“He said what?” Sabelle demands.
Wincing, I flush red. “Sorry. I forgot to keep my thoughts to myself.”
Impatiently, Sabelle waves away my apology. “He said, ‘Become a part of me, as I become a part of you’?”
“Yes.”
The blond witch and Olivia exchange a glance. Obviously, something is afoot.
“Is that a problem?”
Sabelle hesitates. “Did he say anything after that?”
I scan my memory. “‘Ever after, I promise—’ Then he stopped and turned into an overbearing lout.”
Sabelle raises a brow and shoots Olivia another conspiratorial glance. They grasp something I clearly don’t. Good. Perhaps the witch can enlighten me.
“Indeed,” Sabelle says. “When a wizard takes a mate—a wife, in human terms—he speaks words. A Mating Call. What Caden said begins the wizard’s vow to his mate. Not the overbearing lout bit, though that comes with the territory.”
Heart beating in triple time, I gasp. “So he speaks those words and poof, we’re mated? For life?”
“Not quite that simple, no. You have to answer his Call.”
“And then?”
“If you Bind to him, you’re mates for up to a thousand years. No worrying about picking out the right china pattern.”
A proposal and a wedding all at once. Efficient. Did Caden really mean to “propose” to me, or was that the diary’s influence?
“Human males can take an annoyingly long time to decide if they’re in love and want to marry. Caden and I haven’t knowneach other long, just a couple of weeks. I love him, but…is a wizard any different than a regular man?”
Olivia snorts. “Totally. Want a list?”
Sabelle giggles. “Indeed. Magic cuts through a great many human mating rituals. A wizard knows his mate by taste. Instantly. One kiss, one taste of her—any fluid—and he knows. Often, her taste compels the words immediately.” She looks behind her, ensures the door is shut, then whispers, “It happened to my brother just before Caden came to work with you. He met a woman in a pub and brought her here—most unlike him. By morning, they were mated, and she had run off. Bram told me, one kiss and he could hardly keep the words to himself.”
One kiss? That explains so much. And it nearly crushes me. “Caden has never kissed me. I thought maybe he wasn’t the kissing sort or something. So often, we were rushed or he was frenzied.” I flush, realizing how much of my personal life I’m spilling. “But he’s never tasted me in any way, so why would he think I’m his mate?”
“Instinct. It would tell him eventually. A kiss would simply tell him more quickly.”
From the first, he’s been avoiding locking lips with me. Pain stabs my chest and shatters my heart. I can’t breathe, can’t swallow. Tears are ice picks in the backs of my eyes. I try to keep them in, but they fall anyway. Caden squashed his instinct once he suspected I was his mate.
Or am I? Maybe writing my sexual fantasies of him in that bloody book wrought some lust cloud that prompted those mating words. Maybe he didn’t finish them because he didn’t mean them.
“If he spoke even a few of the words, he knows,” Sabelle assures.
“That I’m his mate?”
“Yep,” Olivia adds. “No doubt that scares the crap out of him. In case you haven’t clued in, he doesn’t want to be here and doesn’t want anything to do with magic.”
“I gathered.” And it’s tearing us apart.
“Sorry.” Sympathy softens Sabelle’s face.
I bite my lip but know I have to ask the question. “Is there any chance he feels this way because I wrote about him in that red book? Twice?”
Sabelle and Olivia both still.
“What did you write?” Olivia asks.