Page 4

The Fates, I decided, had a deeply fucked up sense of humor.

Marcus returned with our drinks. A whiskey for me, something fruity and embarrassing for Delia. I drank half in one swallow, welcoming the burn.

“Just talk to him,” Delia said, gentler now. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“My mother could curse me,” I said flatly. “She could strip my standing, banish me from the coven, make me a pariah in the only community I’ve ever known. She could...” I stopped, the whiskey turning sour in my stomach. “She could do to me what she did to him. And she’d smile while she did it.” If anyone knew better than to get on Jacqueline’s bad side, it was me.

Delia had no response to that. We all knew Jacqueline Fortman’s reputation. The High Priestess didn’t forgive, didn’t forget, and absolutely didn’t tolerate disobedience from her only daughter or anyone else, for that matter.

Across the room, Logan knocked over his drink.

It happened in slow motion from my perspective: his elbow catching the glass, his grab attempt that only accelerated the disaster, the amber arc of beer spraying across the bar. He moved like a man fighting his own body, limbs betraying him in small, humiliating ways. The curse, then. My mother’s work, visible and cruel.

Logan’s face flushed with embarrassment, or the vampire equivalent, some rush of blood memory, as he grabbed a handful of napkins to clean up the mess he’d just made. He apologized to Dean and the room at large as he sopped up the beer. He was terrible at this, I realized. Terrible at being a vampire, terrible at being graceful, terrible at being the kind of predator my mother despised.

And he was mine.

The whiskey glass cracked in my hand. I hadn’t realized I’d been squeezing it. Marcus produced a napkin from somewhere; Delia muttered a cleaning spell under her breath.

“Carrie.” Her voice was serious now, stripped of teasing. “You can’t fight this. You know you can’t.”

“I can try.” I released the glass and watched as Delia’s magic smoothed the fractures. “I have to try.”

“Why?”

Because my mother had raised me to lead, to be worthy of the Fortman name, to never disappoint. Because Jacqueline’s love was conditional, always had been, and I’d spent my whole life earning it. Because choosing this vampire, this clumsy, cursed, unwanted creature, meant choosing exile from everything I’d ever known.

And because if I gave in, if I admitted what my body was screaming, I’d have to look my mother in the eye and choose him over blood.

“Just...” I stood abruptly, nearly knocking my own drink over. I’d inherited my mother’s grace but apparently none of her luck. “I need air.”

“Carrie...”

I was already moving, past the booth, past the bar, past Logan Richards, who looked up as I passed and froze mid-apology to Dean. Our eyes met again, and something passed between us: acknowledgment, regret, a silent understanding that neither of us was ready for this.

I walked out of Paws, Claws & Fangs without a backward glance. The door screeched behind me, a rusty accusation.

I stood on the sidewalk, hands shaking, and whispered the strongest ward I knew. Not to keep danger out. To keep myself from going back in.

My mother would never forgive me. The coven would shun me. The town that had raised me would turn its back.

And still, some traitorous part of me whispered: He’s worth it.

I pressed my palms to my eyes and tried not to scream. The ward lasted exactly eleven seconds.

On twelve, the mate bond slid beneath it like smoke under a door and tugged me back toward the bar. I swore at the sidewalk. The sidewalk, having survived generations of drunken witches and streaking coyote shifters, remained unmoved by my suffering.

“Traitorous piece of concrete.”

“Threatening municipal property now?” Delia stepped outside and let the door bang shut behind her. “That’s usually a third-drink activity.”

“I’m pacing myself.”

She leaned against the brick, studying me with the expression she’d worn when we were children and I’d tried to convince her I hadn’t hexed her eyebrows blue. Delia had never believed my lies. She merely ranked them for creativity.

“He’s your mate,” she said.

“Keep your voice down.”