“So, you’re no longer sick?”
She paled. “Shit.”
I nodded. “They have to have taken him, knowing we were too sick to fight them if needed.”
“You sure?” Sev asked.
“Only us witches got sick and when we feel fine, he’s gone? That has to mean they planned to take him.”
“They want us to find him,” Dina said, finally reaching the same conclusion I had.
I nodded. “They likely weakened our ward, making it possible for them to steal him away while we slept.”
“Is anyone else missing?” Sev demanded, fully on alert now.
Dina shook her head. “I woke everyone up to check the rooms, only Joel is gone. The werewolves are searching the property, seeing if they can scent him.”
“We’ll get dressed. Tell everyone we need to have a meeting before acting. We might need to call your coven, too,” I said, giving Dina an encouraging smile. “We’ll find him.”
Thirty minutes later, we all sat in the dining room, Dina’s phone on speaker so her coven sisters could be in on everything.
I was sitting comfortably in Sev’s lap, both of us needing the closeness. Now that I was feeling better, I would need to feed him after this meeting, unless we had to move out of here immediately after.I hoped not, as much as I wanted to find Joel, I also knew both Sev and Peter needed to feed to be at their best.
“Joel is missing,” Dina said, starting the meeting with running over the facts so her coven knew everything. “All of us witches are feeling better, a bit achy, but still better. We think they cursed us with sickness to weaken our ward and take Joel from us.”
“But why Joel?” Samantha asked. I’d thought the same thing.
“Maybe because he’s the weakest one? The only human at least, right?” Jenny asked through the phone.
I shook my head. “Claire’s human, too. So that can’t be the reason.”
“It could,” Liam countered. “If they needed to pick one, maybe it was just who was the closest to the front door. And that was Joel.”
I frowned at that logic, because it did make sense.
“We fear they want us to follow him,” Sev continued.
“Which we will,” Dina said, her tone firm.
“Of course,” Sev agreed easily. “But we need to figure out if they took him because he was the easiest victim, or if there was any other reason why they picked him.”
“Where did he sleep?” Jenny asked. “Because so far, we have: human, and closest human to door. He was your cook, right?”
Sev replied. “Right, and I believe he was with Dina in their room. Correct?” Sev looked to Dina who blushed.
“I um, yeah. I slept through him leaving,” she admitted. So, he’d gone back to her room to sleep even though I’d found him another one so he could rest better while she was sick? It didn’t make any sense.
There was silence before Jenny spoke again. “So, let me get this straight. He’s human and involved with a witch?”
“Yes,” I replied, already feeling done with this. “Now can we get a move on things? They could be hurting him as we speak.”
Jenny continued, seemingly ignoring my urgency. “They for sure want you to track him down. They know Dina is involved with him, and he’s weak on his own. The perfect target.”
Dina snapped at hearing that, “Now that we’ve cleared that up, could we move things along like Felix suggested?”
Liam hummed, before pointing at the phone. “Can they do tracking spells? I figure a strand of his hair or some of his clothes could work? As soon as we have a location, we can call in help.”
“You want to help us get him back?” I asked, a bit stunned over how easy they just went with it.
