Page 10 of Binding His Fated Mates

I stared at the barrier, dumbfounded.

It hung in the air for three or four seconds, rippling like sunlight on an oil slick, and then it dissolved, leaving nothing behind except the faint smell of ozone.

I looked down at my hands. They were trembling.

What the fuck was that?

I turned my hands over slowly, half expecting to see something different about them. But they looked the same as always—broad, callused, deceptively human. No golden light. No shimmer. Just my ordinary hands. Except they’d just done something that my hands shouldn’t have been able to do.

A shield of some sort. I’d thrown up a shield. A magical one. The same kind I’d seen Daniel use dozens of times.

But wolves didn’t have magical shields. We had our enhanced senses, our teeth and claws, supernatural reflexes, and the ability to heal fast. We could see magic, but we couldn’t do magic.

Shields were spells. Warlock territory. Daniel’s territory.

It became suddenly crystal clear to me that this was all his fault.

Because of course it was.

Everything was Daniel’s fault. The split, the bite, the mate dreams, and now this—his magic spreading through me like a poison.

The anger came back, hot and immediate.

Good. I preferred the anger. It was simple and clean.

I got up and ran back to the cabin, letting my fury carry me the whole way there.

* * *

Lee looked up from the phone in his hand when I burst through the door. His expression shifted from calm to alert in half a second when he took in the look on my face. “What happened?”

“I did magic,” I said.

Lee’s eyes widened. “What do you mean you ‘did magic’?”

“I mean I threw up a shield. In the forest. It was some kind of golden barrier, and it just—” I gestured with both hands, not liking the disbelieving way Lee stared at me. “It just appeared out of nowhere. I didn’t even do anything. A deer spooked me and it happened.” Then I tacked on, “It’s Daniel’s fault.”

Lee was quiet for a moment, processing. He had that look he got when he was turning something over in his mind, examining it from every angle before committing to a response.

It made me want to scream.

“A deer,” he said, at last.

I deflated immediately. “That’s what you’re focusing on?”

“I’m focusing on the fact that your fight-or-flight response just manifested as a magical shield against a herbivore.” The corner of his mouth twitched.

Oh, fuck no.

The bastard was amused.

“This isn’t funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“It’s Daniel’s fault,” I repeated. “His initiation did something to the pack bonds. His magic is—I don’t know—leaking into us. Into me. We need to confront him.”

“No, we need to bring it up calmly,” Lee corrected. “At the pack breakfast.” He eyed me skeptically. “After you’ve showered.”