Page 11 of Bonded Beyond Trickery

The world, everything I’ve ever known, crashes down around me.

Memories of meeting her five years ago at her first mating ball, which she wouldn’t have been allowed to attend if she wasn’t of age, assault me. Did she know? The way guilt wafts off her and hits me square in the chest tells me everything I need to know.

When I go to turn and stalk away from this horrible tableau, my wolf snarls,“You will not leave our mate.”

It’s the first sign of real, true aggression that he’s shown tonight. He’s not raging that she knew we were mates five years ago and somehow hid it from me. He’s not growling over the fact that she kept herself from me, from us.

Something in me breaks and I stalk towards my mate on silent feet, those of a predator who has sighted their prey.

When I’m close, so close I can taste her chocolate scent and feel her panting breaths against my chest, even through the layers of my suit which strain to contain my bulging muscles as everything in me screams to shift and run, I growl. It’s low and threatening, but it’s also filled with pain.

Tilly’s eyes fill with unshed tears. A lesser woman would drop to their knees and beg. But not this woman, my mate, she squares her shoulders and looks me in the eye.

“Mate,” she whispers, so softly that I almost miss it.

The sweetness of this moment is tarnished by anger and confusion. Taken from me. From us. And I want to know fucking why.

Before I can respond or ask any questions, Crew is standing next to us, his eyes wide and wild as he looks between us. My posture is aggressive, but I don’t have it in me to care. Why should I? The she-wolf in front of me, my female, isn’t afraid of my posture.

She’s afraid of the secrets she’s been keeping.

It’s written all over her face.

Crew murmurs softly, “It’s clear this is not a conversation for everyone to hear. Follow me. Tristan let me know that his office is open to you.”

I don’t look away from Tilly and the way her eyes plead with me.

“You will listen to what our mate has to say,”my wolf’s demand is clear.

With a wooden nod, I follow Crew with Tilly at my side. I swallow hard to combat the sick feeling churning in my gut. How does this already feel like a betrayal?

My wolf may be demanding for me to listen. Tilly may be begging me with her eyes to let her explain.

But me? I don’t think I’ve ever felt more lost.

CHAPTER 5

TILLY

While my wolf is spending her time preening and strutting around in my head without a care in the world beyond her mate knowing that she’s his mate, I am sweating. It’s a damn good thing this dress doesn’t have long sleeves or is made out of wool or some other oppressive as fuck fabric because if it was then I’d probably be fainting. Or I’d become one shifter puddle on the floor.

Either way, the way I’m sweating and the nervousness filling me is not a good look. There is no way that it screams ‘great to meet you, mate’.

But from the look I saw in Whitaker’s eyes, he’s already figured out that I knew and denied the mate bond for the last five years. He doesn’t know the details, but does he really need to?

I saw the fire in his eyes. It bordered on hatred, but that wasn’t even what had the breath stalling in my lungs. It was the hurt in his eyes, a feeling so visceral that it might as well have been a hand plunging into my chest and squeezing my heart.

My wolf dismissed the feeling while she basked in the glow of, finally, being near her mate without the spell between us.

As we file into Alpha Tristan’s office, Crew leans against the wall and I find myself standing in the middle of the room without a damn clue what I should do with my hands. I fold them in front of me. I worry them. I fist them.

“Explain,” Whitaker spits out, his voice low and filled with a command that has me straightening my spine.

I turn toward him even while tension radiates from my brother. I’m sure he wants to come to my aid, but he’s not a stupid Alpha. He can put two and two together to get four, the same way Whitaker has been able to.

I clear my throat, but it does nothing to help me feel prepared to do this. My mouth is dry, too damn dry. Am I dehydrated? Fuck, I need something to drink. If only alcohol would help in this situation and take the edge off, but with a shifter’s metabolism it would be more for taste than anything else and we all know the taste is not the draw when it comes to hard liquor.

Whitaker arches one of his eyebrows and there is so much damn warning in that simple gesture that it has me sinking down in one of the chairs in Alpha Tristan’s office.

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