“Yes,” Nate replied from directly in front of Cassie but outside the circle.
“Yes,” Cassie replied directly beside him.
Cassie stared at herself.
Nate and the other Cassie walked forward into the circle and right to where Cassie stood. In fact, Nate walked right through her arm as she tried to get out of the way. Neither one noticed her at all. Cassie moved in front of both of them to be sure. They looked forward like they were looking through her, to the priestess.
Cassie had a good feeling that even though it was different, she was in the future. When she had gone to the future as a kid, it was like she had lived all those moments. When she went to the future at the wendigo meeting, it was like she was in the sky watching the scenes happening. And now she was standing there in the middle of it, but not really there.
“Before we can bind you, we need to prepare each of you,” the priestess told Cassie and Nate. “Nathaniel, if you could come here, but don’t break the edge of the circle.”
Nate took the few steps back to the priestess. She held out of vial and motioned for his hands. Saying words Cassie couldn’t hear, she dumped the liquid on his hands. Nate dropped to his knees. She glanced back to the other Cassie. The other Cassie seemed surprised, but then rushed forward to Nate. She bounced off an invisible wall feet away from him. Then she realized she was stuck in a second circle that she hadn’t noticed.
“What are you doing?” other Cassie asked.
“We need you to cooperate, and we figured this was the only way,” the priestess continued like she hadn’t just harmed Nate. He pushed himself up to a stand, but wasn’t moving beyond that. Pain was etched across his face. Their bond seemed to be temporarily absent.
“Cooperate?” other Cassie asked suspiciously. She was still standing, and her face was full of concern for Nate, not a hint of worry about her own situation.
“I’m sure your aunt has told you all about how we can drain a witch’s power,” the priestess continued.
The women around the circle began to whisper. Cassie couldn’t see them but was sure that there were many there.
“You can’t drain my mate,” Nate told them. “I’m the alpha, and my word is law.” He was barely able to stand. Other Cassie looked hurt that she couldn’t help him.
The seer stepped forward.
“I have seen the future, and we must,” she told Nate and the ladies present. “I have seen that Cassie will bring destruction to the skinwalkers. It was told by the last seer that Gabriella must not have any children. She defied us and had Cassandra. Cassie will bring the wendigo into the clan to destroy us. Not a single witch or her family will be safe. If we don’t strip her powers, we are all in danger. We must stop her.”
The seer’s words were taken as truth and the women around the circle believed her lies. The seer couldn’t see a thing, but no one knew the truth. No one knew that it was Cassie that was supposed to see. The lies out of her mouth were truth to them all. Cassie stared in disbelief as the seer willingly deceived everyone.
Power snapped up around the circle as a spell was activated. Cassie didn’t want to watch as the women around the circle joined in, forcing other Cassie to the center. Her own face contorted as pain ripped through her.
“If you want your mate to survive this, you will give up your power,” the priestess told Cassie from outside the circle.
Cassie watched Nate fall back to his knees as the magic pulled at other Cassie.
Before anything else could happen, a shake rattled her body.
‘Cassie, what’s wrong?’ Nate asked her loudly. Or so it seemed.
Cassie looked up. She was still in Nate’s office and standing behind his desk. The paper she had touched was back on the desk now.
‘I think I just had a vision of tomorrow night,’ Cassie replied, thinking it over.
The priestess had everything planned. She was going to hurt Nate to get Cassie to not fight back, and the seer was going to lure everyone else in with lies. She wasn’t really a seer; the priestess admitted that much. They were leading the clan with lies and willing things to go their way by faking power they didn’t have. Here they were going to convince everyone Cassie was going to harm the clan when that’s what they were doing at every turn. Their lack of truth put everyone in danger, and no one knew beyond the few people sitting in Nate’s barn.
Cassie let out her breath. She had been mad at the coven before, but she was now fuming. But she couldn’t let them know. She couldn’t let anyone know what she knew. Nate took her hand and pulled her back from her anger. Tingles shot up her arm as soon as his hand touched hers.
‘It’s all right,’ Nate told her mentally. ‘I won’t let them harm you.’
‘It’s just not fair,’ Cassie complained back. She couldn’t get the image out of her head as they tried to rip the magic right out of her. ‘I didn’t ask for any of this.’
Nate led her through the door of his father’s office and back into the hallway. Closing the door behind them, he stopped suddenly.
“Cassie. I’m sorry I didn’t know more before. I’m sorry that I didn’t protect you back eight years ago,” Nate said quietly. They were out of earshot of any of the bugs in his office, coven placed or his own.
Cassie smiled up at him and tried to make sure he knew she was being genuine.
“You didn’t know,” Cassie told him. “You can’t be sorry for something that wasn’t your fault.”
“I won’t let them harm you this time. I promise you this much.”
Cassie smiled sadly at him. “Some things aren’t in our control.”
Nate stared at her, and she could feel him looking into her head. She kept all her memories of the future as it should have been tucked away. There was a lot that wasn’t in Nate’s control, and she didn’t need him to know that. Their past was just part of it, but it showed how little they actually could do. In that life, Nate did love her back then, but he had chosen the clan over her. He had chosen to protect everyone else. He didn’t need to see that. He didn’t need to know that truth.
