Page 1 of The Stone Secret
CHAPTER1
The sun was making its way to midday position when I cracked open my dorm-room door to peer down the corridor.
All clear. Thank the gods.
“Cam?”
I jumped, hand flying to my chest. “Touron.” I laughed weakly. “You startled me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Startled you? Since when do you get startled so easily?”
A shadow moved at the bottom of my corridor. I dragged Touron into my room, slammed the door, and pressed my ear to the wood.
“Um…Cam? What in the world are you doing?”
“Shhh!”
Touron squeezed my shoulder. “You’re freaking me out.”
I hushed him again, listening for any sounds of movement outside my door. Long seconds ticked by, and finally satisfied that there was no one loitering outside my door, I turned to face him. “My ex is here.”
“What?” His glaze flew to the door. “When? How?”
I’d been asking myself the ‘how’ ever since Levi had shown up on my doorstep a few hours ago. “He turned up after you guys left this morning. I thought it was you. That you’d come back for your sweatshirt and then…” Levi’s face filled my mind. His smile, the light in his eyes at seeing me and the answering lurch in my chest followed by a hollowing of my stomach because he couldn’t be here. “This is fucked up.”
“What happened? Tell me everything.”
The hollow feeling returned. “He tried to kiss me, and I pushed him away. It was instinct, but the look on his face…” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Touron, he was so hurt.” My stomach tightened recalling the look of pain in his beautiful sea-green eyes.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. He didn’t get a chance because Mr. Raffi, the dorm master, showed up asking him who he was. Levi went off with him, but he promised to speak to me later.”
“And you thought later might be now?”
“I’ve barely slept. Touron, what am I going to do? If Levi is here, it means he came for me, because he loves me, but I…” Urgh.
“You’re not in love with him anymore.”
My heart ached beneath the weight of loss. “I can’t be.”
The pity in Touron’s eyes made mine sting with the threat of tears.
He cupped my shoulder gently. “Cam, the mate bond is powerful and primal, and itwillinevitably lead to love because your fated mate is your perfect match in every way, but the love you had for Levi was real too. You’re allowed to mourn it.”
Yes, that’s what this feeling was. Grief. Loss for what could have been. “All I want now is Serath, and I know I can’t have him, but—”
“He’s your fated mate,” Touron said. “Whether you can have him or not won’t change the connection between you. Can you trust Levi?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Then you need to tell him the truth. About Serath being your fated mate, about you being a Basque, and about the fast track to elite and why. Bring him into the circle of trust.”
He made it sound so simple. “I wish I’d come and talked to you earlier.”
He shrugged. “What can I say? I have excellent problem-solving skills. Now, how about you shower and sort your hair out.”
I reached for my hair, finger snagging in the tangles formed from all the tossing and turning I’d done. “That bad?”
