A Werewolf's Unexpected Mate-Chapter 146: A Trickle of Truth

[Ace’s POV]

My gaze was fixed on the darkened window, but I wasn’t seeing the night outside. My mind was churning, trying to reconcile decades of ingrained belief with the bombshell Gale had just casually dropped. We have mana. The concept felt foreign, like trying to believe the sky was green. Our power was strength, instinct, the raw, physical force of the shift. It was blood and bone and moon-song, not the delicate, structured energy of witches, and fairies. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

But if Gale was lying, Ray would have caught it. The scent of a falsehood would have been as clear as rot to him. Ray hadn’t objected. He’d just listened, his expression grimly thoughtful. That silence was the most damning evidence of all.

So mana is the reason. The unfinished sentence hung in the air between us, more potent for its absence. All my life, I’d accepted the common wisdom: the two species were too different. Their fragility, our longevity; their fleeting lives, our enduring ones. I thought it was a simple, tragic matter of biological incompatibility, like a horse and a bird. Now, I understood it was more fundamental, more intimate. It was a dissonance at the very level of our life energy. A human body, a vessel without a drop of innate mana, and a werewolf’s body, defined by a fiercely regenerative mana stream, were incompatible; they could not harmonize to create new life.

My gaze drifted from my own troubled reflection to catch Ovelia in the glass. She had taken another bite of the pudding, and a look of simple, unadulterated pleasure softened her features. A small smile touched her lips as she savored the sweetness. I truly never get tired of seeing that, I thought, the ache in my chest a strange blend of tenderness and dread. Her happiness is a fragile thing.

I knew, with a certainty that felt like a sentence, that she would learn this truth someday. The biological barrier between us wasn’t a secret that could be kept forever. But I wasn’t ready. Not now. Not when we were just beginning to find a fragile peace, a tentative connection. I didn’t want her to carry that knowledge as we left Meadowlark, to continue our journey with a new, specific sadness weighing down her heart. I remembered her words in Thunoa Village, spoken with such wistful hope: "Someday I’d like to have a child with you." To extinguish that hope with a cold, clinical fact felt like a cruelty I couldn’t yet commit.

I looked at Gale. "Gale," I said, my voice rough.

From across the table, Ray spoke at the exact same instant. "Gale."

Our voices, identical in timing and pitch, merged into one. Ray and I turned our heads, our eyes meeting. A flicker of shared, grim amusement passed between us—brothers on the same hunt, frustrated by the same elusive prey. I gave him a slight, wry smile, which he returned.

"Do you really have to say my name in unison like some cursed chant?" Gale snapped, glaring between us with vivid irritation. He set his spoon down with more force than necessary. "What do you need?"

"If what you’re saying is true," Ray began, his tone shifting into the calm, analytical cadence of an investigator. He scooped another bite of pudding, but his orange eyes remained fixed on Gale, sharp and unblinking. "If those black magic restraints are absorbing and storing mana, not just nullifying it... why can’t we werewolves sense that stored energy in the used ones? Even trapped, concentrated magic has a signature. We should be able to smell it, to taste it on the air. But we find these discarded devices and they feel... inert. Like cold iron."

"Was a specific trick used by the witches to hide it from our senses?" Ann asked, leaning forward. Her black eyes were like polished obsidian, reflecting the lantern light as they bored into Gale. Her voice was clipped, practical. "A particular inscription pattern? A material that acts as a magical dampener?"

"Those are the precise questions I wanted to ask as well," I said, turning my full attention to Gale.

Gale let out a long, weary sigh, as if explaining basic arithmetic to particularly dense children was the greatest burden of his exile. "Ovelia," he said, turning to her, his voice shifting to something slightly less gruff. "May I borrow that fairy stuffed toy?" He pointed to the plush still held in the crook of her arm.

"Yes, of course," Ovelia said, a flicker of confusion in her red eyes. She handed the toy over to him.

