Page 43 of Binding His Fated Mates

“The geas made it physically impossible for me to tell you—or any mundane person—the truth about myself.” Daniel let out a bark of laughter, but there was zero humor in it whatsoever. “I guess I’m lucky that they didn’t use the geas to forbid me from seeing you. They thought it might make you suspicious if I suddenly vanished. And then they’d have to enchant you, too. And possibly your dad. So I had to keep seeing you, except knowing I could never tell you the truth.”

“Wait, they would’ve done that to us?” Hunter demanded. But he looked physically ill. Every word Daniel had told us had been a blow, cracking open the hurt we’d been harboring for two years.

“Oh yes,” Daniel said. “In a heartbeat. They even talked about it, weighing the pros and cons. The only reason they didn’t was because it was easier—cleaner—to deal with just me. Though, I guess that might’ve been better, given what happened. If we’d never seen each other again, I mean.”

“Don’t say that,” Hunter breathed, his expression going stricken. He sucked in a ragged breath. “Please don’t even think that. Not even for a second.”

Daniel shrugged and looked away, his eyes still wet, and his jaw tight.

I stared at him, speechless. What he was saying was awful.

I almost wanted the reason he hadn’t told us to be because he hadn’t trusted us, after all. Because Daniel’s whole family had violated him in an unspeakable way. What would it have been like, growing up with people who would do that to their own child?

“You’re saying the reason you didn’t tell us,” Hunter said thickly, breaking the silence, “was because you couldn’t?”

“I tried,” Daniel said, his voice cracking, still looking away from us. “I tried so many times. I’d work up the courage and open my mouth and then the words just—wouldn’t come out.”

“Daniel,” I breathed. “Please, look at us. It’s okay.”

He turned to meet my gaze. The anguish in his dark eyes was so raw it was almost unbearable. “I wouldn’t have lied to you. Never. You have to believe that.”

I believed him. I could sense the truth of his words through the bond. But even if I hadn’t been able to do that, his grief was naked on his face. The narrative I’d built over two years—that Daniel had chosen to lie, that Daniel didn’t trust us, that his deception was deliberate—was crumbling, and what was left underneath was far uglier and more painful than that.

Daniel hadn’t betrayed us. His family had betrayed him. He’d been imprisoned, his will taken away.

And if we’d known that, if we’d known the truth—

Daniel was right. We should have asked him for the truth. We should have given him the benefit of the doubt.

Hunter seemed to have similar thoughts, because there were unshed tears in his eyes.

“Being with you was the best part of my life. You were my escape from being a Henbane. And when we were together, I could pretend I was normal, too. That I was just a regular person with someone I loved—a life that didn’t involve magic, the supernatural, or my family’s obsession with power.”

“Daniel, we would have understood,” I breathed, feeling as though the ground beneath me had rearranged itself when I wasn’t looking, leaving me nowhere safe to stand.

“Don’t be so sure.” He dragged in a sharp breath. “There’s more. The thing is, I was looking for a way to break the geas. I spent years trying. And after your dad passed away, you were so alone. And I wanted you to know who I really was—all of me. I would’ve done anything to stop keeping it a secret. Even something stupid and dangerous.” He paused, grimacing. “I just thought it would be stupid and dangerous for me.”

He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, but it didn’t seem to help. They were still wet when he pulled his hands away. And he suddenly looked more frightened than I could ever remember seeing him, as though afraid that what he was about to say was going to ruin everything.

“Daniel—”

“No, you don’t understand!” His voice rose and his eyes were filled with so much guilt and grief. “The night you got split, I was casting a spell my family had forbidden for a reason. I knew it was wrong and dangerous! I knew it! But I did it anyway!”

Hunter and I exchanged a look, and I saw the same awful understanding I felt reflected in his eyes.

“I was practicing the power-amplification spell, a forbidden and dangerous piece of magic. Because I was trying to gain enough power to shatter the geas.”

“Because you wanted to tell us you were a warlock,” Hunter said tonelessly. “That’s what this was, all along. You wanted to be honest. And then when we climbed in through the window and broke your circle—”

Daniel nodded sharply. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have messed with it.” His lips turned down again and I got the sense he wanted to look away but couldn’t make himself do it. “My family was right to forbid that spell. If I hadn’t been such an idiot, you could have had a totally different life. I did this to you.”

I heard Hunter’s sharp intake of breath beside me, which meant he probably felt the exact same way I did. Because Daniel was talking about the spell that had split us into two people. The spell that had ended one life—Hunter Lee Jameson—and created two in its place.

It had been an ordinary night, about four months after our father had passed away from prostate cancer—they’d caught it too late and it had already spread too far to fix. And we were feeling miserable and lonely, not to mention stressed out—the mortgage was way past due and we were about to lose the house. A laborer’s salary wasn’t enough to cover all the bills.

To distract ourselves, we were watching some stupid action movie on television that our dad had liked. Feeling a little lost, we’d turned the TV off and decided to go surprise Daniel—we’d needed some cuddles pretty badly. After all, he was right next door. And not answering our texts.

Then we’d climbed through his bedroom window, the way we’d done so many times before, and we’d seen him there, sitting cross-legged in his circle, his eyes rolled back in his head, surrounded by a ring of candles, an angry-looking purple vortex of raw magical power swirling above him. And we’d thought he was in terrible danger. We hadn’t thought twice about saving him, even though what we were seeing had made no rational sense.