CHAPTER EIGHTEEN || LEE #2
“Oh. Oh, no.” Daniel’s face drained of color. “That’s where they went. It wasn’t a closed circuit at all.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but there was a look of awful understanding on our mate’s face.
“That’s why you’re here,” he added, his voice toneless. “The sympathetic manifestations went into all of you. Into my bloodline. I should have known.”
“Yes. You should have. And is that what you’re calling these travesties? These perversions of our sacred power?” Ash’s voice was acid and his lips slid into a sneer. “Sympathetic manifestations?”
Carmellia frowned at Ash. Clearly, they’d agreed on the carrot rather than the stick, but Ash wasn’t holding up his end of it.
Before anyone could reply, she put in, “Whatever you did when you joined your magic with this pack—and yes, we do know about that—it sent a shockwave through every magical connection you have. Including the ones that bind you to us. We came to help you fix it.”
Ash added, “Our family’s magic—magic that has been stable and powerful for generations—has been defiled because you decided to tie yourself to a group of animals.”
The word animals landed in the room like a slap. I felt Hunter’s fury spike through the bond.
“The disruptions should settle on their own,” Daniel protested. “They’ll fade in a month. Maybe even just a few weeks. If you guys can just wait—”
“We are not interested in waiting,” Ash said. “Nor are we interested in allowing the magic of our sacred bloodline to be sullied by these beasts.”
“We’ve come to bring Daniel home,” Carmellia said, speaking to Hunter and me. “Once he’s back with the family, we can stabilize the disruption and repair the damage to our bonds. This situation is untenable. I trust that you won’t attempt any foolishness?”
“I’m not—I don’t—” Daniel started.
“Daniel.” Ash’s voice didn’t rise, but the authority in it was absolute.
“This isn’t a discussion. You made a mistake.
More than one, it seems. We are here to correct your errors.
That’s final. We’ve been exceedingly kind under the circumstances, but we’re willing to use force if we must. What will it be? ”
Daniel’s lips snapped shut. His shoulders dropped further, all of the fight seeming to sag out of him at once.
And I realized, with icy clarity, that Daniel’s family had never seen him as a person with agency.
In their eyes, he was a problem to be managed.
A dangerous variable to be controlled. Nothing more than that.
“Get out,” I said, the words coming out flat and cold. They weren’t really angry. Because I was way past anger. This was something harder and more final than that. Beside me, Hunter’s fury had gone quiet, too. It had compressed into something dense, focused, and dangerous.
“Excuse me?” Carmellia said, her eyebrows climbing.
“You heard him. Get out of this cabin. Now,” Hunter growled.
His voice matched mine—low, steady, filled with cold fury and the promise of murder.
A wolf defending his mate. “You’re not welcome here—not on this commune and not in this town.
” A dangerous smile slid across his lips. “We’re willing to use force as well.”
Ash studied us for a long moment. His face didn’t change, but something in his posture shifted—a recalculation, perhaps.
“Daniel is ours,” I added fiercely. “He belongs with us. And with the pack. Leave now, before this conversation goes somewhere none of us can come back from.”
Rowan looked up at Ash. “Dad, we should go.”
Ash held my gaze for another beat. Then he stood, smoothing his jacket with deliberate precision. Carmellia rose beside him. Micah pushed back from the desk, his expression furious and ugly.
“This isn’t over,” Ash said, looking past us to Daniel. The words were directed at his son, not at Hunter or me. “One way or another, you will be leaving with us.”
Carmellia gave Hunter and me an icy smile, her dark eyes glittering in a way that I didn’t like.
“My husband is correct. We’ve said everything we need to say.
” She paused and her gaze slid to Daniel again.
“You may have until sundown to say your goodbyes. We will return for you then. We expect you to be packed and ready to leave. If you’re not, there will be consequences.
Not just for you, but for your friends here. ”
Micah sneered at his brother. “You know what we’re capable of.”
Daniel flinched, but he didn’t reply to that.
With that, the Henbanes filed out of the cabin.
Rowan was last. She paused in the doorway and looked back at Daniel, who was standing exactly where he’d been since we walked in, his eyes on the floor, his arms wrapped around himself.
