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“Let me ask a different question,” Kenna says. “Why the fuck should you care if Daniel finds out? That prick has no claim on you, and it sounds like this kraken could probably use those connections of his to make sure Daniel gets his ass handed to him if he tries anything.”

“Okay, fine,” I concede. “But the whole mating thing? Wouldn’t that just make him a possessive asshole?”

Kenna gives me a gentle smile. “It’s not like that, I promise.”

“How do you know? Did either of your last boyfriends think you were their mate?”

She shakes her head. “No, they didn’t. But I got to meet some of their friends that were mated, and it seemed… nice. Like, this whole aura around them that just felt warm and fuzzy and calm, like they existed in this separate world made for just the two of them.”

Holly sighs. “Well damn. Now I want a kraken mate.”

I make a little noise of acknowledgment in the back of my throat, not sure what to say. Part of me can’t believe any of those warm fuzzies are real in the slightest.

Belonging to someone stopped being a fantasy the day I met Daniel.

In hindsight, I should have been able to tell from the first date. The love-bombing, the gifts, the way he sweet-talked me and painted a picture of things that would never really be true.

God, how badly I wanted to believe it could be true.

But I was twenty-one. Not even old enough to really know myself, let alone know how to spot someone like that and stay far, far away.

By the time I realized it was a veneer for all the ugliness just underneath his surface, I was in so far over my head. Stuck in his condo in DC, no car, no degree, not working because he somehow always managed to twist things and convince me it was better for me to stay home and support his political career.

Completely at his disposal.

In the end, it wasn’t too late to pull myself back out, but even now, six years after I first met him, I’m still paying the price for believing in him at all.

Shaking my head, I take another sip of wine and try to focus on the matter at hand.

“What would you guys do if you were me?”

Holly smiles sadly. “We can’t tell you that, babe. I know you’ve got a lot of shit to deal with from your last relationship, and all the warm and wonderful things about mating aside… it’s a lot.”

Kenna looks a little less sure. “Would it hurt just to talk to him? It sounds like you really haven’t given him a chance yet.”

She’s not wrong. Still…

I haven’t even tried to date after Daniel, much less considered any kind of long-term commitment. In the back of my mind, I think part of me has just written it off entirely. I like my life in Seattle, and I’m more comfortable here than I’ve ever been anywhere.

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been… stuck. Stagnated. Letting the baggage I’ve been carrying around keep me from truly moving forward.

All of it rattles around my brain—the reasons I should talk to Elias again and the reasons I should stay away—until it’s muddled and messy and giving me the beginnings of a headache.

“I’ll think about it,” I say, not knowing how or if I’ll ever be able to come to a decision, but also knowing it’s not up to my friends to make my choice for me. “And by the way, I love you guys.”

“We know,” Kenna says with a bright, jaunty smile. “And we love you, too.”

“Ms. Perry?”

The sound of a familiar voice has my head snapping up from where I’m sitting on a bench in a plaza just down the street from Tandbroz. My Friday shift ended fifteen minutes ago, and it’s a blessedly sunny early October afternoon.

Mr. Blair from the Bureau approaches with two travel coffee cups in his hands, right on time.

I glance at the cups. “Don’t tell me your investigators are invasive enough to know my coffee order.”

He chuckles. “No. Well, I’m sure they could pull some strings to make it happen if they wanted to. But this is a tea that was given to me by a friend, and I thought it might be best to come with a peace offering.”

He hands me a cup, and I gesture to the empty seat on the bench beside me. “Please, sit.”