Page 19 of Stormbinder King (Stormbinder Pack #1)

M y disappointment was bitter the next morning when nothing happened.

I had been claimed by my fated mate, but I had gone to bed and woke up the same way.

Craving Jack.

All I felt otherwise was a strange, restless feeling inside me. Like something inside was about to crack open.

I certainly didn’t love Symeon or whatever else was supposed to happen when you met your fated mate.

Except how would I know what was supposed to happen? All I knew was what Jack had bullshitted me into believing.

“Andromeda,” Jack called as I left the Great Hall after breakfast.

His fingers gripped my chin and he shook me gently.

“There’s going to be a meeting of all the wolf packs we can reach soon.

There’s been more reports of strange creatures that haven’t been seen in generations and we need to figure out the best way to protect ourselves.

I think it’s still mostly bullshit, but my esteemed brother the King does not, so we are going. ”

The pressure on my chin gently forced me to face him, my body automatically heating up at his touch.

“When will you be back?” I asked.

His cocked his head at me, then bent to my ear.

“You’ll be coming with me. I couldn’t possibly be apart from my fated mate.”

“You’re not my fated mate,” I said, trying to shake him off. “Your brother is.”

His puckish face darkened.

“My brother will never possess you,” he said. “And you, Andromeda, couldn’t be without me.”

“Release me from your spell,” I insisted, feeling the familiar sickly-sweet seduction.

“No.”

“I’m going to find a way to break it,” I said, almost desperately, but with a quiver in my voice.

Jack leaned closer, smelling like cinnamon-sweet wickedness, like raw masculine power.

“Try me,” he whispered, licking around my ear as his arm curved around my waist. “ I’ll never let you go .”

I would have much rather stayed home with Solomon but it seemed like I had no option.

“Want to come out with me looking for early mint?” he asked, rubbing a strand of my blue-black hair between his fingers.

“No,” I said, “Take Aurelia instead.”

He frowned.

“I don’t want Aurelia. I want you . Stop bringing her up. I just want some fucking shifter fucking sometimes, godsdamn it, woman. It’s just fucking with her. It doesn’t mean anything.”

But I didn’t care about his lies.

“I can’t. I’m going to check my spice garden.”

I saw a golden light spark in his eyes.

I hadn’t prepared his evening tea since I found out he had only pretended to be fated mates to keep me away from his brother. I hadn’t mixed him a special tea blend, hadn’t prepared his evening tea, hadn’t done anything except submit to my ensorcelled desire for him.

And that wasn’t changing.

“Later, then,” Jack said, tipping my face up for a kiss.

His lips were poison, his sweetness was a bitter barb. But I said nothing, let his piercing sweep into my mouth, tease my tongue with what I knew his could do.

But I felt nothing.

It had been a long, hard winter and the spice garden I’d planted with such hopes in the fall just wasn’t doing well.

Before I had been called or pulled into this land, or whatever had happened, I would have given up.

But after this long, brutal winter, I was stubborn.

With gentle fingers, I moved the hanging ivy at the base of my treehouse so the herbs could get more sun.

As I knelt there in the garden, I felt a shadow pass over me.

I knew without looking that it was Symeon.

The King stopped when he was still several feet away, as if judging he was a safe distance that wouldn’t activate his predator’s instincts.

I wondered if he’d ask how I was feeling. If I was sore.

The bite mark hidden under my hair throbbed, but I refused to touch it.

“That plant is too small and weak,” Symeon said in his harsh voice, “it won’t survive for long.”

“You’re such a fucking asshole,” I shot back at him. “You didn’t even give it a chance. I’m not giving up.”

I didn’t see any movement or change, but I kept on, continuing to clear the thick ivy away.

Symeon still stood there like a stone statue.

Actually, I was goddamn sore from his painfully big cock but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

“What do you want?” I finally said.

“Why do you desire my brother?” he asked abruptly, crossing his arms across his chest. “Why were you his whore immediately?”

His face was like granite, and the short-sleeved shirt barely covered the thick bands of muscle across his chest.

I said nothing.

My desire was a shameful weight inside me. Even thinking about Jack made my nipples tighten.

“Did you want me to be your whore instead?” I snapped.

Anger seemed to run through my veins, not in a slow drip, but a fire that burned everything in its path.

His eyes were flat and dark, devoid of any emotion.

“I wanted my fated mate not to jump on the first cock she saw.”

Thank God I couldn’t actually read his mind. But I felt emotion rolling off him.

I felt regret, pain. His mate rejection was eating him away inside.

“That one dirty fuck in the woods must have really affected you.”

A muscle throbbed in his jaw.

“Your inability to stay away from Jack no matter how he treats you is humiliating.”

Shame prickled my face, but I shrugged my shoulders.

“What do you care?”

“Why would I want my fated mate chasing after my brother? Instead of waiting properly for the meaningfulness of a mate bond?”

I felt a cold anger at the question.

“Maybe the dick is just too good,” I said, meeting Symeon’s dark eyes and making an obscene gesture at him. “I can’t give it up.”

His inscrutable harsh face didn’t change expression, but he turned abruptly and left without another word.

As I scrambled to my feet, cursing his jealousy and his stubbornness, I glanced back at the thyme plant and was startled to see it standing straighter, taller. Already its stem was thickening, the sickly green color looking brighter, sharper.

There was also a little patch of delicate white and yellow daisies, their beautiful bell-shaped heads waving gently in the chill spring breeze.

I frowned for a moment. I was certain there had been no patch of wild daisies there before.

How curious.

I looked again, brushing the last remnants of snow aside, and there was another small cluster of the flowers where my other hand had rested.

For several beats I stared at the ground, trying to piece together what had happened.

Surely that wasn’t something I had done?

My eyes scanned the ground sharply.

Nothing else seemed to be amiss.

I looked at my hand, turning it around to inspect both sides.

It looked normal enough.

Maybe I had mistaken it.

But as I headed back to the clearing I couldn’t resist turning back one last time.

My little herb plot was certainly looking healthier, stronger, surrounded now with a little field of waving daisies, their pretty heads raised to the early spring sun.