The coven would hurt him just to get to her. It didn’t matter if he knew that or not. It was how they were going to play the game. Cassie wanted to let everyone help, but she needed to help herself. She needed to get stronger, and she had to figure out how to get ahead of everyone. Wasn’t that why she was the seer? That was her power and her ability to help. The guys could fight and be all manly about everything, but Cassie knew she was needed, too. Now she just had to figure out how she did it.
Cassie reached out and took Nate’s hand. Squeezing it, she gave him a real smile. “Once I figure this all out, you won’t have to protect me. I’ll be able to protect everyone.”
Nate grinned at her. “There’s the Cassie I grew up with. Still as tough as ever.” Nate squeezed her bicep, lightening up the situation.
Cassie punched him on the arm, and he laughed. She was more like an annoying fly to him, but she didn’t care. Cassie marched ahead of him down the hallway to the outside door. Nate hurried up from behind and tugged on a loose hair from her ponytail. She turned around to stick out her tongue at him before running to the door without him, but Nate trapped her against the wall so that she couldn’t walk away. He was already two steps ahead of her. He leaned down, pressing his forehead to hers and keeping her in place by looking eye-to-eye with her.
Nate closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Cassie watched him as he turned a serious conversation into silly and now back to serious. Every emotion possible was flowing through him. He was nervous, scared, mad, happy, and everything else in one big swirl. Their lives were complicated and so was everything he was feeling.
Something had changed between them when he showed up to the dance at the Winter estate. When he hadn’t come with them, Cassie felt like the same future was going to happen as she had seen. His father was going to tell him to choose someone else, and he was going to. The clan was more important than she was, but now she was feeling
that might be otherwise. Nate wasn’t acting like she thought he would.
“I know you won’t tell me what future you saw as a kid, but I don’t care. That’s not us; that’s not me. Let me show you how I really feel,” Nate begged. His eyes peered down at her, and he was offering every bit of his past to her. Cassie didn’t need to look to know what he felt. She felt it loud and clear across the bond.
Nate slid his hand from the wall to her face, and her heartbeat increased. He left tingles everywhere he touched. Gently, he pressed his lips to hers before Cassie could protest. For being such a large person and an even larger tiger when he transformed, his lips were soft and gentle. Even so, they made her heart beat erratically in her chest. Cassie didn’t struggle to get away from him now, and her hands moved to his neck to hold him there with her. Nate seemed momentarily surprised, but that didn’t stop the kiss.
Slowly, Nate pulled back and began to trail kisses down her neck instead. Cassie tilted her head as he made it to the crook of her neck. His tongue lightly touched the spot where a vein of blood beat beneath. She didn’t feel any fear at Nate being that close. She was terrified of Ryder when he tried to drink her blood, and terrified of the man that had attacked her wanting the same thing. But it was different with Nate. She wasn’t afraid. In fact, she was actually kind of excited. Her heart continued to beat fast.
Sucking in a deep breath, Nate pulled back. “You’re not going to stop me?” he asked curiously.
“You’re not going to hurt me. I know that,” Cassie replied, looking up into his confused sky blue eyes. She saw through the bond that he very much wanted to taste her blood, but he was stopping himself.
Cassie reached up and pulled his face back down to hers. She couldn’t explain why, but she wanted to give him her blood. Nate didn’t wait for her to say anything and was back to kissing her again, this time not as gently. Cassie ran her hands through his hair as he lifted her off the ground and pinned her to the wall behind them, not breaking the kiss in the process. Nate reluctantly pulled back, cocking his head to the side as if he heard something down the hallway. Gently, he set Cassie back on the ground.
He ran his hands through his now messed-up hair before reaching for Cassie’s hand. She was confused by his sudden change in action until she saw a shadow of a person standing just outside the doorway.
‘Would you have really let me feed off you?’ Nate asked as they walked toward the doorway where Jared waited.
‘Yes. Whitney explained everything to me about how you feed off your witch. She explained how the bond between a witch and their night human includes sharing their blood, and how it makes the night human stronger and thus the witch, too,’ Cassie replied. Her cheeks were still red, and her heart hadn’t slowed down yet.
‘And that doesn’t scare you?’
‘You don’t scare me. Night humans, yes, but not you,’ Cassie replied. She hadn’t been scared for even a moment and that not only shocked Nate but her, too. She felt safe with him. He would never hurt her.
Nate stopped at the doorway and stood in front of her, blocking her from the view of anyone outside. He bent down and kissed her again quickly, making her heart pick back up its uneven beat.
‘I love you, Cassie, and always have.’
Nate turned back while taking her hand to lead her out of the house and to her waiting wendigo mate.
CHAPTER 8
Jared was leaning against one of the cars when they exited the house. He watched them from ten feet away, but didn’t move any closer. Cassie was glad for the setting sun and hoped her red cheeks weren’t showing. Then again, simply thinking the thought meant she just gave herself away. Nate grinned beside her, but nicely toned it down as they neared Jared.
“You need to take her back with you,” Nate told Jared. He nodded like they were back to being best friends, even though he knew exactly what they had just been doing. “I have a lot to clean out of my office, and I don’t want her around her if they stop by again.”
