Page 4 of Binding His Fated Mates

“Look, we already know that the pack is connected by subtle magical bonds. There’s a ton of lore about that in all the journals—”

“Err, right.” Lacey’s eyes were still glued to the road, but her expression went rueful. “We all so totally knew that. Because we’re all super familiar with the journals.”

I snorted. Lacey wasn’t much for reading.

“The initiation ceremony must’ve included me in the magic that binds together the pack. It’s a more elegant explanation than the initiation ceremony establishing a brand-new connection. Magic follows the path of least resistance.”

“Right. Obviously. Everyone knows that.”

I rolled my eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with not being a book nerd, Lacey.” Then I added, “But if we can assume that’s all true, the wolfy senses are just a side effect from that. The magic that makes you guys into werewolves changed me slightly, too, once I bonded with it. It’s making me a little more wolf-like. That’s all this is.”

“You’re talking like this is nothing.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying. It isn’t a big deal.”

Lacey drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, processing. “We should tell Reed and Harris.”

Reed was technically the pack’s alpha, but his fated mate, Harris, had gained alpha powers after becoming a werewolf six weeks ago. Since then, they’d been splitting pack leadership.

“Please don’t. I don’t want to cause any problems.”

“Daniel.”

“I’m serious, Lacey. Things have been quiet. The pack is stable. Reed and Harris have enough on their plate without worrying about my weird new parlor tricks.”

I settled back in my seat and stared out the window at the towering pines blurring past us. I didn’t trust myself to glance over at her, because then she might see from my face how frightened I felt at the prospect of them realizing they’d screwed up, realizing I didn’t actually belong there, and kicking me out of the pack as a result. “Promise me you’ll keep this between us.”

“Fine,” she said at last. “But if this gets worse—”

“It won’t. And it’s not bad to begin with.”

“If there’s literally anything new—or if any of your senses get any stronger and more wolfy—you’re telling them. Or I am.”

It was probably the best I could hope for. I scowled out the window. “Deal.”

“And nothing else is going on?”

“No,” I lied. Because the sharpened senses weren’t even the strangest thing in my life.

But I definitely wasn’t going to tell Lacey about that. The nightly dreams involving the twins who weren’t really twins, Hunter and Lee. I’d never told anyone about them.

Besides, the dreams weren’t new. They had been happening every single night for almost two years. Since the very first night Hunter and Lee had become werewolves.

I’d been fooling with forbidden magic—hoping to find a way to break the spell my family had placed on me years before—and Hunter Lee Jameson, my childhood best friend and the love of my life, had walked in at exactly the wrong moment. Because he’d never known I was a warlock, seeing a vortex of literal magic swirling over my head had caused him to panic and he’d broken my circle. My spell, designed to double my powers, had instead gone into him.

It had split him into two people.

And both halves had begun dying almost immediately. I hadn’t been able to reverse my own magic. My only choices had been to let them both die or for them to become supernatural creatures, the only thing that would stabilize the magic that was leeching away their life force, because it had never been meant for a human person.

I hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of them becoming vampires—so werewolves were the only other option. I’d cast a locator spell to find the nearest pack of werewolves and then driven for hours, straight into the Cascade Mountains in the dead of night, with Hunter and Lee unconscious and clinging to life by a thread in the back seat, tears burning in my eyes. And then I’d thrown myself at the mercy of Jeremy Brightborn, the pack’s former alpha. He had agreed to save them by making them into wolves.

Under the condition that I stayed with the pack, that I did everything he commanded, until he released me. Though the price of saving them was my freedom, I would have agreed to anything at that moment. There was nothing I wouldn’t have done.

Besides, I wouldn’t have been able to leave them. I still couldn’t.

But the truth was, I’d stolen their humanity from them that night. Their futures. Everything they might’ve been. And when they’d woken up, confused and no longer human, they’d discovered that their childhood best friend, the man they’d fallen in love with, the person who knew all of their hopes and dreams, had been lying to them for years about who he really was, on top of everything else. Even if I’d had no other choice. But they didn’t know that part. After all, they’d never let me explain.

I was the reason Hunter and Lee were werewolves. And they’d never forgive me for it.