Chapter 6 - Emily
My bones ache in places I didn’t even know could ache, and I groan as I open my eyes.
This house is supposed to be a new one, and the furniture in here is supposed to be new as well. So why is the bed I slept on so uncomfortable, as if Sean moved his childhood bed from his parents’ house into his new home?
My eyes fly open with suspicion, and I quickly sit upright, patting down the mattress on the single bed and wondering if this really is the bed he grew up with.
Sentimental much?
Maybe.
It would make sense that he’d do that, but that means I spent the night on this bed.
“Ugh!” I groan, hopping out and standing back as if I’m avoiding a minefield. I plant my face in my hands, recognizing my instincts in Sean’s house as the instincts I adopted during black ops—to stay out of danger and avoid him.
I lift my head and take a deep breath as I stare at my palms, wondering how long it’ll take for my powers to fully emerge. Right now, I can’t feel much except a light tingle in my fingertips, but it just serves as a reminder that I’m only here to step into my power.
I will remain indifferent toward Sean—as I’ve managed to do for the past four years.
Catching my reflection in the mirror, I notice my puffy eyes from a night spent wallowing in my sorrows. Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t be getting emotional about becoming the alpha’s mate and the luna of this pack, but it feels so severely overwhelming.
Even if I hate Sean, I can’t ignore that life is about to change for me.
The only change I’m looking forward to is stepping into my power as a Golden Tree Sister. Being a witch was a most unexpected turn of events, but it’s a surprise I can live with, one that makes me feel liberated. Free.
I’ve hardly felt free since discovering that Sean was my fated mate. I’d become bound to that fate, bound to those feelings, and tied to the heartbreak that ripped through me like deadly claws.
I became a prisoner to that heartbreak, and it’s been like that for years. A taste of freedom came when I suspected I was a witch, and now I’ll cling to it like the lifeline it is.
It’s the only way I’ll survive living with Sean in his house.
As I head to the door, I glance at the white wedding gown hanging on the hook, and a pang of regret, of longing, grips my heart for a moment. There was once a time when I dreamed about wearing a dress like that and being married to the man I love.
That dream was crushed by his very hands, and love turned to hate. Now, I’m stuck in his house, having to navigate my way through this like I’m back in special missions.
Taking a deep breath behind the door, I grab my vanity bag from the chair and wield it in front of me like a weapon. It’s just a precaution, and luckily for me, I don’t encounter Sean on my way to the bathroom.
Good thing I swapped rooms.
What was he thinking, anyway?
I’m surprised he remembered what my dream bedroom would look like, back when I fantasized about gold ornaments and olive walls in a room inside a home that would be shared with him.
I’d spoken about it once, while we dined at Pete’s place in town and spoke about the simpler things in life.
For a few stolen moments, I thought he knew what I meant when I described the interior of my dream home and the pups running around while their father chased them in the garden.
I thought he knew that I was speaking about him.
That was just another dream that was crushed when he rejected me, and he can’t bring it back in an instant when he’s the one who crushed that dream.
Like a bedroom is going to fix things.
After washing up, I make my way to the kitchen, as if subconsciously gravitating toward the mere thought of food when my tummy rumbles.
Right.
Food.
I haven’t had a meal since yesterday afternoon, when the witches forced lunch onto me before I got dressed for the ceremony.
I need to eat now, and maybe it’s hunger that has me imagining the rich aroma of bell peppers and bacon wafting from the kitchen into the hallway. My tummy grumbles again, but my heart sinks the moment I round the corner to find the island spread out with breakfast fit for royalty.
Pancakes, syrups, fruit, muesli, bacon, and omelets make up the breakfast spread, and Sean is at the far end flipping something in a pan, an apron tied around his narrow waist, while broad shoulders cover most of the stove area.
Gulping hard, I want to make a quiet escape, but my rumbling tummy betrays me, and the groan it makes is audible enough for Sean to notice and turn around with the broadest morning grin.
“Good morning, Emily,” he says, his voice dripping with sweetness. “Breakfast? I noticed you hardly ate at dinner last night. You must be starving.”
I gulp hard as I hesitate to respond, my tummy tightening with hunger while my brain tries to process the skip of my heartbeat. What was that? Am I becoming soft, all because he’s acting sweet, caring, and invested in my well-being?
Not to mention noticing that I barely touched my food at last night’s feast. I couldn’t stomach the festivities, and now I’m suffering for it. But I can’t give in like this. I can’t relent and give him the benefit of feeling like he accomplished something.
The mask he’s wearing right now isn’t his true face. I saw his true face years ago, outside at the base of the mountain, by that bench, and that face has been etched into my mind for eternity, committed to memory where I can never erase it.
He’s only acting this way because of the binding spell that I accidentally cast on him.
Goddess knows I despise myself for what I did, and now my punishment comes in the form of Sean oozing sweetness, overly domesticated, as if he isn’t the alpha of this pack who runs his family’s construction company in the city.
This is weird.
This is crazy.
Suddenly, my appetite dies when he turns around and flings a towel over one shoulder, carrying the pan toward the table.
“Wanna sit down?” he asks with brows raised expectantly. “I made you an omelet without cheese. I know you’re—”
“Lactose intolerant,” I finish for him, in a daze because I would have never expected him to remember that detail.
