Chapter 153

Violet’s POV

The pride I felt from being able to control my magic, even briefly, quickly vanished as my stomach sank at Auntie’s words. She knew I had magic.

“So it’s my magic and not the baby’s?”

Still as a serene lake instead of the turbulent ocean I felt rocking inside me, Auntie shrugged slightly. “It could be your magic, it could be the baby’s, but most likely it’s a mix of the two right now.”

Theo asked my next question before I could pick my jaw up off the floor for long enough to form words. “You can tell the baby has magic?”

Auntie turned to face us both. “No, but I assume it does since both parents do.”

Theo stiffened, the blood draining from his face. He didn’t dare look at me, and even without our bond, I knew it was out of fear of giving away his biggest secret – even though Auntie clearly already knew.

“Your secret is safe with me,” she told him. “And, no, Violet didn’t tell me. Similar to her cousins scenting her pregnancy, I was able to sense your magic many years ago.”

I remained silent as I watched Theo work through his fear and remember all that Auntie was already doing to help us. His shoulders slowly lowered, and his face relaxed. Once my mate had sufficiently calmed down, questions began filling my mind.

“I have so many questions,” I murmured, unsure where to start.

“I’ll answer as many as I can,” Auntie promised as she sat down next to me on the bed.

“How did you know I have magic? Why didn’t I know I had magic until a couple of weeks ago? How is my magic mixed with my baby’s?”

Theo’s voice filled my mind. I’d like to hold you, please.

It was the “please” that moved me off the bed, carefully stepping over the pile of flowers I’d left on the floor, and into his lap so that we were both facing Auntie. Theo wrapped his arms around me, burying his nose into my neck where he took a deep whiff.

Thank you. Through the bond, I could feel the way the smell of me soothed him.

“How many of your cousins have magic?” Auntie asked, because of course she was answering my questions with one of her own.

“All of them,” I realized. Theo looked up, resting his chin on my shoulder.

Auntie nodded. “We have a pure bloodline of magic wielders up until your generation. It’s one of the reasons your mother and her twin were selected as breeders.”

I cycled through all my relatives in my mind. “Some of my cousins’ children don’t have magic.”

“The purity in our family’s bloodline was never intentional. Braverns,” Auntie spoke the maiden name of my mother and all her sisters, “do not have a habit of judging other werewolves based on anything other than how they treat those around them. We love all your cousins once removed equally, whether or not they have magic.”

I leaned into Theo’s embrace, grateful to be in his lap as I took in this new information. “So the… dilution, for lack of a better phrase, of magic in our family’s bloodline was coincidental over time.”

Auntie nodded. “My grandparents, your great-grandparents, happened to grow up in a small town full of magical people. Over time, infrastructure improved, bringing roads to and from town, and with them, more werewolves of all kinds.”

Theo straightened his chin up off my shoulder to ask a question. “How are there are non-magical werewolves in a magical land like Henosis?”

Auntie smiled slightly. “The same way there are magical werewolves outside it.”

Fair point.

“So magic is a dominant trait,” I muttered to myself. “If I have magic, how have I never manifested it until two weeks ago?”

Auntie studied me for a moment. “Are you sure you haven’t used magic before that?”

The memory of my father appearing before me in the courtroom, and then again yesterday at the feast, popped into my mind. Perhaps that was part of my magic, but even that was still no more than six weeks ago. “Definitely not more than a couple months ago, at least to my knowledge.”

Auntie’s eyes narrowed on me as if she were searching for something. “I thought you knew you had magic all these years and were simply hiding it. I do not have an answer for you.”

Theo’s arms tightened around me comfortingly, and I wondered if he could feel my disappointment.

“As far as your magic mixing with your baby’s, it is common during pregnancy. The innocence of infants often softens magic so that someone who perhaps might want to manifest a weapon might instead produce,” Auntie motioned to the floor where my flowers were still piled, “flowers.”

I smiled a little at that. The idea that it was the baby producing flowers associated with its father was far sweeter than the blossoms coming from my subconscious. I leaned over to kiss Theo on his cheek.

“Any other questions?”

One more came to mind. I pulled my shoulders back, a little uncomfortable with what I was about to ask. “Why was I told by healers that I could never get pregnant when I obviously can?”

The years of trying to get pregnant with Lucas were still a painful memory even if I was so grateful now that I never had a child with him.

“I would call into question the capabilities of the healers except I trained most of them on both sides of the border. I’m not sure I have an answer for you on that either.”

Auntie broke our eye contact then, and she looked off, consumed by thoughts unknown to me.

“What is it?” I asked as Theo gently caressed by knee with his thumb.

“I wonder…” Auntie hesitated, which caught my attention. She was confident in almost everything and hardly ever hesitated. “I wonder if the two questions I cannot answer are somehow related.”

I wasn’t sure how misperceptions of my fertility and my ignorance about my own magic would be related, but I was inclined to trust Auntie. She was much wiser than me.

“There’s a way we could search for answers,” Auntie returned her gaze to mine, “but I wouldn’t want to try it on a day when your pregnancy symptoms are acting up. It can be quite taxing.”

“Then tomorrow,” I perked up. We had come here for answers, and I was determined to find them, no matter how taxing the process was. I opened my mouth to solidify our plans, but movement by the window behind Auntie caught my attention.

There was my father. Again. Younger than when he’d died, just like I’d seen him in the courtroom and at the feast yesterday.

Just like both times, his gaze was troubled. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he looked guilt-ridden.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Auntie glance over her shoulder to follow my line of sight. I wondered if she could see my father, too. He opened his mouth to speak—

Someone knocked on our bedroom door. When neither Auntie nor I spoke, Theo called them in. Marcy opened the door and found Theo’s gaze.

“Someone’s here for ya,” she told him.

That pulled my attention enough to look away from my father, who stood with his mouth open, interrupted before speaking a single word.

“For me?” my mate repeated.

“Aye.” Then Marcy’s eyes softened in a way they rarely did. “She says she knew your mother.”