Chapter 3

Juniper

Nothing.

There was nothing. No sparks, no magic pulse or zap or jolt or…

Just skin touching skin.

I grabbed the gifts, hugging them to my chest, blinking back tears. He was watching me, and I couldn’t tell anything about what he was feeling. I was obviously not his mate. He wouldn't be able to control his wolf the way he was if I were his mate. If I was his mate, I would be in his arms, his soft lips pressed against mine. If I was, he would have said, “Mine!” If I was, I would have felt something, anything, when we touched each other just now, but I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I walked to one bench near the well, quickly sitting and unwrapping the larger of the two gifts before we could speak any words between the two of us. I would not comment on the lack of a mate bond if he wasn’t going to, either. There was no reason to acknowledge something that obviously didn’t exist.

The wrapping paper fell away, revealing an extensive set of colored pencils, the special high end brand I preferred but was only ever able to buy every so often because of the high cost. He remembered.

I smiled up at him, and he was just standing there, his hands in the pockets of his gray joggers. I finally really looked at him and…

“Lukas, you look like shit!” I blurted out, covering my mouth with my hands as soon as the words were out, regretting them instantly. He may have been one of my best friends, but he was still an Alpha wolf, a super impressive one at that, and alpha wolves rarely took too well to insults.

Luckily, he just laughed, looking down at himself as he tried to smooth his hair down from its messed up state. “Yeah, I guess I do,” he said while smiling. “I didn’t really sleep very well last night. I… I was anxious, I guess.”

“Your wolf keeping you awake?” I asked him.

“Yeah. I think he’s… I think he’s ready for his mate,” he stated simply, shrugging as he sat down next to me.

I nodded, not meeting his eyes. Goddess, this was harder than I thought it would be. It took everything in me to not just run out of the clearing and into the forest to release the anger and sadness that was building up inside of me with every passing second. “I’m sure she’s out there,” I whispered.

“What about you?” he asked slowly. Carefully. “Do you… do you think you’ll meet your mate today?”

It was a simple question, but there was also something more behind it, a tension in his body and his words that I couldn’t quite read. He clenched his fist behind me on the back of the bench as I answered, “Well, I haven’t yet, but it’s only been eight hours since I turned 19. Only 16 more hours to go until the day is over!”

I laughed, but the sound was hollow, even to my ears, and I was sure my smile looked as fake as my laugh sounded. I glanced at him, and his eyes were wide, either in shock or anger or…

“Hey, it’s okay! It’s pretty rare to meet your mate right at 19 anyway, right? And witches always have a harder time finding theirs, especially with our two kingdoms abolishing mixed mating and so many people taking chosen mates now and…’’ I was blabbering, trying to fill the awkwardness that had settled in the surrounding air.

He was obviously upset for me, for whatever reason. Probably because he hated to see me, one of his best friends, not getting something that he knew I had dreamed about since we were both kids. I was sure that was what it was.

“I’ll be okay,” I said again, patting his leg quickly.

I turned my attention back to the smaller gift, opening it slowly to give myself time to calm down again. He was so close. So close to me, and yet so far away, because he wasn’t mine, and he would never be mine, and it hurt.

The small box in my hand was a beautiful emerald green velvet on the outside. I knew his mom must have picked it out, knowing that it was one of my favorite colors since it matched my eyes so well. It obviously held a piece of jewelry, which was surprising. I had never thought of Lukas as the type to get a female friend jewelry, but then again, maybe his mom had picked it out for him.

The lid opened, Lukas’s hand inching it open to reveal a delicate white gold necklace with a small charm: a black wolf howling at the moon. It looked just like…

“It’s my wolf,” Lukas said quietly. “I can’t always be around you to keep my promise.” His eyes met mine with his words, letting me know he hadn’t forgotten about our pinky promise, either. “But I figured this would make you feel as though I was still with you. Protecting you.”

He cleared his throat, resting his elbows on his knees for a moment before standing up and walking a few steps away from the bench, his arms crossed over his chest as he looked up at the sky with a huff.

I stood up to follow him, giving him a quick hug from behind. “Thanks, Wolfie,” I said into the space between his shoulder blades.

He tensed under my touch, so I pulled away, knowing that when a wolf received any touch they didn’t want, they could turn aggressive. Then, I used my magic speed to grab the gifts from the bench, and I ran through the trees towards the stream near my family’s cottage.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be near him anymore, not knowing that we wouldn’t be together, that I had wasted five years of my life pining away for a man who would belong to someone else. He probably had a werewolf mate out there, probably an alpha female of another pack. I had been so stupid to think that I, a simple witch, would be mates with him, one of the most powerful future alphas in our kingdom.

The forest blurred around me as I ran, a mixture of the tears that were blocking my vision and my speed from using the surrounding air to push myself faster.

As soon as I reached the small clearing near the stream by my house, I dropped the gifts on the ground and released a scream, making sure that I formed a soundless air barrier around me so that none of the wolves could hear me.

My sobs ripped through my chest, finally able to be released after I held them in for so long. My hands clutched at my heart, my knees hitting the soft dirt of the bank of the stream.

I wasn’t sure how long I ended up lying there, crying. It might have been hours, or it might have been mere minutes. My knees curled into my chest, my arms hugged my body, not caring that I was lying in dirt and leaves, and the goddess knew what else on the floor of the forest.