“I’m sorry,” Rowan said softly. Her dark eyes, so much like Daniel’s, were bright with something that looked like genuine regret. “For what it’s worth, I tried to talk them out of coming.”
Daniel, shell-shocked and staring, didn’t acknowledge her.
Rowan’s expression crumpled, just for a moment, her dark eyes sweeping across her brother’s face. Then she sucked in a breath, as if to compose herself, and followed her family out into the early morning light.
The door closed behind them and the cabin went silent.
For a long time, Daniel didn’t move. He seemed to be staring without seeing anything at all.
Then he blinked and his gaze moved to the scattered papers on the floor around his desk. His brother had been here, rifling through Daniel’s notes, while we’d all been out protecting the town from monsters.
Hunter moved first. He put both hands on Daniel’s shoulders and ducked his head to meet Daniel’s lowered gaze. “Hey. Look at me.”
Our mate didn’t respond.
“Daniel.” Hunter’s voice was gentle. “They’re gone. It’s just us. You’re safe.”
Our mate raised his head. His dark eyes were glassy and distant, as if he’d retreated to some interior place where we couldn’t follow.
“I always told myself they wouldn’t bother coming. That I wasn’t worth the trouble.” His expression twisted into something that was probably trying to be a smile but looked way too ghastly for that. “I guess I was wrong about that.”
“They don’t get to take you anywhere you don’t want to go.” Hunter’s hands tightened on Daniel’s shoulders, the look in his eyes fierce. “Do you hear me? You’re not going back with them. They can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do!”
“You don’t understand.” Our warlock’s voice was toneless.
“The Henbanes decide what they want and then they do it. This is how they’ve always operated.
” He paused, shaking his head and dropping his gaze from Hunter’s.
“They’re more powerful than I am. More powerful than the pack, too.
If they want me to go with them, I’ll go. I won’t have a choice.”
“Like hell you will,” Hunter said.
I put my hand on Daniel’s back, between his shoulder blades. I could feel the tremors running through his body.
“You’re not alone,” I told him. “You have us. And you have the pack.”
Daniel nodded, but he didn’t look at either of us.
Hunter and I glanced at each other. My twin looked almost frightened by the change in our mate. His expression matched exactly how I felt.
With a hand on his back, I guided Daniel to the couch. We sat on either side of him. Hunter put an arm around his shoulders. I held his hand.
“They went through my things,” Daniel said at last, almost as if speaking to himself. His gaze moved to the open desk drawer, the scattered papers. “The desk. My notes. My research.”
The way his breath caught when he said the word research snagged my attention and I felt my brows draw together. But Daniel didn’t elaborate and it wasn’t the time to ask him. Not when he was this fragile.
Though the Henbanes had just said that Hunter and I were leading half a life, it didn’t feel that way. Not in this moment. Not when my mate and my other half both needed me.
I had never felt more real. More myself. Daniel and Hunter didn’t just make me real. They made me want to choose to be here, to be embodied in myself. To act.
Maybe I’d been asking myself the wrong question, all along. The self-serving one.
This wasn’t a philosophical question, or even an existential one. I existed. I was here.
Would I choose to be present, to do whatever it took, to bring everything I had, for the people I loved?
And that question had a far easier answer.
Yes. Yes, I would. Of course I would.
Hunter met my eyes over Daniel’s bowed head. The fury was still in his eyes. It was banked and controlled at the moment. Temporarily at bay because our mate needed us. But it was still there, smoldering under the surface.
The question in my twin’s eyes was easy to read: what do we do?
But I didn’t have an answer. Not a tactical one, anyway. Not yet.
What I did have was a profound certainty. The Henbanes wouldn’t take Daniel from us. They wouldn’t make him do anything he didn’t want to do. I didn’t care what it cost. I didn’t care what I had to do. Hunter and I wouldn’t allow anyone to take our mate from us.
We, along with the pack, were his people. We were his family now. We belonged to Daniel. And he belonged to us.
The three of us, together, made each other real.
Hunter seemed to understand exactly what I was thinking. Because, with his gaze on mine, something hardened in his expression and he nodded. We would fight for Daniel. We would always fight for Daniel. And for each other.