Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Missing Moonstone
Lilia POV
“Your MATE?”
Lilia had to repeat the words. She’d have to repeat them several times.
Dane pulled his robe down, making the folds fall in an elegant way. He moved as gracefully in his human form as he did in his wolf form. “I should not have leapt too soon, I suspect. You probably have no idea about shifters.”
She glared at him. What did he take her for? A witch child knew about shifters and their courtship and mating. Lilia had not been a child for years. “You mean about the soul bond that shifters feel from birth?”
His dark brows shot up, and he gave a low whistle of appreciation. “Yes, that one. Perhaps you feel it too? Perhaps you smell me?”
She did. The scent of lavender and rain filled the room, surrounding her. She had never smelled anything better. At first, he smelled clean. Now he smelled like her favorite scent–lavender after a fresh rain.
Her pulse quickened in a way that made her want to run to him. To bury her hands in his hair. To feel the fur in his wolf form and judge for herself whether it could really be as soft and thick as it looked.
No. She had a responsibility to her shop, and more importantly her mother.
“You and I, a soul bond? For all I know, one of your shifters could have stolen my crystals and that is why you’re here, to undo the damage!”
He put his hands on his hips and planted his feed defiantly, his teeth bared, his claws emerging. “MY PEOPLE WOULD NEVER STEAL FROM YOU!” He added softly, in a hurt voice, “Or from anyone.”
She blushed and walked over to pick up the egg-shaped tiger’s eye crystal, then placed it on its display pillar. “Your shifters are the most powerful on the continent.”
“I would have expected a witch not to be so ignorant.”
She shivered, hugging herself. Her distress showed. He must see it and sense it. “I don’t mean to insult anyone. But you cannot know what it is to have your home broken into.”
His voice turned milder and he walked over to stand in front of her. “Your mother, the enchantress Ravyn, isn’t well.”
She lowered her head. “Even witches have ailments magic can’t cure.”
His fingers brushed her arm and his voice compelled her to look at him. “So you’ve been fighting this intruder, or intruders, on your own, eh?”
“Aye.”
His eyes filled with admiration. “Brave of you. That is the kind of courage I seek in a mate.”
“Mates are fated,” she recited from the lore she’d learned thanks to other witches and from books. “A shifter senses the mate bond when his or her mate is near.”
“Yes. And to me, it feels like the ribbons you use to tame your hair,” he said, pointing to the violet ribbon that bound her blonde locks. “Something so invisible should not pull me to you the way it does. A mere piece of purple fabric should not be able to hold all that glorious hair.”
Of all the things she expected from someone so serious and lethal, poetry and compliments didn’t even make the list. She blushed. She’d rarely been alone with an attractive, if infuriating, man like this, especially after hours with the shop closed.
He continued. “You know more than I expected about shifters–”
“First you say you didn’t think I would know anything, then you say I shouldn’t be so ignorant, and now you change your mind yet again. Which is it?”
“All of the above! You seem to know a fair bit and you can wield magic like a master, but you are ignorant if you think the Evenhide Pack needs or wants to steal your crystals, especially if we are as powerful as you say.” His eyes flashed like lightning in a deep blue sky.
“I dare you to come with me to Evenhide Pack territory and see for yourself. You strike me as a fair-minded witch when you’re not being headstrong.”
She felt her mother’s curiosity. No fear, no dread, just curiosity and impatience. She also felt Dane’s impatience, stronger and more robust than her mother’s. “If you know about my mother, then you know I can’t leave her or the shop unprotected.”
“We can arrange to protect her.”
“How?”
“Are you going to question everything?”
“I rather planned on it.”
He smirked. “You offer a challenge in exchange for my challenge to you, which you have not answered. You have answered neither of my challenges.”
“I can’t leave this shop or my mother at the moment.”
He moved around the shop, scanning every shadow and peeking behind each display stand. “You could go and ask her about coming with me.”
Hot color flowed into her cheeks. “I had planned to do that.”
He thrust his powerful chest out, and even with the endless fabric of the robe, she couldn’t help imagining the well-sculpted muscles. “And about the other–”
“THAT will take some explaining.”
“Not if she is as powerful a witch as I have heard.”
She could feel the weariness in her mother, sense the flagging strength and the consistent aches. “IF she agrees, I will come with you to your lands.” She strode toward the inconspicuous door to upstairs.
Dane followed her, moving silently across the floor. “Then let’s ask her together.”
She wanted to say no. But what harm would it do for him to meet her mother? Let him face the Ravyn test, or as she liked to call it, the Ravyn soul probe.
“She will be thrilled to hear how you tested our defenses,” she said.
He stopped, then gazed expectantly at the front door to the shop with “Bloodstone” inscribed on it in gold. “Aren’t you forgetting something? The door is unsealed.”
She tugged on her hair. How could she have been so careless? She rushed toward the front door, throwing a glance at the locked box, then turned back to the front door.
A servant stood on the other side, hunched over, trembling, holding up a lantern. Lilia recognized the girl and turned to Dane. “I know her. It’s Dame Maddock’s maid.”
“At this hour?”
Lilia shrugged. “‘Tis not the first time. Her mistress is wealthy, very eccentric, and quite demanding.”
“Be careful.”
Lilia opened the door to the servant girl, who bowed her head and hunched over. “Please tell your mistress that the crystal in the box is not for sale at any price.”
The girl kept her head lowered. “I’m sorry. They made me do this.”
With a sob, she stepped aside, and powerful unknown hands shoved Lilia backward. She barely managed to land on her hands and knees. She hit the tiled floor and it felt like a sledgehammer on her knees and palms.
Dane’s growl chilled her blood. An unfamiliar voice rose above. “I’m here for the treasure–and soon I’ll get the lady.”
Lilia pushed off the floor, then stood up on shaky, aching legs.
A dark figure loped past Dane in his white wolf form and rushed toward the display pillar, then snatched the box, spun about, and bolted out the door, yelping with each step on broken glass and wood, but making it out the door before Lilia could draw a weapon.
Breathing hard and fast, Lilia pulled her dagger and charged after the thief, screaming, “Stop, thief!”
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone