‘You don’t have to,’ Jared spoke to her in her head.
Shoot. Cassie immediately wanted to block Jared from her mind, but it really was too late even if she knew how.
“So where do we go from here?” Jared asked, stepping out of the car with Whitney and Owen.
Cassie slid out her door and joined them as they all grabbed their traveling bags. Nothing was left in the trunk when she got there. Jared already had her bag in his hands. Maybe mates could be good for something after all.
“We have to go check in, and you both need to get your passes,” Whitney explained to them. “We already got ours last time.”
Jared nodded and motioned for Whitney to lead the way. Whitney went into the familiar building. Cassie remembered their slightly long wait in the line the last time. This time, Whitney didn’t join the line, which looked longer than it had when they came the first time. She bypassed it and went to a second, much smaller line where only one person was at the counter talking to the person letting them through.
“Don’t we need to …” Cassie asked, looking at all the people they had just passed.
“If we didn’t have you and Jared with us, sure. But you guys are like royalty here. Remember?” Whitney replied.
How could Cassie forget? Their first trip was more than a little weird. People did treat leaders of clans like royalty. Since Cassie was the mate to the next skinwalker alpha, she was treated like a princess the whole time they had been there. They didn’t even have to pay for their hotel suite.
The person at the counter was waved past, and Whitney approached the elderly lady. Whitney handed her and Cassie’s passes to the lady. She nodded and pulled out the finger pricking machine that had shocked Cassie before. Whitney put her hand in it, and it beeped. The lady offered it to Cassie. Cassie pressed her finger inside it, and it beeped again.
“These two need to get passes.” Whitney pointed to the guys behind them.
“Go to Room 1A and they will help you with everything.” The lady motioned for them to pass down the hallway.
Cassie followed her friend. Whitney was right at home doing everything differently than the other people waiting in line. Cassie felt odd, like she stuck out too much, but at least the two guys with them made her feel a bit more invisible. They were being stared at much more than she was.
Whitney opened the door to a small room furnished with a couple of chairs, a couch, snacks on a table, and a mini fridge. Whitney sat in a chair and reached for the chips closest to her.
“You don’t find this odd in the least?” Cassie asked her friend as she sat on the couch next to her.
Whitney shrugged with her mouth full.
“The whole alpha clan leader thing is taken really seriously in this world. Each clan is like their own little country, and the leader is their king. Would you expect a king to come and not be treated like this?” Whitney explained once she swallowed.
Jared dropped his bags behind Whitney’s chair and sat down next to Cassie.
“After a few years, you’ll be used to it,” Whitney added.
“Or not,” Cassie added quietly, but with their super hearing all the people in the room had to have heard her.
A knock at the door announced a new person coming in. A rather short, balding man entered the room, nodding to everyone with a slight bow of his head.
“Miss Bay, it is a pleasure to have you visit again. Your mate has arranged everything with the Winter family, and your ride shall be here soon to pick you up. I’m here to get your companions checked in.” The man’s bald top was shinier than a normal person’s. Cassie wondered why he would be sweating so much. It wasn’t really warm in the room.
Jared coughed into his hand as he hid his smile. ‘He’s a night human, and that’s not sweat. His skin has a thin, gel-like coating on it. It tastes horrible.’
Cassie’s eyes grew wide, and thankfully the man was now offering Owen one of the finger-pricking, blood-reading machines. The man looked at the readout and nodded.
“Skinwalker. Mala family,” the man said, his voice squeaking a bit. He turned the machine around for Owen to see. “Is that all accurate?”
Owen only glanced at it and nodded.
The shiny-headed man then turned to Jared, who stuck his hand in the machine but didn’t wait for it to beep.
“Jared Colley, beta in the Wendigo clan,” Jared told the man.
The shock across the man’s face was enough to make Cassie want to giggle again until she realized it was more fear than shock. He didn’t look down at the screen as the black box beeped a second time.
“I will need to get an oath,” the man said, backing out of the room. The door swung shut behind him, but relief spread across his face when he made it out of the room.
‘That tasting part, not recent…?’ Cassie asked.
Jared laughed out loud, causing Whitney to look at him.
“Not fair,” she complained. “If I have to be stuck with you two lovebirds all weekend, I call no silent talking, especially if there’s a joke.”
Whitney pouted as she glanced between Jared and Cassie. Her fear of the wendigo had been slowly melting over the week as she got to know Jared better.
Jared smiled at her comment. “I had explained to Cassie he was a night human that tasted really bad. She wanted to know if that was why he left like that.”
