by Jayla Kane
I couldn’t talk without saying something batshit, so I just nodded and kept my mouth shut.
She didn’t understand when I told her I didn’t want to scare her; she still thought I was talking about our history of violent mayhem, she had no idea what I meant was I can’t live through the day without seeing you. She didn’t understand that when I said always, I fucking meant always.
Forever.
And I had no fucking right to lay all that crazy in her lap. I had no right to scare her.
And god help me, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to do that to my sweet girl. I could hear the shit running through my head a mile a minute and just knew something was wrong with me.
“Baby,” I started again, then dug one of my incisors into my lip to shut myself up. She turned towards me expectantly, sated and sweet and ready to start living in the real world again, and it took everything I had to clasp her to my chest and jump to her room at the mansion. When she pulled back and looked up at my face, I had to inhale a few sharp breaths before I could get my canines down to size again.
“What’s wrong, sugar?” Too damn smart to miss a single thing, she was peering up at me with those honey colored eyes, studying my expression like a goddamn detective. I used her interest as an excuse to pull her tighter against my torso.
But then I couldn’t talk.
What the fuck would I say?
Luckily, my nose alerted me to the fact that there was someone else in the room, and instead of whining like a kicked puppy at the woman I loved—a real fucking turn-on that would be, I’m sure—I got to growl, like I really needed to.
“I apologize,” Tristan said quietly, and we both turned and considered one of the chairs by the simple desk at the window. This room was full of bold, rich colors; it was darker than some of the rooms in the house because of it, particularly with the sun setting outside and twilight settling in. But there’s darkness, and then there’s whatever the hell Tristan is. I could barely see the outline of his body beneath the nest of shadows surrounding him, but those eerie Warfield eyes were glowing like lanterns, the swirl of silver shining out at us like the moon peeking through clouds. I watched as the mist receded, drawing back inside of him, and he stood up with a nod and took a step towards us.
“You better have a damn good reason for hanging out in my room, Tris,” Baby started, and although something in me was heartened by her use of his nick-name—she’d told me how much he was helping her with mastering her magic—I wasn’t surprised by the severity of her tone. I liked Tristan, sure, but she had a point.
And if I hadn’t recognized his scent, he might have been trying to walk out of here without his head. Not the smartest move, surprising a were with his mate around.
…Fuck, I shuddered. Did I really just think that?
“I promise, I’m not hanging out,” he said in that placating way he has. Tristan’s no diplomat, but something about the suffering he emanates makes him trustworthy in a way it shouldn’t. He always seems like a man on the edge, like he doesn’t have the energy to lie or misdirect you—which is dangerous, because of course he does. He’s a fucking Warfield. “I just needed to… To talk to you.”
He looked even more haggard than usual. Baby, my pitiless vixen, stared him down. “Why?”
“I wanted to see if there were any other developments—” He stopped short, averting his eyes from us for a second while she peeled my arms off of her waist and moved to face him. I settled for leaving my hands on her shoulders as she leaned against me, her own arms crossed over her chest as she watched Tristan with narrowed eyes. “I had a sense that the magic in the house was changing,” he confessed once he deigned to look at us again, as if he were telling us a dirty secret or something. “I didn’t know why.”
“Well, nothing’s changed,” she said, scowling at him. “Not in here anyway, you weirdo. Get out.”
“Something has changed in here,” he said evenly, but he wasn’t looking at her any more. “Someone has changed.”
I came back to get her toothbrush. I’d only been here for thirty seconds, if that. Was that what set off his magic alarm, or whatever bullshit was happening in this house that made him so connected to it? Did I trip some kind of ward?
“Tristan, say what you want to say and get the hell out of my room.” Baby pressed her shoulders against my chest, impatience dripping from every word, and I tightened my arms around her instinctively. “You know we don’t get to spend enough time together as it is. I don’t want—”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, but there was more urgency in his voice. “I just need to know…” A flash of discomfort flitted over his face, and then his expression hardened into one I was beginning to recognize. “Something is different. What?”
