Chapter 33
The coven and I sat around the Reading Room with our bellies full after Cecelia had provided a particularly delectable breakfast. She’d been plying me with food all weekend, and I’m not ashamed to say I ate it.
Well, most of it. I still had the images and scents of Gumbo’s overindulgence to serve as a cautionary reminder of what happens when you let the scales tip. For his part, Gumbo already looked better. He was back to being a reasonably fat cat who dabbled in cream.
He’d spent the entire weekend suspiciously close to me, though he wouldn’t tell me what the Hem was, or why we should care that it was fraying. He only told me he’d learned his lesson and distracted me whenever I wanted to wallow.
And boy, did I want to wallow.
But now it was Monday morning, I had one week until Valentine’s Day, and I had no idea what version of Cupid would come in for his session.
And while we’d originally planned on the Reading Room being an occasional meetup space for important matters, most of us found our way up here in our free time.
Since Nina’s attack on Friday, the coven had also remained suspiciously close to me. I hadn’t been fully alone since, well, since I’d thrown myself at Ray and gotten soundly rejected. A story I was finally telling my friends.
“Oh, my God, how did you respond?” Lauren was yanking on her ponytail so hard I thought it might come clean out of her head.
“I believe my exact words were … ‘Oops.’” My lip trembled, so I bit down on it. I’d also spent the weekend crying, and with only minutes until Cupid arrived, I was trying my damndest not to be red-eyed.
“Oh, Simone. I’m so sorry.” Brianne looked at me with fresh sympathy. She knew the story already. I’d come straight back to the Magnolia and blubbered it to her. “Every time I hear it, it hurts a little more.”
“Tell me about it,” I muttered. “I’d been so sure. It was right there in the codex. All the pieces seemed to fit.” I flounced back in my chair. “How could I have been so very wrong?”
The codex was open on the table in the center of us. I’d read the passages to them, too. And we’d all come to the same conclusion.
“I’m not well versed in the codex, but I would have assumed the same.” Lauren leaned forward, reading the book aloud as if I hadn’t already done that a dozen times.
A wolf shifter's greatest strength is, ironically, also its greatest weakness: the fated mate.
This individual, who the wolf recognizes long before the human, causes a rift in the structure of a shifter.
For a short period, their wolf element separates from their human element, both acting independently to serve their immediate interests.
For example, the wolf side might become volatile and fierce, restless unless their fated mate is near.
Meanwhile, the human may respond by withdrawing, unsure of their emotions and cautious to pursue. This is especially amplified when their fated mate is not a wolf shifter, has additional abilities of their own, or entertains the attention of another unmated shifter.
It is only through the claiming of their mate that they can reunite fully. If that does not happen, or if the mate rejects them, then over time, the weaker element may grow complacent or, worse, dominant.
“Ray was wolf-like when we were together thirty years ago. By all accounts, he matured and stabilized.” I looked to Lauren and Brianne for confirmation, waiting for their nods before continuing.
“Then I return, his wolf wakes up, and poor Ray is at battle with himself. He even told me that his wolf was out of control around Ethan and he couldn’t explain why. ”
“Did he kiss you like a friend?” Lyra rotated the book toward herself. She’d been quiet up until that point. “Or did he kiss you like you were a fated mate?”
I sighed. My body warmed at the memory of it. “He kissed me like a starving man being offered a steak platter.”
Lauren made a little swooning sound, which did not help matters.
“So you thought Ethan was hit by the arrow?” Lyra asked. “And Ray’s … behavior came from the recognition that his unclaimed fated mate had returned?”
“Sums it up,” I said, banging my head against the chair cushion.
“But you friend-zoned Ethan.” Lydia was watching me carefully. She, too, had been mostly silent.
“I did.” I gnawed on my finger. I wasn’t sure what feelings of Ethan’s would return if my theory was right and I resolved the Cupid dilemma. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I was confident we weren’t meant to be more than friends.
“I think that would have happened anyway. I kept feeling blocked. In here.” I patted my chest.
“It was always Ray,” Lauren said softly.
“It was always Ray.” Sure enough, my throat was clear as a bell.
This was a truth I knew with every fiber of my being.
Damn. “When the weather was crazy, one of those nights Ray got stuck as his wolf, I told him part of me would always belong to him.” I wiped at my cheeks.
Not crying was apparently not an option.
“I didn’t want to admit how big that part was. I didn’t believe we had a chance.”
“Why not?” Lydia turned to me, slamming closed the book she hadn’t touched before. “Why didn’t you want to admit that?”
Through our threadbond, her anxiety reached me. She wasn’t asking for me. She was asking for herself. For the fae terrified of her feelings for a mortal. I took a moment, trying to choose my words carefully instead of being Blurty McBlurtface.
“Before I came to the Magnolia, I was a coward. I ran from anything that scared or challenged me, even remotely. And because of my ward, I didn’t fully remember Ray.
Or anything.” I drew in a shaky breath. “Once I returned, I had to face so much. All the things I’d turned away from.
The person I’d become. I feel like I’ve been knocking my trauma down like dominoes.
Or breaking walls, if you prefer the metaphor. ”
“I don’t like metaphors at all,” Lydia snapped.
I smiled at her. “Fine. I had to be brave enough to see myself, flaws and all, and still love who I saw. Now that I’m doing that, there’s room in my heart for me to love someone else.”
She shook her head. “I don’t get it.”
“Okay. Loving Ray felt like a gamble where I’d already stacked the odds against myself. I didn't see myself as worthy, so I didn’t want to risk admitting how I felt about him. I didn’t want to set myself up for failure.”
“But you did fail. What?” Lydia turned to Lyra, who’d attempted to shush her. “She did.”
“I did.” It hurt beyond anything I could explain to Lydia. But if anything good could come from this, maybe her taking her own steps forward would make me feel better. One day. “But if I had to do it all over again, Lydia, I would.”
“Why?” Her eyes brimmed with tears.
“Oh, I can answer that one,” Brianne said. “If the pain is this bad, imagine the joy. You can’t experience one without the other.”
“Besides,” Lauren added. “If we don’t take risks for ourselves, who’s going to take them for us?”
They were exactly right, and I had some hope that things might fall back in line for the rest of my coven. Lauren sounded like she was preparing to take her own steps. Brianne was back in a place of joy. As for the Twins, well …
“Are you still breaking ground on the new construction today?” I looked to Lyra, then to Lydia.
They exchanged their own glances, their silent communication seemingly solid again. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard them bicker. Of course, a lot had happened in the past few weeks. Too much.
“Yes.” Lydia smiled tentatively. “Neil Diamond will be here at three.”
“I can’t wait,” I told her.
A chime sounded, like a bell in a shop when a customer enters. We all looked at one another, confused, because the Magnolia did not have a door alert. Cecelia wanted us to know someone was in the lobby. I got up and leaned over the railing.
Well, honk my horn and call me a goose.
Cupid was early for his session.
And he wasn’t alone.