Page 21 of Binding His Fated Mates

In truth, I used to love watching him like this, back when Lee and I were one person and Daniel was our best friend and basically the center of our universe. We’d spent countless evenings sitting on the floor of my bedroom, working on schoolwork together, or while I played video games and Daniel worked on whatever other project had captured his attention at the time, content just to be near him, even if we weren’t talking.

I caught myself staring at him.

I looked away immediately, cursing myself, and picked up a grimoire from the box. It was handwritten, dated 1952, and the author had terrible penmanship. Perfect. Something mind-numbingly tedious to focus on.

Lee, meanwhile, had settled into the armchair in the corner—he’d had to remove the clothes and what turned out to be stacks upon stacks of books before sitting down. Daniel badly needed to curb his book-buying habit, get more shelving to hold them, or more likely both.

My twin was working through a bunch of the older volumes Lacey had brought over with methodical—and what looked like endless—patience. He read quickly, occasionally scrawling notes in a blank notebook he’d borrowed from Daniel, seeming totally absorbed. Every so often, he’d ask Daniel to clarify a magical term, his tone perfectly neutral and ordinary, as if what we were doing right now was the most normal thing in the world.

Meanwhile, what I was reading might’ve been written in Greek. It was actually English, but only barely. The author had a strong interest in alchemical transformations and wasn’t shy about taking up as many pages as possible describing, in ever-expanding detail, the theory behind merging opposite elements to create something greater than the sum of its parts. I got a third of the way through the text before I realized it probably wasn’t going to help our current circumstances.

Though, if I’d had any idea what I was even looking for, that would’ve been just swell. Daniel and Lee both seemed to know. Or, at least, they were supremely confident they’d know it when they saw it.

Irritated, I finally set the book aside and grabbed another.

“There’s an entry here from nineteen twenty-three. It mentions a ‘magical resonance’ following a binding ritual,” Lee said a while later, interrupting the silence. “The author was the witch queen of her coven at the time, in Eugene, Oregon. She describes the rest of the members as experiencing”—he skimmed the page—“something called ‘sympathetic manifestations’ after a new member had been initiated into the circle. They used a binding ceremony involving blood oaths. Just like the initiation ritual we did.”

Daniel crossed the room to look over Lee’s shoulder, leaning in to read the text. Their heads were close together, dark hair almost touching, and Daniel’s hand rested on the back of the armchair, inches from Lee’s shoulder.

“That’s—yeah, this could be relevant,” Daniel said, his voice quickening with excitement as he read the page. “Her coven was relatively small—only nine witches—and they were all magically linked together. That’s kind of dangerous to do, but it also makes the group’s magic way more powerful.” He paused, frowning. “Huh. The theory is kind of the same, right? The pack is magically linked together, too, I mean.”

Lee nodded. “It says here that the new member possessed the power of”—he broke off, frowning—“Aequatis Vitae. Whatever that means.”

“Wait—what?” Daniel’s eyes widened. “Huh. That translates roughly to ‘balancing of life.’”

“What does that power do?” Lee sounded genuinely curious. He was way more fascinated by magic than I was.

“It allows the witch to heal or harm at will by altering the flow of vitality in another person’s subtle body. It’s not exactly a common ability.”

“Powers aren’t standard across witches and warlocks?” Lee asked. “Isn’t it all just spellcasting?”

Daniel snorted. “Not even witchcraft is standardized across witches and warlocks. There are a bunch of different types of witches out there. There are the ones who started off mundane and taught themselves. And the ones who ended up with magic through dealing with something more powerful—”

“Like a pact with the devil?” I prompted, interested despite myself. “Is that actually a thing?”

Daniel glanced up at me, seeming almost caught off guard that I was talking to him like a person. “Well, as far as we know, the devil doesn’t exist. Though, who really knows? But there’s plenty of other stuff out there that does. Mostly it’s really powerful faeries and Otherworld spirits.”

“Which type are you?” Lee asked.

“I’m the third kind. I’m what most people call a bloodline witch. Or, I guess, a bloodline warlock.” The attention we were giving him might’ve been too much because he blushed beet red and straightened back up, putting distance between him and Lee. “Anyway. Some of the more powerful witches and warlocks out there have special gifts. They’re usually inherited through their family, but there are certain types of rituals that allow someone to come face to face with the old powers in the Otherworld and gain a special ability that way.” He paused again. “I’ve heard that’s what the Seattle coven does when its members come of age.”

“That’s great and all,” I cut in, fascinated despite my best intentions and vaguely annoyed with myself for it. My body kept trying to relax in Daniel’s presence when I’d rather have stayed tense. “But what does it mean to ‘balance life’?”

The warlock shrugged. “I don’t know too much about it. It’s really powerful for healing, if it’s used that way, but the downside is that the healer takes on a portion of the illness or injury for a little while.”

“Great,” I replied. “And this helps us how, exactly?”

Lee was still reading, his expression scrunched up in concentration. Then his eyes widened and he grinned, tapping the page triumphantly. “But what’s actually important here is that the sympathetic manifestations—the power boost the rest of the coven got—were all individual to each witch or warlock. They were kind of like a magical fingerprint. They didn’t all get a healing gift.” He paused, his eyes skimming the page again. “One of the witches gained the ability to discern the history of an object by touching it. Another of the coven manifested the power of farsight, whatever that means.”

“The ability to see something that’s happening somewhere else. It’s sometimes called scrying or remote viewing, depending on who you’re talking to,” Daniel explained, getting more animated. “Okay, yeah. This is good. This would explain why my magic is expressing itself through everyone in the pack differently. Maybe it’s based on temperament or something?” He glanced at Lee. “Your perceptiveness became foresight, maybe? And Oliver obviously holds a lot inside, which apparently equals moving stuff without touching it. And Hunter’s—”

He stopped, apparently realizing he’d been about to analyze me to my face.

“Protectiveness,” I supplied flatly.

“Or defensiveness,” Lee said, smirking at me.

I ignored him, my gaze still on Daniel. “It became a magical shield. Yeah, I got there on my own. Thanks.”