Page 26 of Binding His Fated Mates

He hesitated. And for a moment, I wasn’t sure if Daniel was going to. I wasn’t sure if Daniel even knew if he was going to. But then he did.

His fingers were warm. They tightened around mine and his dark eyes filled with a mixture of hope and wariness as he met my gaze. At the physical contact, the mate bond vibrated between us. It wasn’t the dull ache I was used to any longer. Instead, it was bright and resonant, impossible to deny.

Daniel let me help him to his feet, but he didn’t pull his hand away and I didn’t drop it.

“Come on,” Hunter said. Hand in hand, Daniel and I turned to find him watching us from a few feet away. His expression was unreadable, even to me.

Hunter moved toward the trees, then glanced over his shoulder. His face had turned mischievous—and, impossibly, almost playful. I hadn’t seen that expression on him before. I hadn’t realized he was even capable of it.

“Well?” he said, when neither of us had followed him. “Are you two coming or not?”

Daniel and I exchanged a baffled glance and then we followed him through the trees. The ground gently sloped downward as we walked. It wasn’t long before the forest parted and we emerged onto the shore of Elizabeth Lake. The water was black and still, dotted with starlight, mirroring the sky perfectly. Beyond the lake, Mount Rainier rose impossibly large, its glaciers glowing blue-white under the moonlight. In the real world, it was miles away, but here it seemed so close it felt almost like I could reach out and touch the snowfields.

Hunter walked to the water’s edge. Then he stopped, tilting his head back and studying the sky intently.

I followed his gaze and saw one of the stars glow more brightly, gleaming in the canopy of velvet. It seemed almost close enough to touch.

Then Hunter reached up and plucked it from the darkness.

It came away like picking a ripe apple from a tree. It sat in his cupped hands, a small swirling sphere of white-gold light. It was ridiculous, of course. Stars were burning balls of gas, light-years away, and unimaginably massive. But none of that seemed to matter here.

My breath caught in my chest as I watched my twin, an expression of fierce joy transforming Hunter’s ordinarily sullen expression.

He held the star out to us with both hands. “For you.”

Daniel sucked in a sharp, startled breath, his expression filling with awe. He reached out and cupped his hands beneath Hunter’s, and I did the same, and the three of us held the star together.

Hunter’s green eyes were bright and clear when I raised my gaze to meet his. They were free of the anger, the hurt, and all the walls he’d constructed. I wondered if I was looking at a glimpse of the person he might have been if none of the terrible things had happened.

Generous. Unguarded. Happy.

Maybe this was who Hunter was, underneath everything else. Maybe this was who he was trying so hard not to be, the inner person he was trying so hard to protect?

Joy surged through me. It was intense, almost unbearable in its rightness. This was how it had always been supposed to feel. The three of us, together and whole.

I could have stayed in this moment forever. I wanted to.

But my mind intruded, the way it so often did: Hunter is real. In this moment, he is. Are you?

My fierce joy dimmed. Because I had no answer to that, did I?

Was I real?

Was I a full, complete person? Was I a person who, if things were different, could choose Daniel and be chosen in return? Who truly belonged anywhere?

Perhaps Hunter caught the shape of my emotions—they were harder to hide here, after all—or he saw the expression on my face. Because his brows drew together in confusion.

I was about to tell him I was fine—and I was. After all, this was nothing new. But then, over Hunter’s shoulder, I saw something strange on the opposite side of the lake.

There were two shapes, standing motionless at the far shore. They glowed with a sickly, pale luminescence, their forms indistinct, wavering at the edges like a heat shimmer rising off pavement.

They were watching us.

My stomach lurched. The last of the warmth drained from me, leaving me feeling as if I were encased in ice. My inner wolf recoiled. And I knew, deep in my bones, that the creatures didn’t belong here.

They were wrong. Their presence was a violation of nature.

Before I could speak or point out what I had just seen, someone crashed out of the tree line behind us.