods. “I’ll take Eloise to her room as well so that she doesn’t see Shasta upset and start asking questions.”

“Good idea,” I say as she walks out of the bubble. She moves over to Shasta and points her and Ethan in my direction. Smiling sadly, I see her lead Eloise away. We don’t have a lot to go on, but one thing I know about Joaquin is that as long as he has been around and had his powers, he’s never been wrong. I let that thought lead me as I prepare to tell my mate that her father is most likely still alive.

Chapter sixteen

Wands & Missing Demigods

SHASTA

Kadi has a weird look on his face as he gestures to me and Ethan. I can sense a silencing bubble and I’m a littleworried about why he had Grams make one. Once Ethan and I step in, Kadi takes a deep breath.

“I called Joaquin. He said the impressions he got off the box were new emotions. He also said that the main feeling was coercion. So the person who sent the items was coerced into making them, or sending it,” he says.

Thinking of his words, I chew on my nail for a second as the words sink in. “So the person who sent the box was likely to have been made to send it? But the letter is in my dad’s handwriting,” I say.

Kadi just nods and stares at me really hard as if he’s waiting for me to figure something out. I feel sort of stupid for a minute until it registers that it's in my dad’s handwriting and the person was coerced, does that mean…?

“Wait, are you saying…are you saying you think my dad is still alive?” I whisper, my voice cracking.

Kadi winces. “I’m not going to say yes, but I definitely think it’s a very real possibility. Joaquin also said that the box needs to go back to the basement while you check out the wand because something in that box wasn’t right and gave him bad vibes.”

I was nervous about the medallion, but when I reached into the well of power, nothing but good magic came back to me. The letter also didn’t have any negative energy or I would have felt it while I was reading it. That only leaves the wand.

The silencing bubble around us winks out as Grams enters the room again. She must have gotten my mother into bed because she’s alone.

“We are going to have to check the wand out thoroughly. If, and that’s a big if, they have your dad, there’s going to be a trap of some kind with the wand. I don’t know if it’s going to be something we can remove like with Ethan. We were lucky to even get that out of him as long as it had been in there,” she says.

“I remember you saying that before but I was too angry at the time to ask questions. What do you mean as long as it has been inside me? I only started having issues the last couple days,” Ethan says.

“Oh child, that thing has been growing inside of you for many, many years. It fed off of your anger, despair, and grief. Those feelings intensified the last few days because you were forced into being around the people you fear. My guess is it has been in you since you were a child,” she says, reaching over to pat him on the shoulder. “It isn’t your fault, Ethan. You couldn’t have known. Those things are made to never be rooted out. If it hadn’t been Shasta looking, it may never have been found inside of you.”

Ethan looks like someone sucker punched him.

“So, they probably did it when they killed my parents? Wouldn’t I have known? How could I not know they did something to me?” He asks, panic in his voice.

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