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He’s Duke, and before the trip he took across the country to California, he used to be one of Gem’s personal guard. I never really got the details from her, but four packmates pledged themselves to her right before she performed the Luna Ceremony with Ryker. She’s been trying to get rid of them since, and only managed to off-load one of them.
As Duke gingerly sits down on the seat across from my desk, I know I’m looking at him.
“Hello, Duke,” I say warmly. “How are you?”
His brow is furrowed, his golden eyes bleak as he nods back in greeting. “Been better,” he says, his voice rough and scratchy. He lifts a hand, rubbing the side of his throat, drawing my attention to the thin silver lines that travel the length of it.
Claw marks.
Mate marks.
I open up my senses. There’s a twisted bond wrapped around the male, but despite the marks on his throat, it’s not complete.
Suddenly, I think I understand why Gem insisted that I meet with her packmate in Muncie, instead of me taking the trip up to Accalia. For Duke’s sake—and probably mine, too—I think this might be a conversation that needs to be had away from pack land.
I just hope I’m wrong.
“Gem told me you needed to speak to me. That it couldn’t wait.” She said it wasn’t her story to tell, but I was the only one who could make him see sense. Let’s find out if she’s right. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s about Trish.”
Patricia Danvers is a delta she-wolf, another member of the Mountainside Pack. Though I only met her once, when the Wicked Wolf sent Aidan Barrow—a Mountainside traitor—to bring her back to the Wolf District to force Gem and Ryker’s hand, she’d been unconscious at the time. Pumped full of quicksilver, Walker wanted her docile. He quickly realized that she wasn’t going to be as easy to control when she wasn’t drugged, and when Trish refused to shift back to her skin after regaining consciousness, he had her locked up in the district’s cells.
I heard about her captivity through the rumor mills that always ran rampant back then. I’m ashamed to say that, on one hand, I envied her for being able to refuse Walker in ways that I couldn’t; on the other, I wished someone would come for me the way that Gem and her two guards came for Trish.
So much was going on when they were in the district. Walker had me moved so that I was kept near him at all times, and then Aleks was another casualty of his cruelty, so I was dealing with the realization that I found my fated mate. I barely had time to notice the bond that might belong to a pair of strangers.
Now, though, sitting across the space from Duke, hearing the pain in his voice as he simply says her name… I know exactly who is on the other end of Duke’s jagged bond.
“Your mate?” I ask softly.
“The female that should’ve been my mate,” he answers, “but who can’t be. That’s why I came here. That’s what I have to ask you… you can snap bonds. Break them. Yeah? She has too much to worry about right now. I… this tie between us isn’t helping her. It’shurtingher. It needs to go. Can you do that?”
Can I? Usually, when one mate wants to separate from another, all it takes is a brush of my hand and a little concentration. But even though his bond isn’t straight or whole, and he’s verbally asking for it to be snapped, that’s only when the matewantsto separate.
And Duke? He doesn’t. I can sense his desperation to keep the tie fighting against his instinct to sacrificeanythingfor his female’s happiness.
Poor guy. He’s holding his breath, waiting for my answer, though I’m not sure if it’s the one he’s expecting or even hoping for. It doesn’t matter. It’s the only one he’s going to get.
“Not all bonds can be broken—or should be,” I tell him after a moment’s thought. “Bless the Luna, but even fate doesn’t get it right all of the time. But even when she does, it’s not always easy. That doesn’t mean you should give up on it.”
Look at Gem and Ryker, for one. From what I’ve heard from her, he rejected her for his very own “reasons”, and she ran before he could explain just how ridiculous they were. The couple stayed apart for a whole year before they found their way back to each other, and now their bond is unbreakable.
Then there’s me and Aleks. I ignored the Luna’s constant whispers for five months, and even when Aleks was showing me how much he loved me, how much he cared, I still couldn’t find it in me to believe him until it was almost too late. Our mating wasn’t easy, but it was worth it.
If Duke could figure out a way to straighten the bond he shares with his female, it would be worth it for them, too. I know it, even if it’s hard to explain to someone without my abilities.
I don’t have to. Leaning forward in the seat, Duke asks, “So you won’t break the bond? You won’t even try?”
I honestly don’t believe it would do anything except cause me a painful blowback when my gift inevitably fails, but I don’t bother telling him that, either.
I just say, “I’m sorry, but no. I won’t.”
He sighs, hanging his head. “I was afraid you’d say that.” Duke shoves his fingers through his thick, dark hair before straightening in the seat, meeting my gaze with a shadowed expression. “Probably more afraid that you’d agree.”
Just as I thought. “Because you didn’t really want me to, did you?”
“No. But it doesn’t matter what I want. It only matters what’s good for Trish.”
I give him a gentle smile. “And that right there is exactly why I can’t do it.”
“What should I do then?” asks Duke. I get the idea that he isn’t really askingme, but throwing the question out to the universe in an act of desperation.
I answer him anyway.
“Just love her.” I think of Aleks, and how everything changed once I allowed myself to love him—and to believe that he actually loves me in return. “Love her, and it’ll all work out somehow.”
After all, it did for us.