“He fought at Moondown,” Baby said, sounding bored—sounding, although I hate to admit, like Jake--and I nodded, as if she needed the back up.
“That shouldn’t… I understand that this provides you with a place within the pack, but it shouldn’t change the actual Binding,” Tristan said, his eyes still glowing in the half-light as he studied my face. His shadows were on the move again. “The Binding made the wolves, somehow—made all creatures, including man—but we don’t know how, or why. It’s related to all the natural mysteries of the universe, but… It shouldn’t change your actual Binding, Hunter,” he said, his voice low and tense. “That’s not natural.”
“Well, that’s the only thing that’s different,” Baby said, my arms tightening reflexively as the shadows around Tristan suddenly flared. “He fought at Moondown, kicked a lot of ass, and then—”
“No,” Tristan suddenly said, staring at me. “No. That’s not all that happened.”
It took a second for it to register. Baby made a small sound in the back of her throat, and I felt her breath catch as her spine went rigid. “That’s none of your fucking business, Tristan! Jesus! Just because we’re all in the same bullshit magic club you can’t just—”
“Now you both have signed the book, and you both have… You’ve been with another member of the Ashwood Coven,” Tristan said slowly, his eyes glinting. He started to take another step towards us, then halted when he heard the growl in my throat. “Did you… Hunter, did you notice anything? Is it different?”
I couldn’t speak. The bullshit with the coven was so far down on my list of things to worry about that I hadn’t thought about it at all. “Nothing’s changed,” Baby said again, glaring at Tristan like he’d done something wrong; he hadn’t though. He was right. We’d just opened a whole new can of catshit and I didn’t even think twice before I did it.
…And I didn’t regret it. I couldn’t. Not now, not with the way she was letting me touch her, not with the smell of her still clinging to my skin.
“Something has changed,” he told her, a harder edge in his voice. “Don’t let it surprise you, Hunter—think,” he said, careful not to come closer even as his whole body was swept with darkness. He hid the way he really looked less and less as time went by, and I think that made it easier for me to trust Tristan—he knew what it was like, to have a body that gave you away. That alerted the world on sight that you were different, that you were wrong, somehow.
Unnatural, like he’d said.
“I…” My voice was stuck in that mid-way spot between wolf and man again, so I took another deep breath and tried one more time. “I haven’t noticed anything different, except…” I didn’t want to talk about how crazy I was, not in front of Baby. But fuck it. “I feel more… Possessive, I guess.” That touched on it. Baby turned and blinked up at me with those eyes, and my heart melted all over again. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, “I just—”
“That’s the wolf, Hunter,” Tristan cut in, as if he could sense how uncomfortable I was and didn’t want to cross that line further. His interest was in my magic, not in making me feel like crap. “Talk to the Sheriff about it—I’m sure that when you… When you were together it changed the way you bonded with her, but I don�
�t think that has anything to do with the Binding. Have you…” He thought for a moment. “You just jumped here, right?”
“Sure,” I said, and shrugged. Baby was still looking up at me, concern in her eyes. Exactly the thing I’d wanted to avoid.
“Nothing was different?”
“No.”
“Have you…” He furrowed his brow, thinking hard. “What are the limitations? What have you noticed before about your power, how far it can stretch, where it can take you?”
“There’s a couple things that I’ve tested,” I said, still reeling from the emotional aftershocks of everything that was happening with Baby. She felt stiff under my hands, her eyes troubled. “Listen, I don’t really—”
“Tristan, what are you looking for?” She sounded impatient when she glared at him again over her shoulder in a way that told me she wasn’t faking. “There wasn’t any difference for me that I could notice before. And after,” she said, skipping the middle, the crux of the change, the crime that robbed her of so much and caused so much suffering; she did it more for Tristan and I than for herself, I could tell. “Are you sure something has changed?”
