Page 4 of Tethered Magick

I reached down to play with his hair, letting him know I was grateful. I needed to regroup, and I had been in my head too much.

Deep breath,nizhóni,Chayton soothed, his rich timbre like a lullaby.

I inhaled and released the breath just as quickly.

“We’ll take your advice to heart, but I’d like to know the rest of the story. What happened to my mother, and how do I fit into all of this?”

“When the darkness inside her began taking its toll on the pack, we decided we needed to reveal her presence to the rest of our community, much like you have done tonight. We planned a bloodletting to help her find any additional mates… anchors…” Bidziil suddenly stood. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I lived through this, and while you deserve to know the truth, I can’t be the one to give you the rest of the story. Her loss, even after all these years, is still a fresh wound. The loss of a mate isn’t something you ever recover from.”

“Go.” Elan waved him off. He slipped through the chairs, quickly created a portal, and walked through it, his shoulders slumped inward.

“I’ll go make sure he’s alright.” Klah pushed to his feet and disappeared after Bidziil.

“I’m sorry.” Elan downed the rest of his drink and held up the glass, waiting with it suspended near his shoulder for Tye to take. He quickly refilled it and handed it back. “Bidziil has always been more sensitive. I believe it comes from his role in the pack. He feels things deeply, though he was correct. Old wounds still bleed, even after all this time.”

“Did you ever take another mate?” Jolon’s hand tightened infinitesimally on my knee as if it would help me shut my mouth, and I shot him a worried glance.Did I overstep?

The guys didn’t have a chance to answer before Elan did.

“I tried. I took a wolf shifter as a mate. Tye’s mother.” He jerked his head over his shoulder to his son who stood ramrod straight, staring into the darkened woods beyond with his jaw clenched tightly.

Elan took a healthy drink, and then leveled Dason with a meaningful look. “Nothing will ever compare to being mated to your fated mate. No other woman will ever come close to filling that connection.”

“I think they get your point,” Tye gritted out, muscles tense.

Elan dismissed his son’s remarks. “Nevertheless, you deserve the rest of the story. Your mother never made it to the bloodletting, Lorn.”

“She was gone before the pack had the chance to gather,” Ashkii admitted.

“Stolen, more like,” Elan bit out.

“By whom?” Dread sat like a lead weight on my chest.

“You have a gentler way about you. The girl should hear it from you.” Elan waved toward Ashkii, offloading the burden of delivering bad news.

“I’m sorry, child,” Ashkii apologized, the lines deepening in his forehead. “This will be hard to hear, and perhaps harder to comprehend as I understand you’re close with those who raised you.”

I tried not to snort. I was close with my father. Avalon, my adopted mother, could burn in hell at this point for siding with the enemy, hurting my father, and having him possessed by a shade. The only other person I cared about was my best friend, Emmaline.

“You’re trying to tell me the warlocks were involved in her death?” I surmised, hardening myself to the reality of what they were implying.

“Your mother began taking risks she never should have involved herself in. Then, one day, she didn’t come home. The warlocks…”

“Elan,” Ashkii scolded quietly. “We don’t know for sure they had her. There was never any definitive proof.”

“Oh, she was with them. Believe me,” he spat, his eyes gleaming with anger and his mood growing dower.

“It was the turning point for our kind, creating enough motivation to fuel our battles into a full-on war between our races. One that cost our side greatly.” Ashkii’s face was pinched.

“One that cost them just as greatly,” Elan retorted more proudly than he probably should have. We were talking about lives lost, not football.

Each of my mates was paying close attention, but it was Syler who was studying the elders with quiet focus. Out of all my men, Syler was the most observant, catching onto small nuances the rest of us often missed. Whether that was a product of having to pay closer attention to others due to his mutism, or simply a skillset he’d honed from being the beta within his small pack, I wasn’t sure.

“We held on to hope that we’d find her alive” —Elan’s fingers tightened around his glass— “but a number of months after she disappeared, the bond between us shattered, destroying our pack.”

Ashkii reached out a hand, as if he could touch me across the campfire. “If we had known she was pregnant, we would have come for you, my dear.”

“Wait a minute.” I tensed, scooting to the edge of my seat, uncaring that I bumped Axel and maneuvered out of Jolon’s touch. I held up my hands as my mind raced. “Are you saying my father is a… a…”

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