Page 103 of Binding His Fated Mates

“We can,” Hunter said. “You know that—we can always feel it.”

It had been like that more and more lately. The bond had grown stronger, and we were starting to not only sense each other’s emotions, but pick up on even more than that—occasionally even complete thoughts.

All in all, it was another perfect start to the morning. And hopefully it was only the latest of many more perfect mornings to come.

* * *

That night, the pack gathered around a roaring bonfire in honor of the autumn equinox. The pack didn’t celebrate all of the witch holidays, but they did celebrate the seasonal changes, and they had since long before I’d joined.

Rowan was there. As usual, she was sitting next to Lacey on one of the logs we used as makeshift seating. They were deep in conversation, staring longingly into each other’s eyes.

As far as I knew—and given that one of them was my best friend and the other was my sister, I was pretty sure I wasn’t out of the loop—they hadn’t even kissed yet. Or talked about their definite chemistry. Or the fact that they were fated to be together. Neither of them had said that, but I wasn’t dumb. And the fated mates spell was still working its way through the pack.

Lacey was giving Rowan time to adjust, to make a place for herself here that wasn’t bound up in a relationship. Much to Rowan’s dismay.

But it was only a matter of time before Lacey stopped pumping the brakes.

After all, my sister was carving out a place here. She’d already proven herself useful with research—just as capable as me, maybe even more so. Naturally, she’d be helpful in casting spells as well.

Plus, she’d quickly befriended Sarah and Emma, though for very different reasons. Sarah, because my sister was even more studious than me, willing to work brutally long hours until she got to the bottom of whatever puzzle she was attempting to solve. And Emma because Rowan had taken up cooking in my absence from the Henbane household and had evidently become quite good at it. Emma was openly impressed with her.

According to Reed and the other long-timers in the pack, that was a once-in-a-generation occurrence. Emma was impressed with nobody’s cooking.

She was even—albeit cautiously—contemplating the possibility of relaxing her death grip on the pack meals.

We had others joining us as well: Tamrand and Sally had agreed to come. Thankfully, we hadn’t encountered any other monsters since the Mara, but Tamrand was reviewing our lore to make sure it was all accurate and complete.

It was a project he’d created for himself, surprising the rest of us.

I strongly suspected we were starting to grow on him, and he enjoyed our company more than he was letting on. After all, it must’ve been a relief to have someone who wasn’t Sally know him.

I had never once even seen him in the town until he had suddenly shown up at the commune, asking for our help, a few months ago. But given that fae can glamour at will—a type of illusion magic that makes them appear like anything they want, including other people—that wasn’t really so shocking.

I’d probably seen him plenty and hadn’t realized it.

Sally seemed better, too. We’d checked on her a few times a week, especially knowing about her recent struggles with depression. Obviously, the pack couldn’t fix that for her—it was a part of who she was—but having a community who understood what she’d been through and cared seemed to be helping. The dream charm I’d made for her—I hadn’t forgotten—seemed to be working well enough to banish her nightmares. She’d get better, but it was going to take some time.

Recently, she’d even agreed to become a kind of consultant for the pack—that is, another set of eyes and ears in town, just in case anything unusual cropped up again. And it was Crescent Springs. Something unusual would pop up again. It was only a matter of time.

Lindsey had joined us, too. She was sitting with Reed and Harris. I hadn’t seen much of her recently, but from what I’d gathered, she spent an awful lot of time with Reed. And, by extension, Harris too.

Besides, it wasn’t that weird I hadn’t seen her. After all, I’d been… busy.

I wasn’t quite sure what Lindsey’s story was, as we didn’t talk much, but I knew she was Jeremy’s sister. I found it surprising that she wasn’t part of the pack, considering she was the daughter and sister of two former alphas, in that order.

But she’d chosen that for herself and apparently, she’d found a way to block the pack magic—or to free herself from it somehow—while she’d been away from us. She alone hadn’t been affected by the sympathetic manifestations.

Speaking of which, those had completely vanished.

Except, what had happened to the pack at my initiation ceremony was much stranger than anyone could’ve predicted. They hadn’t become witches and warlocks, exactly, but they could still cast spells—sort of.

What they’d done in helping me defeat my family hadn’t been an outlier or a one-off occurrence. None of the wolves—with the exception of Hunter and Lee—were capable of doing magic, even simple spells, on their own.

But enough of them working together could.

Rowan and I had been teaching the pack how to cast spells as a group. With mixed results. Their magic wasn’t very powerful.

Yet.