Cassie grabbed her bag and quickly stood. She surely didn’t know the guy, yet he knew her name. And he was there with someone else—his lookout.
“Sorry.” The teen held up his hands. “I didn’t intend to startle you. I mean you no harm. I’m here because we’re family. I know you probably think I’m crazy, but I promise you that I’m your cousin. I’m going to reach into my pocket now and take out a picture. It will prove it to you.”
He slowly reached into his front pants pocket. If he was going to cast a spell on her, there wouldn’t have been enough room in his pocket to hide it, nor was there room for any weapons. Cassie relaxed a little as he pulled out a folded piece of paper. The guy set it on the table and slid it in Cassie’s direction.
“My name’s Jack. I’m the son of your Uncle Michael,” Jack explained.
“I don’t have an Uncle Michael.” She didn’t take her eyes off the guy named Jack as she took the paper from the table.
“I don’t have time to debate that with you,” Jack replied, glancing at his friend who was waving him to leave. “That picture proves to you I’m telling the truth. My father is the one next to John. Next time I see you here, you’ll know the truth, hopefully. And if the skinwalkers won’t tell you about the wendigo, I will. Be safe around them. They can’t be trusted, and neither can the coven. All they want is your power. Our family line is one of the first, and they know that.”
Jack didn’t even say good-bye when he left, following his friend in the opposite direction as Whitney was now coming from. Cassie didn’t know why, but she quickly put the picture in her pocket. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Whitney—she did, completely—it was just that it seemed like there was maybe more Cassie wanted to know that Whitney wouldn’t be allowed to tell her. She had already gotten her friend in enough trouble, and if the alpha really could read her mind, Cassie needed to be careful.
Whitney walked carefully toward Cassie, concealing the bulge of books in her shirt. She mouthed the words got it before she made it to the table. Cassie quickly grabbed her bag and Whitney’s before following her friend to one of the far corners of the library. Whitney paused to listen around them before she plopped down on the floor. Cassie sat beside her.
“This would be much easier in a week. Then they couldn’t restrict your access to those books. Once you’re part of the coven, you can learn anything you want to,” Whitney commented.
“If I become part of it,” Cassie corrected.
Whitney rolled her eyes. “If Maria could figure out how to get out of the bond, then you can, too. Besides, you can’t leave me. Do you know how much it would suck to be the only one people avoid around here?”
Cassie couldn’t help but smile. Learning about the skinwalkers had taught her why even though her friend was more beautiful than most of the girls in the school, and had just as great a personality to go with her looks, no one would be friends with her. It wasn’t just unusual for a skinwalker to be born female; it was close to rare, with less than ten ever recorded being born. It also meant that unless a male witch was born that they didn’t know about, Whitney wouldn’t even have a mate to be bonded to. A female skinwalker wasn’t someone anyone wanted to get close with. Some even started the rumor at her old school that she was cursed, and that was why she was born the way she was. Whitney never looked at it as a curse, but she hated it anyway.
“It should be in one of these books,” Whitney said as she split the stack she pilfered in half. “We have to be quick; I promised Than you’d be home and ready by four.”
“Four?” Cassie asked. It was Friday night, and Nate wanted to pick her up at four. Cassie hadn’t been on any dates before, but she did know that most didn’t start that early.
“He wanted to pick you up right from school, but then I told him we’d be here again,” Whitney explained, taking the book onto her lap.
“Or you could just lose me on the way home, and I could hide in my room all night,” Cassie suggested. “Better yet, take me home with you and I can hide in your room all night. That sounds like even more fun. Sam won’t tell on me, and your parents aren’t home.” Sam idolized his big sister and would probably jump at the chance to help them.
Whitney laughed. “Not a chance. I’d have to deal with Than in my head all the time. It’s been bad enough already with him constantly bugging me about you; I don’t think I could stand hours of him sifting through my memories night after night.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“Already has,” Whitney replied, cracking open the top book on her stack. “The night you went missing. He was bound and determined to find you. He sifted through all my memories to find the cabin you were in.”
“But I never took you there,” Cassie commented. “And you said they can’t see me in your memories.”
“But you did tell me about it. I went looking for the cabin once during a night run to see it for myself. Once he found that memory, he was able to focus on finding you.” Whitney paged through her book, and Cassie opened hers to do the same.
“Besides, that mark doesn’t just mark you as his own; it gives him a way to find you, or you him.”
“What?” Cassie asked a little too loudly, glancing up from her book.
Whitney quickly looked around again.
“Shh. Do you want to be discovered before we can get the spell to find your aunt?” Whitney scolded.
“What did you mean he can find me?” Cassie asked, quieter this time.
“That mark shows you are connected. He can use it to find you, or you him. Don’t ask me how. I don’t have one,” Whitney explained, shutting her first book and opening the second.
Cassie opened her book but didn’t look too hard at it. She paged through the spells, but thought about how Nate could find her. Did that mean if she had to leave he would find her? Was Cassie really trapped unless they could find Aunt Maria? It wasn’t looking good the more she learned. Cassie paged through the whole book without finding anything that would help.
