I barely make it outside before I collapse on the curb, arms slung over my knees, forehead pressed into the space between, sucking in deep, filling my lungs with air. The pain in my head is gone, but it feels like the world as I know it is spiraling out of control. Nothing makes sense. My best friend is a witch?
"You all right?" A deep male voice asks from the shadows.
I gasp and jump to my feet. Whether I'm poised for fight or flight, I'm not sure. But when the hulking figure steps out of the shadows, my shoulders drop in relief. Kaden.
"Are you a shifter too?" I ask, my tone accusatory.
"He finally told you?"
"He did not." I stare at him, trying to reconcile the man standing in front of me with the beasts that saved me from the wolves trying to rip me apart.
"You figured it out?" This seems to surprise him more.
"Also a no," I admit, annoyed with myself. Now that the truth is staring me in the face, I feel stupid for not having seen it earlier. Where did I think Kaden and Aidan appeared from? Where did I think the giant wolves had gone to when they appeared? Did I really tell myself they scared them off? It's like something in my mind wouldn't let me see the truth.
"Good talk," he says, glancing around. "You have another head splitter?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You smell like fairy blood." He takes a deep inhale. "And something else, but I can't figure out what it is."
"Do you remember Hailey at all?" I scan his face as I ask, searching for any clues.
"Hailey?" He smirks. "I probably met a Hailey at some point. She cute?"
"She's got main character energy." In fact, if I'd had to pick a star of my life, Hailey would have been it. But now I feel duped, betrayed, as though her friendship was never really mine.
"I do like my women fierce," he says, the smirk a permanent fixture.
"Is the woman Aidan is supposed to... The one his parents made the arrangement with... I mean, does this work like in the books? Is she his fated mate or something? Like, the one he's destined to be with."
Kaden's smirk fades, and now he's searching my face. "I don't know what to say to you right now. It's possible my brother would fucking kill me for so much as hurting your feelings. I'm gonna keep my mouth shut on all that." He waves a hand toward the apartment building.
"So, it is then, right? She's his destiny or whatever?" My heart squeezes hard in my chest, making it tough to get a full breath. "He's your brother?" I don't remember Aidan giving Kaden a specific role of any sort. He had a name, and he appeared to be my de-facto bodyguard when Aidan wasn't around, but I didn't know they were related. Other than their immense size, they don't look alike. "Hailey called Aidan the first son?"
Kaden's jaw tightens, and he nods, but he doesn't tell me what the nod is for. All of it?
"Is that why wolves are after me? Because Aidan is..." I can't think of how I want to phrase it. "Not doing what he's supposed to?"
"He is now," Kaden says. "Mostly. That's probably as good as it'll ever get with him." He stares at the door to the apartment for a beat. "He made things harder for himself than he needed to. Also, on brand." He chuckles. "Honestly, if my parents could have skipped over Aidan and me and given the clan to one of my sisters, they would have."
"But they can't?"
"Power doesn't transfer that way. It's magical or mystical or however you want to see it. There's no choice. As long as Aidan is alive, it's his to take. If he dies, the responsibility falls on me. If we both die, well..." He shakes his head. "The whole clan is fucked, basically. Best not to think about that."
"Seems archaic," I mutter. "Women can't have any power?"
Kaden chuckles. "Women can be so irrational."
"Right," I say, throwing my hand toward the apartment. "Your brother seems highly rational. Not at all driven by emotion." I roll my eyes.
His chuckle broadens and deepens. "See," he says, "you're proving my point."
"You've never been swayed by emotion?"
"I mean..." He gestures to his crotch. "Would you call that an emotion or a basic need?"
"I'm surprised she didn't erase her own memories too," I say, staring him down. Right now, my blood is running hot, and I can't even say why. Frustration bubbles through me, and it feels like mine and not mine all at the same time.
"I haven't got a fucking clue what you're on about," he says, the smirk coming back.
"I'm aware," I say, giving him a smirk of my own. "Hailey—she messed with your memories."
"Your friend is the witch?" His eyes narrow dangerously.
The word friend doesn't seem accurate anymore, but it's hard to wrap my head around what her presence in my life means. Aidan doesn't think I'm human, and that feels right—since I've never been quite like everyone else around me.
The door to the apartment opens, and Kaden turns. Hailey steps out first, and something happens to Kaden that I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't turned to watch him instead of her. His hand splays across his chest, and there's a look of such naked longing that crosses his face, so briefly I might have missed it, but then it's gone. And his hand drops, sliding into his pocket, and he seems to come back to himself. When I tear my gaze away from him, Hailey is focused on Kaden too, as though the sight of him is a heart clutch too.
She might have covered over the memories, but something still lies beneath for both of them. The realization makes me think, even more, that I never knew Hailey. She wasn't just fucking around with Kaden—which is how she always presented that secret relationship to me—that look that passed between them had nothing to do with casual sex.
Aidan, however, doesn't seem to have picked up on it. His gaze is focused on me.
