Page 33 of Castings & Curses

She stared at him in horror. “How could you be sostupid?I thought we raised you better than this.”

“Now, Marjorie.”

Thank the wolf gods, his father was there. Hopefully he could reason with his—

“I’m sure the boy has a perfectly logical explanation for why he would disrespect his fated mate in such a blatant manner.”

Great.

Now his father had joined his mother on the other side of the picnic table and they werebothglaring at him.

“I didn’t know she was my mate, now did I?” Corwin growled.

“That shouldn’t matter,” his mother snapped. “We raised you to be polite and accepting, not judgmental and rude.”

Corwin sighed and sat back. Might as well get comfortable since this was going to take a while.

An hour later, his ears were ringing from the endless lecturing.

Eventually, his packmates took pity on him and started swinging by the table with entirely made-up reasons for needing his input on this issue or that situation.

Not that Corwin was willing to forgive them their abandonment in the first place, especially since their efforts took entirely too long to make a difference.

In the beginning, his mother just shooed them along, but eventually, she gave up and the lecture portion of the evening was finally over.

With one last admonishment to, “Make things right. Immediately!” his parents left him to his misery.

As soon as they were out of sight, Jared and Pippa, who had stayed far from the drama up until that point, joined him at the table.

“Is it true?” Pippa asked. “Are you Natalie’s mate?”

He nodded glumly. “How bad is it, do you think?”

She winced. “You might want to consider letting go of any hopes or dreams you once had of a happily ever after with your fated mate.”

He groaned.

“Then again,” Pippa said, obviously trying to cheer him up, “even though your chances are pretty close to zero, it could still happen. After all, we live in a town called Zero, so that has to count for something.”

* * *

Corwin stayedat the picnic table and waited as the party slowly died down.

Of course, his packmates took their own sweet time leaving.

It was as if they knew he was waiting for an opportunity to speak with Natalie in private, so they lingered just to torture him.

More like they were hoping he’d give up on the idea of privacy and grovel in full view of the pack.

Like that would ever happen.

So he waited and snarled every time one of his disrespectful packmates stopped by to smile or snicker at his very obvious impatience.

Eventually—finally—they all left.

One by one, even the witches went back inside the coven house and then it was just Natalie and Corwin.

“Finally,” Natalie muttered.

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