Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Penrith watched Mitchell leave, even though every cell in his body demanded he follow his mate. He’d wanted to stand up and kiss him, which was the traditional way to start the bond. He wanted to tell him they could figure it out together.
Instead, he sat there silently, as though he didn’t want a mate in any sense of the word.
He finished his now cold coffee, then made his way through the cafe and back upstairs to his desk. He’d spent more time at his bloody desk in the last four months than he had in the last two decades. He wasn’t used to being deskbound. But he was used to the looks of pity he got from the others who’d heard why he’d been removed from active cases. He’d been living with those kinds of glances since he was sixteen.
He picked at the chip in his nail polish as he waited for the lift to crawl its way back up. He didn’t want to think about what it might mean that Mitchell wanted the bond.
He’d been preparing to lose his magic for the last four months. Well, the last three, once it was clear Mitchell would live. Before that, he’d been convinced he might die because he had refused to surrender his magic—that might have killed Mitchell, and he couldn’t do it. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing in the Coven’s eyes. And he didn’t care, as it had been the right thing to do.
Is that what Mitchell was doing? Agreeing to the bond because it was the right thing to do?
Penrith wasn’t sure how he felt about that, either.
The lift doors opened, and he walked along the corridor to his office.
He didn’t make it that far, though, as Taylor stepped out of his office.
The snake shifter had been there that night, though he’d been watching over Justin, the wolf they’d set up to be captured, who was also his boyfriend. They had kept that quiet before the job.
“I hear your familiar stopped by.” Taylor lifted one eyebrow.
“Yeah, he did.”
“From the look on your face, that mustn’t have gone well.”
“He’s giving a statement.” Penrith shrugged. There was nothing he could do to make things go faster or change the outcome. That was something he’d made peace with very quickly so that if his life came to a screeching halt, he didn’t die with a pile of regrets. It was why he painted his damn nails now. It was a small thing, but something he’d always wanted to do and hadn’t done after his father had rapped him over the knuckles with a ruler for borrowing his mother’s one time.
His father had been the only non-witch in the family. And in a small Welsh town, being a witch was one thing, but a boy painting his nails was another and a step too far.
He’d tasted every one of his father’s regrets while trying to save his life after a truck collided with the family car. They’d been going on their first family holiday, and his parents had been saving for years. His mother and sister had been killed instantly. One second, his sister had been sitting next to him, and the next, the truck had taken that half of the car.
He’d kept his father alive until the ambulance arrived. Then he’d passed out from exhaustion and his own injuries. When he woke up, he was in the hospital, and all his family was dead. He understood too well how life could be derailed in a second, what it was like to wake up and find the world had changed so much he no longer fit.
“What do you think he’s going to say?” Taylor pressed.
Penrith shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t want to start hoping, nor do I want to start looking for a human job.”
Taylor grinned. “The Coven won’t kick you out even if you lose your magic. You know too much.”
Penrith didn’t. He had no other skills. After being packed off to live with his mother’s sister half a world away, he had kind of fucked up the last couple of years of his schooling. He’d joined the army for a couple of years before deciding that working for the Coven wouldn’t be so bad. Turns out the only use they had for him was putting his life on the line for everyone else. At twenty-one, he didn’t give a fuck about the future.
At forty, he did.
There were some things he didn’t want to do anymore, but he wasn’t ready to shift into training other agents. He liked getting his feet wet and going into the field.
“We’ll see,” was all Penrith said.
“You know the shifters are on your side, right? None of us think it was a deliberate binding.”
“Yeah.” He nodded, not that it made a difference what the shifters thought. “It’s one of those fall between-the-cracks, one-in-a-million situations.” He’d heard it all. “At least now he’s walked in. I’ll find out one way or the other.” That had been the worst part, the waiting and the uncertainty.
“Do you know what kind of bond you want?”
Growing up, the only people he’d known who had a familiar had claimed it was a magical relationship. He doubted that was the truth, but coming out as a queer witch in a small town would have drawn a few too many looks.
“I haven’t let myself think that far ahead.” But he had when Mitchell was sitting opposite him. He wondered what it would be like to kiss him. He wanted to find out what he did and how he spent his weekends. What pack did he run with? Because it sure as hell wasn’t the Outcast Pack. “I don’t even know if he likes men in that way.”
“But if he did…”
Penrith shook his head. “I’m not playing these games. I’ll wait and see how it plays out.”
Taylor’s tongue flicked out. “Liar. You want him.”
Fucking shifters. They always sensed too much.
“I want a lot of things; it doesn’t mean they want me.”
Taylor stepped in a little closer. “Look, I heard a little whisper that Mitchell wouldn’t kick you out of bed. Word is the reason he got picked up in the first place is because he was performing in a drag show.”
“Where did you hear that, or was it pillow talk?”
Because only a few people would be looking at Mitchell’s file, one of them would be Sam Carver, the other Justin Brook. Both were wolves, but Justin and Taylor were dating, and Justin was the head of legal. He pulled agents’ asses out of the fire when operations went wrong. Sam used to be head of cover-ups; now, he was in training and mission review. Both wolves ran with the Outcast Pack.
“I’m trying to help.”
“Giving me hope doesn’t help.” He didn’t want to feel it break apart. He’d rather expect the worst.
“Stop being so fucking grim.”
Penrith glared at him. “I want this over more than anyone. But being mates is more serious than a one-night stand.”
“Ah, so you would take him to bed.”
Penrith growled. That was something shifters understood.
His phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket. It was an internal call. Fuck.
“Flint,” he answered.
“Can you come to meeting room three?” the woman asked, though it was less of a question and more of a politely worded command.
“Sure, I’m on my way.” Not that he had a choice. “Looks like I’m about to find out if I can keep my magic or not.”
“Good luck. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Which is what made this whole situation extra shitty.
What if Mitchell had changed his mind and he no longer wanted the bond?
For a few minutes, Penrith had let himself hope, which had been a stupid thing to do.
Nothing was more dangerous than hope.