"Hailey's going to join us on our witch finding expedition. She claims she doesn't know any more than we do, but witches can sense other witches. So we're hauling her along as our own personal homing device."
"You don't think Mom and Dad did that too? We're not smarter than them," Kaden says, ignoring Hailey as though she's not even there.
"Do you have an idea? To figure out what Emmerson is? To determine who is on our asses trying to murder her or bring us down? Go ahead. I'm all fucking ears." He cups one large hand around his ear. "I'm waiting."
"Where would he go then?" Kaden asks with a huff. "You think you're so smart. Where's Trident?"
"Somewhere Mom and Dad wouldn't dare to go, somewhere they wouldn't dare to send even a scout for fear of conflict."
"We can't go there," Kaden scoffs. "Crossing into another pack's border is risky enough, but crossing multiple ones to get to where I think you're implying? You're going to get us killed."
"What's our other option?" Aidan asks.
"That's obvious," Kaden says, anger tinging his voice. "We stay here for three fucking weeks and you gain the pack power after the bonding ceremony. It's one thing to protect her," he says, gesturing toward me, "but it's a whole other thing to go on a death mission to catch a witch who isn't a threat. He might know things about Emmerson, but we're not desperate."
The implication is obvious—the only desperate person is Aidan.
"To be fair," Hailey says, avoiding making eye contact with Kaden, "it doesn't make sense for Aidan to have the feelings he has for Emmerson, for them to be connected enough that he can drink fairy's blood and she gets the benefits."
For us to be in each other's heads when he told me it should be impossible. For me to feel anger or frustration that I'm sure isn't mine but feels like it could be. That when the two of us are in the same room, I'm drawn to him, unable to resist. And if we're close together? He could ask me to do anything—anything in the world—and I'd do it. It doesn't even feel like I have a choice. The answer to him is always yes. I close my eyes for a beat, remembering the heat between us when we touch. When the flames engulf me, all I want to do is burn. Burn and burn and burn. Zero sense of self-preservation.
It's going to rip my fucking heart out to know he's with someone else in three weeks. I'll be on my knees, half dead.
Kaden grunts in response to Hailey's claim, but he doesn't refute the oddity. I wonder if whatever went on between them is equally odd. Didn't Aidan mock her claim that Kaden had been having trouble letting go? But I saw the way he looked at her, however brief, and I believe, however flippant Hailey seemed in the moment, it was an honest claim. And I think, based on how she can't look at him, that their affection was mutual. For some reason, Hailey put a stop to it.
"Witches and wolves..." I say, leaving the thought unfinished, letting my gaze run between Kaden and Hailey.
"Don't mix," Kaden says, his voice firm.
"You can fuck them," Hailey says, her voice smaller than I'm used to hear it, "but you can never marry them." And although it sounds like something she'd say—her tone tells me the words are someone else's, a callback to a time maybe only she remembers.
"Why not?" I ask.
"Witches can't become part of the pack," Aidan says. "Outside my family, the core family, yeah, maybe. Get far enough away from the center of power, and maybe it doesn't matter so much anymore. I only know our rules."
"And if a witch and wolf were to be together?" I ask.
"If you're worried about being discovered," Hailey says, ignoring me but finally regaining some of her spunk, "we stick to the borders, and I can conceal us. Other witches might sense us, but the wolves won't."
Kaden grimaces. "And if Trident is hiding out with the clan you think he's with, what then? We can't storm in there."
"We go to the edge of our territory tonight," Aidan says. "Stay in the cottage there. As soon as we cross out, Mom and Dad will know. So if we're going, we have to go with intention."
"Like every other thing you've decided to do in the last year, this decision reeks of bullshit." Kaden glances at me, clearly unimpressed. "I'd accuse you of leading with your dick, but I don't even know if that's what this is."
"It's not," Aidan says. "Does any of this feel right to you?"
"It's weird," Kaden agrees. "But who's the last first son who's refused their bond for this long? Maybe your connection with Emmerson is normal. Maybe wolves who are going against their natural instinct go a little magic mad."
"It's not the only weird thing that's been happening," Hailey says. "The magical world feels off kilter."
"And we're going to put it right?" Kaden chuckles. "Little witch, I think you're giving yourself too much credit."
"No risk," Hailey says, squaring her shoulders, "no reward."
"Fine," Kaden says, giving her an appraising glance that seems to force the rod in Hailey's back to strengthen, and I wonder if that's an act on her part. "We'll go to the edge, and tomorrow morning we'll either go with intention or forget this whole stupid, idiotic scheme. I know which side I'm on."
The thing is, I think he's the only one on that side. Hailey's comment makes me think she knows more than she's letting on, and by the set of Aidan's mouth, I'd say he's prepared to dig in his heels. As for me? If there's any chance, even the thinnest glimmer of hope, that I'm someone, some thing, that Aidan can be with, then I'll risk my life.
It doesn't even feel like a choice.
Thanks to those of you reading my Radish story and responding to reader comments there. It's a whole other world of entitlement. I think a few of them would chain me to my keyboard if they could. ;)
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