Footsteps crackled through the underbrush and brought me out of my self-pitying thoughts for a moment. Drew's face was concerned as he walked towards me and he took in my current state.

I sat up and turned my back on him, hugging my knees to my chest, not wanting him to see my red-rimmed and swollen eyes, or my tear-stained cheeks. He stopped a few feet behind me, giving me space, giving me the choice to ask him to leave or to stay.

The silence between the two of us was deafening, hanging heavy around us as neither of us said anything, not wanting to be the first to speak.

He might have been Lukas’s Beta, Lukas’s first best friend, but Drew was the only person who knew about my feelings for Lukas, the only person who I had ever told. Even with him being under Lukas in rank, I knew he would never tell him. He would always keep my secrets for me.

We had always been close, closer than Everly and him, or Everly and I. We had shared a significant connection since the beginning, and now I was wondering if that connection had been the mate bond I wished to have with Lukas.

I didn’t want Drew to feel like he was second best, second choice, and if he revealed himself to be my mate, I was not sure I could make him not feel that way.

Drew started talking to the back of my head, his voice hesitant. “Are you—”

“Am I what? Am I okay? Really? Is that really what you’re going to ask me right now, Drew?” I yelled at him, spinning my head to meet his gaze. His eyes widened at my outburst. “Of course I’m not okay, Drew. How could I possibly be okay?” I sobbed.

I stood up, turning my whole body towards him. My whole body shook with everything I had been holding in. “What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to watch him be with someone else?”

I covered my mouth with my hands, trying to muffle the sobs that were breaking through without control. Drew took steps closer to me, his eyes still wide as he watched me, glancing around behind me as if he could see the energy that I felt coming off of me in waves. “June, you need to calm down. There is something strange—”

His hand reached out to grab me and pull me into him, and I just lost it. I didn’t want him touching me. I didn’t want to feel if he was my mate. Not when the pain of losing Lukas was still so fresh, when all that I wanted was to drown in it and pity myself for as long as possible before picking up the pieces of my broken heart and moving on.

“NO!” I screamed, releasing every ounce of magical energy that had built up underneath my skin. “DON’T YOU FUCKING TOUCH ME!”

A large pulse released out of my body at my words, the energy so thick that it was a visible distortion in the air. But Drew’s arms were already around me, his body protecting mine as he pulled me against him and into his chest, taking the brunt of the magical explosion that I had just created and preventing it from reaching the stream or the surrounding trees.

My back felt like it was on fire, and my ears were ringing and popping. My eyes itched, and there was an unusual stinging pain shooting through my forearm where Drew’s arm rested against mine.

“No! No, no, no…” I whimpered, falling into Drew’s body as my legs gave out from under me, my eyes still closed as he scooped me into his arms.

“Oh, goddess,” Drew whispered, and I felt him lean against a tree, sitting down and settling me on his lap. “June? June, look at me, please?” His hands were on my face, holding and patting my cheeks as he begged me to open my eyes.

I blinked my eyes, taking in his panicked and worried expression, his voice shaking and full of distress as he looked me over, making sure I was not hurt.

“Good, good. That’s it, Junie. Just stay with me, okay? Don’t close your eyes again. Not until…” He swallowed. “I think we need to talk with your parents,” he whispered, his gaze roaming from my eyes to my ears and behind my head.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, tucking my head into his chest, knowing I would need to use his comfort to help me heal, that his wolf would need me close to him to know that I was all right.

“It’s okay, I’m okay. You didn’t hurt me. I — I think I somehow prevented the magic from going any further than a small perimeter around us — almost like I absorbed it…”

I shook my head a little at his words. He thought I was apologizing because I thought I had hurt him, but I am apologizing for telling him not to touch me, for not being excited I was his mate.

“Do you feel alright?” he asked cautiously. “We need to get you to your house before anyone sees us.”

I was so confused. Why did he care if anyone saw us? Did he not want to be my mate, either? Was he embarrassed to be my mate?

I lifted my head off of him, using my left hand to push myself away from him, when something on my skin caught my eye. On my forearm was a swirling black vine, etched into my skin, almost like a tattoo. It wrapped from under my thumb and around my arm to my elbow, leaves and small flowers branching off from the curlicue ends.

I traced my other hand over it, turning my arm over to examine the whole thing, forgetting that I was in Drew’s lap, or that my back and ears were still itching and burning. The mark was beautiful, every detail perfect, and just like the plants I loved to draw in my sketchbook. But I couldn’t understand how there was now a tattoo on my arm where there had been smooth, unblemished skin just moments before.

“What the fuck?” I breathed, the shock clear in my voice.

Drew’s hand was tracing the lines on my arm as well, when I noticed a matching mark on his right forearm — the hand that he had used to grab me just before I had exploded. “You have one too!” I gasped, pointing at his arm, stating the obvious, like the blonde I was.

“Yeah,” he intoned, his eyes still wandering over all of me, but never meeting my eyes. “That’s not… that’s not the weirdest thing, though,” he finished.

“What could be weirder than matching tattoos just appearing on our arms?” I asked him incredulously.

“Well, I can think of at least a handful of things — pineapple on pizza being one of them — but—” I smacked him on the side of the head and he winced, holding up his hands to appease me and block another attack. “Okay, okay, sorry, just trying to lighten the mood.” He cleared his throat, looking behind me again before he said, “Have you always had wings?”