Page 68 of Blood and Magic
“Just leave it,” I said, skimming through the messages I’d missed from Ava while I’d been transitioning and changing. She’d called three times and sent over ten texts, threatening to notify the police if I didn’t reply soon.
“You know you can’t tell Ava, right?” Guin said. “You can’t tell Liam or Galahad. None of them.”
I swallowed against my dry throat and nodded, wondering how to lie to my best friend. Ava and I were two halves of the same whole, opposite sides of the same coin. I’d shared a womb with her, my DNA, my entire life. When I died, she’d been the one to bring me back to life.
This was the biggest thing that had ever happened to me, and I’d have to go through it without her. At least, I had Guin. At least, I had Sol when she returned.
“I know,” I said. “How did you and Sol manage to keep it from us?”
Guin rubbed her fingers over her tired eyes and sighed. “She wanted to tell you, but I’ve been carrying the secret longer. Just try not to think about it when she’s around. Sometimes, that helps.”
Despite her advice, they hadn’t been perfect about keeping it hush-hush. Ava and I knew they were hiding something.
Pressing dial on her contact, I brought the phone to my ear and waited for her to pick up.
“Finally,” she said. “I’ve only been trying to reach you for days.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve been busy.”
She paused, and I could practically see her narrowing her eyes in suspicion. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lied. Everything. “It’s just this corporate hellhole I’m drowning in.”
“Okay.” She did not sound convinced.
“How are things with you?” I asked, trying to turn the focus from me. “How’s Lycan?”
She tutted. “Things are fine with me. Lycan is perfectly professional.”
“Uh-huh.” I’d heard about him—a bona fide fuckboy. If he hadn’t tried to get in her pants yet, it was only a matter of time. “Have you found a French lover?”
“Maeve,” she said with a laugh, and the conversation moved on to how things were going at the ranch. I complained about work for the rest of the ride home, and at the end of the conversation, Ava still wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes,” I said. “Don’t worry about me. Just…do us both a favor and get laid, okay?”
She scoffed, and I imagined her rolling her eyes. “I’ll move it right to the top of the priority list.”
“Good. Love you!”
“Love you.”
After I hung up, I glanced at Guin, who raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You need to work on your poker face.”
“Yeah, no shit.” I took a deep breath and texted Sol, asking her to call me when she had a moment. None of us had heard from her since she’d been on her honeymoon, but now that I was a shifter, there was an undercurrent of her that ran deep in my bones. It matched the same signature as Guin, so I figured this was what shifters called a packbond.
When I asked her about it, she confirmed my suspicions.
“I could tell when Sol transitioned,” she explained. “The same as you. If you join Kodiak’s pack, you’ll make a blood pact with him. You’ll start to sense everyone else, too.”
“Are you in his pack?”
“God, no,” she said with a tiny laugh. “I hardly need someone else telling me what to do. If I did, I would have already been married.”
“So no mate then, either?” I raised my eyebrows, trying to imagine the type of shifter it would take to stand next to Guin. Would she need someone more powerful than her? Did such a person even exist?
“No,” she said stoically. “No mate.”
I cleared my throat, debating whether I should ask the next question. After what happened today, it probably didn’t matter anymore. “How do you know if someone’s your mate?”
