Page 33 of His Whispered Witch

“Oh no, her daughter has a different father. But Kathleen had children. The first witch. And now they’re both together with witches.”

“A witch and a wolf had a baby.”

“Four that I know of, but a couple are infants. One of them doesn’t even have a wolf yet.”

“And they’re not, you know, wrecking the world?”

He raised an eyebrow. “We’re not breeding super villains in the woods of West Virginia, if that’s what you were worried about. Yes, they have magic and they have wolves.” Damn strong wolves. He thought of his cousin with his out-of-control wolf. “Okay, I mean, sometimes it can be a challenge. But often, they are the strongest of us.”

Her eyes flared. “They’restronger.”

He nodded. “Kathleen put wards around our land all by herself. Just her and her, um, husband.”

There was a light in her eyes now that warmed Asher and made him nervous.

“There are not thirteen witches in your pack, right?”

He shook his head vehemently. “I know there’s not thirteen.” He tried to count them up. “At least five or six?”

“And you have wards and a shit ton of magic.”

“Yes.”

“And you seriously didn’t raid a coven? I’m sorry. I know that sounds terrible.”

He laughed hysterically. “No! They’re not related at all. To each other, I mean, but also not to the wolves. I mean, I know it’s West Virginia, but we don’t actually do that.”

She took a deep breath, and he was terrified to realize her hands were shaking.

She said, “But you said you needed all of them to make that collar. So they can join together, even if they’re not related?”

He frowned. Why was she so excited and upset by that?

“Yeah? I mean, I think it had to come through the wolves, ‘cause all the wolves are related. So that’s how the magic flowed. Quinn said it was insane. It nearly blew her out. Quinn is the charm witch. And the alpha’s… Friend.”

She lay back on the bed with a laugh and spread her arms wide.

Asher dashed forward and grabbed the bowl off her lap. “Are you okay?”

“No. Yes? Everything I thought about the world was wrong? It’s kind of messing with my head.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s their life’s work,” she said to the ceiling. “Both of their life’s work.”

“Whose life’s work? What are you talking about?”

Penn curled up to meet his eyes. “The coven I am staying with now. It’s not a traditional family. There wasn’t enough power in one family, so they’ve been adopting strays for years and are still trying to figure out how to join together. Everyone else says it’s impossible, and you’ve just casually announced thatthere’s another bunch of witches who already did it. Oh, and the twins want to kill every werewolf in existence, which is probably the only way they could actually get their joining.”

He went cold. “They want to what?”

Most covens were anti-werewolf, but usually in the abstract: we stay away from you and you stay away from us, and we all live happily ever after. He had never heard of a coven actively hunting wolves.

“Why?” he asked.

“There are two huge packs in the area, and they didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire? I mean, this is kind of prime wolf territory, you know, for the normal ones, so it’s attracted a lot of packs over the years. I think they’ve had more run-ins than the average coven, so they’re a bit twitchier.”

He swallowed, suddenly aware of how dangerous it had been to casually stroll into Silver Spring. “But not you?”

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