Page 62 of Binding His Fated Mates

By night, Reed assigned everyone in the pack—including Daniel—to protect the borders of Crescent Springs until daybreak, in case the creatures decided to attack another resident in the night, the way they had Robert. As a favor to Reed, Lindsey—the former alpha’s sister and Reed’s closest friend—had agreed to run the bar after nightfall, with pay, so that the rest of us could focus on protecting the town from the monsters.

Each night, Hunter and I stayed close to Daniel, the three of us guarding the southern border of the town. The rest of the pack was protecting other parts of the town, staying just inside the forest so that we wouldn’t be spotted by residents who might have questions we’d have a hard time answering. We were all armed with battery-powered floodlights and blindingly bright flashlights. By mutual agreement, we’d decided that it made more sense to remain in human form—both in case we were discovered and in case we actually encountered the monsters. Light was the only thing we knew worked against them. I’d already proven that teeth, claws, and supernatural strength weren’t enough.

On the third night after our encounter with them in the clearing, the monsters attempted to gain access to Crescent Springs along the western border of the town, which faced the forest and was guarded by Harris and Reed. Our alphas turned on their floodlights and the monsters fled into the darkness of the forest.

They didn’t make another attempt that night.

Without knowing exactly what they were, what they were capable of, or how to kill them, Harris and Reed agreed that it was wisest not to engage them.

Yet.

Standard protocol when dealing with an unknown threat.

Reed lifted the pack’s quarantine just over a week after the fight in the forest. The magical surges had settled, just as Daniel predicted they would, and far ahead of schedule.

Sarah had experienced nothing more dramatic than a few flickering lights that reflected her frustration when attempting to decipher difficult passages in her research on the monsters. Even Reed’s electrical problem had resolved itself, though I’d caught Harris confiding in Hunter, with a wry smile, that they were definitely keeping the candles. The expression on Hunter’s face had been priceless.

But Daniel seemed troubled when we sat down at the pack meeting. “It’s too fast,” he said, his eyebrows pulling together and confusion filling his dark eyes. “According to the journals, the manifestations weakened over time. They didn’t just… stop. And that took weeks—almost a full month.”

“Right, but that was with a full coven of witches and warlocks, right?” I pointed out. “Maybe they had more magic to deal with. Maybe that’s why it took longer for them.”

Daniel didn’t seem at all convinced. “Maybe.”

Despite our mate’s troubled expression, when the pack gathered in the mess hall for the first time in more than a week, it felt like a homecoming.

Emma had gone all out again—pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, and carafes of coffee. The long tables were crowded, the noise level high, and the atmosphere was a palpable mix of relief and curiosity. Whatever else had been happening behind closed doors during the quarantine—when we weren’t out protecting the town—our people were hungry for answers.

They were also, I realized the moment we walked in, hungry for gossip.

Daniel entered the mess hall between Hunter and me. It wasn’t a deliberate statement—I was pretty sure the three of us had gotten so used to being inseparable that we hadn’t even thought about how it would look to everyone else. Hunter positioned himself on Daniel’s right and I was on his left.

The pack, however, immediately noticed.

Emma saw us first when we walked in. Her eyes widened fractionally. Then a slow, knowing smile spread across her face. She set down her spatula and nodded at us. Her expression was oddly smug, as if our mere presence together—our very close and, for once, nonhostile presence—had confirmed something she’d suspected for a long time. Huh.

Sarah openly stared at us, her mouth hanging open like it had lost a hinge. Then she recovered and raised her eyebrows at Daniel in a question I had no trouble deciphering: are you okay?

Daniel’s cheeks turned pink and he gave her a tiny nod.

Oliver glanced up, registered the arrangement, and returned to his breakfast without comment. But the corners of his mouth twitched, as if he was fighting back a smile.

Reed, from his spot at the head of the table, caught my eye and gave me a look that said, very clearly, it’s about time.

It wasn’t like he was wrong. Hunter and I were about two years late to the party.

Harris, sitting beside his mate, just grinned at us as we walked in.

I was startled to see Tamrand here as well. He was seated across from our two alphas, his lips pressed into a thin line and his blue eyes narrowed suspiciously at Harris and Reed. His hair looked more brown than red in the murky gray morning light that filtered in through the windows.

Huh. Weird. What was the fae doing here?

He, at least, didn’t seem remotely interested in the entrance Daniel, Hunter, and I had made.

Daniel went rigid with nerves beside me as his gaze swept across the mess hall. Clearly, it hadn’t occurred to our mate until just now that this pack breakfast might be in any way different from the others.

That this was, in fact, our very first time together as a couple—or, well, a throuple—in front of the pack.

In a wordless way, I understood that he was feeling the old instinct to make himself small, to deflect attention, to take up less space. His bright, armor-plated smile was no doubt threatening to deploy itself at any moment.