My One and Only (Bewitched and Bewildered #10)(29)

Kari wiped at her eyes as she finished, causing Declan to stand and pull her close. "Wonderful job baby," he murmured, easing her back into her chair.

"Here we go," Ryuu announced coming in from the kitchen. He pushed a cart that held a tray of what looked to be shot glasses and steaming cups of tea. Behind him the other squires held identical trays in their hands as they made their way around the room.

Hal placed a generously filled shot glass with amber liquid next to the tea cup in front of her. She looked around the table, everyone, with the exception of the pregnant women, had both alcohol and tea. She leaned over the cup and smiled. She turned to Kendrick. "Blessed Chamomile, from your own stash no less."

Kendrick stared down at his shot glass. "I hate to say it, but this has been needed too much as of late."

Magnus raised his shot glass. "Let us do this."

Around the table sputters, gasps and cursing was heard as everyone downed their shots.

Serenity thought that whatever she just drank was burning her esophagus down to her stomach. She was about to complain when everything tilted for a second then blurred pleasantly. "Oh my." Sighs filled the air as the potent alcohol took effect.

Kendrick waited until they were sipping the tea before he cast a soundproofing spell. Serenity knew that whatever he was about to say was important because he poured a hefty amount of power into the spell. She opened her mouth wide trying to get her ears to pop.

Kendrick stood. "As Kari explained, during one of last feral attacks on the city, Lycaonia lost their witch Elder, Rowan Airgead. Right before he died he managed to pass on what he thought the enemy was after." He closed his eyes. "He said that mated paranormals were needed for an army. Witches for fuel," he looked at Magnus. "And Vampires for blood."

"What for?" Magnus asked.

Kendrick swallowed hard. "I have no evidence, but, I think that vampire blood is used to create those damn necklaces. They already harvested dozens of shifter souls from around Lycaonia and damn near drained my godsdaughter of her magic. My best friends who are Law and Amelia's brothers are on their hit list to get more magic. I think they are combining vampire blood, witch's magic, an unborn's soul as a vessel and a shifter's soul for their abilities to create as many necklaces as they need to infiltrate our society and break it down from the inside out." He sat back down looking uncharacteristically defeated.

"Fuck that. Ryuu, I think I need that shot," Meryn said, looking at her squire. He shook his head. "It is too potent for the baby, but I did arrange for dessert." He dropped a kiss on her forehead and reached under the cart to pull out bowls of what looked to be a small mountain of chocolate.

Meryn sighed. "You do love me." She picked up her spoon and dug in. The squires passed out the desserts and everyone reached for the treats, dinner long forgotten. It was quiet as everyone slowly ate their chocolatey comfort and absorbed what Kendrick divulged.

"And I practically handed them the blood they needed. I played right into their hands," Magnus whispered.

"They're smart, I'll give them that," Meryn said, licking her spoon.

All eyes swung to her. "What do you mean?" Kari asked.

Meryn twirled her spoon around as she spoke. "Well if they tried to use brute force to gather vampire blood, like the guerrilla attacks in Lycaonia, it would have taken them months, maybe even years to get a decent amount. Ninety-percent of the vampire population is stacked up in Noctem Fall's beehive. But by infiltrating the city and introducing a virus where the only possible cure is older vampire blood all they had to do was sit back and wait for us to try and cure the city. Then they could pack up the blood that we gathered in neat little bags and leave." She shook her head. "We know they have been gathering shifter souls for over twenty years, to gather so much vampire blood I bet their necklace production timeline got skewed when Lycaonia got sealed."

Laelia nodded. "It's like when you're baking. You start with the component that takes the longest to prepare. Like making sure the cream cheese is room temperature. That can take hours, so you do that first. Then after that you can simply add the other ingredients and blend. Considering the first component is an unborn's soul, they would have to wait for shifters to turn up pregnant. Which as everyone knows is hit or miss at best. Most paranormals have a hard time even finding their mates."

Magnus turned to Aiden. "The spell, the one for the warriors to find their mates."

Aiden nodded looking sick. "We believe that the matriarchs were influenced to request that spell."

Meryn took a sip of her tea. "I'd love to meet the one orchestrating this. Every time we learn something, the web becomes a little bigger. We're dealing with a freaking genius."

Aiden looked down at her. "Can you please not be impressed by the psychopath trying to destroy all we know?"

Meryn waved her spoon in Aiden's face. "Hey, genius is genius. Think about it. That spell was specifically designed to target the unit warriors. The warriors meet their mates, get them knocked up. The bad guys kill the mates. If the men or mates were shifters they get the unborn's soul as a vessel, possibly an ability from the mother and a bloodthirsty, insane, unit trained warrior to unleash on us later. If the men or mates are vampires or witches they harvest the blood and the magic. The more unit warrior mates you kill, the fewer warriors there are available to defend the pillar cities later. It's like a win-win-win-win scenario for them." She paused. "Mostly." She took another huge bite of her chocolate mountain and hummed happily completely oblivious of the horrified stares she was receiving from around the table.