CHAPTER SIX || LEE
Iwent back inside, deciding then and there that I was about to confront Daniel. I was going to sit the warlock down and ask him point-blank why he’d hidden his identity from us.
It was my fault we didn’t know the answer to that question. I’d spent way too long trying to protect Hunter—trying to protect both of us—by avoiding pain. I’d allowed Hunter to stop me, too many times to count. And all that had done was keep us all locked into a toxic holding pattern.
That stopped tonight. We—I—had no choice. I was doing this for both of us.
What I really needed, though, was to find a way to let Daniel back in. That started with hearing what he had to say to us.
“Lee, don’t,” Hunter breathed, following me through the door. His voice was ragged and fraying, meaning he’d likely caught the general shape of my intentions. “Not yet.”
Well, it looked like Hunter was going to get his wish.
I stopped dead in my tracks the moment I crossed the threshold. Hunter piled in past me then did the same, both of us staring at the warlock.
Daniel had passed out.
He was slumped over his desk, his head pillowed on his folded arms, his pen still resting between his slack fingers. The desk lamp was on, casting warm light over his face and the chaos of open journals surrounding him. His notebook was pinned under one elbow and he was snoring softly.
Beside me, Hunter’s breathing hitched. And I felt the shift in him before I saw it. The jagged edges and tension he’d been clinging to all evening relaxed at once, replaced by something unguarded and vulnerable.
When I glanced over at my twin, the look on his face was one I hadn’t seen there before. Not in two whole years: longing.
Pure, naked longing, stripped bare of any anger or defenses.
Hunter seemed to feel my eyes on him, because his expression shuttered immediately, the walls slamming back into place. His lips twisted into a scowl and his gaze dropped to the floor.
But the damage was done. I’d seen it. And he knew I’d seen it.
For a long moment, neither of us said a word. There was nothing to say, really.
Then I crossed the cabin and gently shook Daniel’s shoulder. “Daniel. Hey. Time to move.”
He stirred, blinking up at me with unfocused dark eyes. “Wha—I wasn’t sleeping. I was just—”
“You were snoring.”
“I don’t snore,” he mumbled, even as his eyes were already drifting shut again.
“You one hundred percent do,” Hunter said from the doorway. His voice was gruff but not unkind.
I got Daniel on his feet and steered him toward the ladder to his loft.
He climbed it with clumsy, sleep-heavy movements, murmuring something incoherent about continuing our research.
Neither Hunter nor I dignified that with a response.
Within seconds of reaching the top and collapsing into bed, still fully clothed, his breathing evened out into the deep rhythm of genuine sleep.
I grabbed my jacket from the back of the kitchen chair I’d hung it on, and then laid it out on the floor, positioning myself between the door and the ladder leading up to Daniel’s loft. Hunter eyed the arrangement without comment.
“You should take the couch,” I said.
Hunter didn’t protest that it was still too early for sleep. If he had, I would’ve pointed out that we ought to match Daniel’s sleep schedule, given that he’d likely wake up early now. He seemed to understand that without my having to say a word, because he just said, “The floor is fine.”
“Hunter, don’t argue. Take the couch. We can switch tomorrow.”
He looked like he did, in fact, want to argue. But something in my expression must’ve stopped him, because he sighed heavily. Then he dropped onto the couch without further protest, pulling the throw blanket over himself.
I turned off the lights and lay down on the wooden floor, using my jacket as a pillow. The cabin settled into quiet. Above us, Daniel’s soft breathing was a reassuring metronome. So long as it continued, everything was going to be okay. No matter what else happened.
We’d have the conversation tomorrow, I told myself.
If I was being completely honest, I wasn’t quite ready, either. That wouldn’t have stopped me, but I was almost glad to have to wait.
What if there was no good explanation? What if Daniel simply hadn’t trusted us enough to tell us the truth?
What if our entire relationship had been a lie, all along?
Not just that Daniel hadn’t told us about his true identity, but what if the way we’d always felt about him had always been one-sided?
What if he had always mattered more to us than we had to him?
I was almost asleep when Hunter’s voice came from the couch, barely above a whisper. “Lee.”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
I wasn’t sure what he was thanking me for.
It could’ve been for any number of things.
For taking the floor so he could have the couch.
For saving Daniel at breakfast. For the conversation we’d had outside.
It might’ve even been for helping pull him out of his bullshit.
