Chapter 140

Violet’s POV

For the first time in my life, I’m frozen in fear.

I’ve always been adaptable, an expert even in navigating change. It’s a part of life no one can avoid, so I learned very young that the quickest path forward was to accept change. In the werewolf world, dwelling on the reality before a change, wishing things were how they used to be, could cost you your life.

But I was starting to realize I had only ever expected change for my future – not my past.

Finding out that Lucas had been lying to me our entire relationship, that he had already found a mate bond with Nora, was so much harder to accept than the fact that he was cheating on me. Even through the pain of receiving the mark of the unwanted, I knew there was only one path forward. But finding out in that courtroom that our past was not what I had believed had left me fumbling for my own thoughts.

The past few weeks had been more of the same. Meeting Eva, returning to Darkmoon without Theo, finding out I was pregnant – all that I could manage. None of it was ideal, but I understood, believed even, there was a way through it.

But this rewriting of everything I had ever known about myself…

I don’t have magic.

I repeated the words in my head, vaguely aiming it towards the connection I felt extended between me and Theo. His eyes were full of shock and sympathy as he searched my face.

Maybe not.

I inhaled sharply as his voice blared in my mind even though he never opened his mouth.

“I need…” I started, cut off by dizziness that had me reaching for the table to stabilize myself. Theo lunged for me, grasping my waist even as I caught myself.

Tell me what you need, he said in my mind. The new bond felt natural and foreign all at the same time. Theo was learning to use it very quickly.

“I need you to tell me out loud what you just said in your head. I need to know you’re actually doing this, and I’m not just going crazy.”

I was still bracing myself on the table as he lifted one hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear, leisurely brushing his knuckles along my cheekbone as he did.

“I said, ‘Tell me what you need.’” He kissed me on the forehead. “You’re not going crazy.”

But I don’t have magic, I thought to him, trying to practice using this bond now that I was convinced it was real.

“Maybe not.” He kissed my lips, then pulled back to look me in the eye. “Maybe the baby does.”

My eyes widened, wondering at the possibility. Both Theo’s and my mothers had magic, so we wouldn’t have any information there about non-magical mothers gaining magic from their babies while pregnant.

“I have magic,” he reminded me, implying that he could have very well passed it to our child. I had never thought about whether our child might have magic from him, and suddenly I was worried about its safety in our world where magic was illegal.

“My mom had magic,” I added as I let go of the table to rest my hands on Theo’s chest. I needed the warmth of him beneath my palms. His presence was all the stability I needed.

“You think it skipped a generation?”

“Possibly, but mostly I meant that magic isn’t a dominant trait. Just because a parent has it, doesn’t mean a child will.”

Theo scooped me up to walk across the cabin. Despite what I had said when we first entered, I was quickly growing tired of him doing that. Or maybe I didn’t like feeling out of control of my own body when my life was turning upside down.

“Just because you have magic,” I finished my thought as he settled us onto the couch with me on his lap, “doesn’t mean our child necessarily will.”

Theo soothed small circles over my back. “Well, at least one of you has magic because…”

…this is the bond, right? He finished in my mind.

Still a little uncomfortable with the bond I somehow created, I only nodded my head instead of responding in his. I clenched his shirt in my hands at another wave of dizziness, unsure if it was the pregnancy symptoms wielding their ugly head or my struggle to accept the possibility that I had magic. At least for another eight months.

I realized I was clenching something hard underneath Theo’s shirt, and when I looked at Theo’s chest, I noticed he was wearing a necklace that dropped down underneath his shirt. I pulled at the chain to reveal whatever was at the end of it that my fingers were wrapped around. He watched as I raised my token out from under his shirt.

The familiar sight of the necklace helped calm me as I lifted my gaze to his.

“It’s been by my heart since the moment you had it delivered to me,” he murmured.

I swallowed the love mixed with fear. “If anyone sees you’re wearing it—”

“They’ll think it was my mother’s,” he cut me off. “Thanks to the clever tale you told the steward who was well-manipulated into repeating every detail in front of Eva.”

He gently tugged my hand higher until it was resting above his pounding heart. “Thank you, alari. You do not know how many times the reminder of your love against my heart has saved me these past few weeks.”

This was torture. The love for me and the pain from our separation etched across his face was echoed by the visceral feeling of it throbbing down the new bond, and suddenly I wasn’t sure I’d be able to leave him again.

I wondered if he knew how I felt, too, because his face was breaking – like he was seriously contemplating keeping me in his arms even if it brought down the world around us.

Twigs cracked outside beyond the cabin’s property. Leaves crunched and pebbles rolled, the sounds getting closer.

We were out of time.

I traced my fingers across Theo’s forehead, along the shattered pieces of the glowing band there. “We will come back together,” I promised. I searched for more words, the right words, that would fuel our hope and bolster our courage in the remaining seconds we had.

But there were none. No words could say what beat between us with the bond in place, his tireless love for me now undeniable. So I sent my love for him, a love I could have never imagined existed save for the glimpses I saw between my parents, right back to him.

He bit back the quiver of his chin in the same breath that he rose from the couch, pulling me with him. The rustling underbrush outside had shifted to the pad of boots on the steppingstones that led to the front door. I savored the feel of Theo’s calluses against mine as he quickly led me to the back door.

A knock rapped against the front door, just as an impatient twist of the knob was jammed by the lock Theo had thankfully engaged. We didn’t have a second to spare, but Theo took one anyway, leaning down to gift me with a lingering kiss. The gaze we exchanged as I reached for the doorknob was full of sorrow and longing and promises of forever.

“Coming!” Theo called as he somehow found the strength to pull away from me.

I waited for him to disengage the lock, timing it in the hopes the creaking lock would mask the sound of me opening the back door. Theo looked back just once as I slipped outside, then we timed it again, me closing the back door as he opened the front one to what I prayed was not a threat.