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I stayed where I was and watched her disappear outside. Apparently, self-preservation had limits when red hair and terrible decisions were involved.

Chapter Two

I had spent twenty-nine years preparing for every possible catastrophe: rogue demons, botched spells, or my mother’s disapproval. But nothing in my training had equipped me for the vampire sitting at the bar like a man waiting for the firing squad.

I felt him before I saw him. The pull started two blocks from Paws, Claws & Fangs, a tug in my sternum like someone had threaded a hook through my ribs and started reeling. I stopped mid-stride on the sidewalk, one hand pressed to my chest, my witchy senses screaming in a language I didn’t want to understand.

Mate.

The word bloomed in my mind, inevitable as gravity. I tried to shove it back down, to bury it under the litany of reasons this was impossible, but the knowledge sat there anyway: heavy, warm, and absolutely unwelcome.

“Carrie?” My cousin Delia’s voice cut through the static. “You okay? You look like you swallowed a ghost.”

“I’m fine.” The lie automatically flew from my lips, polished by years of practice. I straightened my spine, adjusted my coat, and forced my feet to move. “Just sensed something. It’s probably nothing.”

Delia and Marcus exchanged glances, but they knew better than to push. When a High Priestess’s daughter said something was nothing, you pretended to believe her and left it right the fuck at that.

The bar’s wards recognized my bloodline and opened like a sigh as I approached. I stepped inside, and there he was. The mate I really didn’t want and wasn’t ready for.

The presence I’d sensed on the sidewalk, made flesh. He sat hunched over a pint, dark hair sticking up in exhausted tufts, shoulders drawn tight as bowstrings. He looked like he’d been assembled from spare parts and bad luck: sharp cheekbones, tired eyes, a nose that had been broken and healed crooked. Not handsome, exactly, but compelling in the way of accidents you couldn’t look away from.

And he was staring at me as if I’d personally orchestrated the apocalypse.

The mate bond roared to life, drowning out the bar noise, the chatter of friends, the clink of glasses. My magic rose in response, my witch’s spark recognizing its counterpart in this clumsy, anxious creature. My fingers itched to touch him. My body wanted to cross the room, claim the stool beside his, introduce myself with my mouth on his throat.

Absolutely the fuck not.

I turned away, heart hammering, and marched toward the back booth. My mother’s voice echoed in my head, a lifetime of lectures about duty, coven politics, and above all, the absolute prohibition against mingling with them. The undead. The graceless. The banished.

“Carrie?” Delia slid into the booth opposite me, concern etching her usually playful features. “You’re shaking.”

“Just cold.” Another lie, which was pretty obvious as I stripped off my coat with more violence than necessary. “Get me a drink. Something strong. Please.”

Marcus headed to the bar, leaving me alone with Delia’s interrogation.

“Spill,” Delia demanded.

“There’s nothing to spill.”

“Bullshit.” She rolled her eyes. “You walked in here like you owned the place, took one look at the bar, and went pale as milk. Who is he?”

My gaze betrayed me, flicking back to the vampire. He was still watching, I realized. Hadn’t stopped. Those green eyes, cat-reflective and predatory despite his obvious anxiety, held mine across the room with an intensity that made my breath hitch in my throat.

“The vampire,” Delia breathed, following my stare. “The clumsy one? Seriously, you’ve got to be fucking kidding?”

“He’s not...” I caught myself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Everyone knows about Logan Richards. The new guy who trips over air? Jacqueline’s little project?” Delia’s grin turned wicked. “Oh, this is delicious. Your mother is going to...”

“Don’t.” My voice snapped like a whip, cold enough to frost the table. “Don’t you dare.”

Delia raised her hands in surrender, but the damage was done. His name settled into my unwanted knowledge like a toad infestation. Logan. I knew without asking that it was him. The bond had already made his hurt feel uncomfortably close. Now I had a name for the man carrying it.

My mother had cursed this man. Jacqueline, High Priestess of one of the many Arrhythmia covens, had looked at this vampire and found him wanting. Had punished him for some infraction I couldn’t imagine. My mother didn’t bother with small slights, which meant Logan had done something truly spectacular to earn her attention.

Wonderful.

And now he was my mate.