Page 38 of Binding His Fated Mates

Embarrassment.

I’d yelled at my alpha in front of everyone. I’d positioned myself between Reed and Daniel like I was ready to throw down with the guy who co-led our pack, and then I’d stormed out like a teenager slamming his bedroom door.

Real mature, Hunter.

And it was a crack in the façade I’d built around myself—Lee and I both—that we were always friendly, agreeable, and outgoing. That we belonged. Lee was the only one I allowed to see my bullshit, because he was the only one who could fully understand it.

Except I’d just put a neon sign above my bullshit and thrown it on full display, hadn’t I? That would be ironic—my feelings for Daniel getting me kicked out of the pack, all because I couldn’t regulate them properly. And I wouldn’t even be able to blame him for it this time around. That would be one hundred percent brought to you by Hunter.

The worst part was that, objectively, Reed wasn’t exactly wrong. His urgency made sense. He’d just learned that there was a monster in Crescent Springs preying on civilians. And Daniel was the only person who could track it. He was right that the locator spell needed to happen.

Reed wasn’t being callous or an asshole. He was being an alpha, making the hard call because someone had to. With the pack more or less out of commission until we understood what the sympathetic manifestations meant for us, he probably recognized that Daniel was more essential than ever to protecting the town.

Daniel would be fine if he had time to recover first. Lee, way more level-headed than me, had negotiated that. Daniel doing the spell tomorrow, once he’d rested, was reasonable.

It’s just—Daniel wasn’t a machine. He was a person. A person who had spent years being treated like a tool by Jeremy, the pack’s previous alpha, and who was now so desperate to prove his worth that he’d rather cast dangerous spells alone and hide nosebleeds and collapse on the floor of a bar than admit he actually had limits.

And there had been too many times—way too many times—that I’d watched the people in charge ask too much of him and, so furious and wrapped up in myself, I’d said nothing to prevent it. In my selfishness, I’d fucking abandoned him. The one person I’d always sworn to myself I’d protect.

That stopped today.

I didn’t know what else I was willing to do. I didn’t know if I could forgive him, or ever trust him again, or let him back into the places he’d once occupied in my heart. That ship might’ve sailed. But I could do this much: I could make sure nobody used him up completely until there was nothing left. That included Daniel himself.

I needed to go back, I decided. I’d make nice and smooth everything over. Or, more likely, Lee would smooth things over, and I’d keep my damn mouth shut for once and let him do it.

And maybe I’d even try to stop acting like a feral, cornered animal every time Daniel did something that scared me, because the alternative—continuing to watch him destroy himself from a safe, angry distance—wasn’t actually so safe at all.

And while I was at it, maybe I’d figure out how to finish the conversation we’d started in the cabin. The one where he’d locked gazes with me and said you know why and I’d felt the ground shift beneath my feet. Because yeah. I did know why. I knew all too fucking well.

With my mind made up for what I was going to do next, I pushed off the wall of the alley and turned back toward the bar.

I didn’t make it far. Lee and Daniel stepped into the mouth of the alley, intercepting me before I’d gone two steps.

Daniel hung back a few paces on the sidewalk, trembling and exhausted, the strap of his messenger bag clutched in both hands and his face drained of color and vitality. From the way his shoulders were hunched in, as if trying to make himself take up as little space as possible, and the way he avoided meeting my gaze, he looked as if he wanted to be anywhere else.

Lee, on the other hand, headed straight for me with an expression I’d never seen on his face before. He was livid.

With his jaw set hard and his green eyes blazing, he grabbed my arm and pulled me farther down the alley, out of Daniel’s earshot. He pushed me against the wall.

“Don’t,” he said, his voice low and lethal, “ever do that again.”

“Lee—”

“No. Listen to me!” His grip tightened on my arm, pinning me in place. “Daniel already feels awful! He already thinks everything is all his fault! He already believes he’s not worth protecting!” His voice dropped, low and dangerous. “And you just confirmed every single one of those beliefs by storming out like that!”

“That’s not what I—”

“It doesn’t matter what you meant or what you wanted!” Lee hissed, his voice dropping even lower. “It matters what he saw. And he saw the person he loves abandoning him because he wasn’t good enough. That’s what he fucking thinks, Hunter! And you did that!”

His words felt like a blade sliding between my ribs.

Lee said it with such conviction that I knew he wasn’t guessing. He’d been standing right there. He’d seen the aftermath.

I wanted to get angry. Because I knew how to be angry. But I didn’t know how to be—whatever the hell this was.

But instead, I deflated.

“Yeah,” I said, guilt crashing through me. “I overreacted.”