Page 46 of Binding His Fated Mates

Hunter’s confidence wavered and his brows furrowed. “Of course you do.” Then he swallowed. “Are you—are you saying you don’t want to?”

Big yikes. Yeah, this was not a fun feeling, was it? Because, yeah, of course I wanted to. The idea of being close to Hunter and Lee was… everything my body and my heart craved.

But I was still trying to mentally catch up to the fact that Lee and Hunter no longer seemed to hate me.

Which was confusing, because the split had still happened, and it was still all my fault. It was my fault they’d become wolves, that their lives had been ripped away from them without warning. How could they just get over that so easily?

“Don’t you think it’s a little… fast?”

“You’re right. It is fast,” Lee agreed, ignoring Hunter’s mutinous glare. His gaze was locked on mine. “But it might be helpful if we begin how we mean to continue. None of us can undo the past two years, but we can choose what we do next.”

What he was saying made sense.

It was just…

Okay, Daniel, I told myself. You need to be brave all over again.

“How do I know if this is real?” I asked, forcing the words past the sudden tightness in my throat. “If I can trust any of this?”

Hunter let out a slow breath. “Oh, wow. Yeah, I deserve that.” His gaze flicked to Lee, who was watching me with a pensive expression. He didn’t seem especially surprised by my question. Hunter added, “I guess we both do.”

“I just—if this isn’t real, I couldn’t handle it. I can’t get close to you, either of you, if you’re going to shut me out again.”

“We won’t,” Hunter swore.

“Hunter,” Lee said softly, giving his twin a meaningful look. “He’s right.” His gaze returned to me and he gave me a gentle squeeze of his hand. “I wouldn’t blame you if you needed to take some time to figure out how you were feeling.”

“I know how I’m feeling,” I said immediately. “I want to. I always want to be close to you. I’ll probably always want that.” I wasn’t able to make myself look at either of them. And maybe it was selfish and ridiculous of me, but I needed to know. “But it was two whole years. Why didn’t you—either of you—ask me what happened?”

Hunter went rigid beside me, and I could feel his shame and guilt through the bond. Lee, too, but it was a pale echo of his twin’s emotions.

But it was Lee who answered for them. “When we woke up, we were confused and freaked out. We were dealing with a whole new life, without any warning. Our humanity was gone and we were suddenly werewolves. And we had to learn how to fight literal monsters, risking our lives with a bunch of strangers and never being able to tell anyone else. And Jeremy told us you’d begged him to do this to us.” He shook his head. “It was completely insane. We didn’t know what to think.”

He continued, “And the worst part was that man we’d always loved, who we’d always trusted, was this whole other person, and we’d had no idea. You had this secret double life that you hid for so long.” He paused. “And we built up this narrative that you were this bad guy—a liar. That you had been, all along. And that we couldn’t believe anything you said. That you’d done this to us on purpose. That or you’d just been careless.”

Beside me, Hunter flinched at Lee’s words. I understood completely. Because the baldness—the ugliness—of what he’d just said was awful.

A fresh round of tears stung in my eyes.

“All of that was wrong,” Lee said gravely. “We were wrong about everything, Daniel. We see that now. We were wrong to think any of it.”

The tears spilled over and I pulled my hands away from both of theirs to wipe them away furiously. It was humiliating, how easily I could cry in front of them. As if I’d saved up years of tears for this exact moment, and now I couldn’t stop.

Everything he was saying made perfect sense. And I’d known all of it already. Because of course they’d hated me for what I’d done. They’d been right to. But knowing that it didn’t undo the pain of it.

Hunter slid off the couch and dropped to his knees in front of me.

I jerked back, startled. And then I looked away from him, not wanting him to see how much hurt was in my eyes. Hurt they’d caused, even if I deserved every second of it.

“Daniel, look at me. Please, I’m begging.” Hunter took my hands. Forcing myself, I met his gaze. His eyes were glassy, his whole expression miserable. “I should have known better. I should never have assumed the worst of you. You didn’t deserve that.”

“No, if I hadn’t—”

He shook his head. “No. We forgave you. I told you before, that part is done. It’s over.” His gaze searched mine, luminous with tears. “This is the part where we ask—beg—you to forgive us.”

“But I understand why you guys hated me,” I choked out.

“We never hated you,” Lee said, putting his hand on my shoulder.