“Well, you’re not responsible for me. We aren’t anything to each other, right? I’m just—” my words cut off before I saymate. “I’m sorry I got offended. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna bite youand bond you against your will.” I let out a self-deprecating laugh and turn to look out the window at the cars pulling up to the gas pump.
“You can’t, you know.”
“Can’t what?”
“Bond someone against their will. It’s always consensual. Otherwise, dominant shifters would bond less powerful ones against their will all the time. It would be a significant problem in the shifter community.”
“Because dominant shifters are all assholes?” I raise one eyebrow.
He laughs. This stoic man fuckinglaughs. “No. I mean, yes, sometimes. But because a select few shifters would force everyone to bend to their will. It doesn’t work that way. The hierarchy, it’s there, but it’s supported by the Moon Goddess. Mates, for example. It’s not like she chose you. You were already there, waiting. Your time came, that’s all.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your magic already existed in this world. And when your mates—” He clears his throat, clearly uncomfortable having temporarily forgotten he’s included in that list. “When they all exist at the same time in the same place, she wakes your bonds, so you can be together again. The magic was separated in past lives. And now it’s reunited. So when I say shifters can’t force bonds, what I mean is, the Moon Goddess would not allow a pair to magically bond against one’s will because their magic doesn’t match. It’s like saying…”
He looks out the window, searching for an analogy. But I just want him to keep talking; he can say as much as he wants, take as long as he wants. There’s something hypnotic about the low, even cadence of his voice.
“It’s like saying there’s symbiosis between a lotus and a tiger lily. Both are flowers, sure. But the lotus has more connection with the mud.”
“So you’re the mud,” I tease.
His blush returns, and I. Fucking. Die.
“I suppose, yes. I’m the mud. We—” he points to Silas, who is walking back to the car from across the parking lot with a scowl on his face “—are the mud, the sun, the water. We work together, we don’t just coexist. Bonding with you is like giving the magic permission to reunite what was always meant to be whole. We’re separate beings, we have autonomy, but our shifter magic, that which defines our designations and what makes us fated mates, is already intertwined.”
“You’re saying the man doesn’t have to be on board to bond, only the alpha. So, it could still have been against Silas’s will,” I grit, feeling a hot wash of shame rush through me.
He hums and shakes his head. “Do you always feel the same as your omega? Wants, needs, that sort of thing?”
I think about it. Sometimes she wants things I don’t, like when I first arrived in Silent Peak. She was ready to mount Orion and Grayson the second we met. I needed more time. But… was I attracted to them instantly? Undoubtedly, yes. And thinking back to when I first met Silas, how, even as he bit me, I felt a strange pull toward him.
I nod slowly. We haven’t always gone about things the same way. She would leap into the fire, where I might be more cautious, not wanting to get burned. “Wants, needs… yes, probably. But she has no patience. She wants what she wants, instant gratification. My omega is a basic bitch,” I sigh.
Ghost chuckles. God, his laugh is my new favorite sound.
“Okay, so she’s a basic bitch. But at her core,yourcore, you want the same things, even if you’d go about obtaining themdifferently. Mona, your omegaisyou. And Silas’s alphaishim. They aren’t separate beings.”
So Silas’s alpha, his most basic self, wanted to bond with me. And the magic between us is meant to be together.
I ask, “Then why don’t you want to bond with me?” The words slip out before I have a chance to hold them back.
His lips part with a soft inhale. Silas opens the driver’s side door. Doesn’t comment on the new seating arrangement, he just starts the car and pulls away from the gas station.
I stew in embarrassment as we drive away, and Ghost, unsurprisingly, doesn’t answer my question.
This is Grayson's and Orion’s fault. Silent Peak’s fault. Doc and Hilde, and even Andrea. Heather, Joey. They all made me a part of something, like I could be brave and ask for—no,expect—more out of life.
I try to remember what we were talking about before I embarrassed myself. Blood. Right. I pull my knee up to my chest as we pull back onto the highway, full speed ahead. “The only person who ever took my blood was my doctor.”
Ghost turns back to me. “What doctor?”
I shrug. “The one who gave me my medication.”
His expression deadpans. Like he wants to ask more, and he’s waiting for me to catch on. When his eyebrows raise high, and I feel a little offended, like he’s going to talk down to me again, I grumble.
“Okay, I get it. Doc said my old doctor was probably working for the witches. He’s the only one who drew my blood. Who drugged me, I guess.”
“How many times?”
