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Ryder jerks his head in a quick nod, agreeing. Now that that is settled, I can focus my attention on Fynn and this whole mate bond with a human thing. I haven’t told Ryder about it yet, but I probably should.

“I’m meeting with Fynn for lunch,” I begin. “He has some information he looked into regarding a possible mate bond.”

Ryder doesn’t speak, but his brow furrows ever so slightly in curiosity. Clearing my throat, I press on, knowing what I say next could possibly change many things for us. Personally and as a race.

“I may or may not be feeling the mate pull towards Lottie. I’ve never heard of such a thing occurring with a human, so I asked Fynn to look into it. He said he found something, so hopefully, by lunch, I’ll know for sure if it’s possible.”

Ryder looks shocked and more than a little intrigued. He’s leaning forward, his hands gripping the armrests.

“I didn’t know that was possible,” he says more to himself than me.

“Neither did I. Which is why I enlisted Fynn’s help. I’ll let you know what he says. If it’s possible to have a mate bond with a human, we need to know and need to let everyone else know.”

Nodding in agreement, Ryder silently leans back into his chair, the tensing of his muscles slackening as he eases back.

We are far less interested in anything else happening in town for the rest of our meeting. Nothing is as important as my possible mate bond with Lottie and a snooping blogger in town. Oh yeah, and Vincent and his goons can’t forget them. Not that he’d let me.

Fucking hell, I need to figure out how to get him to leave and stop trying to buy my land. I could try fairy dust, but it’s more of an immediate fix for memories that were just formed, usually within the past hours or days, sometimes weeks. It’s been known to work on a few memories as far back as months. But beyond that, the memories are too difficult to alter; they blend and weave with other memories, events, and people, making it too hard to completely remove a specific detail.

Perhaps I can create a new memory of him accepting my refusal and agreeing to never attempt it again. Or I could just kill him, that would make me and my inner beast feel better, but it’ll just piss off his entire organization and bring more trouble to my doorstep. No, convincing him to leave and never return would be best. I just don’t know how I’m going to accomplish that yet.

I finish my meeting with Ryder, who stomps out, a man on a mission to deal with this Tess woman, while I fill my time until lunch finally rolls around.

The bell chimes happily overhead as I enter Dottie’s. Becca greets me with a wave and smile, gesturing me in when I tell her who I’m here to meet. She rolls out the door on her skates, food-filled tray in hand, heading towards a parked car.

When I walk up, Fynn is already sitting in a booth waiting for me. Fynn is a tall but lean man, his hair kept long and straight, similar to his true mere form, but a more natural light brown hue instead of the silvery gray.

As usual, he has his nose in a book, completely unaware that I’ve arrived until I sit down across from him, and the movement draws his attention.

“Hello, Hunter.”

“Fynn.”

“Would you like to order some food? I thought I would wait until your arrival just in case you were hungry.”

“Yeah. Sounds great.”

Flagging down Becca on her way back to the kitchen, we place our orders, knowing the menu backward and forward. Fynn takes his time situating his tea, and I can’t take his slow pace any longer.

“Well? What did you find out?” I ask impatiently, my inner beast ready to claw his way out of my chest if I don’t find out soon.

Fynn takes a sip of his tea and positions it to the side, pulling out his leather-bound notebook filled with curling script and bits of paper tapped to its pages. Opening the notebook, he finds the right page and begins.

“According to my research, a human and a non-human can have the mate bond if there is non-human blood in the human’s near to immediate ancestry.”

My heart flips in my chest, my pulse beating out a staccato rhythm a marching band could keep beat to. Lottie can be my mate; it isn’t impossible. I’m momentarily rendered speechless but quickly find my voice. I need to know more—everything.

“What exactly does that mean,non-human blood in her ancestry?”

“It means that somewhere in her family tree, a few generations before her was a non-human who procreated with a human. Resulting in a half-breed who then most likely went on to marry and procreate with a human. Lottie may not have any characteristics or magic associated with her ancestors because of all the human blood diluting it, but it’s still there, however minutely.”

My mind is reeling as I try to absorb and process all the information Fynn is so casually revealing. Lottie has non-human ancestors, and because of that, she has just enough non-human blood in her heritage to allow for a mate bond to appear.

“But how? Why? I thought mate bonds could only appear with full-blooded non-humans?”

Fynn nods calmly, stirring his tea as if we’re discussing the weather and not a complete shift in the future of our race.

“That used to be the case, but apparently, over the last couple of decades, cases such as you and Lottie have been popping up across the globe. I think it’s part of our evolution. Our numbers have been dwindling with so many humans filling up the worldand the non-humans forced to hide from them. Our species at the beginning of its extinction.