Page 15 of Ulune's Daughter

I can still see her clearly. Her strong, solid stride. The carefree way she swings her arms. She wears a backpack instead of carrying a handbag. She wears balm instead of lipstick. She braids her blue-black hair into a long plait that swishes across her upper back, gleaming in the early autumn sunlight. She’s beautiful as an afterthought. Everything about her is functional, because her attention is elsewhere. She’s aware of her surroundings, but they’re not what she’s focused on. She’s thinking, and wherever her thoughts are, they’re far, far away from Bevington’s busy main street on a September morning.

She seems like someone I’d like; someone I’d want to know.

If not for the fact she’s taking Luca away from me.

Luca’s always honest. Sometimes painfully so. He has no filter and doesn’t want one. He told me before we ever slept together that he had a fated mate. A woman his fae blood would draw him to, who he wouldn’t be able to live without. He and his twin met her years ago, during an open house weekend at Bevington when they were juniors in high school.

They immediately recognized her; she didn’t show a flicker of recognition.

This woman, Kellan Wyndham, who I’m stalking through this sunny autumn morning.

Luca’s always known this time would come, when they’d all be drawn together. He’s been honest with me about it from the start.

I’m the idiot who lied to himself. Who got complacent as the days turned into weeks and the weeks into years. It was a distant future. Fae live long lives. Even wild fae like Luca live two or three times longer than human magi. It could be a hundred years before they were drawn to each other again.

It wasn’t even four years. The twins turned 21 and it was like some cosmic gong rang. The big discovery Luca’s so excited about that’s kept her away from Bevvy for years? Suddenly it was done. Not a little done. Done-done. So fucking done that she was coming back to Bevvy. Not just coming back, but coming back to teach classes Luca’s been talking about non-stop for two months.

Now they’ve met her. Luca had his first class with her yesterday. Law went to her last night. I stood in the spring in her garden for hours until I finally heard them fucking.

I’ve lost him. I love everything about him. I have since the moment we met in Early History of Magic as freshmen. And I’ve lost him. Not in a hundred years. Not even in fifty. In one day. Yesterday.

Much too fucking soon.

He’s still blowing up my phone. We don’t spend every night together. He’s a cat; he likes his space. But we spend more nights together than we spend apart. I didn’t invite him over last night. I didn’t show up at his den. I didn’t tell him where I was. I stood in a garden pond like a fucking psycho, half-merged with my Element so no one would see me, listening with every cell in my body for something I knew was inevitable.

Praying it didn’t happen.

But it did.

I might be stupid but I’m not delusional. I know where his twin goes, Luca will follow.

He swears he won’t give me up. That somehow we’ll stay together even after he and Law claim their mate. Like she’d put up with that.

If I’d had any half-formed hope in that direction, it was crushed yesterday after I orchestrated a meeting. The disdain on her face when she talked about Yan. When she thought I was his coach, coming to bail out his jock ass.

If she found out I’m his team captain instead of his coach? That I’m ranked even higher than Yan?

She’ll hate me long before she finds out who I am to Luca.

So why the fuck am I trailing her this morning? On so little sleep my eyes are gritty even though I keep rinsing them out with my Element. Skipping the senior seminar which is the last class I actually need to graduate.

Because I’m a fucking fool. I can’t fight for him. Not against hisfated mate. But I don’t know how to give him up. I don’t know how to lose. Nothing in my twenty-two years on this damn planet has prepared me for this moment. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been taught to win. To push harder. To overcome my physical and mental limitations. To roll with small defeats knowing I’ll bounce back stronger and fucking conquer.

How do I conquer fate?

I don’t know how to surrender. To walk away. So, I keep putting one foot in front of the other, despite my lack of sleep and the despair that’s weighing on me so heavily I’m almost dragging my knuckles on the ground as I walk. I follow her up the hill from main street, through Spellman Quad, past Spinner’s Tower, to a long, brick building with white columns and a marble dome that rises above the surrounding pines.

She disappears through the museum’s front doors.

I have no reason to follow her inside. No plausible excuse for why I’m in a museum that I’ve stepped inside exactly twice during my three years at Bevington, both times during Parents’ Weekend.

A museum that’s closed, I discover when I try the door anyway.

Fuck.

I turn around and repeat the word aloud.

Luca’s standing behind me. Cat-silent; I didn’t hear him approach. He’s done whatever the twins do to change their appearance without shifting into their Cait forms. He’s turned his hair Joker green. His eyes are white; his fingernails and lips are black. He’s wearing one of my Bevvy Swim! sweatshirts, cut off just below his pecs, and low-slung, black jeans, baring his ribs and muscled stomach.

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