Page 47 of Binding His Fated Mates

“Trust me, I tried really hard, but I couldn’t make myself do it. So I settled for pretending like you don’t exist,” Hunter said thickly. “And that was… I was so stupid, Daniel. And I’ll never do it again. I’ll always let you explain yourself.”

“Daniel, we need to apologize to you, too. Hunter is right—what we did to you was foolish and cruel. We never should have doubted you for a second. We were both so wrong.” Lee hesitated, giving his twin a long look, before turning back to me. “It won’t happen again. I—we—swear it.”

“For the record, it wasn’t Lee,” Hunter said harshly. “If it had been up to him, we would have asked you for the truth around month four, once we’d fully adjusted to what had happened to us. It was me.” His voice broke. “I did this, Daniel. I was the one who kept stopping this from happening. If you need to hate one of us, hate me. This is my fault.”

“I don’t hate you,” I said. Some of my hurt slid away and I realized I’d been clinging to it, too. Creating a narrative in my head that was just as untrue: that they couldn’t possibly forgive me or love me, ever again. I let it all go. “I understand why you guys did what you did.”

“Can you find a way to forgive us?” Lee asked.

Through the bond—and in his voice—I could hear and feel the sudden vulnerability in him.

In both of them, in fact.

“I forgive you,” I said, meeting Lee’s gaze and then Hunter’s. “But if this ever happens again—”

“It won’t,” Hunter said simply.

“Just don’t ice me out, okay? Ask me. Let me explain.”

“Done,” Hunter said solemnly, searching my gaze. “And I have a request, too.”

Lee’s brows shot up and he gave his twin a questioning look.

“Anything,” I said immediately. Because it was true.

“Please don’t ever keep anything big like that from us ever again. It wasn’t your fault. We know that. But no more secrets, okay? From now on, we tell each other everything. Total honesty.”

Doubt flashed through me. Because I hadn’t told them everything, had I?

I’d been working on a reversal spell, a way to undo all the harm I’d caused. But the spell wasn’t even done. It wasn’t a real possibility yet. And it was cruel to get their hopes up—that they might be able to go back to a normal life.

And then there was the selfish part: I didn’t want to upset the closeness we now shared. It felt fragile. As if any of us could shatter it at any moment.

Now wasn’t the right time to tell them.

“Okay,” I replied. “No more secrets.”

Tonight was for beginning to heal. And for learning how to do this—whatever this was—together. After all, we were three now, when before we’d been two.

“Okay,” I added. “Let’s try this.” My gaze slid to Lee, who was watching me with an oddly thoughtful expression on his face. “We’ll begin how we mean to continue.”

While I was in the bathroom getting ready for the evening, Hunter and Lee worked on pushing their beds together.

When I emerged, freshly showered, from the bathroom wearing only a thin white T-shirt and a pair of Hunter’s sweatpants—baggy on me, because Hunter and Lee were both taller and broader than I was—I caught sight of what they’d done.

They’d stripped their mattresses off the beds and pushed them together, piling the makeshift bed with blankets. They’d stood the wooden frames on one end of the cabin to make space in the center of the room. The result looked very bizarre. And structurally unsound.

“It didn’t work,” Hunter said, watching my expression. “There was a huge dip between the beds. You wouldn’t have been able to sleep. So, we did this instead.”

I hesitated at the edge of the makeshift bed they’d created, eyeing it warily. “Is this going to be weird?”

“It’s going to be a little weird. There’s no getting around that,” Lee said. “But if you’re comfortable with it, we want you to join us tonight. If you’re not, we’re okay with that too. It’s okay to say that, even now. It’s always your choice.”

Hunter shot him a glare, but he didn’t disagree. Instead, he turned back to me and said, “We’ll respect your choices. But if you’re okay with it, Lee’s right. We want you between us. We have a lot of lost time to make up for.”

My cheeks heated up at the implications of that and I nodded. “Okay. I’m—I’m okay with that.” I swallowed. “I want to.”

Hunter grinned, his eyes sparkling and filled with emotion. He didn’t even seem to try to hide it. Lee’s expression matched his almost exactly.