The wrinkled suit my dad hated but kept for special occasions because it had made Mom happy. Mom’s blue sundress that she’d worn when she wanted to feel pretty, and the matching green one she’d bought me for my fourth birthday.

  There were blankets folded at the bottom, and my sobs got louder. Why hadn’t I come back here earlier?

  A knitted white blanket from Aunt Junie was on top, and I gathered the soft material in my arms and kneeled on the floor, holding the fabric against my tear-stricken face.

  Foster sat beside me, staying silent yet present. I leaned my head against him and soaked in his strength. For just a moment, I let him heal the grief that I still held for my family, and then, when I realized what I was doing, I cried harder and scrambled away from him.

  “I’m so sorry,” I muttered, hiding my face with the blanket.

  He pushed my hands down and stroked my cheeks. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  “I-I was taking from you to make myself feel better. Even if I didn’t know what I was doing, I still hurt you,” I sobbed.

  Foster forced me into his arms, and my head rested against his chest. “I love you, Andie. That doesn’t just mean that I get to do so when things are good. I don’t care what you take from me. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Once the tears had started, I couldn’t turn them off. The last few days had been like the world’s worst roller coaster. I was desperate to leap off, not caring what happened when I landed back on the ground.

  The attack at the pack, merging with Junie’s magic, saving Benjamin, learning the council wasn’t happy about Foster and I being fated mates, then bonding with Foster, only to find out the connection between us still isn’t right, plus helping James

  On top of that, I was hurting people. I was taking energy from them without knowing it, and I had no idea how to control my actions.

  Foster’s hands moved up and down my back until my crying ceased, then he held me tighter when I still shook from the overbearing emotions.

  “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to figure out what this means, and you’re going to get your magic back,” Foster said, his voice even and sure.

  I did my best to grasp on to his certainty. I wanted to believe him. I wanted everything to work out, but every backward step we took was chipping away at me.

  Pressure weighed down on me again, but this time, it was comforting. I closed my eyes and relaxed my body against Foster’s. Instead of taking strength from him, I allowed the presence of my ancestors to lift me back up, to reignite the flame I’d been ready to let go out.

  I took a shuddering breath, wiped my cheeks, and whispered, “Thank you.” Foster’s grip on me loosened, and I pulled back, leaning my back against the bed. “We’re going to be okay.”

  He nodded. “There’s no other option that I’m willing to accept.”

  “Me, either. Just keep reminding me, okay?”

  Foster got up and reached a hand for me. “Always.”

  When I was back on two feet, I glanced around the room. “I want to take this stuff back with us soon. Even the bed. We have the extra room it can go in. I don’t want anything left behind once we have time to move it carefully.”

  “Then nothing will be,” Foster promised, and we headed for the attic.

  Before we got to the top of the stairs, I could hear Charlie and Beatrix arguing. I smiled.

  “I just put those in the fridge like you told me to,” Charlie huffed.

  “Well, now I need them. Go get them.”

  “Get them yourself. I found the Bishop section, and I want to start pulling books for Andie.”

  I’d never heard Charlie tell Beatrix “no.” Clearly, I wasn’t the only one losing my shit thanks to all the stress.

  “What do you need?” Foster asked when we got up the stairs.

  Beatrix eyed him. “One vial of vampire blood.”

  Foster kissed the top of my head. “I’ll be right back.”

  He disappeared back downstairs, and I headed toward the wall of books. “Where should I start?”

  “I like him,” Beatrix muttered. “I didn’t think I would. I mean, I intended to tolerate him, but he’s not as bad as I wanted him to be.” She wasn’t looking at either of us, so I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to respond.

  “You wanted Foster to be bad?” I asked anyway.

  Beatrix blinked several times and met my amused stare. Instead of answering, she just shrugged and went back to browsing the pages of the book she had in her hands.

  Charlie waved me over to her. “This should be the best place to start searching. All of the ones from the end of that shelf to where I’ve propped that book out are from your dad’s side of the family.”

  My lips scrunched, then I asked, “What if this has nothing to do with my dad?”

  “What?” Beatrix demanded and walked closer.

  I glanced between them. “I know my original power comes from Dad, but Mom had her own magical line, right? Couldn’t I have inherited something from her?”

  Charlie frowned. “We don’t have anything from Aspen’s family.”

  Beatrix lifted a finger, shaking it along with her head before turning and walking back to her spell book.

  “What do you think?” I asked her.

  The old witch looked up at me, eyes squinting. “Huh?”

  Beatrix’s lack of attention was the last thing we needed today. “What do you think about the idea of this syphon thing having come from my mother?”

  “Oh. That.” She paused, looking at anything but me. “I have thoughts, but I can’t share them yet.”

  I sighed. We didn’t have time for this. Instead, I went back to Charlie. Even if there was nothing about this syphon energy inside the Bishop books, there had to be something there I could learn, so it wouldn’t be a waste of energy to give them a onceover while Beatrix worked her craziness into something the rest of us could understand.

  Charlie handed me a stack of three-inch-wide books. “Start with these.”

