He considers the question for a long moment before answering. “I want a chance. That’s all. A chance to prove that I’m not the monster my pack tried to make me. A chance to show you that what I felt last night was real, that it wasn’t just lies and manipulation. A chance to be someone worth trusting. But if you tell me to walk away, I will. I’ll lead the scouts away from you and buy you enough time to get back to your sister. It will probably get me killed, but at least you’ll be free to make your own choices.”
The offer surprises me. It shouldn’t. Nothing about this situation should surprise me anymore. But the fact that he’s willing to die for me, to sacrifice himself so I can escape a marriage I don’t want, tells me something about who he really is beneath the Thornridge training and the years of following orders he knew were wrong.
Maybe he really isn’t the monster I thought he was.
Or maybe this is all an elaborate trap, and I’m falling for it exactly the way Thornridge planned.
I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. The curse kept everything so simple. Feel nothing, trust no one, and follow the rules. Now I’m standing in a witch’s forest with tears streaming down my face, trying to decide whether to bind myself to an enemy or risk my sister’s life on a seer’s warning.
“If I do this,” I begin, “it doesn’t mean I trust you. It doesn’t mean I forgive you for lying to me. And it certainly doesn’t mean I’m going to be your happy little mate who cooks your dinner and warms your bed.”
“I wouldn’t expect any of that.”
“And the second I think you’re manipulating me, the second I feel like this was all some Thornridge scheme to get inside my head, I will find a way to destroy you. I don’t care what pack law says about mating bonds. I will make you regret ever meeting me.”
Patrick nods and replies, “Understood.”
Evangeline clears her throat. “Are we doing this or not? My old bones don’t appreciate standing in the damp.”
I look at the witch, at her clouded eyes and her ancient hands holding that worn leather book. Then I look at Maeve, who is watching me with compassion and certainty in equalmeasure. Finally, I look at Patrick, who is still watching me like I’m the only thing in the world that matters.
Then I think about Sera. About everything she sacrificed to break the curse and free our pack. About how devastated she would be if something happened to me because I was too proud or too scared to make a difficult choice. She married Reeyan under circumstances that weren’t much different from this. She trusted a man she barely knew because the alternative was worse.
Maybe it’s my turn to be brave.
“Fine,” I say, though the word tastes like surrender. “Do it. Before I change my mind.”
Evangeline doesn’t waste time. She opens the book to a marked page and begins reading words in a language I don’t recognize. The syllables are strange and heavy, and they seem to dance in the air around us like physical things with weight and substance.
Patrick moves to stand beside me until he’s close enough that I can feel his body heat. He takes my hand, and I let him, even though every nerve ending screams at me to pull away. His fingers are rough and calloused, the hands of a warrior, but his hold on me is gentle.
Maeve approaches with two thin cords woven from some kind of dark fiber. She wraps one around my wrist and one around Patrick’s, then binds them together with a knot that seems to move even after she’s finished tying it.
The ceremony takes less than five minutes. Evangeline speaks the words, Maeve performs the bindings, and Patrick repeats vows that sound ancient and binding in ways I don’t fully understand. When it’s my turn to speak, I force the words out through numb lips, barely hearing myself say them.
And then it’s over.
The cords dissolve into nothing, as they’re absorbed into our skin, like they were never there. I feel something settle into my chest, something warm that pulses in time with Patrick’s heartbeat. The mate bond. Incomplete, because we haven’t finished the physical claiming, but present enough to be recognized by pack law.
I’m married. To a Thornridge wolf. To a man I’ve known for less than a day.
“It is done,” Evangeline announces, closing her book with a snap. “May the fates have mercy on you both.”
I stare down at my wrist where the cord used to be. Less than twenty-four hours ago, I was sneaking out of my sister’s house to have an adventure. Now I’m legally bound to an enemy, standing in witch territory, with a seer telling me I’m the glue that holds something important together.
The curse might have broken eight months ago, but apparently, the universe isn’t done playing games with the Thornwick sisters.
Chapter 8 - Patrick
My wife won’t look at me, and I can’t blame her for it.
The word wife keeps rattling around in my skull as I guide Caelan through the fog-shrouded forest, trying to make sense of what just happened. Less than an hour ago, I was a Thornridge warrior with no ties and no future. Now I’m a married man, bound by pack law to a woman who would probably kill me herself if she thought she could get away with it.
Everything transformed so fast. One moment, I was on my knees in front of her, begging for a chance, and the next, Evangeline was speaking words in a language older than any of us, and cords were dissolving into our skin, and everything I thought I knew about my life was gone forever.
Caelan walks five steps behind me, close enough that I can hear her breathing but far enough that our shoulders never touch. She hasn’t said a single word since Evangeline closed that leather book and declared the ceremony complete. My attempts at conversation have been met with nothing but silence, whether I was explaining where we were going or asking if she needed to rest.
The quiet between us is downright suffocating, and it’s saturated with her fury and my guilt.
