Baer lowered his eyes from the couple and offered Wiley some potatoes before putting more on his own plate.
“With Earth, Animal, and Soul already taken, does that mean there’s a Fire and Water Weaver?” Wiley asked, looking over at the aunts.
“Yes, and Air!” Willie chimed in. “He can fly as if he were as light as a breeze and control the weather. I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
“Is he close?”
Willie slumped in her chair, poking at her food with her fork. “No.”
Jo immediately reached over and patted Willie’s shoulder. “He’ll be here soon enough. You know they always find their way here.”
“Are there any close?” Clay asked. He pointed at Grey with his empty fork. “He was the last one to arrive, and that was almost three months ago.”
“There’s one.” Flo pushed her nearly empty plate back and sighed. “He’s getting close, but it could still be a while. He doesn’t like to listen to subtle nudges. When it’s time to fetch him, I promise we won’t use the excuse of fetching doughnuts.”
Baer groaned. “Never gonna live this down, am I?”
Wiley bumped him with his elbow and smiled at him. Whatever embarrassment Baer had started to relive fizzled under the beauty of that smile. It was getting hard to regret how he’d upset Wiley’s life when the man kept looking at him like that.
“It could be worse,” Wiley said.
“Yeah, he could have brought home a pestilent,” Grey teased.
Baer drew in a breath to tell Grey to fuck off, but Wiley knocked the air straight out of his lungs by beating him to the punch.
“No freaking way!” Wiley snapped. “Baer completely decimated the two pestilents that were in the bakery. They would have killed everyone, but Baer didn’t hesitate. He attacked them and made sure I was safe. It was so awesome!”
Wiley’s impassioned defense brought out more than a few smiles, but Baer didn’t care. It was nice that Wiley appreciated his efforts, even if it meant making a huge mistake later. And maybe that was the important thing. So he’d screwed up on trying to identify a brother. He did save those people who would have easily gotten hurt.
But it wasn’t the first time he’d been impulsive, and it caused problems. He tended to leap without looking, like in the fight where he and Grey had been attacked while at the grocery. He’d nearly ended up dead.
This time he’d been impulsive with Wiley. While the man was safe, his life was now turned upside-down.
Sitting back in his chair, Wiley frowned for a second. He lifted his hands and counted off. “Earth, Animal, Soul, Water, Fire, and Air. That’s all six, right?”
“Yes,” Baer murmured. He noticed that Wiley’s sharp eyes were trained on Dane seated across from him. He could almost guess where his thoughts were going.
“Clay mentioned earlier that you were a healer. I guess I just assumed he meant magically. Are you like a doctor or a paramedic as well as a handyman?”
Dane smiled and his gaze oddly jumped over to Baer for a moment before returning to Wiley. “No, you were right. I use magic to heal.”
Wiley immediately sat up in his chair, his food seeming to be forgotten on his plate. “Get out!”
Dane chuckled, and there was a part of Baer that wanted to pull Wiley into his lap. There was something immensely adorable about the man. His enthusiasm was endless, and his passion for this topic was so fierce.
“It’s true.”
“But you’re not a Weaver.” Wiley gasped again. “Have you always had your powers?” His head snapped over to the aunts. “Is magic everywhere?”
“Yes, but our ability to give magic is limited,” Jo said.
Wiley didn’t seem daunted as he looked at Dane. A little part of Baer’s heart clenched since he knew what was coming.
“I got my powers from Clay, because we’re soul mates,” Dane explained. “We completed a bonding ceremony, and Clay shared some of his powers with me. They manifested themselves in the form of healing abilities.”
Wiley sighed softly, slumping in his chair. Baer couldn’t read his expression, couldn’t even begin to guess at what was churning away in his brain.
“That’s pretty amazing,” Wiley whispered.
“And it’s become critical to saving the world.” Clay moved his plate forward and folded his hands in front of him. “We have to get the remaining Weavers safely to the plantation and trained. In addition, we think if we can all find our soul mates, it will give us an edge we’ve never had before.”
“Time is running out,” Flo added, her voice low and more than a little tired. As if Baer could hear all her thousands of years in her words. “We’ve been fighting this war for so long, and with the last several generations, we’ve lost inches each time. I don’t think we can afford to lose any more ground.”