  I lugged them to a table and took a seat. All three were bound with aged leather and the pages inside were tanned by time, but the black, handwritten ink was easy enough to make out, and there were even a few images here and there of my ancestors.

  Flipping pages, I learned that Aldis Bishop was the original warlock of our family, and his wife had birthed Olivia, Delores, and Mikhael. All three had gone on to grow their families, and by the third generation, there had been over thirty members of the Bishop coven.

  With every birth had come more power gifted to the family, though they didn’t say where that power had come from exactly, only frequently talking about the Earth’s core and how they’d strived to give and take with everything that they’d done.

  Decades later, the family had spread out across the world, no longer only having children with other witches and warlocks, but humans as well. When this had happened, the magic line hadn’t always carried on, so the number of remaining Bishop members had begun to decrease steadily.

  Then the war for magic had begun. The Proctor coven had become jealous of the relationship between Jacobs and Bishop. They’d tried to form the same alliance with the Grimm family, but ultimately, that had been their downfall. The Howe coven had tried to stay on their own, not wanting to be part of any battles, but Grimm wouldn’t stand for that. They’d slowly taken over Howe until there’d been nothing left of that group, either.

  This had only tightened the bond between Jacobs and Bishop, according to the books, and I was beginning to see that had continued for many more years. Beatrix was the current Monarch of the Jacobs family, the oldest and most powerful witch of their family line, and while she didn’t always do things the way others expected, she was fighting tooth-and-nail to keep us all together.

  When I finally looked up from the first book, I’d nearly jumped out of my seat to find Foster next to me and two mugs placed between us.

  “How long have you been there?” I asked, reaching for the tea and frowning when it was cold.

  “About two hours,” he replied with a grin. “You were really into the book. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  Well, shit. I stretched back in the chair and groaned. Yeah, my body was suddenly feeling the lack of movement.

  “Has anyone found anything?” I asked, though I wasn’t hopeful for a positive answer if they’d let me read for so long.

  “Beatrix has been making a spell and stayed pretty quiet in her corner,” Foster answered. “Charlie and I have been scanning books, but nothing about wolves or syphon witches has been mentioned yet. I figured we should look for both to see if there’s any mention of cross-race soulmates.”

  I reached for his hand. “That’s a great idea. I’ll try to read a little less in depth.”

  He smiled. “Do whatever feels right. We’ll find the information when and where we’re supposed to. Remember, everything is going to be okay.”

  His reminder and permission to do things my own way was just what I needed as I picked up another book.

  I had no idea what Beatrix was up to, but I didn’t stress as I cracked another cover open, the pages calling to me as if my ancestors were rising from the paper with every word that I read.

  16

  FOSTER

  We didn’t find anything about my bond with Andie or her rare ability to syphon power from others. I wanted to be frustrated by that fact, but Andie was practically glowing with energy by the time we’d left the attic. Beatrix had even suggested that she take some of the books back with her, as long as she kept them inside her house and nowhere else.

  When we got back to the coven, Beatrix took us to her place and presented us with a vial of the spell she’d spent most of the day working on.

  “Are you going to tell us what that is now?” Andie asked when we all sat around the older witch’s living room.

  Beatrix nodded. “I was able to make twenty of these, which means we have less than three weeks to figure out the bond between the two of you.”

  Andie’s brows pinched together. “What do you mean? What happens if we don’t?”

  I’d been starting to form my own assumptions, but I’d tried to avoid the direction they’d been going. Though, it didn’t seem like Beatrix was going to allow that any longer.

  She stood and handed me the vial. “You need to drink one of these every day or you will lose your wolf. When that happens, I don’t know if you’ll become human or a warlock because of your bond with Andie, but it’s not a matter of if. Only when. If we don’t get Andie’s necklace back, things will only continue to get worse. In the meantime, this will strengthen the bond between the two of you while protecting the wolf spirit.”

  Andie’s grip tightened on my leg. “Can’t you keep making more of that when we get low?”

  Beatrix shook her head. “It took me all last night to find the spell I was looking for and I had to use some of the rarest ingredients on Earth. Unless we can find more of them, which isn’t likely, then what I’ve made today is all we’re going to have.”

  Charlie crossed her arms. “What about muting Andie’s power like you did last night?”

  “I could keep doing that, but eventually, the power will fight back and, again, things will be worse for everyone. Andie would turn into someone none of us recognized if I had to keep doing that for too long.”

  I opened the vial and looked at Andie. “We have a solution for now. One that doesn’t put you at risk. That’s most important.”

  She nodded, but she wasn’t okay. Her heart was racing, and her nails were close to ripping through my jeans.

  Tipping the liquid to my lips, I swallowed it down in one gulp. I hadn’t heard from my wolf all day. He’d said he was resting so he’d be ready when I really needed him, but his silence was more than deafening.

  It was slowly tearing pieces of my soul out as he slipped farther away from me.

  The connection I had to Andie was keeping me intact, but as much as I hated to admit it, without my wolf, I wouldn’t be able to be the mate Andie needed. Even if I became a warlock, I wouldn’t be me. Not without my wolf.