“Positive,” he said, then gazed at her for a second before averting his eyes again, as if he knew that might set me off. “And you’re wrong, anyway.”
“You don’t know—”
“I do know,” he said sharply. “When you signed the book it probably gave you regenerative powers. It probably made you able to heal yourself, heal any wound—for all we know, Baby, we could cut off your head and you’d grow a new one.” She and I both stared at him, the fever in his eyes beginning to burn. I wondered what had happened to him to make him think about this kind of shit, all the time. “When you were—when it happened, you were given the ability to project the Binding into other things, into other beings, other matter. That’s your power. Binding—pure creation. It’s not healing, it’s Binding,” he bit out, stifling a flash of temper. “Once you have control of it, you won’t have to touch something to change it. You can think about it, and it will grow.”
“Tris,” she said, shaking her head, “you’re not—”
“It’s already happening,” he said, cutting her off. “You leak magic everywhere. You Bind without knowing it, constantly.”
“You said that was just ambient energy, or something,” she snapped, crossing her arms again.
“It is,” he said, frustrated now. “That’s exactly what it is. And when you have control of it—when you can contain it, or channel it, with more precision—you will be a god.” He shook his head, remembering the Rose’s promise to Baby with reluctant agreement. “There is a darkness to that kind of power, Baby. It can do terrible things. Unprecedented horrors, monstrous things, things you can’t imagine yet because you’re a decent person.” His shadows flared. “But others will think of them for you. That’s why you need to work on it, that’s why you both need to understand what you really are.”
“I don’t feel like I’m that different,” she said softly, and he nodded.
“I know. Believe me, it’s not a bad thing that you don’t.” His eyes lit onto my face, and I tried to concentrate, to focus on the undercurrent of desperation in his voice. “Hunter, listen to me. You may not sense it yet, but you’re the same as her. Same genetic combination, same signing, same everything—and something is different now. Something… Unprecedented.”
“Unnatural,” I said in confirmation, and he nodded, relieved that I understood.
“Yes.” His face was grim. “Because this isn’t just us, being born with whatever strange inheritance we have. This isn’t even what happens when we sign the book—this is about the magic they used to make the book.” He clenched his fists, shadows wreathing his wrists like shackles. “That’s what changes us. The book does too, of course, that’s why—”
“That’s why Hunter and I are different,” Baby finished, and he nodded.
I never asked if he and Zelle had sex. I hadn’t thought of it, and even if I did, it was none of my goddamn business. But given what he knew, what had happened to him…
God forbid Tristan ever sign that fucking book.
“Something about you has changed,” he said, his voice hard. “Something about your magic is different now—something that will be very fucking dangerous, given which Circle you belong to, if we don’t figure it out.”
“Okay,” I said, swallowing hard. He was right.
“Alright, Tris,” Baby said, and sighed. “You’ve made your point. We got it.” She tilted her head and gestured towards the door. “I’m not even mad you broke in now, but next time knock, okay?”
He ducked his head in acknowledgement and left, his eyes meeting mine one more time before he went through the door. The look on his face was one I’ll never forget.
It was the face of someone who had lost everything, and wouldn’t wish his fate on another living soul.
The door clicked shut behind him. “He took a big chance,” I said to her as she slowly turned towards me, her arms still crossed over her chest, one hip popping out as her eyes peered up at mine. “He knew I might kill him by accident just for being in here.”
“Yeah, well, we’re done talking about how noble and brave Tristan Warfield is right now,” she said bluntly, her stare hard. “What’s going on, Hunter?”
“What do you mean?” Oops. That wasn’t going to work. That hip jutted out even further and I could tell she was going into full Head Cheerleader mode. “Baby, I just feel like… I said everything I could say earlier without sounding like a goddamn lunatic, alright?”
“About the wolf stuff?”
