The Secrets of the Panther

IZZY

I stared at the last part of the book, and I could feel wetness on my face. Blake placed his hand into mine as I skimmed over Clara’s war, which was something similar to ours. But it ended with her death and of her mates too.

Blake looks at me. “Wow, Clara went through so much in her life,” he says as he gently squeezes my hand. “Did she ever have any children, though?” he asks as he glances back at the book.

I looked at the pages, but two pages were stuck together. I gently peeled them apart, but I couldn’t believe my eyes with what I scanned over. It was what happened between Clara and her mate. But also, someone later found out what happened to Deirdre.

I look at Blake. “There is more, but it’s not just about Clara and her mate but someone later mentioned Deirdre.”

Blake stares at the pages. “Izzy, carry on reading then,” he says, his eyes never leaving the page. I lean forward and read more.

Clara mated with her mate, but they never marked each other as things happened, and the war was upon them. But as a panther with power, things were never simple. Clara found out she was pregnant not long after mating and had a daughter who looked like her. She knew the curse would have been passed on to her daughter and family. She wrote in a book that was supposed to be handed down through the generations, telling them how the power came about.

I stared at the name that was her daughter’s name, and my mouth dropped open. It was my great-grandmother’s name. My mother would talk about her occasionally, but I never understood what she meant until now, after reading the book.

I looked at the bottom paragraph, and it read about Deirdre.

Deirdre lived a life of love but also heartache. She was forced to mate with the man her father sold her to. But she found her mate within his pack. Her mate killed the man who was an alpha and became the alpha of the pack, making Deirdre his Luna. She never suffered the same fate as her sister, but she was stunned to have three children, two girls and one boy. The boy was an image of his father, but the girls resembled Clara and her as a child. Deirdre died a few years later, protecting her children from wolves. They stated that pack members turned on the alpha and Luna as they never wanted a panther as a Luna.

I look up from the book and look at Blake.

“It seems the old ways have been handed down from generations of werewolves, that they have to be mated to werewolves and other shifters with their own kind,” I say to him. I close the book. “I want to make our pack a friendly place where different shifters, who have different shifter mates, whether human with a werewolf or a cat shifter, are mated to a dragon. We take them in,” I say to him.

Blake stares at me, but a smile spreads across his face. “I was thinking the same thing.”

I smiled back, but I looked inside the drawer I found, and there was another book, but it looked like a journal. I pick it up and flip through the pages, but I land on a drawing of an amulet. Blake looks at the page, and his eyes go wide. “The pendants,” he says as he looks up at me.

“What does it say?” he asks as he glances back down at the page.

The page itself had an image of both amulets on either page, but it had a ritual for each one that detailed what should be done. They were similar, but each was more powerful.

A witch used magic to base each amulet on the power to bind different types. Amulets can hold the emotional energies of a panther. But each panther is different, and each power is what the panther needs to live through life. I glance back at Blake. “So the amulets can hold our power,” I tell him. He takes the book from me and looks over the page, but he looks at me once he finishes. “Izzy, you could be power-free if you do this,” he says. “If you want to take your power away, we will store it in the amulet, but the power itself will call out to the holder for them to take back, as it can sense when they need it.”

I said nothing as he continued. “If a power is ignored, the power will magnify more until the holder takes the amulet. But they need to be careful, as the power could cause more harm,” he says and glances at me. “You know we could do this with Allie.”

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Puna has been quiet the whole time I read the book.

“Izzy,” says Blake, placing his hand under my chin to make me look at him. I look back at him but don’t say a word.

“It is up to you, but with Allie’s power and knowing what she can do,” he says as he stares at me. “I think it will be for the best. She can enjoy her life more than a child and not worry about her powers revealing what she can do.”

I look back at the book and place both books together. “I think we need to go back to the pack house,” I say to him, ignoring what he said. I could feel his eyes on me, but he said nothing.

“I think we should show what we found with Kat and Alice,” I say as I turn to him. “Also, we can figure out if Lena can do what the book says.”

Blake nods and gives me a small smile. “I think we should do that,” he says.

Blake moves and looks at his phone. We have been in the storage unit for three hours, most of which was me reading the books.

I look around. “I told you what we need to take back to the pack house,” I ask him.

Blake nods and moves from the chair. “I had the man place everything in the van while we were looking at the book,” he said.

I nod.

I move out of the chair and walk through all the stuff. I wasn’t even looking at anything. My mind was racing with all the questions about Clara, but the amulets were mainly on my mind.

Blake headed to the van entrance and locked up the unit. I knew I would come again, as I wanted to sort through my mum’s things.

I walked around the building to get back outside, but I could feel Puna stir inside as I opened the door.

“You okay?” I ask her as I open the door and walk through it.

Puna looks at me. “I’m okay,” she says. “I can’t imagine what Clara went through, but knowing our lives would have been cursed because of her taking the magic from the witch was something I never thought I would understand. But knowing she suffered as you did, it set everything in stone for us.”

I stare at her, but my mind wonders about Allie. No story is told about her rare gifts, but I wonder what her life would be like for her. Would she be cursed like I was to have people hunt her down, or worse? I shook my head to get the thoughts away, but the more they were in my head, the more Blake was right about storing her power in the amulet. At least she could be a child for a few years.

“Mate is right about Allie. We should do it for her now, as she is young,” says Puna. I look back at her, and her eyes glow green. I can feel the power in us, but it doesn’t come to the surface.

“I think we should do it, too,” she says.

I never thought it would be possible, but I know one thing. I would have to deal with emotions like everyone else and not let them manifest within us to make the power stronger anymore.

I said nothing to her, but I could tell she knew I was considering it.

I walked over to the van, where Blake was already inside and waiting for us. I opened the door and sat back.

Blake looks at me. “I think we should have some food before we go back, but I have sent a mind link for the family members to meet us in the office in two hours,” he says.

I smile at him.

“Okay,” I say.

Blake starts the engine and drives away, but I can’t help but let my mind wander again. I glance behind Blake and notice the books behind Blake’s seat. I needed to think about what was best for Allie and what was best for the pack and me.

Would keeping our powers in the amulet be better or worse for us?