  The spell traveled down my throat, burning a path directly toward my heart before spreading along my chest. I took slow and steady breaths, waiting for my wolf’s presence to reappear.

  Seconds ticked by and nothing changed.

  “What should I expect from this?” I asked Beatrix, trying to keep my voice even to hide my unease.

  She pressed her hand on my chest and zapped me. I snarled at her, and the sound echoed in my head.

  Wolf? I called

  I’m here. What happened?

  You’ve been gone all day. Beatrix gave me something to bring you back. A temporary solution to our problem.

  I’m dying, he stated evenly.

  A pit churned inside me, and my chest felt like it was being torn apart. I won’t let that happen.

  If it’s between me or Andie, then you know we don’t have a choice. I’d die for her without question.

  His conviction pierced my heart, but I wouldn’t let this news tear me down. I’d keep fighting. Beatrix had given us twenty days and I’d use every one of them to the fullest. We’d find Moira and get Andie’s necklace back, and everything would be fine.

  It had to be.

  Andie’s hand moved over my arm. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded. “He’s back.” My eyes met Beatrix’s. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Now go home. I’m tired.” She turned away and headed down the hallway.

  Andie shook her head and got up, leading the way out the door.

  I locked it behind us while Charlie and Andie said their goodbyes, then Andie teleported us to her house.

  The moon and stars shone above us, and I tried to take solace in the energy coming from my creator, but tonight, there was no peace to capture.

  Once we were inside, Andie headed straight to the bedroom with her books in tow. I followed behind her. She gave me a onceover, her face remaining neutral. “How are you feeling?”

  I took a moment to answer. Something was still off, but I couldn’t figure out what that was.

  It’s the bond. Beatrix’s spell will make both of you stronger, but there’s a wall between us and Andie that wasn’t there before, not even in the beginning.

  My wolf’s words rang true, and my shoulders relaxed, glad to have his guidance back.

  “Better than before.” I closed the distance between us and set the books on our bed before grabbing her hands. “What about you?”

  She pulled her lower lip into her mouth, then released it. “Indifferent. I don’t like what Beatrix said, but today made me feel like we were on the right path. I just wish I could talk to my parents and Aunt Junie. They’d know what to do, and it’s frustrating that there was nothing left behind to give me answers.”

  Andie stepped closer, leaning her head against my chest.

  “I know they didn’t mean to leave me, that their deaths were all unexpected, but that doesn’t make any of this less frustrating. I can sense them here. I think I even felt my dad today, but I can’t hear them like I did when I was getting Aunt Junie’s magic.”

  My hand rubbed over her back slowly and with even pressure. “And Beatrix said there wasn’t a way to connect with them? I thought that was a thing with the witches.”

  Her head shook. “Those beyond the veil aren’t supposed to interfere unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  Her voice was taut, and I understood how maddening the rules of our supernatural life could be, but they were broken all the time. Just like when the Moon Goddess came to me and offered Andie’s scent.

  That never should have happened, and an idea occurred to me.

  “Maybe I can try to reach out to my creator,” I said. “She helped me find you. Maybe she’ll help again.”

  Andie lifted her head. “How would you do that?”

  “I don’t know, but Holden might. I’ll ask him tomorrow. Tonight, maybe we can read more about your family together.”

  I reached for one of the old books and paused when I sensed Andie’s mood swing. “What’s wrong?”

  She was smiling, but her emotions were muddled.

  Andie pulled out her phone from her back pocket and checked the time. “Damn. It’s probably too late now. I can’t believe I forgot to tell you. Or that I didn’t think of this as soon as I thought my issues might be coming from my mother’s side.”

  Her foot was bouncing rapidly against the ground, and she was tapping her palm against her side. I wrapped my fingers around her wrists, trying to get her to focus.

  “What did you forget to tell me?”

  She smiled, and there was a spark in her stare. “I have family still alive. Two of them. Right here in the coven.”

  A surge of adrenaline hit me right at my core. “Who?”

  Andie’s grin somehow got bigger. “Benjamin. Him and his mother, Reah. When you called from the pack because you could sense a change in me? That was when I found out. I was going to tell you when you came back, but we went to the pack and we’ve been so busy since, I somehow forgot. I can’t believe this.”

  And to think, I’d wanted to murder Benjamin when I’d first seen him with Andie.

  “This is great news, but it’s after eleven. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning to go see them unless you want to try to call, see if they answer.”

  Andie shook her head and placed her hands over my chest. “No, tomorrow is soon enough. We’ve had a long day, and I’ve missed you. Missed our connection. It’s better, yet different in a way I’m not sure I like.”

  I brushed strands of her hair back and cupped her cheeks, soaking in her warmth. “My wolf said there’s a barrier between us, one that allows the bond to stay intact but stops the connection from taking what it shouldn’t.”

  She frowned. “Your wolf is really okay now? I bet he hates that you got stuck with a broken witch as a mate instead of a strong shifter.”