CHAPTER ONE || DANIEL #2
Tamrand appeared in the kitchen doorway behind Sally, his arms crossed over his chest. He was lean and auburn-haired, with vivid blue eyes that were just slightly too bright to pass for entirely human.
Which was no surprise, given that he wasn’t human at all.
He didn’t look especially happy with us.
Which probably meant he’d heard everything, despite us keeping our voices low.
Aside from the basics—they couldn’t break their word, they mostly lived in the Otherworld, and they were damn good at illusion magic—I knew virtually nothing about the fae.
Their hearing could’ve been sharper than a vampire’s, for all I knew.
Or maybe they could read minds. Tamrand hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with details.
Or with words in general, apart from showing up on our doorstep and insisting we rescue Sally immediately after the Algea had taken her.
“Please inform your alpha that the pack’s assistance was appreciated. Naturally, if you need my aid in return, I am happy to give it,” Tamrand told us, not sounding happy in the slightest. I also didn’t miss the way his statement excluded Sally. “I am in your debt.”
“We’ll keep that in mind,” Lacey replied, shooting me a baffled what the hell just happened? sort of look.
I gave the smallest of shrugs in return. I had no idea why Tamrand didn’t want us talking to Sally about the supernatural world. It was actually a little strange that he hadn’t told Sally all of this himself. I was sure she must’ve asked.
Right then, a group of people walked in.
Sally shot Tamrand a tight look, then nodded at us, before going to help the new patrons.
Tamrand stalked back into the kitchen without another word.
“Weird guy,” Lacey commented, popping a fry into her mouth and chewing.
“Definitely.”
* * *
On the drive back to the commune, Lacey was quiet for about three minutes. Which, for her, was basically a lifetime.
“So,” she said, her blue eyes fixed on the road ahead. The windows were down and the midsummer wind bounced and tossed her blond ponytail across her shoulder. “What was that all about?”
“What was all what about?”
She frowned. “Daniel, I’m your best friend. Talk to me. Because that was… weird. You don’t usually push people like that.”
“Oh.” I shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat. “I—uh—I heard her heart beating. It was going really fast. I knew she wasn’t okay.”
Lacey tore her gaze from the road to fix me with a wide-eyed stare. “You did what?”
“Please don’t murder me with your driving. You’d probably live through it if we drove off the side of the mountain. I wouldn’t.”
She huffed but dutifully returned her eyes to the road. Her grip tightened on the steering wheel. “That kind of hearing isn’t witchcraft, right? It sounds like a wolf thing.”
“It’s definitely not a warlock thing,” I confirmed. “I’ve been hearing things like that—”
“Like heartbeats.”
“Yeah. Since the initiation ceremony. There’s other stuff, too, I guess.”
“What kinds of things?”
“It’s not that big of a deal.”
She pursed her lips, giving me a look that could’ve peeled paint before turning her attention back to the road.
“Daniel, the initiation was supposed to be symbolic, a way for us to show you that you were really one of us. Like a marriage ceremony.” She sounded exasperated with me.
“But if it’s literally altering your senses, that’s the opposite of ‘no big deal.’ What else has been happening? ”
I sighed, wondering if there was a way to change the subject. Probably not.
“There’s other stuff—small things, mostly. Smells are a little sharper. And I can see better in the dark.” Actually, my night vision had improved so dramatically that I could see almost as well in total darkness as I could during the day. I added, “Nothing crazy.”
“Okay, so you suddenly have werewolf senses and you thought it wasn’t something you ought to mention?”
“It’s not a—”
“If you say ‘it’s not a big deal’ one more time, I swear I really am going to drive us both off a cliff.”
Not exactly an empty threat, given that we were high up in the Cascade Mountains.
“Fine. If we’re stuck on this, it’s pretty obvious, right? I mean, no non-wolf has ever joined the pack through initiation before. Obviously, the ceremony wasn’t entirely symbolic, and this is a side effect.”
“Right.” She pursed her lips, considering my words. “The initiation ceremony must’ve forged a magical bond that literally connects you with the pack.”
She seemed calmer, at least. I didn’t like the idea of her—or anyone—making a fuss over me. It was never necessary.
