Bonded Beyond Trickery (Trick or Treat Monsters)

CHAPTER 3

TILLY

As I slide my hands down over the red silk wrapped around my body and look at myself in the mirror, I have to admit that I look great. If only the way I look could hide the nerves written all over my face. With a glance at the clock, I know I’ve taken almost too long to get ready.

I could blame it on how long it took to curl my hair and style it in a throw back glamor kind of way, but it would be a lie. I’ve been dragging my heels, and I know it.

I’m not sure if I hope Whitaker is there or if I’m praying to the Moon Goddess that he stays home. It would probably be easier to get it done with and being in public might work in my favor when he realizes that he should have known he was my mate five years ago.

If he’s not there, I’m not really sure what my plan is. Do I go to his pack and throw myself at his feet, hoping for forgiveness for my actions?

“Yes,” my wolf tells me seriously, “that’s exactly what you do. You’ve kept us from our mate for too long.”

“What if he can’t forgive us?” I whisper the question, my deepest fear, in the void that exists between my wolf and me.

“Us,” she snorts. “There is no us in this, my human. You made choices and took steps to ensure that our mate couldn’t scent us.”

“You agreed with it,” I fire back.

“I did,” she sighs, and I can feel just how much she doesn’t want to admit as much. “I just wanted you to be happy, my human. You had a dream, and I wasn’t going to stand in your way. We’ll be better able to help the pack we’re destined to lead now. We’re an asset. I just,” my wolf growls softly with a tinge of fear that strikes the center of my chest like a gong, “hope mate will see it that way.”

“We’ll make him see it that way,” I force a fierceness into my tone that I’m not sure I feel.

But my wolf deserves to be reassured. She’s right.

It was my dream and even though it does mean we’re better equipped to help rule as more than just the mother of the pack and with more than just strength. I have knowledge on my side now. My business degree will come in handy, I’m sure.

As long as my mate doesn’t put me in a certain box and lets me spread my wings and use my education.

“You don’t give our mate enough credit,” my wolf snarls.

After taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly and try to calm my racing heart.

The soft knock at my door has me almost jumping out of my skin. Fuck. I need to get myself together.

Thankfully, I’m able to stride across my room and open my door without tripping over my feet and not even wobbling in my heels.

Honestly, I’m not used to wearing them at all, but it’s really the only choice considering the fancy dress I’m wearing. Nothing less will do for a mating ball.

Elodie’s smiling face greeting me when I open the door has me desperately wanting to break out in tears, but I hold them back. Barely.

I don’t think I can ever put into words how happy I am for my best friend and my brother. They’re perfect for each other. I wasn’t sure that Crew deserved a heart so sweet, but he got his shit together, stopped fucking around, and recognized the worth of having his perfect mate at his side.

“If only we had done the same years ago,” my wolf chuffs which has me internally rolling my eyes.

“Woah,” Elodie breathes as she takes me in. “You look amazing.”

Her praise has me blushing slightly and focusing on something other than my anxiety and my pissed off wolf. My eyes widen as I take in my best friend in front of me.

Before I can stop myself, I blurt out, “Why are you dressed up?”

Crew slinks up to his mate and wraps a possessive arm around her shoulders with a smirk on his face. “Did you really think that I’d pass up a chance to show off my mate?”

Elodie snorts, but Crew only fixes her with a serious look. Yeah, my Alpha brother is not joking. Not even a little bit.

“Oh,” Elodie breathes out, “you’re serious.”

“You better fucking believe that I’m serious,” Crew’s voice is deep and husky.

I snort and roll my eyes. “I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that Blood Moon is hosting,” I point out, more than a little amused at my brother.

Honestly, I never thought I’d see the day that he would be as devoted as he is to his mate. When his mate didn’t appear at 18, I watched the hope slowly die in his eyes. He wanted his mate, desperately, but then she didn’t appear.

It took nine years and for me to leave the pack and go to college for his mate to arrive at his doorstep.

By then, he had lost is way and his faith in the mate bond. I don’t know if I can blame him for that, but he certainly didn’t make giving Elodie a place in his life—and the pack—any easier with the way he went through she-wolves like water.

“Hopefully, our mate didn’t do the same,” my wolf’s growled words are filled with pain.

A girl can dream.

But if he did decide to forgo waiting—it’s not like everyone plans to do so anyway and not all packs value waiting for your mate instead of giving into our more primal, animal urges—I’ll only have myself to blame.

Crew winks at me and then offers me his arm. There’s a challenge in his voice, “How about you just let me escort my stunning mate and my beautiful sister to the mate ball?”

“Well,” I grumble, “when you put it like that, how can I refuse?”

As we head through the packhouse and out to where the rest of the unmated wolves in the pack are waiting out front, I try to find a place of calm inside of myself. Everyone will be able to hear the way my heart is pounding in my chest.

As I slide into the backseat of the SUV while trying to ignore the sweet and loving looks Crew is directing toward Elodie. I might be glad they’re happy, but I don’t need to see it all the time, you know? They’re kind of gross.

“You’ll be the same when we, finally, claim our mate,” my wolf reminds me.

As if I don’t already know.

The closer we get to the Blood Rising Pack, the more it feels like my heart is in my throat. There might as well be a giant doomsday clock countdown going on in my soul.

I hesitantly ask my wolf, “Do you think he’ll be there?”

“Yes,” she growls and starts to pace in my mind, the restless that has been ever present for the last five years feels like an itch under my skin. An itch that only grows. “His wolf is already calling to me.”

That…doesn’t help me at all. It feels like my chest is about to crack open so my heart can go on a rampage. It’s an unsettling feeling and I don’t think I care for it at all.

“What’s going on, Tilly?” Crew’s words are like a whip from the front seat and the growl in his voice shows me how much my unease is affecting his wolf.

