Chapter 31
AN UNEXPECTED OFFER
LEVI
I didn’t know how to describe the feeling of walking into the Willow Lake Pub with Parker at my side. The room was the same. The people were the same. But everything had changed.
This feeling of same but completely foreign was becoming a standard thing for me lately.
I paused and scanned the pub to see if anyone else was experiencing the same thing, but no one seemed any different.
Carter was standing by the pool table waiting for us.
The balls were already racked and ready to go.
Jake was behind the bar, laughing at something Sally said, while his mate Gage was watching him from a table on the other side of the room.
Hayden and his mate Ryley were seated with Gage, and they were pointing at something on the set of architectural drawings they’d spread across the table.
They seemed oblivious to everything that was going on around them, but I knew they weren’t.
At least not Hayden. He was our alpha, and he was always in tune with the pack.
Brodie was peering out the door to the kitchen, frowning.
It didn’t take an expert in relationships to figure out the kid wasn’t happy to see Weston talking animatedly with Fin.
The merman was a flirt, but I knew he hadn’t taken anyone home in months, despite what the rampant Willow Lake rumor mill might say.
Jeremy was in a serious discussion with Paws, while his mate Adrian sipped on his beer and made heart eyes at Jeremy.
Edith was another new addition to the crowd, but she already looked like she belonged at the table with Nelson, Isaac, and Teague.
It might have something to do with the way Davina had her arm flung around Edith’s shoulders that cemented her place in the community.
While I’d been gawking, Parker had grabbed his pool cue. He had a quarter resting on his thumb when I got over there. “Heads or tails?”
“You know he always chooses tails,” Carter said.
“Oh my God. You do too! Is that a shifter thing? How did I not figure that out before now?”
He spun the coin into the air, and it landed on the floor. “Tails. Damn it.”
“Good,” Carter said. “I might win this game if I’m playing Levi.”
“Hey, asshole, I’m not that bad.”
Carter and Parker laughed.
Part way through the second game—where, yes, Parker was playing Carter, not me—Van came in. He cast his gaze around the room, and seeing us, came over. He never did that, which meant that every supe in the room now had eyes on us.
The tempo of my pulse quickened.
“Hey, Van,” I greeted him.
“You both doing okay?” he asked. “Everything good?”
“Uh, yeah? Is something going on?”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about him checking up on us.
It’d been a long time since I’d had someone looking out for me.
My mother was my family, but we rarely spoke.
She didn’t even know about Parker yet. I’d tell her eventually, but I wasn’t ready for her to descend on Willow Lake yet, which I was sure she would do once she found out I had a mate.
There was time for that later. Much later.
But I guess Willow Lake was like a family, too—one that was with you by choice. And there was that word again. Choice. Some days, that felt stronger than any other connection I’d had in my life.
Van nodded and waited for Gage, Nelson, and Hayden to join us before he spoke again. Everyone else listened from where they were seated.
“We’ve had an update on the hunters,” Van said.
I swallowed hard. Parker wrapped his arm around my lower back and looped his thumb into my belt.
“The hunters have cleared out,” he said.
“There’s no sign of Tammy. The professor’s class has been canceled, which has pissed off both the university and the students, since everyone thinks he’s ghosted them.
The people that Fin and the other supes identified as the hunter group are missing too. Their apartments are empty.”
Hayden swore. “So, we lost them. ”
“The SC made a mistake. They didn’t send in teams quickly enough,” Gage agreed.
“Do you think they disbanded?” Parker asked.
Van’s gaze flitted to Gage, Hayden, Nelson, and then to me before returning to Parker. “Probably not. They probably relocated. It’s impossible to know how far they’ve gone.”
“So, it isn’t safe.” Parker pressed against me.
“It is as safe as it ever was,” Van said with a sigh.
“They haven’t come back, and from what Levi overheard, we don’t think Tammy suspects there are any supes here.
She planned to use the lie to convince you two to join their ranks, but that’s it.
There’s no reason for the hunters to return to Willow Lake.
The professor and Kyle are the only hunters who figured out Levi was a supe, and they are both in SC custody. ”
Even as I sought to reassure Parker, my skin itched with the need to move, retreat, and regroup.
But that would be the wrong thing to do.
If we were on our own, the two of us against the world, we’d be vulnerable.
