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There’s not much left out there about Nora Wheeler, either, besides her associations with Sorenson. If she did once have a digital footprint, she’s excised it completely. There are no old social media profiles, no college records I can find, not a single search result. Whatever the reasoning behind it, she’s done a hell of a job making herself invisible these last few years.

Suspicion still prickling at the back of my neck, I spend the next fifteen minutes doing a deep-dive on Sorenson.

He won his third congressional election last year, and, surprise of surprises, he’s recently been named to the House Committee which oversees paranormal affairs.

Blair must be having a godsdamned aneurysm over this.

Nora’s the ex-girlfriend of a congressman—the ex who probably left him under some less than ideal circumstances if all the clues I’m gathering about her are adding up the way I think they are—and not just any congressman, but one who has sway over paranormal legislation.

Taking my hands off the keyboard, I sit back in my chair and rub my eyes with the heels of my palms.

I shouldn’t know any of this.

Instincts or no, need to seek or no, I shouldn’t have found any of this out until Nora was ready to tell me.

Just one more sin to add to my growing list of transgressions.

And still my chest aches with every breath I take. Even now, the burgeoning mating bond is reaching out, trying to find the one person in the world who can make it complete.

The same person who’s forbidden me ever to speak to her again.

It’s not Nora’s fault. None of this is her fault. She didn’t ask for this, she doesn’t want this, and if what I’m beginning to suspect about her is true, she’s probably afraid what all of this could mean for her. If she’s hiding from Sorenson and has gone out of her way to be virtually invisible, the idea that all of this might lead him back to her must be terrifying.

No wonder she ran from me.

Knowing there’s nothing I can do about it now, no way to speak to her or get close to her without breaking the explicit boundaries she’s put in place between us, leaves me feeling unmoored, adrift, purposeless, with no way to fix it.

Choosing instead to focus on the day ahead of me and the responsibilities already stacked up on my desk, I rub a hand absently over the center of my chest in the place where it aches before settling in and getting to work.

5

Nora

“He didwhat?”

Sitting with Holly and Kenna around the coffee table in Holly’s apartment, we’ve got three glasses of wine liberally poured as we recount our weeks. It’s become a Thursday night ritual the last few months, and I’m endlessly thankful for the both of them tonight.

But, as luck would have it, this Thursday I’m the star of the show.

“Kept following me when I told him off,” I say, cringing. “I also might have freaked out a little when he touched me and tried to stop me from leaving.”

I’ve fully briefed Holly and Kenna on the Elias situation. Neither one seems as horrified as I was to learn there’s some kraken out there who thinks I’m his mate, but neither of them has the same history that I do.

Still, after what I just said, they’re both looking at me in concern.

Holly had her face in her phone, no doubt digitally stalking said kraken, but her eyes cut sharply to me. “Do we need to report this? Either to the Bureau, or I don’t know, to the police or something?”

I shake my head. “No, it wasn’t like that.”

Honestly, he barely touched me. A hand on my shoulder. A light touch that had startled me, yes, but that didn’t harm me. Did he cross a line? Absolutely. Do I think he meant to hurt me? No, I don’t.

Even three days later, I’m not sure if I’m feeling embarrassed or entirely justified about how I reacted to it.

“Whatwasit like?” Holly asks, not convinced.

Willowy, blond, and with piercing blue eyes that are way too preceptive, it’s difficult not to squirm a little under Holly’s focused gaze.

“I don’t know,” I mumble. “We were… kind of arguing in the middle of the sidewalk. I basically told him to fuck off, turned to walk away, and he touched my shoulder.”