“Cool,” Whitney said. Cassie shut her book and crawled over next to her friend.
“Did you find it?” she asked, looking down at the spell. How to locate a lost pet. Not something that would help.
“Oh, sorry. I had this cat as a child that we never found after she got out. If I had this spell, we would have been able to find her. I’ll have to keep this in mind. We’ve lost more than one pet over the years.”
“And you do know my aunt isn’t a pet,” Cassie added with a little more attitude than she meant to. Whitney looked up, startled by her best friend’s tone.
“Sorry. I know I’m supposed to be looking for her. I haven’t found a thing yet,” Whitney added as she began to page through the book more. Cassie crawled back over to her side of the hiding spot.
“Sorry,” Cassie immediately apologized.
“Not a problem. I’d be stressed out, too, if I were in your shoes. Well, maybe not. Than is kind of nice to look at. I bet he’s even better to kiss.”
Whitney stared dreamily into space. Cassie shook her head. It did seem like she should just take the chance that fate knew what it was doing, but that wasn’t Cassie. She didn’t like being told what to do.
“It’s just that I don’t want to have to leave,” Cassie complained. There was nothing in any of the books Cassie had. Dread was beginning to settle in. She might not be finding Aunt Maria after all.
“I don’t want you to leave, either. I swear we’ll keep at this until we find an answer,” Whitney added. “Maybe your uncle can help.”
Cassie wondered about that also. He seemed to still be in a better mood now that Cassie knew everything, but she wasn’t sure if he would be willing to help her, or if he even could. Then there was the picture in her pocket. Cassie needed to look at that better and see who this Jack person was.
Whitney glanced at her phone and nodded to herself. “We need to get you back home. An hour should be enough time to get ready.”
“Or I could just sho
w up like this. We still have time,” Cassie added. She didn’t want to give up.
“What is it about being bonded to him that you don’t like?” Whitney asked, standing up and picking up the books, signaling she was finished.
“In reality,” Cassie began, then paused, “it isn’t just him. I don’t want to be bonded to anyone right now. I’m only sixteen. I shouldn’t have to make a life decision like that. How crazy is this night human world? I’m still a child. I mean, I’ve had my driver’s license for less than a year, so why not go get married?”
Whitney laughed. “I can only imagine how odd that seems to you. For me, it’s always been like that. We are raised knowing that we’re supposed to find our partner in our teen years. It may seem weird, but I can’t knock it. It also seems to work.”
“You mean besides my aunt, there isn’t anyone else bonded to someone they don’t want to be with?”
Whitney took Cassie’s books before heading back to the main section of the library.
“Actually, no. No one I know is unhappy with the bond. From what I hear, the bond won’t even work unless you both want it,” Whitney added. “Since you don’t want it, it is possible that you could do the ceremony and join the coven without being bonded. Maybe that’s how Maria got around it.”
Cassie followed her friend. She doubted it was that easy. She had already told Nate she didn’t want to be with him, and yet, everyone claimed his mark was on her neck. No matter how many times she told him to go away or that she wasn’t going to be his mate, the mark didn’t disappear. It didn’t seem to be as easy as just refusing.
CHAPTER 8
The miniskirt Whitney had picked out was way too short. Cassie wasn’t a skirt girl to begin with, but an itty-bitty jean skirt was a bit much. Whitney insisted it made Cassie seem more innocent, but she wasn’t sure that was the vibe she wanted to give off.
Cassie’s mind was elsewhere when Nate pulled up to the house. John paced around the room, more anxious than she was.
The photo Jack had given her sure did look like her mother, Uncle John, Aunt Maria, and someone else, but it wasn’t hard to use Photoshop. Cassie needed time to search the house for the original. She was sure she had seen the picture without the mysterious possible-uncle before; she just didn’t know where. She did think to ask her Uncle John, but after asking him about Maria and getting him upset once already, Cassie didn’t want to take her chances.
Nate arrived right at four. He knocked on the door, but before he could take a step back, John was there. Nate walked in, and John stood toe-to-toe with him, each staring down the other. Nate didn’t blink, looking at her massive uncle. It wasn’t like Nate was small himself, but Uncle John was simply intimidating. Her aunt used to tease that he had been born intimidating.
Cassie stepped between the guys, forcing their staring contest to end. She wanted to get the date over with and get back home to search the house for the photo. John was in complete fall mode and would be asleep by seven and unwakeable for hours.
“Her curfew is eleven,” John said as Nate held out his hand for Cassie.
It sucked that the mating bond made her hand move toward his and take it into her own.
“Of course, Mr. Booth. I will have her back by 10:55.”
John nodded to Nate as he led Cassie away. She wished he had been nicer and more helpful when she questioned him earlier about breaking the temporary mating bond to get out of the permanent one, but he was just as stressed about all of it as she was. She had put him in that disposition.
“Why’s he moody today?” Nate opened Cassie’s door for her.
“I asked him how my aunt got out of the bond,” Cassie answered. She said she would go on a date with Nate. She never said she would play nice.
After closing her door, he went around to the driver’s side.
“Well, that would do it,” Nate replied, not even deterred by what Cassie was trying to do.
