Chapter 7 - Sean
“I didn’t think she’d hop into training so soon,” Hunter voices as he stares through the window with a frown.
“Yeah, neither did I,” I say with a shrug, grabbing an apple from the basket and then stopping when I remember what happened two days ago.
I glance at the opposite side of the kitchen table, the memory still fresh in my mind of when Emily refused to have breakfast, her stubbornness shining through any act of kindness I attempted, and she’d grabbed an apple, too.
She’d been so set on walking away from breakfast even though she was hungry, and in her haste, she tripped over her own feet.
I can still smell her scent as if she’s standing in front of me, the sweet notes of jasmine clinging to my airways as if that’s the only breath that gives me life.
I’ve become so distracted by her that I find myself at home more than I am at the office, my life as a werewolf, as the alpha, taking precedence in my life.
It’s not a bad thing, considering my father offered to run the business for me while I’m supposed to be “honeymooning.” A sarcastic chuckle escapes my lips, prompting Hunter to turn from the window and frown at me.
“What’s up, dude?” he asks, watching me keenly as I make my way toward him.
I bite into the apple, staring out the window and watching Emily, Arianna, and Delilah chat underneath the patio, sipping their mugs of tea. It’s not any ordinary tea, but some special mixture of herbs and spices brewed over three hours, meant to allow them to tap further into their powers.
Powers that Emily refuses to use while I’m anywhere near her, even though the binding spell dictates that her magic is now linked to me.
“Nothing,” I reply nonchalantly as I chomp on my apple, turning to Hunter. “Why would anything be wrong?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “You just haven’t seemed like yourself ever since—”
“The mating ceremony?” I grin, sending a playful jab into his arm. “Of course, I wouldn’t be myself, Hunter. I just got buckled.”
Hunter doesn’t buy my sideways smile, his eyes narrowing skeptically. “And? How do you feel about that?”
I snigger as I glance back to the window, watching as the witches rise and hold hands in a circle. “How am I supposed to feel? I’m in a fake marriage with one of our closest friends, and she doesn’t see me as more than the alpha of her pack.”
“Do you want her to see you as more?”
I turn back to him when he asks that question, a frown tugging at my brows. “No,” I lie. “Why would I want that?”
“You don’t have to hide it, Sean. I was in the same boat. I know what it’s like to pretend. It eats you up inside.”
“It’s not the same, Hunter. You and D were fated mates. Emily and I are not.” Another lie, but the history we share has been a secret all along. Perhaps mostly because I’m ashamed of what I did to Emily, and I’m too much of a coward to tell my friends that I was an asshole to her.
“Well, you might as well be fated mates. Delilah explained what the lunar binding spell is all about, and it sounds pretty intense.”
“It sure feels intense,” I sigh as I look at him with a nervous half-smile. “I just have to keep reminding myself that it’s not real. It’s not a fated mate bond. Soon, she’ll get her powers, the dark lord will be defeated, and we’ll figure out how to break the spell.”
“And until then, you need to be close to her, or her magic won’t work.” He nods to the window, and I look out again, only to see what he means.
Emily is struggling, frustration contorting her face as she attempts to broaden the golden sparks in her fingertips, and fails.
But what’s even more striking is that I can feel what Emily is feeling; her frustration that her powers won’t unleash further than a dying spark on her fingertips, and her determination to do whatever she can to let it out.
I know she’s insisting on her training because she’s stubborn, and maintaining her distance from me because she hates me. Rightfully so, but it doesn’t help her cause when the powers she needs won’t come out without me.
“You’re right,” I tell Hunter with a firm nod, ignoring his suspicions and dealing with the problem at hand.
I want to find a solution to the problem Emily is facing. I want to be the solution she needs. And right now, she’s struggling, and it hurts me to see her in this condition.
I step out onto the patio with Hunter close behind me, and fold my arms as we watch Emily attempt to hit an empty bottle with magic from her palms. Her brows are furrowed, eyes pointed at the bottle in frustration, her palms directed at it while tiny flickers of golden light spark at her fingertips.
She has her tongue pressed into her cheek as she concentrates, and out of nowhere, a burst of golden, translucent light shoots out from her palms and knocks the bottle over.
“Oh, my Goddess!” she exclaims, turning to Arianna and Delilah and celebrating with a loud cheer.
It might have looked like something small, but it was more than she’s been able to wield ever since she started training.
I glance over at Hunter, who tosses me a proud wink. But then the cheering cuts off abruptly, and I turn to find Emily scowling at me.
“That was really good, Em!” I praise her, applauding lightly as a proud smirk grows on my face.
Emily narrows her eyes vindictively, while Delilah steps up beside her and slinks an arm across her shoulders.
“It really was!” Delilah agrees with me, grinning as she glances at Emily. “I think we missed an important part about uncovering your magic. You need Sean around.”
“I don’t need him,” Emily chuckles as she rolls her eyes, a smile on her face only for the sake of the others.
“Let’s test the theory,” Arianna suggests. “You’ve been trying to unlock your magic for two days, and it appeared the moment he walked out and breathed the same air as you.”
The smile slips off Emily’s face. “H-how do you wanna test the theory?”
“Well, we already know that the binding spell means your magic is linked to him, so maybe it’ll be stronger with him around.”
“So, must he just stand there?”
Arianna giggles, turning to me and waving me over. “Maybe if he comes a little closer, it’ll help.”
Emily gulps hard, while my heart flutters, eager to be of service in any way. Grinning, I step down from the stairs and join them in the garden.
