Page 69 of Wolves of the Rising Moon

“Thank you. Now, what were you saying?”

“Oh, I think you should let me come to the pack meeting.”

“Absolutely not. It’s not for outsiders, Claudia.”

She nods like she expected that would be my retort. “I know, I know. But the cards I’m drawing and the tea leaves and basically every divination tool at my disposal is telling me I need to be there tonight.”

“Why?” I ask, taking in the excitement in her gaze, the not perfectly done hair, and the small smudge of mascara at the corner of her eye. Whatever she’s been busy with, it likely had her up all night.

“I don’t know. Divination doesn’t work like that, unfortunately.”

I push on, knowing a little about how this witch works. “But what do you think it could be? What do you hope it is?”

Her lips curve into a wide smile, and she leans close. “OK, don’t tell anyone, but I think it might be the key to figuring out your scary mate’s magic predicament.”

I nod, playing along. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure, Willa. I just know I have to be here. Something big is going to happen, likely involving magic, and I need to be there to see it. To learn whatever I can from it.”

Ah, that’s what it is, then. She wanted an in to feed her addiction to collecting magical information.

“Look, as much as I support your interest—”

Claudia steps back, eyes wide, mouth in a small O. “I don’t think you understand this at all, Willa. This isn’t an interest. It’s not some fixation I’ll move beyond when it grows tiresome, OK?”

“Then please, explain to me what it is.”

She straightens, looking down at me from her full height. “This is my calling, Willa. I am the Keeper of the Arcane for my coven. It is my duty to discover and catalog as much as I can, not just to pass along to my witches, but to help others in the supernatural community.

“A few months ago, I helped a sweet woman who thought she might be insane by uncovering the truth about the way your land magic works in British Columbia and applying it to her situation. Who knows where she might be now if I couldn’t convince her that, as the first of her kind, she could make the rules.”

It takes a few moments, but Claudia’s words sink into me and I feel myself disassociating, my eyes unfocusing as her meaning becomes clear.

Is that what I am?

What I had been before Mari took the mantle?

The first wolf and healer to ever exist?

Is that why I could basically make shit up as I went? Tinctures and potions and…

I grip the door casing, keeping myself upright as the next realization rolls into me.

If I could make the rules, did it then follow that I could have justdecidednot to explode when Rafe touched me?

A small cry echoes in my mind, and it’s only when Claudia comes to my side, shushing and soothing, that I realize I’d made that sound out loud.

I still am.

All that suffering. All that time without him…

Was it all really for nothing? Could I really just have overridden it?

“Shhh, honey. Sweet girl, it’s OK. You didn’t know. And if you had, you likely wouldn’t have believed it.”

But it’s not helping. Her words bounced off the door to my closed mind.

She grabs my chin, wrenching my neck until I’m staring into her dark, fiery gaze.

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