Fates Entwined

27

Jordan hesitated, glancing at me, and I worried he might mention the mate bond. Debra was already treating me with a bit of hostility. Did she know I was Jordan's mate and had rejected him?

“I brought Stella to help us with the kidnappings,” Jordan said. “She’s the best tracker in the Ophiuchus pack, and her moon magic helped us yesterday when Miles went missing. I wouldn’t have been able to find the trail, but she did, and we were able to discover Roxandra was behind all of the disappearances.”

Debra raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”

“I don’t know what Roxandra wants with the Leo males, but she definitely wants Jordan,” I said before Jordan could gloss over that part. He seemed like the type of son who wouldn’t want to worry his mother, but I thought it was important that she knew. “She’s not going to stop after what happened.”

"And what was that?" She scowled at Jordan. "You didn't mention any of this yesterday when I came over."

"I was too busy worrying about Stella then," he muttered. "But yesterday... I used sun magic to fight Roxandra and her vampires."

“Really?” Debra asked. “That's incredible. This is a great thing for the Sun Witches because it means the curse has broken. But it puts you in even more danger.”

Jordan squared his shoulders. “I can look after myself."

“I know you can, but you still need to be careful. You should go to Solundra and begin training with Brea.” Jordan opened his mouth to protest, but Debra lifted a hand. To my surprise, Jordan listened. “You’d be safe there, too. Roxandra couldn’t get to you there, under Brea’s protection.”

Jordan shook his head. “I can’t leave my people, I’m their alpha. My place is here, with them."

Debra sighed. “I’d argue with you, but I’m used to dealing with stubborn alphas. It’s like arguing with a brick wall."

"I'll train with Brea after we've dealt with Roxandra."

"Fine." Debra frowned. “But I’m worried that if you have magic, Griffin might as well. He'll be at risk from Roxandra too, maybe even more so because he doesn’t understand how dangerous she is.”

Jordan nodded. “I promise I won’t let any harm come to him."

The thought of Roxandra grabbing Jordan’s younger brother, to use him as bait, or worse…I shuddered. “I can put some moon magic wards up around the town. They'll help protect everyone from Roxandra, or at least alert us if she tries to enter."

I saw the surprise flash across Debra's face before she hid it. She must have made a hell of an alpha female back in the day. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “Thank you.”

“I don’t want any more harm to come to any of the people here. We’ve all suffered enough at the hands of Evanora and Roxandra.” That, at least, we could all agree on, I figured.

Jordan’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He fished it out, frowned down at the screen, and then looked up at us. “Sorry, I have to take this.”

I watched him walk down the hall Debra had appeared from as he answered the phone. When I turned back to look at Debra, she was studying me again. The full weight of her gaze on me made me squirm now that there was no Jordan to distract her. I held my ground and didn’t fidget, but it was hard not to.

Finally, Debra said, “You look a lot like your mother."

Anger sparked immediately and I stiffened, clenching my hands into fists. I didn’t want to give Debra the satisfaction of knowing how deep her words cut me, but she must have seen some of it on my face.

“You have every right to be mad,” Debra said. “If I were in your position, I’d want to rip my head off too.” She sighed and looked away, her pale eyes drifting over the white, polished interior of her house. “You don’t have any reason to believe me, but I am sorry about what happened to your parents.”

I wanted to tell her where she could shove her apology, but I didn’t dare open my mouth. I wasn’t sure what would come out if I did.

“I won’t ask for your forgiveness,” Debra continued. “I didn’t kill them, but I didn’t stop my husband either. I didn't stop him from doing a lot of things back then. But I should have.”

There was a starkness to her words, an honesty that I hadn’t expected would bring me any peace. But I found my hands unclenching at her admission.

I forced the words out. “I heard the former alpha was hard to disobey. I doubt you had much choice.”

“No, but I should have tried harder. He did so many things and I looked the other way because I didn’t want to deal with his wrath or the Sun Witches who forced me to mate with him.” She shook her head once, brusquely like she could physically shake remembering him away. “But my son will be a better alpha than he ever was. He is everything I ever wanted him to be.”

“He is,” I said softly. I’d seen it myself over the last few days. The Jordan I’d seen as my enemy wasn’t anything like the Jordan I knew now.

“He needs a strong woman to keep him in line though. Someone who isn’t afraid to argue with him and challenge his ideas. Are you that woman?”

I sucked in a breath. "You know he's my mate then?""Of course I do. I’m part Sun Witch. We wrote the book on studying and manipulating the mate bonds, after all. And I know what it's like when there’s a true bond too. The Cancer alpha was my real mate, but we weren't allowed to be together.” She sighed and brushed some of her long, blonde hair back out of her face.