He locked gazes with me instantly and smiled. For a moment I wondered if I should stand, hug him, or pretend to check my phone, but my limbs had decided to mutiny, and nothing moved.
He slid into the chair opposite me. For a few seconds, we stared at each other. The hum of the espresso machine, the hiss of steam, the distant laugh from the barista, all of it felt a million miles away.
"Hey," he said, finally.
"Hey."
Neither of us reached for a handshake or a smile. He looked at the pile of napkin shreds, then nodded at the counter. "You want a cup?" he asked.
"I’m good." I paused, recalibrating. "You?"
He shrugged. "Already had too much."
After a few more moments, he said, "I talked to Vivienne again. She’s certain there’s a suppression spell on you."
He let that hang between us. I reached for my cup, even though it was empty. "Like a mind-control thing?"
He shook his head. "Not mind control. More like insulation. It dulls certain connections. Suppresses others."
I tried to picture it. "So, what, I’m walking around with a magical condom on my soul?"
His mouth twitched, but he didn’t laugh. "Not a bad analogy."
I gripped the edge of the table. "That doesn’t make sense. My mom's a hardass, but she isn't evil. She's not cruel."
Zaden leaned forward, elbows on the table. "She could have been thinking she was protecting you."
I chewed that over, wanting to throw the words back at him. Instead, I sat there, jaw clenched so hard it ached.
For a second, I wanted to tell him about Bryce, to just blurt it, dump the secret on the table and watch it shatter everything. But my brain was too busy flipping through a thousand memories of my mother, trying to see if there were clues I’d missed. Why would she do this and kick me out of the house?
"She never told me," I said, more to myself than to him. "Not once."
Something angry and jagged scraped through my chest. "So all this time, you thought I was just immune? To you, to the bond?Which makes sense that I don’t sense the bond because I’m spelled."
He looked away, out the window, at a woman loading groceries into the trunk of a sedan. "I couldn't figure out why you didn't feel it. I was going to talk to you about it soon anyway, but then Vivienne told me what she sensed."
I let the silence stretch. "You should have told me about the bond sooner." Not that I had any room to judge him. I had an enormous secret I couldn't bring myself to tell him.
He nodded, face stony. "I didn’t know you were spelled. I assumed you were just guarding yourself from heartbreak or something."
That would have blocked the mating urge even though logically, I knew my wolf wouldn’t pick a mate that wasn’t made for us.
A long minute passed, both of us staring at the table. "If I want it gone, what do I do, do you know?"
He shrugged, as if the answer were obvious. "Vivienne says only Eleanor can remove the spell, so we go to her. We get answers. Make her break the spell."
The last time I’d seen my mother was when she kicked me out for being pregnant at nineteen. I didn’t want to see her again. I didn’t want her in my life, or Bryce’s, or anyone’s. But I wanted my own damn feelings back, and I wanted to be free.
"We’ll go Thursday," I said. "I'm off and Bryce has stuff every day this week other than that."
He didn’t hesitate. "I’ll drive."
I was about to tell him he didn’t have to come, but the words refused to form. Instead, I nodded, my throat tight.
He stood and waited for me to do the same. I slung my bag over my shoulder, nerves fluttering in my stomach.
At the door, he stepped aside, letting me pass first. We walked in silence to the lot. He paused by my car, his hand hovering in the air between us.
