Page 96 of Binding His Fated Mates

Her power joined with mine and spread across the clearing.

The elemental powers pouring into Hunter and Lee began to sputter.

Our parents both stared at her with identical expressions of outrage.

Rowan had disagreed with them, she’d tried to negotiate and reason with them, but she had never, not even once, tried to openly defy them.

Tears prickled in my eyes and gratitude surged through me. Our voices threaded together into one—the math becoming almost even.

Working together, Rowan and I had a shot at stopping our parents.

Then, with a triumphant roar, Micah screamed out his incantation one last time, his hands sweeping down violently.

In the same instant, I felt my storm dissolve completely, withering away to nothing. There was nothing I could do to stop it—not without giving up the counterspell.

The thick black clouds overhead vanished an instant later. The rain and lightning stopped and the wind died, leaving a shocked hush in its wake.

Then Micah joined our parents in their incantation, his gaze, filled with malice, locked on me.

The elemental power began to rush in again, striking Hunter and Lee.

Dizziness swept through me. My vision started to gray out and my stomach turned.

For an instant, I thought I’d be sick.

Or maybe that I’d collapse then and there.

It was all over now.

Maybe it was foolish to keep going. I had never been able to stand up to my family. And once they had defeated me, weak as I now was from overexertion, I wouldn’t be able to stop them from doing anything they wanted to me.

And they would, without question, punish me for my defiance.

But that barely mattered. Hunter and Lee were what mattered. I couldn’t give up. If my mates were going to be unmade against their will, the last thing they’d ever see would be me fighting for them.

I forced myself to keep speaking the counterspell, to keep pouring my power into it.

Dimly, I heard running footsteps behind me. Then a warm hand slid into mine. I looked over to see Lacey standing beside me, her expression fierce and determined.

Then she did something impossible.

She copied the words of the counterspell—badly, because her pronunciation was terrible, especially given that she’d never cast a spell before.

But that wasn’t the impossible part.

What didn’t make any sense at all was that I felt a thin thread of power flow from her and into me from where her hand had joined with mine.

From the way her eyes widened, I knew she felt it too.

Beside me, Rowan straightened up. Her words became more forceful than before.

The elemental power my family was conjuring began to falter again.

Micah and my parents all wore matching shocked expressions, but they didn’t stop.

Then, a moment later, Reed and Harris stepped out of the forest, their hands joined. Their eyes were glowing molten gold and their lips were moving as well. Just like Lacey, they were copying the words of the counterspell. As he chanted, Reed took Rowan’s free hand.

Impossibly, it was working.