AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Kiva,” I call. “Dottie!” My sisters stop tossing axes and hurry to the kitchen. They’ll know better than anyone with their shifter mates.
“What is it?” Kiva asks, her hatchet in hand as if she’ll hack away whatever problem I’m facing.
“I can’t feel Nolan,” I say. “The colors, the knowing that he’s there—it’s gone.”
“You didn’t tell us you’d begun the mating dance with him,” Dottie says. Her butterfly wings crowd the kitchen, brushing against the ceiling.
“Come on,” Kiva says with a smirk. “You could look at the two of them and know banging was inevitable.”
“Have you ever lost your connection to Stone?” I ask her. “Or Chase?” I ask Dottie. The two of them went through hell to spend forever with their shifters, but I don’t have any experience with how a mating bond starts or stops.
“When I died,” Kiva says, all teasing gone from her tone. “When the curse wiped out my memory.”
Dottie’s wings droop. “Mating doesn’t simply stop unless…” She drops her gaze to the floor.
“Unless something happened to Nolan,” I finish. “I need to find him. Can you keep the grimoire safe for me, Tisia?” When she nods, I head for the door, trying to decide where to start looking for him.
Kiva reaches for my arm. “Wait. Did you and Nolan complete the bond?”
I struggle not to squirm. I do not want to talk about the fun we were having in the garden before the fire at the hotel. “How would I know?” I mean it as an honest question about shifters and mating because I never got into my sisters’ sex lives. Not my Fury sisters. Not my real sister. But Kiva snort-laughs as if I’ve made a joke.
“Trust me, you would know,” she says.
“Stop it.” Dottie waves her away. “Did you accept Nolan’s mating claim while you two were doing the deed?”
Kiva snorts again. “Banging. Boning. Seriously, just say having sex, Dottie. We’re all big girls here.”
“I’m so glad I’m not a Fury,” Tisia mutters.
“We didn’t—” I cut myself off. I am not admitting to everyone that I’m a virgin. “No.”
“Then you’re not mated,” Dottie rushes to say before Kiva can interject. “He didn’t bite you, did he?”
My face goes red. I refuse to talk about his sexy-time nips on my thighs.
“No teeth marks,” Kiva says. “He would’ve bitten her where everyone could see her broken skin if he was following that stupid wolf custom.”
“Not fully mated,” I say. “Not mated at all right now which is why I need to be going so I can figure out what happened.”
Tisia holds up the herbs and candles from the ritual that I closed. “What if you severed the bond when you cut the cord?”
“You can do that?” Dottie asks. “Why would you wish away having a mate?”
“Because he’s an asshole,” Kiva says. “And a wolf marshal. No one wants to mate into that madness.”
Oh no. I didn’t erase the grief from losing my family. The magic read my hurt over Nolan as the connection that needed cutting. “Do you think he noticed that our link is gone?” I ask.
Kiva’s smirk only gets bigger. “Oh yeah.”
“He has to be so devastated,” Dottie whispers.
“I can fix this.” I think.
“Do you want to?” Tisia asks. “Maybe the ritual cured exactly what you needed to cut out of your life.”
I honestly don’t know what I want, but I have to make sure he’s okay. “I need to talk to Nolan.”
“We’ll come with you,” Dottie offers. “At least until you know he’s safe.”