“I’m nervous,” I whisper, hating how fucking vulnerable I sound.

Crew makes a humming sound before prodding further, “Because you might meet your mate tonight?”

“Something like that,” I mumble.

Elodie glances back at me and furrows her eyebrows. I don’t know what she sees on my face, but she, blessedly, takes Crew’s focus off me with murmured words that I’m just too keyed up to pay attention to.

I think back to months ago when I graduated from college. My parents and Crew were there. Though, I have a feeling he was there for Elodie even though he was proud of my accomplishment as well.

The apartment that Elodie and I shared was already packed up and ready. It felt like the end of a chapter of my life, one I was grateful for, but one that also scared the hell out of me. Because there was no way to predict how the next chapter would go.

Not knowing I had put off meeting my mate. Purposefully.

The last thing I did before climbing in the car with my parents was drink the antidote to the scent masking spell. I didn’t feel any differently, but I didn’t expect to.

Maybe it would have felt more momentous if there was some sort of starburst or if glitter had come from nowhere and rained down on me. But, no, nothing like that happened.

I could only hope that everything worked like it was supposed to. Asking someone to tell me what I smelled like wouldn’t have mattered because the spell only prevented my mate from smelling me. To everyone else, I smelled like I always did.

It all came down to faith in the witch who created the spell.

“It worked,” my wolf assures me and pulls me out of my thoughts.

Even though the Blood Moon Pack’s packhouse is grand, I’m not intimidated when we pull up to it. Crew and Tristan were friends even before they became Alphas of their packs which means I spent time in Blood Moon while I was growing up.

The moment we step out of the SUV, I take a deep breath, trying to discern if my mate has arrived already. My gut clenches when I realize that I don’t scent him on the air even though I have no right to be upset about it.

“He’ll be here. Soon,” my wolf assures me.

I can only swallow hard and follow Crew and Elodie around the packhouse to the backyard which has been transformed into an intimate, luxurious space reminiscent of a ballroom even though it’s being bathed in the light of the moon.

Considering the number of unmated wolves who will be in attendance and how much nature means to me, having the ball outdoors makes sense. To someone who doesn’t know about our true nature, seeing so many people dressed to the nines, but outside under the stars, might look strange. For us, it’s natural.

I’m barely hanging on as I follow behind Crew and Elodie blindly. There could be a circus going on around me and I’d have no idea. All I can think about is seeing my mate soon.

My mate.

The man I used witchcraft to avoid.

The man who was made for me.

The man who may hate me forever for my choices.

Rejection doesn’t happen often, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility. We are only granted one mate by the Moon Goddess, which means we only have one chance at a mate, a true mate bond.

With rejection comes a lot of pain. You can’t have something tied to your very soul, put there by the Goddess herself, and not experience pain when it’s ripped from you.

“He won’t reject us,” my wolf snarls, but I can hear the uncertainty laced in her words.

A hand on my arm makes me jump and I turn my wide, and probably wild eyes, to Elodie. Her eyebrows are pulled together with concern clear written across her features.

She whispers, “Are you okay?”

I swallow hard and steel myself to spin some bullshit. The way her eyes harden as she searches my face tells me that I won’t be able to get away with it. Not this time.

With a quick glance around, I pull Elodie around the far side of the packhouse and far enough away from everyone at the ball so no one will hear us. Hopefully. The last thing I need is for the shame of what I’ve done, even if I was doing what I needed to do for myself at the time, be shared far and wide.

My voice is hoarse as the words rush from me, “Five years ago, I went to my first mating ball not long after I turned 18. I knew I wanted to go to college, but my parents always told me that because of my Alpha genes that it was highly likely I’d be mated to an Alpha to become his Luna. It was a lot of pressure when all I wanted was to go to college. I wanted to find a way to contribute to the pack beyond being mated into a position of power.”

Elodie’s touch is soft and understanding. “That’s understandable. You should have been able to pursue your dreams.”

I force myself to look into her eyes and shake my head slightly. “You know that’s not how it works for us, not really. It’s far too easy to get lost in the mate bond. I wouldn’t have had a choice anymore. I wanted to be able to make a decision for me before my life became shaped by sacrifice and a pack, especially a pack that I’d be moving to.”

“Okay,” Elodie murmurs. The lack of judgement in her tone, probably because she had no idea about shifters and our culture before finding out she’s mated to Crew, helps to calm me.

See? That’s the power of a Luna. She isn’t even trying and I’m able to find a glimmer of calm even though it feels like I’m trapped in a tempest of emotion and fear.

“I found a witch who gave me a spell that would hide my scent from my mate,” I admit.

Elodie’s eyes widen as she sucks in a sharp breath. I swear the woman doesn’t even breathe for a moment.

“Could you still scent your mate?” Her question is hesitant like she already knows the answer and is dreading it. I nod and she closes her eyes for a moment before grimacing. “You would have met him at that ball?”

“Yes,” I whisper, feeling something broken inside of me, a part of me that has broken with every moment spent apart from my mate for the last five years, rattle inside of my soul. I swallow hard and tell her the last of it. “I’ve taken the antidote to the spell. I did it on the day we graduated. He’ll be able to scent me now.”

“And you’re worried he’s going to be pissed?” I nod and she sighs. “He might be,” she tells me honestly, the softness in her voice trying to soothe me, “but the mate bond is an amazing thing. Trust in it.” She pauses and something fierce enters her voice, “And be brave.”

I nod slowly and let my best friend, my sister through mating, lead me back to the soft lights and beautifully decorated ball.

Be brave.

She makes it sound easy and the way my wolf growls softly makes me wonder if it is. Either way, I need to face my past decisions and whatever the future holds for me and my mate, even if it means he rejects me.