Or it might’ve been because he’d sensed my intentions and knew what was coming.
“You’re welcome,” I said into the darkness and let sleep take me.
* * *
The dream was almost the same as always: the clearing, the ancient pines, the impossibly large full moon overhead.
But the light was different now. Warmer.
It was almost golden instead of silver, as if the moon itself had shifted colors, and the air was soft with the delicious smell of summer: wildflowers, warm grass, and the sweet, resinous scent of sun-heated pine.
Daniel stood at the center of the clearing, apart from Hunter and me. He looked uncertain, his dark eyes wide.
My twin was there too, standing a few feet away with his arms crossed. But his posture was looser than I’d ever seen it in the dream. He seemed less guarded, almost relaxed.
“This again.” Daniel’s voice was thick, his expression so tight he looked halfway ready to cry. He settled down onto the ground and turned his face away from us, wrapping his arms around his knees and pillowing his head down on them. “We’ll just wait it out. It’ll be fine.”
This was what we were doing to him. We were making him miserable. We had been making him miserable all along.
I shot Hunter a dark, angry look. It was his fault, and mine. And it stopped now.
For the first time in two years, I fully crossed the distance and dropped into a crouch beside Daniel. “Hey. Let’s not do that tonight.”
Daniel straightened up, his lips parting with surprise. “What are you doing?”
A fair question, but one I didn’t have the answer to.
“Take my hand,” I said, reaching out for him.
He hesitated. And for a moment, I wasn’t sure if Daniel was going to. I wasn’t sure if Daniel even knew if he was going to. But then he did.
His fingers were warm. They tightened around mine and his dark eyes filled with a mixture of hope and wariness as he met my gaze. At the physical contact, the mate bond vibrated between us. It wasn’t the dull ache I was used to any longer. Instead, it was bright and resonant, impossible to deny.
Daniel let me help him to his feet, but he didn’t pull his hand away and I didn’t drop it.
“Come on,” Hunter said. Hand in hand, Daniel and I turned to find him watching us from a few feet away. His expression was unreadable, even to me.
Hunter moved toward the trees, then glanced over his shoulder. His face had turned mischievous—and, impossibly, almost playful. I hadn’t seen that expression on him before. I hadn’t realized he was even capable of it.
“Well?” he said, when neither of us had followed him. “Are you two coming or not?”
Daniel and I exchanged a baffled glance and then we followed him through the trees.
The ground gently sloped downward as we walked.
It wasn’t long before the forest parted and we emerged onto the shore of Elizabeth Lake.
The water was black and still, dotted with starlight, mirroring the sky perfectly.
Beyond the lake, Mount Rainier rose impossibly large, its glaciers glowing blue-white under the moonlight.
In the real world, it was miles away, but here it seemed so close it felt almost like I could reach out and touch the snowfields.
Hunter walked to the water’s edge. Then he stopped, tilting his head back and studying the sky intently.
I followed his gaze and saw one of the stars glow more brightly, gleaming in the canopy of velvet. It seemed almost close enough to touch.
Then Hunter reached up and plucked it from the darkness.
It came away like picking a ripe apple from a tree. It sat in his cupped hands, a small swirling sphere of white-gold light. It was ridiculous, of course. Stars were burning balls of gas, light-years away, and unimaginably massive. But none of that seemed to matter here.
My breath caught in my chest as I watched my twin, an expression of fierce joy transforming Hunter’s ordinarily sullen expression.
He held the star out to us with both hands. “For you.”
Daniel sucked in a sharp, startled breath, his expression filling with awe. He reached out and cupped his hands beneath Hunter’s, and I did the same, and the three of us held the star together.
Hunter’s green eyes were bright and clear when I raised my gaze to meet his. They were free of the anger, the hurt, and all the walls he’d constructed. I wondered if I was looking at a glimpse of the person he might have been if none of the terrible things had happened.
Generous. Unguarded. Happy.
Maybe this was who Hunter was, underneath everything else. Maybe this was who he was trying so hard not to be, the inner person he was trying so hard to protect?
Joy surged through me. It was intense, almost unbearable in its rightness. This was how it had always been supposed to feel. The three of us, together and whole.
I could have stayed in this moment forever. I wanted to.
But my mind intruded, the way it so often did: Hunter is real. In this moment, he is. Are you?
My fierce joy dimmed. Because I had no answer to that, did I?
Was I real?