“I don’t know if he’s right about that,” I said slowly, wishing she would let me touch her. Surprise fucking surprise. Instead, she turned on her heel and strode across the room to flip on the light switch, and I realized my eyes really were different now; I hadn’t registered how dark the room had become because my vision slowly compensated the entire time, my pupil grower wider every second. “I hope he is, though, ‘cause otherwise it means it’s just me, being five different kinds of fucked up.”
That made her snort a laugh, and she plopped down on the bed and watched me for a second. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and I could smell the spike in her adrenaline from across the room and tried again. “Baby, I really don’t—I only know that the way I feel about you… I…”
“Goddamnit, Hunter!” She was already bouncing off the bed, ready to slap my chest again. I heaved out a big breath and put my palms out, stopping her in her tracks, and we stood there in the middle of her fancy bedroom, on the plush carpet, and held still, like the whole goddamn world was about to crumble. I honestly felt like it might.
“I’m thinking a lot of crazy shit, alright?” I stared at her, waiting for her to signal that she’d heard enough, but her eyes were narrowed, her hands on her waist again, clearly waiting expectantly for more fucking words. Goddamnit. “I don’t want to tell you,” I said bluntly, but when her nostrils flared with irritation I knew I had to do better. “I don’t want to scare you, okay? I don’t want to frighten you off, make you come to your goddamn senses and never want to see me again. Okay? Is that honest enough?” I was breathing hard. My claws began to cut through my skin without my even noticing, but my canines were mostly normal at least. I retracted my claws and bit my lip. Sweat beaded on my back, and I could smell the sharp tang of her fear as her eyes widened, the drops of blood spattering her carpet finally bringing her back to earth.
“Hunter, is it really that bad?” She bit her lip and took a tiny step towards me, then stopped in her tracks, clearly worried she would frighten me. Great. “Are you… Are you worried you’re going to hurt me?”
“Oh no, sugar, no,” I said immediately, shaking my head. “It’s nothing like that.” It wasn’t. I’d run down all those roads last night and none of them ended with her getting hurt—not physically, anyway.
“Well then what the hell is th
e big deal?” She tilted her head, her face pained. We stood there for a second, and I got the impression that maybe she wanted to comfort me almost as much as I wanted to comfort her. “What could you possibly be thinking that’s so damn scary you can’t tell me?” And I could hear it, then, the pain in her voice, and that’s when I realized I had to just spit it out. Say it all. Because hiding things from her was cruel, crueler than anything else. That’s what she’d been trying to tell me, what I’d been refusing to hear.
And it didn’t matter if she didn’t want to be near me afterwards, if my worst fears came true and she needed to get the hell away from me—that wasn’t my choice. I was doing her wrong by not giving her one, and that was the only thing I could probably have done to hurt her, my precious girl, the light of my life.
So I got ready to tell the truth, come hell or high water.
Probably hell. That’s what I was beginning to worry I deserved.
Chapter Twenty
Baby
I’d never been so pissed at him before.
There were times in that stupid cell when I wanted to slap his face off, and yesterday I thought I might actually pull my hair out over his dumb stubbornness. I also thought we’d put all this shit behind us. But here he was, Hunter Black, giant, gorgeous, the most wonderful, infuriating human being I’ve ever met in my entire life, staring down at me with those big dark eyes I loved and wanted to punch at the same time. “Hunter!”
“Just… Just give me a second,” he said slowly, and I realized he was pulling the wolf back in, forcing the man in him to the front so he could face me as we really were. While I watched, his jaw reshaped slightly so that his teeth receded, his back straightened, and his claws disappeared with a slick sound that put my teeth on edge. He bit his lip in that way that melted every bone in my body, but I held firm and waited, arms crossed, temper at high heat. It took him a solid minute, but when he met my eyes again he looked like the boy who fixed my car, so long ago—he looked painfully handsome and reserved and even shy, a little bit, now that I knew him better. “I don’t think it’s the wolf,” he finally said, his voice husky, and he stared down at the floor for a long second, then glanced up at me when I shuffled my feet impatiently.
