Reassured, Jess let her hand fall from her hair as Marissa explained, nodding in answer to the question. "We searched everywhere," she said. "We didn't find anything else that was out of place, and nothing that belongs to either of us is missing. A-are you sure the spell is broken" Will it ....will it have any lasting effects?"

"I don't think so," Marissa replied. "Once the contents are burned, the spell should be broken, but if you are worried, I can give you some charms and put up some wards that should counteract any lingering magic." She paused a moment as she looked from one to the other, wondering how comfortable Jessamin would be with what else she had to say.

"Thank you, we ....we would appreciate that," Jess nodded gratefully, glancing at Will as she squeezed his hand. "We, neither of us, have any experience with magic. We never dreamed we might have to learn such things."

Marissa frowned a little, a serious look on her face. Though Jessamin seemed grateful for their help, there was something Marissa thought she might not want to discuss with the men present. "Jessamin, would you mind if I speak with you privately a moment?" she asked, leaving the decision to her.

Startled to be asked such a thing, Jess' eyes strayed to Will once again, but - given their suspicions about the nature of the spell - it seemed a reasonable request. "O-of course," she allowed quietly. "I should make some tea. Please ....come into the kitchen?" Rising to her feet, she gestured for Marissa to follow her.

Emrys, on the other hand, pinned Will with a grin. "Need a hand fixing that shutter over the front windows?" he asked the pilot, offering him a way of giving the ladies some privacy without being far away.

"I'd be much obliged," Will replied, handing the kitten off to Jessamin as he seemed to have taken a disliking to Emrys, for some reason. He touched a kiss to her cheek, a soft smile on his face. "We'll be right outside," he assured her, though he wasn't expecting any trouble.

Marissa shot Emrys a look that said, "Be good!" before moving to follow Jessamin into the kitchen.

The look Marissa got in return from her mate was two parts obedience to one part mischief, but she could be reasonably certain that Emrys would behave himself. He didn't want to frighten the man, after all.

In the kitchen, Jessamin glanced once to the door through which the sound of the washing machine's beeps were still audible, rolling her eyes as she tutted. "Blasted thing," she muttered to herself, moving to shut the door on the noise, at least while they had guests. "Would you like tea, or would you prefer coffee?" she asked Marissa.

"Either is fine, thank you," Marissa replied, arching a curious brow at the other woman's remark about the washing machine. "And who's this adorable little fellow?" she asked, reaching over to rub a finger beneath the kitten's chin.

In complete contrast to his reaction to Emrys, Boots was positively flirtatious as Marissa turned her attention to him. Jess laughed as she felt the little fellow purring against her, automatically offering the kitten to Marissa. "His name is Boots," she told her quietly. "Without him, we might never have realized what those balls were." With both her hands free, she turned to fill the coffee pot, knowing that Will preferred the brew to tea, in any case.

"He's a good friend to have around. Cats sense these things, even more so than dogs, I think. If he hasn't found anymore of them, then I think we're safe in assuming he found them all," she said, cradling the kitten in her arms, like one might a baby. "Do you mind if I sit?"

"Oh, please do," Jess said, mortified that she hadn't offered a seat as she gestured to the table, half of which was covered with the promise of dinner yet to be realized for the day. "I'm terribly sorry about the mess. I should have been expecting you, I know."

"No, it's all right. I'm sorry. We should have let someone know we were coming," Marissa said, equally mortified that she and Emrys had interrupted their dinner. They might have called first, if the other couple had a phone. "We live nearby, so it was just a short walk. We can come back later, if you like," she said, remaining standing until Jess decided whether they were to stay or go.

"Oh, no, don't be silly." Jess shook her head, gesturing to the seat once again. "I won't begin cooking for at least an hour yet. I was attempting to get ahead with my chores, but it would seem that the laundry has defeated me already." She giggled quietly at that, taking cups down as the coffee pot burbled beside her. The smile faded, however, when she remembered that Marissa had asked to speak with her privately. "Will I ever be able to bear a child, Marissa" Please ....be honest with me."

"The laundry?" Marissa echoed, glancing toward the sound of the washing machine behind the door, just a few feet away. It sounded to her like the laundry was well underway. Marissa turned back, frowning at Jessamin's question. It was a question she'd been asking herself of late. "How long have you been trying to conceive?" she asked, curiously.

