Broken Bond - Callie Rose Page 0,46

happens to me. But Sable… she does. She cares what happens to me, and I think it’s because of her that Trystan, Ridge, and Archer do too.

But fuck. When Sable went into her transformation and we all got a good fucking look at what was coming, it messed with my head. When I found her by the side of the stream that first night, looking like moonlight come to life, I was so damn certain she was a shifter. My wolf recognized her immediately and claimed her within moments of seeing her face and feeling her energy.

Then, the night of her transformation… in the dimness of the mating cabin, her skin began to race with black magic, and I realized maybe my wolf was wrong. Sable wasn’t my mate; she was my enemy.

So I raced away from the cabin as if flames licked my heels. My only goal was to find as many fucking witches as possible and annihilate them. Some reckless part of me even hoped to die in the attempt, as if Sable’s true nature was the final nail in my coffin.

The loveliest thing I’d ever known had been destroyed, joined together with magic, the very thing I despise. So it only stood to reason that I should be destroyed too.

After I returned, I realized pretty damn quick that Sable isn’t destroyed. Despite how rough her life has been, and how hard she’s had to fight to maintain any semblance of self, Sable has remained perfectly whole through this.

But it’s hard to see it, and even harder to believe it.

Every day, I wake up beside her with another wolf between us. I’m not strong enough to fall asleep with her in my arms. I’m not strong enough to touch her. But it seems like enough right now to share her bed and fall asleep listening to her breathe. Every morning we wake up, and the five of us have breakfast together. Trystan is funny, and Ridge is smart as hell. Archer has the emotional strength of ten men, and Sable… Sable is everything good in the world.

Even when my mind tries to convince me otherwise.

Several days pass as she keeps working at learning to control her magic. Archer is fucking incredible, the way he can read her feelings and help her bypass the sadness or the lack of self-worth that gets her down. He’s patient and kind as he attempts to help her figure out what her magic is and how it works. He can lift her spirits with a single pinky finger, and I’m fucking envious. With empathy and aplomb, he can make all of her worries just vanish. Meanwhile, I’m a fucked up asshole who isn’t even sure which way is up or down.

We’ve been in Archer’s pack’s territory for nearly a week when Sable conquers one of the basic sigils.

She’s on her hands and knees with a pencil and a pad of paper. It’s such a fucking mundane situation that I don’t even realize at first that the sigil has worked. Black smoke billows around Sable, and then a gust of wind bursts up in the middle of the room, stirring the dust that’s settled on several stacked folding chairs that lean against one wall.

Ridge, Trystan, and I all sit up straighter.

My heart thuds in my chest, every instinct in me howling that there’s a threat. That this shouldn’t be happening. The two shifters beside me are tense too, although they both seem to be keeping their shit together better than I am.

Archer is the only one who doesn’t seem afraid, even though he’s got more reason than any of us to run in terror from witch magic. He gives Sable a small smile, reaching across the space between them to take her hands. I hate him in that moment—being the strong, stoic partner she needs, while I cower against the wall and stare at the remnants of black, magical smoke evaporating on the air.

“That’s it,” he tells her, still gripping her hands. I can tell from here that she’s shaking a little, probably as startled as any of us that the magic actually worked this time. “It’s okay. You did it. How did it feel?”

“Strange.” She bites her lip, her wide-eyed gaze finding his. “I could feel when my magic filled the sigil. It was like a little piece of me poured out through my fingertips. It was… weird.”

“It was good,” he insists firmly. “Your magic did what you wanted it to, and that