Page 154 of Claimed

“Not if problems show up soon, Dani. I’ll need to know damn quick, maybe quicker than I’d like.”

“Like I said, Fate’s timing seems to be right on-time when it comes to the Arcana Falls pack.”

“With a little help from some Young witches,” I add.

She smiles and holds her hand aloft with an inch between her thumb and index finger. “Maybe this much. Don’t be surprised if Erica, being the one to wait the longest, is particularly salty about your expedited experience.”

“Oh shit. Is she?” I ask.

She winks. “Not really, no. Erica learned some harsh lessons about patience.” Her expression goes serious. “So, you can help me with the locator spell by tapping into your coven link and borrowing some of Ronnie’s mojo. Aunt Mimi explained the process, so I’ll show you how.”

“Meaning?”

“As the coven head, you can summon some of the strengths of the members of the coven. Tap into Vivi’s clairvoyance, though you might have some of that yourself. Ronnie’s psychometrics and then by touching things that belong to Wyatt and Halla and setting them into a circle we’ll make, we could get inclinations of where they are, what they’re doing. This means you could tap into my strengths if you need help with healing. I can read what people need for physical and sometimes emotional healing. Tap into me and you’ll know what I know about herbs or tinctures, for example. You could look at someone and know what might help them. Into Jessie’s if you need to tap into her medium strengths or leverage cellular lines to connect or disconnect.”

“I get to do all that?”

She nods. “If you focus on what you want and meet one of us even briefly on the astral plane you can leverage our strengths. I’ll show you how to summon one of us.”

“An hour ago, I could swear I had Ronnie’s gift to see Stacy’s history.”

“What happened?”

“I was furious, wanted with a passion to know it all, and suddenly, my hands on her … a whole lot of her memories flooded in. I could even smell and taste those memories.”

She looks intrigued, then says, “I suspect your prominent gift is telekinesis. We felt your strength in the circle for the lunar event as well as over the phone when we helped Amelia with her ex-fiancé. Instead of it just being that you can move objects, you can will things. Will people to see your side of things. Will information. Will a knife out of someone’s hand. Maybe even will magic via the link, so an astral plane meetup might not be a necessity.”

“Hm.”

“Let me message Ronnie and ask if she granted you anything.” She pulls out her phone and taps away while continuing to talk. “We’ll figure it all out. You’ll connect with your magic over time in a way that will mean it’s an extension of you instead of being a mystery.”

“Good to know. So… Vivi pissed at me?”

“Vivi?” She looks up mid-text. “Because she thought she’d lead the coven?”

“Well, yeah…”

“Not remotely. Vivi is very good at what she does. It’s also a lot of work. A lot. Having to manage the coven on top of what she already does? She’s told us she’s actually relieved. We all are. Just like you all felt like you got your missing piece back with Tyson? That’s us with you. We didn’t feel like our coven was incomplete before you joined, Greyson, but we do feel now like wearemore complete. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Because I feel more complete, too.”

She affectionately bumps me with her shoulder and finishes tapping out her text before she says, “You’ll learn as time goes on what you can and can’t do. What you should and shouldn’t do. You’ll find we’re pretty self-sufficient, so we won’t likely need to call on you often. Vivi won’t have it all on her shoulders and neither will you. We’ll all help one another. Day to day we know your priorities are in Arcana Falls, but we will need you at times. At times you may need us. Between your responsibilities with the pack, your family, and the coven you shouldn’t be stretched too thin. Mainly because you were made to handle it all. And having you to link us up and leverage your strengths and the strengths you get from the ancestors and your birthright… it’ll help us not feel stretched so thin because sometimes we are.”

“Right. Happy to help wherever I can.”

“Magic can be the biggest gift but also… it’s a lot. A lot of responsibility. And sometimes it can feel like a burden. Talk to us, any of us if you need to vent, get guidance, or just to talk. Me and my sisters are all so happy to have you in our lives and we want you to feel comfortable talking to us. How do you feel about all this?”

“Good, I think. I reckon I’ll know more when I dig into the meat of the magic.”

“Right.” She smiles.

“Feeling all that with my mate, feeling her pain and seeing some of the images that probably both haunt and partly define who she is? It wasn’t easy to deal with. I’m still a little shook from it.”

“Believe in the process, believe in fate. Things aren’t always easy but cause and effect, Greyson. Now you know your mate better and can be in the right mindset for her as she gets stronger.”

Her phone pings and she looks at the screen. “Ronnie says you must have summoned her strength yourself. She granted noaccess and she feels no depletion, so this is very interesting, indeed.”

“Depletion?”

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