How had one of them managed to get into my head? Didn’t they only control the four elements?

When we reached the others, Nash looked at me with scrutiny. Hopefully, he hadn’t overheard. Otherwise, not only would I be screwed, but Bayla as well. Then Julian would probably get involved somehow, and the other witches...

“God! Why is everything so complicated?”

I kicked the tree like it was its fault.

“Hey, Emely, are you okay?”

Irritated, I turned around, straight to Hunter.

Hunter was tall, not as tall as Nash, but he was at least as trained. His former Afro was now trimmed short. Patterns had been shaved into the sides, emphasizing his facial features.

I sometimes wondered if he had roots in Jamaica because his father was definitely not from here. And his brothers, Harry and Joshua, looked the same.

Most of the pack had roots here or in other parts of North America. Some were descendants of the former Esadowa tribe members, which you couldn’t tell by looking at most of the pack members. In the Copeland family, in particular, the indigenous features had become somewhat blurred, and I was always amazed at how much Nash looked like our father and I looked like our mother. She had belonged to one of the last Esadowas, and now I wore her dark black-brown hair, bronze skin, and dark eyes.

“You seem a little shaken up since last night.”

“Just a few annoying witches...” I replied, and we both grinned at each other.

“You should do more with us again and not deal with things that get you down inside,” Hunter said a little more calmly now.

“Exactly, your brother is far too weak in the games without you,” Noah laughed.

His light brown hair showed just as little of the Esadowa gene, earning him an annoyed look from Nash.

Cody, the smallest of the group with the darkest hair, patted Noah on the shoulder with a laugh.

None of them showed that they had heard the news. Because that’s what our Alpha had ordered through our bond.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Huh?” I crossed my hands in front of my chest.

That you haven’t been hunting with us for a long time. Hunter replied in my head so that only I could hear it.

Sending messages to others through our bond. To one or more pack members. Something we often did, especially in our friend group.

Communicating with others in the pack using this method was only possible if the alpha had previously placed his alpha bond on you, something only an Alpha or someone with the alpha bond could do.

People who were not part of the pack could not send messages to others. This protected the pack from enemies and strengthened the authoritarian bond that originated from the Alpha himself.

In the beginning, especially for young Senseque, it was often difficult to control this and even experienced Senseque sometimes unintentionally shared their emotions and thoughts through this bond when they were too emotional.

I looked into Hunter’s dark brown eyes and sighed.

“Tomorrow we’re going hunting,” I shouted loudly, and all the guys started cheering.

“Who would have thought that?” Hunter said with a slightly raised eyebrow.

I grinned.

How could he think I would just let hunting slip like that?

I was a Copeland, and I was an Esadowa. Nothing could ever separate me from my nature.

Chapter 42

Julie

Professor Copeland wasn’t in today, so Grace and I used the free seminar period to prepare for Economics.

Even though it was dry for Grace, I did pretty well with it because numbers and graphs were my area of expertise. I would have liked to go in the science department with my major, but we all had responsibilities to fulfill out of a sense of duty to the Circle. Computer science, math, and chemistry had to wait.

But since my role in the Circle wasn’t of much importance, and I would probably never be part of the Councils because I was far too weak, I would study again after this business degree.

“Shit, Julie. Do you think the DeLoughreys are behind this?”

I looked up from my laptop at Grace, who, of course, was no longer on the university server’s page but on the Bexleys’.

We’d heard about the murder in Fogs Forest on the car radio while Bayla had been asleep in the back seat.

Grace had already spoken to Amara on the phone, but she just told us to stay calm and avoid interviews and the campus rumor mill. An easy game for me, a challenge for Grace.

Jenny had wanted to interview her about measures taken by the town council, and now Grace was stuck on the topic with a horrified face instead of concentrating on her studies.

Of course, I was curious and wanted to know who was capable of something so disgusting, but another part of me wanted to escape the madness of this town for a day.

I didn’t want to know if a human, or worse, a supernatural being, was behind it. It would be extremely unwise to break the contract and risk war, but what kind of person would tear open their victim’s face?

I realized that the perpetrator might even have done this specifically so that the woman’s identity could not be identified as that of a Blairville resident. If it really had been a supernatural being, then he would have avoided breaking the contract. Among other things, the contract forbade the killing of Blairville residents.

The dominance of the murder topic was too immense, so I finally logged out of the university server and ended up on the net.

I was one click away from the Blairville Daily news page, but I spotted another open website. It was the DLSC’s.

I remembered that I had wanted to research about the strange molecular biology professor again. A welcomed distraction from all the chaos that was currently raging in town.

I typed the professor’s name into the server, read all the posts about the awards he had received as the youngest professor in the field of molecular biology or as an expert in the field of epigenetics until I finally landed on his publications.

When I spotted the title of his latest publication, I sucked in a sharp breath.

The science of elemental magic

Without hesitation, I opened the description of the publication.

A molecular biology and physics perspective on the power of nature. In this captivating publication, the renowned molecular biologist, Professor Quentin Tiberius, explores the interactions between the elements and the subtle energies that permeate them. From chemical reactivity to quantum physics, the author thematizes the fundamentals of elemental magic and shows how scientific explanation expands understanding of the power and influence of the elements.

I blinked.