Page 19 of Hidden Magic

Chapter Nine

Misery and tears faded into sleep so slowly, Brant didn’t realize it. Something tried to pull him out of slumber, but his lynx sneered. Not a single inch of him wanted to move, surrounded by Kat’s warm body and scent. Way too soon the memory of what had happened hours before came to haunt him. Part of him wanted to wallow, hide from the world, taking Kat with him. Another part of him reared stronger; he was now mated, and he had the duty of taking care of his mate. Holding to that rising hope, he pushed away the fog invading his mind until he surfaced.

Kat hadn’t moved, and a quick look told him she was still peacefully asleep.

It was a sound coming from the other side of the door that had brought him back and a familiar scent that told him not to worry.

Ian was in the living room, moving around and he wasn’t alone. It took but a second for his nose to pick up Sera and Valeria’s scents. There was a hint of Asher, but that was probably coming from his mate’s skin.

Annoyed by the invasion, Brant deeply inhaled the scent of his own mate and as reality set in, the storm of emotion threatened to seize him again. Kat was breathing deeply, a sign that she was still resting. As he slid his palms over the softness of her skin, he wished once more that she would wake up, her pale velvet irises looking at him with tenderness and mischief like before. He cursed the newly formed bond between them for not being enough to bring her back to him for good. At that moment, he resigned himself to hanging onto courage like a lifeline, and to be like his Kat; seeing the positive and the good in the bad, the good being that she was more and more present and less in her unconscious, unseeing state.

And there, in this bed, with his beloved and eternal mate in his arms, he turned to the heavens in his prayers, pleading and menacing in the same breath, to return her fully to the present. To him.

With the warm woman in his arms, Brant decided to reframe his thoughts. Bonded or not there was no way he could ever let her go. There was no way he could abandon having her fully back. If he was given this gift, he would fight for her until his last breath.

Untangling himself from his mate, he made sure she was calm and comfortable before regretfully leaving her.

When he closed the bedroom door behind him, Brant stopped in his tracks. There was a Christmas tree by the large window still bare of its ornaments, but everywhere else was glowing and glittering like a fairytale. Pine and fir tree branches were woven together around the windows and the stone hearth sported pretty red bows. The ceiling was strewn with a multitude of delicate white lights that looked like glinting stars. On the wall were images of humans dressed of old, singing, and one big man with a snow-white beard laughing heartily.

Brant had always looked at human traditions from afar, often annoyed, but if that was what Kat needed to come back, he was ready to paint himself red too and even grow a beard.

And standing in the small mountain of boxes and bags were Ian, Sera, and Valeria.

His pack leader’s mate scrunched her nose and rolled her eyes at him. “Damn, Brant. You could have put on a pair of pants at least.”

Ian’s eyebrow rose as Sera snickered. The mousy witch waved her hand and he felt something form over his body. In a blink, he was clad in dark jeans and a bright green t-shirt with a deer with a red dot on its face. Shaking his head, he decided to let that slide.

“You did that? The decorations?”

Ian came by his side as he was admiring all they had done. “Yeah. It was the women’s idea. They thought it would be a nice touch considering that it’s Christmas. Well, it’s more than just a touch in my opinion.”

Sera elbowed him with a mock frown on her face. “From what I understand, Kat loves Christmas. Did you know she had a small tree up in her apartment? We wanted to give her a tree here too, but we decided it would be better for you two to trim it. What do you think?”

What could he say? It was way better than he’d ever thought. Alone, he wouldn’t have known where to start as human ways were so foreign to him. Overwhelmed by their kindness, it took a few seconds to realize that Ian was sniffing him.

“You bonded with her.” There was no judgment in the werewolf’s tone. On the contrary, he sounded surprised and hesitant, waiting for him to give him a clue to how to react to the news.

The witches gasped and instantly came to him. He knew it was out of worry and compassion, but he couldn’t bear them touching him at the moment. Instead he went to the couch and let himself fall on it.

“I bonded with her a few hours ago. She asked me to.”

Ian cautiously approached him. “Did she fully come back?”

Shaking his head, Brant had to swallow hard to keep his swirling gloom at bay. “Not completely. She was there but I could still see that veil over her eyes. I couldn’t help myself, I need her so much.”

Rubbing his palms over his face, he felt raw and exposed, something completely new to him and highly uncomfortable. Alone, he always knew what he was capable of, his capacities as a lynx and his strength. Now, it was as if he was navigating in the dark. “I am a fool. I thought that maybe it would break that thing, that curse.”

As he watched them standing in his living room, Brant couldn’t help but notice the look that passed between the two women. And the fact that Ian seemed to be on the verge of saying something but was holding himself back.

“It’s not a curse, Brant. We think we’re starting to understand what is going on with Kat, with her past, and what happened.” Valeria came in front of him and sat on the coffee table, careful not to touch him. He didn’t have to explain that other females touching him just after bonding would be like nails on a blackboard. “As you know, when Kat was safe in hospital after her abduction, Hunter continued his investigation. He asked me and Sera to go with him to Kat’s place in case we could detect anything peculiar, any residual energy, magic, whatever. Sera and I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Hunter, on the other hand, found some interesting stuff.”

That caught Brant’s attention on two levels; hope that flared and dark jealousy toward the male that had been in Kat’s apartment and touched what was hers.

He must have expressed some of this duality when Ian sat beside him and put a calming hand on his shoulder.

Sera sat beside Valeria and smiled. “Don’t worry, Hunter was very professional and detached. He cares about the people of this town and has become quite protective of everyone at Sanctuary. And that’s who Kat has become, isn’t? She’s yours now.”

Her words slowly sank in, soothing him, and Brant leaned back again, wanting to know more. “What did you find?”

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