I stare at her marks on her ring finger. They stretch down past her knuckle, and she has different runes on her middle finger. My eyes snap to hers, and they’re filled with intrigue and curiosity while her lips are turned up in a knowing smirk.
I breathe her in again, focusing on the undertones of what I think are jasmine and orange in her scent, and realize what that means in connection with her markings. Sheislike me. Not in the Gryphon sense, but in the Ouphe sense—or Sentinels, as they go by in this world.
Shock and excitement filter through my dumbfounded thoughts. I was looking for information about Sentinels or the Ouphe so I could figure out how to get back to my mates. But now they’re here, and another Sentinel, one like me, is standing in the bay of my garage. I don’t even know how to begin to process this.
What does this mean?
I pull my sweater off over my head and expose the markings on my arms and chest. Her eyes widen for a fraction of a second before she schools her features.
“She’s about as marked as you, from what I can tell,” one of the twins observes, and we all just sort of stare at each other for a moment as though none of us knows exactly where to go from here.
I hear footsteps clomping down the stairs in the back of the shop, and Wekun waltzes into the garage, fixing the sleeves of his sweater as he announces, “Falon, I’m going to pop over to see—”
“You!” Knox accuses aggressively, and Wekun’s head snaps up in surprise at the snarl.
Wekun throws up his hands in defeat and rolls his eyes. “Always with the mate hate,” he grumbles incredulously.
“Wekun?” the female asks, confused, but it’s clear she knows him.
My eyes snap from Wekun back to...fuck, what was her name again...I blank for a second, and then it comes to me.
Vinna.Right.And with her and Wekun in the same place, I finally make the connection.
Oh shit, so this is Vinna? This is who he was here to check on?
“You’re here!” Wekun chirps in surprise and then shakes his head in frustration. “This whole not seeing things is getting old,” he grumbles and then turns happy eyes back on Vinna. “I was just going to see if you were at your hotel. Did Aydin tell you I was coming?”
Vinna’s brow furrows in question for a moment and then lifts back up in understanding. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a phone, glances at the screen quickly, and then chuckles. “Yes, he did. Sorry, I never check this thing,” she confesses, and a couple of the guys around her snicker. “What’s going on? Are they from Tierit?” she asks, nodding in my direction.
“No, she just learned about all of that like you did,” he answers, and her eyes once again widen in shock.
Mine do too. Wekun has mentioned Vinna a couple of times in the past. I had no idea who he was talking about though, and I assumed it was a friend back home. So it surprises me a little to hear that she’s as new to this whole Sentinel thing as I am. Did she also wake up in a strange world, with her life fucked up beyond all recognition?
“What’s going on, Wekun?” she demands, confusion and concern etching themselves into her features.
Wekun takes a deep breath, but his eyes light up with excitement. It makes me chuckle a little when Vinna suddenly regards him even more warily, as though Wekun’s excitement is something that people should be cautious about.
“You two are part of the same Sept,” Wekun answers and then pauses dramatically like he’s waiting for her to start jumping up and down while she asksreally!
I look from Wekun back to Vinna and decide he’s barking up the wrong tree; she doesn’t look like a bouncy, squealy kind of girl.
“What does that mean?” Teo asks.
“It’s like a coven, only it’s something that only Bond Wielders have.”
“But I have a coven,” Vinna declares, gesturing to the males all around her.
“No, you have Chosen, just like Falon does,” Wekun corrects.
“Chosen?” I interject, confused. I haven’t heard that term before.
“Your mates,” Wekun quickly points out.
Oh. Okay.
“You both have Chosen, which is who you share magic and abilities with, but separate from that, you have a Sept. You all carry the same rune, which will start to work when the Sept is complete. It’ll connect you to each other in a very powerful way.”
“But not in a mate kind of way, right?” I ask as I try to think back about what Wekun said about Septs before. “Because, you’re hot and all,” I tell Vinna, “...but that’s not my thing.”
