Page 44 of Binding His Fated Mates

And when we’d rushed forward in a blind panic, breaking his circle to pull him to safety, there had been a blinding flash of light.

And then pain. The worst I’d ever experienced. Every nerve ending exploded in anguish as if it had been dipped in gasoline and then set on fire.

Absolute agony, as though we were being ripped in half.

Because that’s exactly what had happened.

But Daniel hadn’t been doing it for power or curiosity or out of sheer recklessness, the way we’d always imagined.

He’d been doing it for us. He’d been trying to break the chains his family had put on him so he could tell the person he loved the truth about himself.

Daniel hadn’t chosen secrecy. He’d been caged by it, against his will. And rather than accept the cage, he’d tried to claw his way out—an eighteen-year-old warlock, performing forbidden, dangerous magic alone in his room, trying to overpower a spell cast by his entire family—all because telling us the truth mattered more to him than his own safety.

That’s what had caused everything. Not carelessness or arrogance. It had been love.

The irony was so brutal it almost made me laugh. Almost.

“The Henbanes are powerful,” Daniel continued, his words tumbling out faster, as if a dam had broken and everything was now pouring out, all at once. “They’re way more powerful than me. The whole family cast the geas together. I couldn’t match any of them individually and definitely not as a group. The amplification spell was supposed to give me enough power to break through it on my own.” His face crumpled again and he let out a ghastly-sounding laugh. “And my spell worked like a charm. I broke through the geas. But I couldn’t banish the power I’d conjured up—I was trying, but I still wasn’t strong enough. It was too volatile.” His voice went flat and toneless. “And then you know exactly what happened next.”

His amplification spell did the only thing it could on a person with absolutely no magical power—it doubled us. Or, more accurately, it tore us in half and created two versions.

Hunter Jameson and Lee Jameson.

Except, that was never supposed to happen to an ordinary human being. And our life force began rapidly dwindling to nothing. We’d both been dying.

I’d been in and out of consciousness after it happened. I barely remembered Daniel getting me into the back seat of my truck. I hadn’t even been aware of Hunter’s existence yet, that’s how messed up I’d been. I’d passed out on the drive to the commune.

And then I’d woken up as a wolf hours later, discovering that I now had a twin, that every plan I had for the future was suddenly gone, and that the man I’d trusted more than anything had hidden a whole other life from me for as long as I’d known him.

And then Hunter and I, confused and panicked, had learned that Daniel had begged Jeremy to force the bite onto us to save our lives from the spell he had cast. And everything that we’d learned about Daniel after that point—all the secrets he’d been keeping from us, the foolishness of what he’d done to cause this, the awful price we’d paid for his betrayal—it had broken us.

It had made Hunter and me despise him. We’d assumed the very worst of him. Because how could we trust him? We’d refused to even look at him for months after our transformation.

And when he had tried to talk to us, we’d walked away from him. Eventually he’d stopped trying to explain. And we’d clung tight to our anger and pain.

But we’d been dead wrong about everything.

And, for the very first time, I let myself really wonder: what had Daniel gone through that night? And every day after? The thought of it made my insides knot up with guilt and shame.

We’d been so convinced that, if Daniel had been able to keep something so massive a secret, we couldn’t trust anything out of his mouth. But that had been utter foolishness, hadn’t it? After all, we’d know, through the bond, if he was lying to us.

I knew now. And I was sure Hunter did, too. Daniel was being completely honest in his every word. I could feel it in my bones.

“I’m so sorry,” Daniel said, and the words came out choked and wet, his eyes spilling over. “I never wanted any of this to happen. I destroyed everything. And I’m just—I’m so sorry.” He pressed his hands against his eyes and turned away from us. “Goddess, I can’t believe I’m crying. What’s wrong with me?”

That was two years of guilt spilling down his cheeks. Two years of silence and self-recrimination and living in his barren little cabin, punishing himself every single day for a catastrophe that had started with love and his desire to finally be honest with us, to fight back against what his family had done to him.

Those tears were our fault.

Hunter and I looked at each other at the same moment and something passed between us.

What I saw in his face was the exact same stunned, crumbling realization I felt. And the same guilt, too—sharp and immediate.

Hunter moved first, crossing the small distance between them without warning, causing Daniel to flinch back from him.

“Hunter—”

“No, look at me. Daniel, please.”