“Yeah,” he says calmly as he flips the omelet onto a plate, then carries the empty pan to the sink. “Which reminds me, I need to stock up on lactose-free stuff now that you’re here,” he casually throws over his shoulder as he unties the apron and sets it aside before returning to the table.
He stops and looks up at me, frowning because I’m still standing, shocked by the man I’m experiencing right now.
I’d spent five years resenting him, hating him for the heartbreak because there was a time when I dreamed of this very moment—having him be the only man in my life who would dote on me, see me and the small things about me, and care for me.
There was even once a time when that dream didn’t seem impossible, and Sean embodied everything I could have asked for in a man. That’s why I fell in love with him in the first place, but he showed me that dreams can be crushed.
I can see right through him now. Underneath the warm layers of a binding spell lies a cold, indifferent, cruel man.
And I will not be his fool.
Sean, on the other hand, suddenly becomes more determined than ever to be a good host. He rounds the table and comes toward me, swaps out the plates, then pulls out the chair in front of me before gesturing to it.
“After you, madam…” he says courteously with his head bowed, and my gut churns.
“Please don’t call me that,” I murmur bluntly, cemented in place, only folding my arms.
Sean lifts his head slowly, the sun’s slanted rays slipping through the kitchen blinds and catching his face in a way that illuminates his features.
His eyes become softer while turning more radiant, his lips highlighted in a way that magnifies the curves and fullness, his sharp nose pointed like royalty.
The single second steals my breath, and I feel my body soften at the thought of running my fingertips across his jawline and feeling what the dark hairs of his beard feel like.
I’ve had a curiosity about it since I met up with him during his black ops missions in Canada, and I joined as the medic.
He’d been lying, half-dead, on a blow-up bed in a tent, and I’d seen him after a whole year.
Before his mother died and he left to join the squad, he’d always been clean-shaven and fresh-faced. Seeing him with a beard was like meeting someone different, but his eyes always held the truth of the night of the funeral.
And the eyes never lie. That’s why, when I meet them now, I’m reminded of the past, and I can’t escape the talons of darkness that try to reel me back into the dark space I’d been in for years when it came to Sean.
“What should I call you, then?” he asks, straightening up, though his eyes remain soft.
My knees threaten to buckle under my weight, only because the truth is slipping from my fingers.
“Don’t call me anything,” I sneer vindictively. “Just refer to me as Emily.”
“Okay, Emily,” he concedes gently, gesturing to the chair again. “Please, have a seat.”
“I’m not hungry,” I retort with the bitterness of the lie on my tongue like bile.
“You haven’t eaten—” Sean begins to protest, but I cut him off by stepping forward and grabbing an apple from the basket, then holding it up in front of his face.
“This is good enough for me,” I say, spinning on my heel to turn away, when somehow, I trip over my own feet and fall forward.
I shut my eyes, bracing for impact with the floor, but it doesn’t come. Instead, another impact hits me, spurring me to open my eyes wide with shock.
Pulses of undeniable electric awareness swim through my arm from the source of Sean’s hand where he holds me. More energy pulses through my palms from where they’re planted on his solid chest.
My breath is stolen again, my heart slowing down as if to etch this moment in time into memory. Sean doesn’t move either, his eyes fixed on mine as if he’s listening to the silent expression of my soul, of my inner wolf.
She betrays me—my inner wolf. She claws at my consciousness as if she’s fighting for what she believes to be true—the fated mate bond—while ignoring the torture my heart faced because of it.
The same thing happened last night when Sean swept me aside so we could pretend-kiss for the sake of appearances, but things like this are slowly chipping away at my resolve.
I quickly pull away, determined to get as far away from him as possible. I know that this makes me look weak. It looks like I’m running, but I don’t have the strength to face him right now and pretend that I’m not affected by his presence, by his touch. I hate that I feel that way.
I hate him for it!
It’s only when I’m behind the closed door of my new bedroom that I can breathe again. It’s a lengthy inhale meant to calm my nervous system, currently storming with everything I refused to feel for five years.
I can’t let it consume me like this, even if tears are falling from my eyes like my inner wolf is weeping to be close to her fated mate. Staring at my palms, I also realize that my powers are null and void the further I run from him.
No.
My magic can’t be tied to him this way.
Sniffing back the tears and tilting my chin up, I take a deep breath and then curl and uncurl my hands.
Straightening my fingers out, I point my palms at the rug, mustering up all my mental strength to wield even a flicker of magic.
An electric buzz sizzles in my palms, but it cuts off like a dying flame as quickly as it began, and my heart sinks with dread.
My magic only responds to Sean, but I refuse to give him that much power. I refuse to be bound to him like this, and I need to find another way to bring my powers out.
I have to call on my friends—my sisters—to start training without Sean’s help. That’s the only purpose of this mate bond with him: to get my powers to work.
Grabbing the apple, I take a huge bite, crunching the juiciness and making another firm decision to not let Sean get to me. I guess it’s something I’ll have to affirm to myself every day, but it’ll be worth it in the end.
My destiny is to be a witch and take down Merlin Grimes with my sisters, and I won’t let Sean ruin that for me.
That’s all he does—ruin my life. But I won’t let it happen a second time.