Page 7 of Bonded Beyond Trickery

“Oh,” Elodie breathes out, “you’re serious.”

“You better fucking believe that I’m serious,” Crew’s voice is deep and husky.

I snort and roll my eyes. “I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that Blood Moon is hosting,” I point out, more than a little amused at my brother.

Honestly, I never thought I’d see the day that he would be as devoted as he is to his mate. When his mate didn’t appear at 18, I watched the hope slowly die in his eyes. He wanted his mate, desperately, but then she didn’t appear.

It took nine years and for me to leave the pack and go to college for his mate to arrive at his doorstep.

By then, he had lost is way and his faith in the mate bond. I don’t know if I can blame him for that, but he certainly didn’t make giving Elodie a place in his life—and the pack—any easier with the way he went through she-wolves like water.

“Hopefully, our mate didn’t do the same,”my wolf’s growled words are filled with pain.

A girl can dream.

But if he did decide to forgo waiting—it’s not like everyone plans to do so anyway and not all packs value waiting for your mate instead of giving into our more primal, animal urges—I’ll only have myself to blame.

Crew winks at me and then offers me his arm. There’s a challenge in his voice, “How about you just let me escort my stunning mate and my beautiful sister to the mate ball?”

“Well,” I grumble, “when you put it like that, how can I refuse?”

As we head through the packhouse and out to where the rest of the unmated wolves in the pack are waiting out front, I try to find a place of calm inside of myself. Everyone will be able to hear the way my heart is pounding in my chest.

As I slide into the backseat of the SUV while trying to ignore the sweet and loving looks Crew is directing toward Elodie. I might be glad they’re happy, but I don’t need to see it all the time, you know? They’re kind of gross.

“You’ll be the same when we, finally, claim our mate,”my wolf reminds me.

As if I don’t already know.

The closer we get to the Blood Rising Pack, the more it feels like my heart is in my throat. There might as well be a giant doomsday clock countdown going on in my soul.

I hesitantly ask my wolf,“Do you think he’ll be there?”

“Yes,”she growls and starts to pace in my mind, the restless that has been ever present for the last five years feels like an itch under my skin. An itch that only grows.“His wolf is already calling to me.”

That…doesn’t help me at all. It feels like my chest is about to crack open so my heart can go on a rampage. It’s an unsettling feeling and I don’t think I care for it at all.

“What’s going on, Tilly?” Crew’s words are like a whip from the front seat and the growl in his voice shows me how much my unease is affecting his wolf.

“I’m nervous,” I whisper, hating how fucking vulnerable I sound.

Crew makes a humming sound before prodding further, “Because you might meet your mate tonight?”

“Something like that,” I mumble.

Elodie glances back at me and furrows her eyebrows. I don’t know what she sees on my face, but she, blessedly, takes Crew’s focus off me with murmured words that I’m just too keyed up to pay attention to.

I think back to months ago when I graduated from college. My parents and Crew were there. Though, I have a feeling he was there for Elodie even though he was proud of my accomplishment as well.

The apartment that Elodie and I shared was already packed up and ready. It felt like the end of a chapter of my life, one I was grateful for, but one that also scared the hell out of me. Because there was no way to predict how the next chapter would go.

Not knowing I had put off meeting my mate. Purposefully.

The last thing I did before climbing in the car with my parents was drink the antidote to the scent masking spell. I didn’t feel any differently, but I didn’t expect to.

Maybe it would have felt more momentous if there was some sort of starburst or if glitter had come from nowhere and rained down on me. But, no, nothing like that happened.

I could only hope that everything worked like it was supposed to. Asking someone to tell me what I smelled like wouldn’t have mattered because the spell only prevented my mate from smelling me. To everyone else, I smelled like I always did.

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