Bringing the pot and cups over to the table, along with cream and sugar, Jessamin sat down, folding her hands on the well scrubbed surface in front of her. How long, indeed. There had never been any talk of not trying. "Three years," she told Marissa sadly, twisting the gold band on her finger. "Ever since we were married."

"And you were living with your landlady all that time?" Marissa asked further, refusing to believe nothing could be done. If her suspicions were right, then the hex magic was to blame and not Jessamin's own cycles, but something could be done about that, too.

"Yes." Jess had to pause, her throat tightening as she considered the deep betrayal of that woman's actions. "She ....she encouraged us to marry sooner than we had intended. We had hoped to have a home of our own to move into when we married, but it was taking longer than we had thought to raise the money. She offered us a large suite in her boarding house, where Will was living. We didn't see anything to be suspicious of in her kindness."

"It's possible that, at the time, her kindness was sincere, but perhaps something happened later that changed her. I'm not here to debate her motivations. To be honest, we may never know the truth. It might have been simple jealousy or loneliness that changed her. Perhaps she worried that once you had a child, you would leave her, never realizing that by preventing you from conceiving, she sealed her own fate. Regardless, I am here to make sure whatever hold she had over you is over," Marissa explained, as gently as she could.

"I don't want to know why she did it," Jess said unhappily, raising wet eyes to meet Marissa's gaze even as she reached to pour out the coffee. "I trusted her. I confided in her. And all the time, she knew what the reason was. She must have done. If I ever see her again, I shall certainly forget my manners." It seemed like such an innocent, harmless threat ....until you realized that, for Jess, her manners were all she truly had. Without them, she would be capable of everything anyone might do when faced with pain and heartache.

Outside, the men had already fixed that broken shutter, and with a little encouragement from Emrys, had begun to straighten the somewhat ramshackle fence that bordered the front garden. After a few months of doing just this sort of thing in their own home, Emrys was more than capable of working with his hands, and he was definitely doing his best to be an engaging companion. Right now, he was learning all sorts of things from Will.

"So," he said, heaving a fallen spar from the fence into place so the other man could fix it there, "you actually fly in those things?"

"Yes," Will replied, pausing a moment as he hammered the piece of fence into place. "The plane I arrived here in isn't as sophisticated as modern aircraft, or so I'm told, but with a little tender loving care, she still works. She's not really made for carrying cargo or passengers, but I take her up now and then, just for fun. I take it you've never flown," he said, the hint of a smirk on his face.

"Nope," Emrys agreed cheerfully. "Never flown, never driven, never been on a boat. I trust my feet and where they take me, and these days, I have a set of paws I can call on whenever I need them, too. My sister keeps trying to convince me I should learn to drive, but I don't see the point."

"Paws?" Will asked, glancing over at the other man before going back to his hammering. He'd been in Rhy'Din long enough to know there were other species besides humans, but he'd yet to meet any in person, or so he believed.

"Hmm?" Adjusting his grip, Emrys blew his hair out of his face as he looked over at Will, knowing by feel alone when the spar was secure enough for him to let go. "Oh, I'm a werewolf," he explained, not seeing any need to hide this fact. "That's why your cat doesn't trust me. He smells the canine."

"A werewolf," Will echoed again, a little skeptically, though he had no reason not to believe him. "You mean like the kind in horror movies?" he asked, though he assumed not; otherwise, why would the other man be telling him that' Unsure if Emrys even knew what a horror movie was, he asked further, "Do you change when it's a full moon?"

"I don't have to, not any more," Emrys told him honestly, not even attempting to touch on movies. He still hadn't encountered a television, although computers had been an eye-opener when seen through Seren's eyes. "But I usually do, just for a few hours. There's nothing quite like running through the forest on four paws in the moonlight."

"You don't have to?" Will asked, curiosity growing with each answer Emrys gave him. Though Will had lived in Rhy'Din for nearly five years, he still had a lot to learn about the place he called home. "I have to disagree there, my friend. There's nothing like soaring through the sky high above the ground," Will told him with a smile.

"Well, I could bite you so you could compare the two and make an objective decision," Emrys offered, laughing as he released the spar to test its capacity to hold itself up. "But I wouldn't. I've only turned one person, and he asked me to. He didn't have any other alternatives, and ....well, if he'd died, it would have killed my sister." Stepping back, he took a look along the line of the fence. "You should find out if the blacksmith up here can make a couple of hinges and a latch for that gate, you know."

