Page 9 of Secret Heir's Return

“What? You should know what I need. After all, you already got this potion before, right?” She smirked, dropping my hair into her cauldron.

“The other witch didn’t attack me. Maybe you should go and take a lesson from her about decorum with clients.”

“I don’t work for tips. I’m already paid. Why do I care about decorum with you?”

I wandered around her room as she stirred the potion. She had dried herbs hanging from every curtain rod and banister available, she even had them hanging along the canopy rod of her bed.

“I’ll call for you when it is done. Go,” Minerva snapped. She never took her eyes from her cauldron, sprinkling herbs and oils into the concoction as she went. Before I left the room, I observed her for a brief moment. I had noted the way her lips moved with soundless words as she stirred, curious about the magic she was creating.

I had always been rather curious about magic. More so now that I knew my mate was a hybrid. That meant our children would have some magical abilities as well. How does a wolf raise children with magical abilities? Such thoughts and fantasies of our children danced in my head as I returned to the table with my friends. I vaguely took part in the conversation with my friends. My fantasies of the future were far more appealing than the false plan I had everyone believing in now. I would have to slowly turn everyone away from the idea of killing the Rigel line. Focus more on peacefully rejoining the pack together.

Before I knew it, the scent of magic wafted back over me, and Minerva was standing beside me. Her eyes bored as she held out a pack of potions toward me.

“I doubt this was worth my magic, but I completed it since they paid me. Good luck with your little plan.”

She walked away the very moment my hands held the bag, returning to her room and slamming the door behind her. I caught Dad’s eyes moving from her door to me. He raised his glass and gave a nod – the only farewell I’d be getting from the old man.

Everyone else flooded around me, patting my back as I made my way to the door with my full bags over my shoulder. Every person urged me to not take more time than needed. Everyone shared the same desire to be reunited with the friends and family they had left behind in loyalty to my mother.

The moment I was out of the bar and at the tree line, I turned to watch my friends wave goodbye. I waved back before disappearing into the forest. The first thing I did as soon as I was near the borders of the Rigel Pack was take out the bottles of potion, pouring their contents onto the ground before discarding the bottles into a hollowed-out tree.

There was no need for them, and the last thing I needed was for my mate to have any reason to doubt who I was. She was half witch after all. She would recognize the potions for what they were, and it would not be easy to convince her that I had not used them to trick her.

Once finished, I passed my way into the pack territory, making my way to the packhouse, hoping to make it close enough for my mate to find me.

“Liberty,” I sighed her name for the first time. It was a blissful sound on my lips. A name I would never tire of saying.

It was a relief when I broke through the tree line with no sign of their patrols anywhere. I found the path I had taken while leaving the packhouse this morning, my steps growing lighter and lighter the closer I came to returning to my mate.

Then her scent hit me. Just as it had last night, I lost all sense of where I was or what I was doing. I turned on my heels, finding myself face to face with not only my mate, but her brother, the Crete coven heir.

“Well, what do we have here?” he said, coming closer and sniffing around me. “Liberty, do tell, is this the one responsible for that new accessory on your shoulder? Because the scent of the mark is matching up despite your little attempt at hiding it from me.”

He wrapped his arm around my shoulder, squeezing me tight. “Tell me, what went through your mind when you decided to mark my sister? You know, we don’t require mate bonds to return to the pack. Just a little vow of loyalty and a few months with a magic bond to make sure you are true to the vow.”

I barely listened to his words, my gaze on the bright green eyes of Liberty. She stood there her lips parted in a gasp. I watched her nose flare as my scent reached her. Her eyes dilated, confusion mixed with anger in those emerald orbs.

Chapter Six

Liberty

It was him. He was standing right in front of me, yet all the things I had planned to say melted away at the scent of him.

I had smelled nothing like it. The spiced cocos scent was like something out of my dreams. I never even knew how much I enjoyed the smell of cocoa before today; yet it had my mouth salivating.

“Liberty,” Brady said, snapping his fingers in front of my face. “Weren’t you going to threaten his life and demand his first-born child if he didn’t remove that mark?”

I jerked back from my brother’s snapping fingers, glaring at him as he pulled the man along his side. The jerk had his arms over his shoulders like they were some long-lost friends, a grin I’d like to sucker punch off his face plastered on his lips as he stared back at me.

“Well?” Brady asked.

“Mate,” the man said then, both my brother and I turning to look at him with widened eyes.

“What did you just say?” Brady asked, looking over at me.

“I’m your mate.” His gaze was locked on me.

“Is that true?” Brady asked me. His eyes moved to my shoulder, where the mark had begun to throb in the man’s presence who had put it there.

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