Page 30 of Binding His Fated Mates

Hunter looked at me again. He’d been doing it all morning, casting me quick, furtive glances from behind the text he was supposedly reading, his green eyes flicking to me and then away again before I could catch him. Except I kept catching him anyway, because my awareness of Hunter had been dialed up to an almost painful sensitivity ever since the dream.

My phone chimed. It was a text from Lacey. Do we need to bury any Hunter-shaped bodies?

I snorted, causing Hunter to look over and glower at me. He eyed my phone. “Something funny?”

“Definitely,” I said, leaving it at that. It was none of his business anymore who I texted with. He’d made that perfectly clear.

I replied to Lacey with, not yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

My phone chimed again. Three texts, rapid-fire.

Bummer.

Followed by, I’ve got a shovel with his name on it.

And then, he better behave himself or I’ll make him regret being born a man.

I replied to that with a thumbs-up emoji and a heart because what else did you say to your best friend threatening to do serious bodily harm to an ex-boyfriend you don’t actually hate?

I tried to focus on the journal in front of me. It was the personal diary of a witch from the nineteen-twenties—how the pack had gotten ahold of it was anyone’s guess—and it contained detailed accounts of coven binding rituals, written in both cramped handwriting and Theban, a magical alphabet I had to painstakingly decode by writing it out and translating the letters into English on a separate notepad. If I’d stayed with my family, I probably would’ve had the alphabet memorized by now. Both of my siblings could read Theban on sight.

Though I’d never said goodbye to any of them or explained what was happening, the Henbanes had never come looking for me. They definitely would’ve been able to find me if they’d wanted to. But it wasn’t a big surprise they hadn’t come for me. After all, I was the youngest of three, and both my older brother, Micah, and my sister, Rowan, were way more magically talented than I was. And if my family cared about one thing, it was power. I’d always been the black sheep. Far less interested in magical attainment than the rest of them, something they’d never been able to understand. They’d probably written me off the second they realized I’d left them.

Hunter snuck another look at me. I caught it in my peripheral vision.

I practically had to shake myself. Focus, Daniel!

But the words I was reading kept swimming in front of me, blurring together. The problem was, I was way too aware of Hunter’s presence. Every time he shifted on the couch. The reassuring sound of his breathing. The faint scent of him like fresh-cut grass, always reminding me of spring, my favorite season. It was wildly different from Lee’s scent—dragon’s blood incense and old books—even though the twins were quite literally identical.

Giving up on the journal I’d been reading on my lap, I dropped my pen onto the notebook on my desk and stretched. And yes, I glanced over at Hunter.

He was looking at me again. And this time, I didn’t look away fast enough. Our eyes locked.

For a long moment, neither of us moved. The only sounds were our breathing and Hunter’s heartbeat, which my newly enhanced senses oh-so-helpfully zeroed in on. It became more rapid as we looked at each other.

Then he said, “I’ve been making your life miserable for two years.”

I blinked, certain I must’ve misheard him.

“Huh?”

Apparently, if there’s one thing I wasn’t, it’s smooth. But in my defense… What?

“Two years,” Hunter repeated. His voice was flat, matter-of-fact, but his eyes were anything but. “Lee and I treated you like shit. We froze you out. We’ve barely spoken to you. We made it clear you weren’t welcome.”

I opened my mouth to say it was fine, but Hunter cut me off with, “It’s true and you know it.”

“You guys both accepted me at the initiation ritual,” I said, carefully sidestepping the fact that, yes, he was stating an obvious truth.

“You’ve been with the pack for as long as we have. You’ve easily done as much or more than Lee and I have to help out,” Hunter said. “And you weren’t going anywhere, even if we’d refused you.”

“Well, I guess I’m glad that’s settled.”

“Huh.” At the sarcasm in my voice, Hunter’s lips curved slightly into what might’ve passed for a smile. His green eyes bored into mine. “We’ve been making you miserable, haven’t we?”

“It’s fine.”

“Why can’t you just say it?”