“Look, we already know that the pack is connected by subtle magical bonds. There’s a ton of lore about that in all the journals—”
“Err, right.” Lacey’s eyes were still glued to the road, but her expression went rueful. “We all so totally knew that. Because we’re all super familiar with the journals.”
I snorted. Lacey wasn’t much for reading.
“The initiation ceremony must’ve included me in the magic that binds together the pack. It’s a more elegant explanation than the initiation ceremony establishing a brand-new connection. Magic follows the path of least resistance.”
“Right. Obviously. Everyone knows that.”
I rolled my eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with not being a book nerd, Lacey.
” Then I added, “But if we can assume that’s all true, the wolfy senses are just a side effect from that.
The magic that makes you guys into werewolves changed me slightly, too, once I bonded with it.
It’s making me a little more wolf-like. That’s all this is. ”
“You’re talking like this is nothing.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying. It isn’t a big deal.”
Lacey drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, processing. “We should tell Reed and Harris.”
Reed was technically the pack’s alpha, but his fated mate, Harris, had gained alpha powers after becoming a werewolf six weeks ago. Since then, they’d been splitting pack leadership.
“Please don’t. I don’t want to cause any problems.”
“Daniel.”
“I’m serious, Lacey. Things have been quiet. The pack is stable. Reed and Harris have enough on their plate without worrying about my weird new parlor tricks.”
I settled back in my seat and stared out the window at the towering pines blurring past us.
I didn’t trust myself to glance over at her, because then she might see from my face how frightened I felt at the prospect of them realizing they’d screwed up, realizing I didn’t actually belong there, and kicking me out of the pack as a result.
“Promise me you’ll keep this between us. ”
“Fine,” she said at last. “But if this gets worse—”
“It won’t. And it’s not bad to begin with.”
“If there’s literally anything new—or if any of your senses get any stronger and more wolfy—you’re telling them. Or I am.”
It was probably the best I could hope for. I scowled out the window. “Deal.”
“And nothing else is going on?”
“No,” I lied. Because the sharpened senses weren’t even the strangest thing in my life.
But I definitely wasn’t going to tell Lacey about that. The nightly dreams involving the twins who weren’t really twins, Hunter and Lee. I’d never told anyone about them.
Besides, the dreams weren’t new. They had been happening every single night for almost two years. Since the very first night Hunter and Lee had become werewolves.
I’d been fooling with forbidden magic—hoping to find a way to break the spell my family had placed on me years before—and Hunter Lee Jameson, my childhood best friend and the love of my life, had walked in at exactly the wrong moment.
Because he’d never known I was a warlock, seeing a vortex of literal magic swirling over my head had caused him to panic and he’d broken my circle.
My spell, designed to double my powers, had instead gone into him.
It had split him into two people.
And both halves had begun dying almost immediately.
I hadn’t been able to reverse my own magic.
My only choices had been to let them both die or for them to become supernatural creatures, the only thing that would stabilize the magic that was leeching away their life force, because it had never been meant for a human person.
I hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of them becoming vampires—so werewolves were the only other option.
I’d cast a locator spell to find the nearest pack of werewolves and then driven for hours, straight into the Cascade Mountains in the dead of night, with Hunter and Lee unconscious and clinging to life by a thread in the back seat, tears burning in my eyes.
And then I’d thrown myself at the mercy of Jeremy Brightborn, the pack’s former alpha.
He had agreed to save them by making them into wolves.
Under the condition that I stayed with the pack, that I did everything he commanded, until he released me. Though the price of saving them was my freedom, I would have agreed to anything at that moment. There was nothing I wouldn’t have done.
Besides, I wouldn’t have been able to leave them. I still couldn’t.
But the truth was, I’d stolen their humanity from them that night.
Their futures. Everything they might’ve been.
And when they’d woken up, confused and no longer human, they’d discovered that their childhood best friend, the man they’d fallen in love with, the person who knew all of their hopes and dreams, had been lying to them for years about who he really was, on top of everything else.
Even if I’d had no other choice. But they didn’t know that part. After all, they’d never let me explain.
I was the reason Hunter and Lee were werewolves. And they’d never forgive me for it.
* * *
After we’d arrived back at the commune and I stepped back into my cabin, alone, I told myself, as I did every single day, that things were looking up.
Because they totally were.