As the toy passed from her hands to his, a fresh, irrational spike of irritation shot through me. That ridiculous, smiling doll. A cheap festival trinket he’d given her. I forced myself to look away, to focus on the matter at hand.

Gale took the toy, turning it over in his hands. He found a nearly invisible seam along its side, pinched a small zipper pull, and opened it. He reached inside the stuffing, his fingers probing for a moment before they closed around something. When he pulled his hand out, he was holding a single hexagon-shaped stone. It was dark gray, like a piece of slate from a riverbed.

An utterly dangerous smile spread across his face. It wasn’t his usual sarcastic smirk or his grumpy frown. It was a different smile entirely—sharp, knowing, and brimming with a kind of greedy anticipation. It was the smile of a gambler holding the winning card.

My eyes narrowed. What is he up to now? And more importantly, what does that stone have to do with any of our questions?

[Gale’s POV]

A fierce, almost electric thrill shot through me as my fingers closed around the cool, familiar planes of the sealed elemental mana stone. The urge to crack it open, to feel the raw, wild power surge into my parched channels, was a physical craving, a trilling sensation that started in my palms and vibrated up my arms. I clenched my jaw, forcing the desire down. Now is not the time.

"That’s the stone I paid for at the keychain stall," Ace stated, his silver eyes narrowed with suspicion. He remembered.

"The unique-shaped stone," Ovelia said, her voice soft with appreciation. She leaned forward slightly, her red eyes tracing its hexagonal contours as if it were a rare jewel.

"It still looks useless," Ann declared flatly, taking another efficient bite of her pudding. "But what is its connection to our questions?"

The word useless echoed in the quiet chamber of my mind, sharp as a slap. My smile didn’t falter, but it grew tighter, more fixed. She was very close to getting on my nerves.

Beside her, I glanced at Ray. He wasn’t speaking. He was just watching me, his orange eyes patient but intense, waiting. He understood this was a demonstration, not just an answer.

"This stone looks useless," I said, my voice dropping, gaining a hard, lecturing edge. I held it up between my thumb and forefinger, letting the lamplight glint dully off its surface. "But it is a sealed elemental mana stone." I let my gaze sweep across their faces, savoring the shift.

The reaction was instant and profoundly satisfying. Ray’s casual posture vanished; he straightened as if pulled by a string, his eyes widening a fraction before narrowing into slits of pure, focused intensity. Ann froze, the spoon halfway to her parted lips, her impassive mask cracking to reveal stark surprise. Ace’s breath caught audibly; his previously suspicious glare transformed into one of shocked comprehension. The look on their faces—the dawning realization that a tool of immense power had been sitting in a stuffed toy under their noses—was better than any sweet pudding.

"Elemental mana stone?" Ovelia asked, her curiosity cutting through the tense silence. She was always drawn to new knowledge, a spark in the darkness.

I nodded, the motion curt. "I’ll explain that soon, but not now," I said, my tone leaving no room for argument. Almost instinctively, I reached over and patted her head twice. Her hair was soft under my palm. Beside her, the jealous mutt’s gaze could have curdled milk. I offered him a bland, infuriating smile.

Ovelia suddenly reached up and grabbed my wrist, not harshly, but firmly. "I’m not a child, you know," she said, a faint pout on her lips, though the slight upward tilt at their corners betrayed her secret pleasure at the gesture.

Oh, now she’s acting like an adult. But the truth was clear in her eyes. She liked it. She liked the casual, protective contact. The realization sent a weird, warm flicker through my chest, which I immediately shooed away like an annoying fly.

I heard it then—a low, barely audible rumble, like distant thunder. Ace’s growl. The sound was deep, possessive, and vibrated through the floorboards. His jealousy was a dark, satisfying thrum in my ears. I slowly, deliberately, removed my hand from Ovelia’s head.

I leaned back in my chair, the wooden frame creaking, and let the atmosphere settle back into one of serious inquiry. The stone rested heavily in my other hand, its secret weight the center of all our attention.

"Now," I said, all trace of teasing gone, my voice serious and low. "Let’s return to your questions."