Nate started up his car. It was a fancy black sports car. Cassie had heard his parents got it for him for his sixteenth birthday last year, which didn’t surprise her much. They had the money, and indulging their one and only son was one of their favorite ways to spend it.
“It’s kind of a touchy subject with him,” Nate replied.
“I’d say,” Cassie replied. She already figured that one out the hard way.
“When your aunt chose not to bond, it upset the balance of the group. For each skinwalker, there’s a witch, and for each witch a skinwalker. If we get one more on either side, then there isn’t a partner for someone. When Maria backed out, that meant we had too many skinwalkers. John gave up his chance for a mate for her to go without one. He will never have a witch counterpart and the only reason he can still be here is because he was next in line to be alpha. His power keeps him stable.”
“Stable?” Cassie asked. No one had explained this part of it to her yet.
“Whitney said she was teaching you all this stuff when you guys left school,” Nate replied.
Did she? Cassie wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be faking now.
“I figured it was just an excuse to hang out with you,” Nate chuckled, catching Cassie without a response.
“So the witch for a skinwalker, skinwalker for a witch thing,” Cassie said, getting Nate away from the topic of Whitney and what they’d been doing every afternoon for the past week.
“We’re all born in pairs.” Nate drove to the park not far from her house and parked the car while they talked.
“As in, soulmates?” Cassie asked. That would have sounded romantic before she found herself mated to Nate.
“No, more like keys and locks. You can key a house to have all the same locks and all the same keys. So one house could have five locks and five keys. They all fit together, but they don’t work for another house.”
Cassie nodded. It made sense, but Cassie still didn’t like the idea of having absolutely no choice.
“Why do the skinwalkers pair up with the witches?” Cassie asked. Whitney had told her the general ideas. Skinwalkers couldn’t stand direct sunlight for long, needed blood to survive, and turned into monsters at night. Whitney also explained that skinwalkers were only one type of night human, and there were others—lots of others.
“A long time ago the skinwalkers found that their night human power was too much for the body to handle. They would change with the moons, but eventually they would change permanently into their family totem.” Nate parked his car. “The first ones had families and didn’t want to leave them alone, so they chose to fight the change. But the change didn’t come easy. It’s a very painful process, and to go through it forcibly once a month took its toll. Many of the first skinwalkers went crazy. That’s when the women of the skinwalkers looked for a way to help. They found it in the form of witch magic. By combining day human witch magic with night human skinwalkers, it made the process painless.”
“So basically, you want to bind to me to take away your pain from changing into a night human?”
“No … yes … No … I don’t know.” Nate ran his hands through his almost black hair, his favorite nervous move. “No. That isn’t the reason I want to bind to you. Yes, it would help with the change and the pain of changing among other things. But no, I didn’t even consider that when I kissed you at the dance. I wasn’t trying to bind you to me or make you choose me. I just felt like I had to kiss you.”
Cassie had to hold her giggle in. She had never seen him flustered before. It just made him cuter than he already was.
“What did the witches get out of the binding?” Cassie asked. “I understand that the first ones got to keep their husbands and whatnot. But what about everyone one beyond that? I mean, here everyone expects us to bind our lives together, and we don’t even really know each other. What does a witch get out of binding someone they don’t even know?”
Nate seemed taken back by the question.
“You know me, Cassie. We’ve been friends for close to forever.”
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“I knew you, Nate. Knew. I don’t know you now. Remember when you decided you were too good to hang out with Owen and me? That was almost eight years ago. We aren’t the same kids now.”
“I never said that. I had to join them. That was when your uncle gave up being next in line to my father. That’s when I was chosen to be the next alpha. I didn’t ask to be popular. I didn’t want to get a whole new group of friends. I wanted to stay with you and Owen, but my father forbade it. He was too worried that you weren’t of skinwalker blood,” Nate explained.
He was begging Cassie to forgive him with his eyes as he talked.
“You can’t bind to someone you don’t know,” he continued, giving her puppy dog eyes. “It doesn’t work that way. For the magic to choose for us to be together lots of things had to be in line. We had to be compatible, power-wise. I was never going to be able to bind anyone I chose. They had to be able to handle the power of my totem. Second, you have to know each other and want to be bonded. My mark would have never shown up on you if you didn’t want me as much as I wanted you. You can tell everyone else that you don’t want to be with me, but I know better,” Nate replied. “That’s how the bond works.”
Cassie crossed her arms and stared out the window.
“You still haven’t explained what I get out of it,” she answered. She couldn’t deny what he had said. He was the only one that knew she had kissed him back.
“When we bind, you gain access to my totem also. You can make me transform on command, and you can use any of the power behind it. You won’t ever get sick again. You will heal just as quickly as a skinwalker. You can temporarily be faster and stronger. You can use my power to do all sorts of stuff. And you will be part of the coven. Isn’t that what you always wanted? Do you not want that now?”
Cassie didn’t look at him. He had a point, and she didn’t want him to know he was right.
Nate started the car back up. He didn’t need to say anything. He had won the argument, but that didn’t change anything. Cassie still wanted to be the one making her choices, not fate.