I can feel the way Emily tenses without even touching her, and realize how hyper-aware I’ve become of her emotions. What startles me is that I can feel the hatred she feels for me rolling off her in waves, like an invisible, protective dome that’s meant to block me out.
It doesn’t work, because the closer I am to her, the easier it becomes for her to wield her magic. Small bursts, but it’s a start when she knocks down the bottle again.
“I think we need something bigger,” Arianna says when Emily knocks the bottle over a fourth time.
Emily glances at Delilah and doesn’t look my way at all.
“More motivation,” Delilah agrees, tapping Hunter’s arm. As if they’d communicated through the mind link that only they share, Hunter nods and walks into the garden, picking up a large boulder without flinching.
“You want me to move that?!” Emily exclaims in disbelief.
Delilah chuckles. “I mean…you can try.”
Emily huffs as she turns forward, taking a deep breath as she wiggles out her fingers and cracks her neck to either side.
“Fine. I’ll give it a try.”
“You can do this, Em!” Delilah cheers her on.
“We believe in you!” Arianna adds.
I keep my lips pursed, not wanting to break her concentration as I stand off to the side. Emily is hyper-focused as she directs her palms at the rock, her breath turning to a strained groan as she tries sending energy toward it.
Gold light pulses from her palms, but it’s not enough to rock the boulder even slightly. Emily grunts her frustration as she retracts her hands, then circles her fists and cracks her neck again.
I take a step forward—discreetly, because I don’t want her getting furious with me—and slowly inch my way closer every time she attempts to use her magic on the boulder.
“You’re not concentrating,” Delilah tells her, and Emily grunts.
“I’m trying!”
She closes her eyes and straightens up, and that’s when I move in close enough to catch her scent burning in my lungs.
Her eyes shoot open, and she glares at me.
“What are you doing?” she grates through her teeth, low enough that only I can hear her.
“I’m trying to help you, Em.”
“I don’t need your help,” she grinds, eyes ferocious beads of cold blue. “I can do this on my own.”
Emily rolls out her shoulders as she turns back to the boulder, focusing on it again. I can practically feel her frustration when she tries and fails again. Her emotions suddenly feel like my own, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
I take a step forward and reach out, placing my hand on her shoulder with the instinct of my inner wolf that drives my movement.
The moment I touch her, a shockwave of sensation bursts between my palm and her shoulder, and gold light shoots out from her palms, enough to crack the boulder down the middle.
Emily gasps in shock when the two pieces of the boulder split and break off to the sides, two half-spheres rattling on the ground. Her eyes fly wide with horror, and she turns slowly toward me just as Delilah and Arianna cheer and praise her from the side.
“What the hell, Sean?!” Emily exclaims through the celebration, turning her glare on the hand that’s still on her shoulder. I can barely move, still stunned by what just happened, and that’s when Emily shoves my hand off her with enough force to have me stumbling backward.
She bolts for the back door leading into the house, and Arianna and Delilah’s cheering abruptly cuts off when Emily disappears. An awkward silence falls on the backyard, and I blink in disbelief at the spot where she’d been standing, now empty.
“Er…” Arianna cuts through the silence, glancing at Delilah. “I’m gonna go check on her.”
“Yeah, me too,” Delilah concedes, and both women head inside the house, leaving Hunter and me outside.
He lets out a steady whistle as he strolls to the boulder, kicking one half over before crouching to tentatively touch the crack.
“Hmph,” he grunts as he retracts the finger, then wiggles his hand. “That was something. It’s still hot.”
“Yeah, that was something, alright,” I scoff, coming back to my senses and shaking my head as if to shake off what just happened.
But everyone saw it—Emily’s sudden burst of magic, and then her irritation when she realized it was because of me.
“So, Em’s powers only respond to you,” Hunter observes calmly.
“I think we already knew what to expect after that binding spell,” I say with a diffident shrug, though my inner wolf is yelling that it’s more than just the spell that’s causing this.
The fated mate bond.
The bond no one knows about.
The one I rejected in the past.
It’s still there, crawling beneath my skin and slipping through the cracks as if it’s dictating Emily’s powers. It’s no wonder she stormed off, angry and frustrated that her powers only respond to me, to my touch.
“I think she needed to see it,” Hunter laments with a sigh as he stands. “Now it’s time for her to make peace with it. I just don’t understand one thing…” his voice tapers off as he looks at me, curiosity in his dark brown eyes.
“What?”
“We were all so close in the squad. I would have thought she’d be open to being bound to you, and not someone else,” he speculates with a frown, but I cut off any suspicions with a lighthearted chuckle.
“Oh, you know Em. She’s Miss Independent, and doesn’t like the idea of being bound to anyone, let alone me.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I hope the girls can get through to her, though. She’ll have to make peace with this, just until we defeat Grimes.”
I nod slowly, thoughtfully, wondering if this is something Emily can make peace with. I, on the other hand, can hardly make peace with her shutting me off so brutally when all I want to do is help.
Perhaps it’s wrong of me to want her a second time. Maybe I’m not allowed to. And maybe she can sense my ulterior motives, just like I can sense her emotions through this binding spell.
Be there for her, and pray she gives me a second chance…
Well, that seems like it’s off the table, and it’s something I’ll have to accept. Emily needs to use her powers, and I can’t be selfish enough to make this about me. I’ll change the trajectory of my thoughts, my intentions, and hope that she senses it and focuses on her magic.
That’s the only thing that matters right now, not me wanting Emily.