Page 155 of Claimed

“In most cases a coven link works within the balance. Remember how Erica’s strengths after mating now allow her to work outside the balance? Well, seems like you’ve got a bit of that, too, otherwise Ronnie might feel exhausted, might feel like she has to bank more good will. But she’s feeling a hundred percent so that tells me you willed her gift in a way that replicates it rather than drains it from her.” She nods sagely. “You could have a large amount of goodwill banked already so I’d say continue to always do your best to work within the balance, giving more than taking, but you’ll be formidable, Greyson. Truly.”

I fuckin’ hope so, feeling like something is coming. Something big.

And now we’re near Wyatt’s steps and I see Stacy sits on the stairs waiting for us, holding a bag. Jase is standing beside her.

“Good you’re here, Jason,” Dani remarks.

He gives her a once-over from face to feet and back up. “Good to see you, too, gorgeous.”

“You can help us with the locator spell,” she goes on, “by sharing the circle and being open to the magic in it… it could bring insight about your sister. Between your relationship to her and Greyson’s abilities along with having Wyatt’s and Halla’s belongings, the culmination could make the locator spells more fruitful.”

“Glad to be of service,” he replies, tipping an imaginary hat and smiling big.

She looks at Stacy instead of responding and I see Jase notice her lack of reaction to his charms.

Dani asks, “What do we have?”

“Halla’s hairbrush,” Stacy pulls a small brush out of the bag. “Her toothbrush, too. And a stuffed butterfly. She slept with all her stuffies, but this one was the only one left. It’s her favorite. I found it under her bunk.”

“Excellent,” Dani says. “Is there something here in this house that’s meaningful to your brother? Not just something he owns, something he’d not want to part with?”

“Give me a second?” Stacy requests and goes inside.

I follow her.

This house pisses me off. Severely. Meadows had his people living in water-damaged, subpar cabins and trailers and his place is an obnoxious show of what he thinks of himself. While it’s no palace, it does show how full of himself the fucker is with stuffed taxidermy trophies and the asinine portraits of himself on the walls looking like he fancies himself a king. But what pisses me off the most is how it’s miles better than what his people live in.

When I walked through it I noted how the kitchen was stocked with canned and dry goods. There’s a full liquor cabinet. There are ten cases of drinking water in the corner of the kitchen and a top-end multi-stage water filtration system in the place while his people drink tainted tap water.

He has a seventy-five-inch television and three high-end laptops that can’t be more than a year old. He has a king size bed that reeks of his seed and multiple females. He’s got three fucking generators in his basement. Did he leave those where his people could use them while he was gone knowing he didn’t pay his electric bill? No. He left his people vulnerable.

I also found another one-pound supply of the herb he’s been having Larry feed his people. I’d like to feed him the entire goddamned jar.

“What is this?” I ask Dani, showing her the jar.

She removes the lid and takes a whiff. “Stillshade, lilac root,” She thinks for a second, then adds, “a mushroom powder, and rosebay. The mushroom powder was toxic, has been digested first, by something that perished.”

“Stops shifting, causes wicked headaches, fever and vomiting, and think if it’s fed continuously over a few days or more… liver failure.”

“That tracks,” she agrees.

***

We’re inside the salt circle my cousin has drawn after she performed a cleansing ceremony while meditating with white crystals. We’re sitting cross-legged and facing the center where a computer tablet lies flat with a map application open.

Dani holds a pocket watch belonging to Meadows on a chain over the tablet. Inside the circle she’s also got Halla’s belongings. We’re watching the chain swing and we’re doing this after she asked me to hold the objects and advise what I feel and see. I felt nothing when I held Halla’s stuffed toy, her hairbrush, her toothbrush. I saw nothing in my mind either. Ditto for Wyatt’s pocket watch given to him by his father when he turned twenty-one as well as his childhood yo-yo and the slingshot he carried around for a big chunk of his childhood. I got a little frustrated, but it’s clear I need to do more than justwantmagic to work for me.

Extreme emotion must be what pulled all those images from Stacy’s memories into my mind. Extreme emotion and adrenalinseem to be what have brought magic to the forefront for me. I’ll need to learn to wield it when I’m not ready to shift and rip shit apart.

Jase and Stacy watch me with concern when I show frustration, but Dani squeezes my forearm and tells me not to worry about it, to read the material she gave me. She tells me we’ll have time to hone my gifts. She redirects us to all focus on the pocket watch and clear our minds of everything but our intent to find Wyatt Meadows, Sherry Creed, and Halla Starling.

And I do that. I intend to find him. Find him and punish the fucker. Punishment is what I focus on now, envisioning what I’d like to do to him and suddenly the locket switches from swinging slowly to and fro to circling in a counterclockwise direction.

I stare at the watch dangling from the chain with determination, feeling the heat behind my eyes for what seems like a long time before Dani speaks.

“Touch the tablet to bring it alive again, Greyson?”

I do and we all peer down at the map on screen.

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