We were both safer in Willow Lake than anywhere else.
Particularly since the Eternal Magic herself seemed to have a soft spot for the place.
“Van’s right,” Gage said. “And without that amulet, they can’t identify other supes. Not easily, anyway.”
Parker flattened his lips in a firm line like he was biting back more questions. After all, he knew as well as I did that no one had answers. It was frustrating as fuck, but there wasn’t much we could do about that.
“Do we know why they came to Willow Lake? Did something draw them here?” Levi asked .
“I’ve talked to the SC team in charge of the case.
From what that professor and Kyle revealed during interrogation,” Gage said, “it was chance that brought them. Parker had talked to Edith about something weird happening here. She talked to Fin, because she wanted Fin to borrow some of their equipment. So then he approached Tammy.”
“Oh, God. I’m so sorry.” Parker wiped his hand over his face. “If I hadn’t said anything to Nana…”
“It isn’t your fault. Hunters hunt. It’s what they do,” Hayden said.
The wolf shifter’s hand twitched at his side, and I knew he was itching to wrap it around the back of Parker’s neck like he did with the rest of his pack members.
It was what he did to calm us. As alpha of our pack, to which Parker was now a member whether he realized that or not, Hayden would always want to help, soothe, and protect him.
“If anyone dropped the ball, it’s the SC,” Gage said.
“A hunter group should never have grown to that size without them knowing about it. If they’d grown any larger, they’d have rolled over the region like a swarm of locusts.
But this exposed them before they had their army in place. We’ve slowed them down for the moment.”
That was a sobering thought.
Nelson cleared his throat and tightened his hands into fists. “I’ll keep an eye out for them. They didn’t see me there, so if I cross paths with them again, they won’t recognize me.”
“How would you cross paths with them?” Parker asked .
Nelson’s eyes snapped to Parker, but he didn’t answer.
“I’ll explain later,” I said. I doubted Nelson would want everyone to talk about how he hadn’t found the missing unicorn or the shady places he had to visit in his quest.
Parker didn’t look satisfied, probably irritated at having more secrets to unravel, but he nodded.
Besides, it was probably best not to push the shadow jumper right now.
From the dark crescents under his eyes to the jittery way he’d downed his coffee—and, seriously, who went to a pub to drink coffee at this time of night—it was easy to see the guy had shit on his mind.
I couldn’t imagine the stress he was under, trying to find a missing unicorn.
At what point did someone admit defeat and give up the search when they knew another person was in danger? Could anyone ever walk away from that?
“Anything else?” Hayden asked.
Van shook his head. “Nope. I’m going to get myself a drink now.”
Everyone except Teague dispersed. Most of them returned to their seats or went to the bar for another drink. Nelson left the pub completely.
Once we were alone, Teague’s gaze flitted back and forth between Parker and me.
I’d seen him look at us like that a few days ago, but I didn’t know why.
He was a death mage, and although I’d met a few of his kind over my long life, I didn’t know much about them.
They were a secretive bunch. So, his interest in us was unsettling.
Did he see our deaths? Were we doomed already?
“Something on your mind?” I asked him. I straightened my shoulders and pretended my voice hadn’t just quavered.
Teague startled and blinked. “Oh. Sorry about that.”
“What were you doing?”
Parker tilted his head at me. “Why are you angry?”
“Shit,” Teague muttered. “I didn’t mean to worry you.” He glanced around quickly. When he saw that no one was close—Carter had gone to the bar to order another drink—he leaned toward us and whispered, “I can see your bond. New bonds are always beautiful.”
“What do you mean?” I raised my eyebrows.
“It isn’t the same as a fated mate bond between supes, but it’s still there. Tying you together.”
Parker’s hand tightened on my waist, the only sign he was surprised.
“We’ve chosen one another,” I said firmly.
“Yes. And the bond is strong, as strong as a chosen bond can be.” Teague nodded.
“It’s probably why you, Parker, were becoming increasingly tolerant of the high concentrations of magic around town.
Even if this whole thing with the hunters hadn’t happened, I think it would have only been a matter of time before the Eternal Magic let you see the magic under the normal glamour. ”
Parker narrowed his eyes at the death mage. “I sense there’s a reason you’re mentioning this.”
“Well…” Teague’s voice dropped, so it was even quieter. “Can we talk about this somewhere else?”