Cassie looked up at him. He didn’t seem to understand in the least that the witches would never do anything directly to her; Nate would be their target.
“What about going home?” Cassie asked, anxious to get to back to her uncle and aunt. They hadn’t seen them yet, and she wanted to know what their take was on everything.
“Maria has been sent away again, and I don’t trust that they haven’t already set up spells around your house while we were gone. It’s not safe there until Maria checks it over,” Nate explained.
Cassie wanted to protest—she hated when the guys decided everything without her—but she couldn’t think of a good argument. Nate was right in that the witches could have set up any spell they wanted while she was gone if they sent Maria away. Jared’s place was the safest, especially since the witches couldn’t find it.
“Fine,” Cassie consented.
‘I’ll send Owen and Whitney to watch over the witches tonight, but in the morning Whitney will go stay with you at Jared’s place,’ Nate explained.
‘Jack’s already offered to wait for her to bring her into the wendigo grounds,’ Jared answered. All the details seemed to be figured out by the guys.
Without anything to add, Cassie nodded as Jared opened the car door. Just like that she was going to be whisked away again. She looked in the car and noticed her coat. The book from the weird sidhe lady was still in there. Maybe some time at Jared’s place wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.
Cassie turned back to Nate.
“Keep safe here,” she said to him quietly. He would never understand how much he was in danger. Both the guys were like that. They thought they were invincible.
Grinning, Nate tipped up her chin since she looked at his chest instead of his eyes. She had seen that they planned to hurt him and use him to get her to agree. It wasn’t fair. She wanted to protect everyone and couldn’t do her job of seeing the future.
“Hey now. No getting sad,” Nate complained, humor twinkling in his eyes. He knew her worry and wasn’t afraid of anything.
‘They plan to use you to get to me,’ Cassie told him across the bond.
Nate grinned at her more now. “Let them try. They don’t know who they are dealing with.” Nate noticed his confidence wasn’t contagious. “If you’re safe, then I won’t have to worry about that. Stay safe and I will stay safe.”
Cassie nodded and finally looked up at him. “Promise?” she asked. The future she had seen felt real.
“Promise.”
Reaching around him, she gave him a hug. Nate laughed and hugged her back. She felt his confidence and tried to let it seep in. She needed it. Nate’s totem was a tiger, the king of the jungle. He was born with confidence, and Cassie could use it now more than ever. She had one night to figure out how to see the future. She had to do it. Her life and everyone around her depended on it.
Cassie stepped back from Nate and slid into the car. Jared shut the door, and Cassie heard them talking, but not what they were saying. Too bad they didn’t broadcast everything to her as easily as she did to them. The guys spoke for a few moments more, and both nodded in agreement. At least there were times they could get long.
The drive back to Jared’s place was quiet. Jared seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, and Cassie still didn’t want to think of what had just happened. She didn’t mean to make out with Nate in the hallway. It just kind of happened. Both the guys were like that to her. They both had a pull on her that she couldn’t explain, even though it was different with each of them.
With Jared, it was the friendship she had forgotten. No matter that so many years had passed, in her eyes, he was still Jared: kind, reliable, and gentle. Nate had been there for the past eight years, but not as her friend. She could remember their close childhood, but she could also remember the teen years where she felt like such an outcast. He was always standing there on the edge. He never made her feel worse, but he never rescued her either like Jared would have.
“Nate said he’d se
nd Whitney over once she’s done for the night. You can sleep until she arrives,” Jared told Cassie as he pulled into his driveway. It was strange to be able to see it all now that Cassie had the spell lifted.
“And you guys are sure it’s safe?” Cassie asked of their plan.
Nate had explained that as alpha he could change any member of the pack into their animal just because he commanded it. That included the younger people that didn’t have a mate or couldn’t control doing that on their own. He planned to send Whitney and Owen to watch over the witches as they set up the spells for the next night. Since they didn’t understand that Nate was already alpha, they wouldn’t know that the skinwalkers protecting them were actually reporting to Nate. They would assume it was older skinwalkers with wives they would control if needed.
“If Nate thought anything would happen to them, he wouldn’t let them go,” Jared replied to assure Cassie. She nodded. She knew that, too, but it still worried her.
Stepping out of the car, Cassie followed Jared to the trunk to get her bags. She kept her coat around her, and the book tucked away inside. She had to hope maybe there were clues in the book to help with seeing the future as they needed to come up with a plan. Jared reached into the trunk and took her bags before she could grab them.
“My dad’s gone, and Ryder stayed behind to bring Jack back,” Jared told Cassie. Basically, he was saying they had the place to themselves.
Cassie nodded, unsure what that really meant. Yes, deciding between the guys was something she would have to do, but Cassie didn’t feel that was too high on the list of priorities for the time being. They had to worry about the coven and deal with Mikel being dead, and then find Whitney’s missing family. She would have to choose at some point, but she hoped that was far off.
“The house should be quiet enough for you to sleep,” Jared explained as he read her mind.
Cassie’s cheeks burned. Blocking people from her mind was added to the list of what needed to get done.
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