Page 24 of Nyte's Rejected Luna

“Maybe it was the wrong choice to hide it from her all this time.” Anthony sighed, scratching at his head.

“No, it was the right thing. If she was meant to know, the cards would have told her a long time ago. If we think that we have any control over what the fates decide, we’re severely kidding ourselves. Just look at where we are now.”

Anthony chuckled. “Fake mated to your real mate. It’s like something out of a sitcom, don’t you think?” He looked over at me; his hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts. “So, besides looking for the psycho, what’s up with all the increased patrols? The coven has noticed the activity with the packs. They’re getting nervous about what you all are up to.”

“What do they think we’re going to do? Round them all up and make them work for us?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time a pack did that.” I looked at Anthony, hating that he was right.

“I can’t tell you much; it’s pack business. What I can tell you is that the increased patrols is for our protection. Nothing more.”

Anthony looked at me, the questions I couldn’t answer bouncing around in his mind. I could see it in his eyes. Thankfully, he didn’t ask. He recognized that there are some things that I can’t tell him when it comes to the pack’s business. Not that I didn’t want to, but because it was against pack law. The pack wouldn’t like a witch knowing that we were disappearing…pack by pack, stolen into the night, not a trace left. Not even a scent and no explanation as to why. Nothing to tell us who is doing it, much like the situation with Paige’s stalker.

Markus had brought up the possibility of witches being involved, using their spells to cover the scent, much like Paige had done to escape her stalker.

I paused my step, looking at Anthony again. “Wait, there is one thing I can do.”

“What is it?”

“Could the spell to cover scents hide multiple people? To the point that it would seem they had never been somewhere?”

Anthony thought about it for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, if the witch was powerful enough to pull it off. Just look at Paige for an example. She covered her scent for a few miles; less powerful witches couldn’t cover it even that far. Add in a potion, and she could have covered her scent from the entire city. She would have been a ghost to all of the wolf kind.”

“What about others, though, not just you but several others at once?”

“A combination of magic and potions creates a number of abilities. So yeah, it would be possible, but it would have to be a very powerful witch. The only ones in the city that comes close to that level of power would be Ama and Paige. However, Ama doesn’t tap into her powers as much now that she’s older. Mostly she gives pendulum readings at her store and sells some watered-down love potions to humans. And Paige isn’t that confident in her powers yet. I’m not even sure she realizes how powerful she is.”

We continued on my patrol in silence. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking about, but my mind was focused on the information he had just given me. Their coven was the largest in the city, their bloodline dating back to before California was part of the US. They were called curanderas, or healers for their people. Now, they are simply referred to as witches, an umbrella term now that covers a multitude of branches of healers and seers.

If Anthony says the only ones known to their coven to be that powerful were his grandmother and Paige, then it was likely a rogue witch new to the area. But what would a witch want with werewolves? They didn’t have much use for us outside of romantic flings or the rare mateship. Even cursed werewolves turned on the witch who cursed them, no matter how hard the witch had tried to write in their obedience for her. The werewolves were too strong-minded to control.

That left only one other option: the witch had to be helping some other being. But who? Other packs trying to steal territory? It could be vampires; although a war between the wolves and bloodsuckers hasn’t occurred in centuries, there was always that one vampire who yearned for chaos and bloodshed between the two night-creatures. There was really no telling which could be the more likely option.

“Do you have any time to spare during your patrol?” Anthony asked, breaking the silence.

“For what?” I asked.

“Dad wants to ask you about this mateship between you and Paige. He’s a little pissed that we’ve kept it a secret for the last few years. He says he knows you had to have known of it when she turned eighteen. He just about ripped my head off when I told him that I knew.”

“What the hell does he care? Did he want me to take his daughter away as soon as she had turned eighteen? Would that have made him happier?”

Anthony shook his head. “He just wants to hear from your mouth that you had no intention of rejecting her. He knows how a lot of the wolves in your pack feel about witches. He doesn’t want Paige to be in a loveless relationship for the rest of her life.”

I sighed, nodding in understanding. His father wanted to know why I didn’t claim his daughter immediately if I actually wanted her as my mate. He needed to hear from me that I cared about her and she was going to be happy with me.

The house was dark, the only light coming from the room their father used as a home office. Quietly, Anthony and I entered, careful not to alert his mother to our presence in the house. As much as I loved the woman, she would get in the way of her husband asking me the hard questions he needed to ask.

“Dad,” Anthony greeted, closing the door behind us before sitting on the plush loveseat against the window.

Mr. Ramirez looked up from his book, his gaze landing on me without glancing at his son. “You came, good. That is the first test passed. Have a seat, Nyte.”

I sat across from his desk, keeping his gaze as Anthony cleared his throat.

“I’m told you have questions about my intentions with your daughter.”

Mr. Ramirez finally glanced at his son, nodding. “That’s one way of putting it, yes.”

“Ask me anything. I promise you; I have nothing to hide, and you have nothing to fear from my answers.”

---