"We've only been here a few days," Will remarked, filing the other man's suggestion away on the growing to-do list in his head, too intrigued by Emrys' story to let it drop. He didn't doubt the man was telling the truth, but he had never met anyone claiming to be a werewolf before. "I'm not quite following you, but I reckon you have a story to tell," he said, testing the fence for himself and judging it would hold well enough for now.

"Aye, and it's a complicated one." Emrys chuckled, leaning forward onto the fence they had just fixed comfortably. He wasn't shy about telling it, though, sharing with Will his own story - his strange birth and lack of morphing ability; the fact that he had believed for so long that he had killed the sister he loved so well; the years spent in self-imposed isolation, only to find and love Marissa; the rediscovery of Seren, and the way that a threat to her and her mate had been the turning point that had given him control over his own moon-shifts. "Seren'll never change her shape, it's pretty certain by now," he said thoughtfully, brushing a hand through his hair. "But with Dorian as her mate, she'll not have any children who can't turn with the moon. New blood does wonders."

Will shook his head, clearly intrigued by Emrys' story. "The only werewolves I've ever heard of are the kind that change shape during a full moon and eat humans." He'd settled himself on a tree stump while Emrys told his tale, wiping the sweat from his brow with a kerchief he'd shoved into a pocket. "Do Rhy'Din's twin moons have any effect on you?"

"They did before I was ....fixed, I suppose you'd call it," Emrys shrugged. "The larger one, when it was full ....my mind would shift, but my body wouldn't. Only for a few hours, but enough time to do damage more to myself than to anyone or anything around me. These days, I can resist that call if I choose to. It's a part of being an Alpha; a leader, I suppose you'd call it. I'm bigger and stronger, and I have much finer control over the wolf."

"And all that happened because of Marissa?" Will asked, not only interested but trying to understand what the other man had told him. If he understood him correctly, some threat to his mate had triggered something in the man, causing him to gain control of his abilities.

"When a mad wolf starts to attack the peripheral members of your family and visits your home, it's only a matter of time before he tries to harm your mate," Emrys said solemnly. "We put him down, myself and Marissa. If she hadn't been there, I might not have won the fight; I might have lost myself to the wolf in the heat of the moment. She keeps me grounded and gives me the strength to change back and forth. If I ever wished for anything, it was for her. I was very lucky she decided I was more interesting alive than dead the night we met."

Will chuckled and moved to his feet, reaching over to give Emrys' a friendly shove. "Yet another story to tell," he remarked with a grin. "But I think it might be a story for another day. Come on. Let's go see if the coffee is ready."

"It's her story to tell," Emrys chuckled, taking the shove like a man. He even swayed with it, though that was likely to humor the young man he believed he had made a friend of. "She can draw blood when she's mad with me." Grinning, he fell into step with Will, heading for the door.

"Is she like you?" Will asked, as he gathered up the tools before heading for the door. If they had been in any other place, in any other time, Will might not have believed the man's story; he might have even thought him insane, but he'd seen enough in Rhy'Din to know it wasn't an unbelievable story.

"No," Emrys laughed, shaking his head. "There's no one in the world like Marissa, but that's her story to tell." He bent to help Will with the tools. "Women like to keep their secrets sometimes. It's best to let them."

"I reckon so," Will replied, satisfied with the other man's answer, at least for now. He wasn't sure what made Marissa so different or special, but didn't everyone feel that way about the one they loved" He wondered, though. He didn't think Jess kept any secrets from him, but maybe he was wrong. He knew she desperately wanted to have a child - they both did. He came to a halt, needing to know something before they rejoined the women. "Tell me, can she help Jess have a baby?"

"Oh." Jess understood the blush straightaway, echoing Marissa's rose tint with her own. "I do apologize, I meant no offense," she said hurriedly. "I was merely ....Well, we do not have much to offer with which to pay you for your help. I-I do embroidery, personal designs. I ....Well, perhaps I could decorate a wedding gown for you, when the time comes."

Marissa arched a brow as she turned her gaze to Jessamin, a small frown on her face. "Jessamin, we do not expect you to pay us. We do this as friends. As I said before, any friends of Duncan and Mara's are friends of us," she assured the other woman. She had never asked for or accepted anything in return for what she did, other than their thanks.

