Even in human form bears were stronger and faster than the average human. Their sense of smell was also more acute. And there he was, covering himself in aftershave and deodorant. He must smell like a whorehouse. He’d shower before Mack picked him up to go to North.
As interesting as bear history was, it wasn’t helping him. It took a little longer to dig down because the site wasn’t as well organized as the Coven database, but he found the page on familiars. Everything from how to find one—there were spells and charms for that if one liked to wear unhatched cocoons. Other simpler solutions were to go to shifter bars and get busy kissing. That carried the warning that some shifter bars would ban witches that got too friendly with too many people—go slowly.
Jude wrinkled his nose. Ew, there were still witches out there looking for a familiar.
That didn’t sit well at all. They were probably the witches who shouldn’t have a familiar. A familiar wasn’t a pet cat—though some shifters had been forced to remain in their animal form by their witch a few centuries ago. Buried in the text was a link to a different page: love matches. That sounded better.
Not that he was in love with Mack. It was lust.
He smiled as he read about shifters and their witches exploiting the bond to full advantage and committing to each other in every way, though the article said the shifter should always obey the witch. The writer suggested this was how it was meant to be, and it was the natural order for witches to be in charge. Yeah…not all relationships were the same, and he didn’t want someone to boss around. He wanted a partner. He sucked in a breath. Until that moment he’d never thought such a thing. Settling down had always been something that would happen at some vague point in the future. Though clearly it would have to be with someone who knew about magic. He wasn’t very good at keeping his magic a secret. Yet that was how Mack had been living for years.
Mack deserved better than Ned. Or this small town. But he couldn’t imagine Mack in the city either. Bears needed space. It would never work between them. The Fates got things wrong. But most of this was so right. Or at least it felt right, though that could be lust doing the thinking.
There was a footnote linking to two other pages. One was a warning about shifters holding witches captive to exploit them—in the past it had been the other way around—and another on the petition for freedom that shifters could apply for if caught in an unwanted bond. He clicked through, wanting to know how the bond was undone.
There was one paragraph. The spell was a simple unbinding ceremony, usually only done when a shifter had been coerced or otherwise entrapped. An additional warning had been added. If a witch traps an unwilling shifter there are penalties. The harshest is the stripping of magic. Be careful if searching for a familiar because the Coven doesn’t mess around.
“Great, the Coven will have another excuse to strip my magic.” He finished the soda and tossed the can toward the trash. It hit the rim and bounced onto the floor in a shower of drips.
Mack had said that he wouldn’t get him into trouble—he hadn’t mentioned the penalty either; maybe it wasn’t on the Coven site—but given the way the Coven, and Landstrom, wanted him to fail, they’d jump on this. Even if Mack and Jude caught the creature in time, he wasn’t getting out of this with his magic. He should quit now, unless he could convince Mack not to petition the Coven.
He didn’t like his chances at that either. Mack had been dragged into this mess; somehow Jude had to fix it.
He stared at the screen for several seconds, debating if he wanted to know what would happen to him before deciding it was better to be informed about how magic was stripped. He’d resisted until now because he suspected it wouldn’t be pleasant. But he needed to know. For all that he had a love-hate relationship with his magic, it was part of him.
The spell for stripping magic was complex—which was a good thing as it couldn’t be done accidentally or randomly to any witch on the street. There were cases of the witch dying afterwards. Jude swallowed and kept reading. Those who survived led regular human lives. Did they hate the Coven and the paranormal community?
What would it be like to wake up and be magicless? He’d been that way once, although even as a kid he’d been able to zap people with static with alarming frequency. Batteries had gone flat around him. There were so many little signs that he wasn’t quite normal that another witch would’ve picked up on. His foster parents hadn’t known. If they had, they’d have probably tried to get the demons out of him.
He was about to shut the laptop when a link in the text caught his eye. Stealing magic. The same ritual that strips can also be used to steal a witch’s magic, though stealing magic is a crime. Jude clicked, and the next page talked about a witch that had lived a couple of hundred years ago in Germany. He had captured witches and taken their magic, absorbing it into his own.
It had taken a full Coven to bring him down. Witches had worked with vampires and shifters to stop him. That must have been serious. Neither page listed the ritual because it was so dangerous.
They drove out to North without talking. Jude’s silence unnerved Mack. Jude wasn’t the silent type. He always had something to say. As they reached the dirt
