It took barely a millisecond to realize it was Blaise who lay beside me.
My mate.
I had a mate now.
The thought felt strange and unreal, like my mind hadn’t quite caught up to the fact that he was somehow here without being summoned.
He lay close to the edge of the bed, one arm slung over his face, his ear pressed firmly into the crook of his elbow as if he were trying to drown out my snoring.
Which, in all fairness, he probably was.
Fortunately for Blaise, I was already acutely aware of my nightly problem—and how to solve it. I’d given it a fair amount of thought back when I still assumed I’d be summoning my mate properly and had wondered how he might survive a night in bed with me.
I pulled up the Witchmart app on my phone, found the Hushbuds+ I’d added to my wish list and never gotten around to ordering, and was just about to select theTeleport to these coordinatesoption when I paused.
After a moment’s consideration, I rerouted the order to the local magic shop for collection instead. If nothing else, it gave me an excuse to venture into town for snacks and a much-needed resupply of my potion ingredients.
Satisfied that he’d only have to endure a couple of nights of restless sleep, I turned to watch my mate.
The arm slung over his face was marked with a web of scars, silvery in the morning light. My gaze drifted to the thick scar at his neck—the one he’d been so uncomfortable showing me the night before. I should have looked away, but I couldn’t.
My throat bobbed as I took in the raised ridge of scar tissue that encircled a delicate web of film-like scarring in its center. It looked as though something had taken a chunk from his neck and his body had fought desperately to knit itself back together.
It was all I could do not to clap a hand over my mouth.
You did that, Caitlyn. You are the reason he was left to fight in this world. To survive. All because you were too busy making your stupid candy to summon him.
My spiraling guilt was cut short when my mate gave the first signs of waking. His lips rounded on a silent word then tightened, as if whatever thought was dragging him from sleep was a painful thought.
Then he did the strangest thing.
He brought the arm that had been resting at his side up from beneath the quilt, fingers searching blindly until they found the band around his wrist, and he pulled it taut.
Snap.
The elastic cracked sharply against his skin.
What an odd way to wake oneself up, I thought.
With a low grumble, Blaise finally lowered the arm covering his face. He blinked up at the ceiling a few times, adjusting to the brightness, before realizing I was watching him. The tips of his ears flushed as he turned his head toward me.
“Morning,” he said.
And then I burst into laughter.
Not a cute, girlish giggle, but a full, from-the-belly, almost hysterical bellow.
Blaise propped himself up on one elbow, his face contorting in confusion—which only sent me spiraling harder.
Because Blaise had no eyebrows.
“Caitlyn?” he said, his hairless brows furrowing further—prompting a fresh peal of hysterical laughter from me. “What’s so funny?”
“You...” I managed to choke out between giggles. “You didn’t happen to... have a run-in with... Creep last night?”
I crossed my arms over my stomach and rolled onto my side, fingers digging into my ribs in a futile attempt to stave off the sharp stitches piercing through me.
“Creep?” Blaise asked, a note of bewilderment edging into his voice. “Nothing major.”