"It would be wrong to accept your help, your time, and your care, without offering something in return," Jess countered softly. "My offer stands, and will remain standing. Someday, you will have use of it." She glanced at Will, reaching to squeeze his hand as she smiled. "I think embroidery would better suit you than a ride in a plane."

"Very well," Marissa replied, reluctantly. "I will keep your offer in mind, but for now, your gratitude is all the payment we desire. Isn't that so, Emrys?" she asked, hoping her mate would agree.

Will chuckled at his wife's suggestion. "What do you think, Emrys" Would you like to see Rhy'Din from the sky?"

"Gratitude and the occasional cuppa," Emrys agreed with his mate, grinning at Will's chuckling tease. "The day you get me in the air, I will let you paint me pink and put chrysanthemums in my hair," he informed the other man with a merry wink, startled when that made Jessamin burst out laughing.

Will laughed. "Remember that, ladies. Never say never, Emrys. Stranger things have been known to happen," he replied with a grin.

"I may beat you to it, Will," Marissa broke in, with a small smirk at the other couple. There were evidently things about her that even Emrys wasn't yet aware of.

"Here, now," Emrys protested, though he was still grinning at the giggling Jessamin, "what?s this" Did someone declare it pick on Emrys day?" Unseen by the other couple, the hand lying on the back of Marissa's chair rose to stroke a single affectionate fingertip down the line of her neck, beneath her hair.

Marissa drew a soft sigh when she felt Emrys' finger caress her neck, turning an amused, but adoring look at him. "Keep that up and we won't make it home," she warned him with a smile, not much of a warning.

"The Mallorys will be napping this time of day," he murmured back to her with a wicked little snicker.

Across the table, Jess glanced at Will, blushing at this very open display of passion between their guests. She was still very much a creature of her time, though she was trying to improve.

"What have the Mallorys to do with it?" Marissa countered, thinking her mate a little bit silly. She knew this was probably something they shouldn't be discussing in front of the other couple, but she just couldn't resist the chance to tease him a little.

Will only smirked at Jess, more amused than uncomfortable at the teasing going on between the other couple.

"Well, in case you wanted a bed this time," Emrys replied to his mate innocently. "I have no objection to grass, hay, even trees, but as you often point out, love, you are a little on the fastidious side."

"Fastidious," she echoed, with a barely-repressed smirk. "Emrys, I think my vocabulary is rubbing off on you," she teased him further, touching a kiss to his cheek to show it was all in good fun.

Will cleared his throat, as if to remind the other couple that they weren't alone. "How long have you two been together?" It seemed a long time and while Emrys told him his story, he hadn't been too explicit about the time frame.

Chuckling, Emrys stroked Marissa's neck once more just because he could, turning his attention back to Will, utterly unabashed by how very openly he loved his mate. "Oh ....about three months, isn't it?" he asked Marissa, not entirely sure of the timeline of their mating. Time didn't really matter, not when instinct was driving.

Jessamin blinked in surprise, shocked by this. After all, it had taken her and Will a year to admit they were in love.

"About that, yes," Marissa admitted with a bit of a blush again. She knew it must seem quick, but neither of them had seen any reason to wait and life was too short to take things slow.

Will practically choked on his coffee. "Three months"!"

"Will," Jess admonished her husband softly for reacting so explicitly to the surprise of that announcement. "Don't be rude."

Emrys was obviously confused, glancing between the younger pair as though looking for some reason why they seemed so shocked. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, it's just ..." Will started, frowning at Jess' admonition and not wanting to offend their new friends.

Marissa lifted a hand, as if to dismiss any apology he might make. "It's all right. I understand. Three months isn't very long to some, but when you've been waiting for someone all of your life, it seems like forever," she said, turning that adoring gaze on Emrys again. Perhaps that wasn't a very good explanation, but it was about all they were going to get for now.

The sheer intensity of tenderness in the gaze shared by Emrys and Marissa was enough to make Jess blush once again, looking away to give them a little privacy. Marissa's words, however, explained far more than she might have realized. Jess caught Will's eye, her shy little smile making its appearance once again. "I can understand that," she said quietly. "Were it not for our upbringing, darling, we might have done the same."

Will smiled and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "But we're together now, and that's all that matters," he told her quietly, his words more for her than for the other couple.

Marissa seemed to realize suddenly that they might be overstaying their welcome, and she gave Emrys a gentle nudge of her own. "What do you say we go gather up those apples before it gets dark?"