Page 74 of Found Objects

“You’re both romantics,” I said flatly.

“Which you need desperately in your life,” she teased me before she grabbed Cole’s arm and walked him backward. “Don’t want to be too close when he becomes his beast, love. If the power touches you, it smarts a bit.”

I became my true self again, the change not instant as it used to be, but my body still re-formed fast enough that when I rounded on Justin, he cried out.

“Never again,” I told him, the words loud in his head as I lunged at him, driving him down under me and taking his throat in my jaws.

Narah and Abel were screaming, as were Reggie and Fletcher, but no one moved to help. They were all far too terrified of me.

I bit down just barely, only enough to break the skin and draw a trace of blood, and then inhaled, taking all of his power into me. I had stripped the same from so many others over time—dark magic from witches, the change from shifters, the ability to slip between planes from the fae. I could steal that which made others stronger if they used it to unfairly entrance, bewitch, hypnotize, or oppress others. Justin had used his power, by his own admission and by that of his parents, to dominate the hearts and minds of wolves brought into their pack. And though he claimed to have never taken sexual advantage, I couldn’t see into his heart. But I would not allow him to ever use his ability to charm on anyone else.

It was gone in an instant, absorbed into me before it flowed back out into the universe from which it came.

Stepping back, I huffed on the small wound I’d made and saw it heal, before returning to my own form and exhaling deeply.

“You all right?” Cole asked me.

“I am.”

He gestured for me. “C’mere.”

I moved quickly to reach him, and as soon as I was close, he took hold of my shoulder and yanked me into his arms.

I felt like I fit, like I belonged there, and I closed my eyes and leaned.

“You’re so powerful, Mere, but you carry a lot on your shoulders, and I’m gonna help you with that. Let me take care of you.”

“Let me do the same, okay?”

He nodded but didn’t release me.

“I want your stuff in my home, so let’s do that.”

“Yeah, let’s do that,” he agreed, his voice all guttural as he kissed the side of my neck before he let me go.

When he went to grab a duffel bag, Justin yelled.

“What’d you do?” He was nearly screaming at me.

“I took your power,” I told him. “Not the shifting, not your strength, but what you used to lure people in and tangle them in a web—that’s gone.”

“You cannot be serious,” Narah gasped.

“Oh, I’m dead serious,” I told her. “All I was originally made to do was judge and punish, and I possess all the tools needed to do so.”

“But that can’t be.”

I shrugged. “I don’t normally get mad anymore, I don’t rail over injustice, I simply take whatever steps are needed to remedy a situation.”

“But Merritt, you⁠—”

“Enough,” Cole said quickly. “Please go.”

“Wait,” Abel began, and then turned to me. “I don’t want to be parted from my nephews. Please allow us to see them on Thanksgiving and for the hunt and⁠—”

“I will not influence their choices,” I told him. “I would never do that.”

“Please go,” Cole said. “We can talk another day.”