Whitney turned to her friend. “Everyone knows his kind tastes bad.”
Cassie’s eyes got wide. “I thought skinwalkers didn’t go around eating other people—night or day humans.”
Whitney shrugged. “We don’t intentionally eat anyone, but it does happen every now and then when we first turn, or are in our animal form. You have a lot less control like that.” It was no big deal to Whitney.
“So why didn’t the man fear you guys?” Cassie asked, waving her hand to include Owen, but still not looking directly at him.
“’Cause my wonderful cousin is evil and everyone knows it,” Owen spat out, even though the question wasn’t exactly aimed at him.
“Jared’s not evil,” Cassie replied, sick of hearing Owen saying it.
The skinwalkers held such prejudice that she was convinced the wendigo were all evil when she first met Jared again, but she now knew otherwise. In fact, many of them were as good as most of the skinwalkers.
“You have to say that; he’s your mate. But we all know he tricked you into that,” Owen added.
Jared stood and glared at Owen just as the door opened again.
A tall, thin lady with wire-rimmed glasses perched on her nose entered the room. The slimy, bald guy was right behind her. She smiled when she looked at Jared, showing off her rather pointed teeth.
“I hear you would like entry to Triclan City,” the woman spoke with a voice much lower than Cassie expected.
“Correct.” Jared straightened to his full height, not backing down from the imposing lady. She was rail thin, but almost stood eye-to-eye with him. Jared looked like he could push her down with just his pinky, but night humans were deceiving.
“Then you must sign an oath before we can let you enter,” she replied as she eyed him over.
“As expected,” Jared replied calmly, but Cassie could sense otherwise. The lady staring down Jared was almost as powerful as he was.
The man from before came around the lady and held out a pen. She took it from him, and with a shake of her other hand, a paper appeared. Retrieving the paper from her, the man placed it on the table in front of Jared before scurrying back behind her, as if for protection. She held out the pen for Jared.
“A blood oath,” she told him.
Jared nodded and sat down in the chair in front of the table. He looked over the paper, scanning it, but more than likely reading it. Cassie found earlier in the week that he was basically a speed reader. He nodded when he finished reading it.
“While I sign this, can you revise Cassie’s card?” Jared asked, looking to the mousy man that was still mostly hiding behind t
he lady.
“Revise?” the lady asked, lifting an eyebrow.
‘Sorry for this,’ Jared told Cassie across the bond. Jared sliced the pen across his thumb, instantly causing the skin to break open on the same place on Cassie.
The scary lady’s eyes flashed open at the scent of Cassie’s blood. She glanced between Cassie and Jared.
“She’s my mate, too, so I’d like her card to reflect that,” Jared explained casually as he signed the paper in front of him like it was no big deal that Cassie had two mates.
From the reaction of everyone in town, it was a big deal, but the lady’s face said more than that. Cassie was an oddity, and something no one was going to believe with just words. She understood that Jared needed to prove their bond before they would accept it. Her life was complicated, but now it was also unbelievable, even in a world where every corner had something more unbelievable than the one before. She may have joined the world she wanted to be a part of for many years, but she was still an outsider socially.
Reaching down, Jared grasped her cut thumb.
‘I can make it heal quicker,’ he told her. Cassie nodded. It wasn’t bleeding any longer, but being around a bunch of night humans with an open cut seemed like the worst idea ever.
Jared took her thumb and put it in his mouth. The skin pulled back together, and the pain instantly faded. Although he removed her thumb from his mouth, he continued to hold on to her hand.
‘You’re not an oddity,’ Jared told her. ‘You’re special. And don’t ever forget that.’
CHAPTER 3
Cassie stood beside Jared in the grand hallway of Turner’s childhood home. His father was at a meeting, but had sent his next in line to welcome them. Turner’s older brother, Eric, droned on about how much they appreciated the visit and how it strengthened night human ties to be friendly, probably for Jared’s benefit, but Cassie didn’t pay much attention. She was too busy looking around at all the carved doorways covered in gold and large paintings of various people and night humans. She had never been in any home so grand in her life, but that didn’t say much because she was rarely allowed to leave her hometown. Her only trips away were going on retreats with her aunt, and the witches tended to shy away from luxuries like indoor plumbing and heating when on retreat.
“When Mikel arranged everything with us, he explained that you’d need two rooms.” The young man looked identical to Turner, but sounded completely different, more boring. “We assumed it was one room for the ladies and one for the gentlemen.”
Jared’s expression clearly said he wasn’t about to go with that option.
“But I’ve been told things are a bit more complicated than Mikel explained,” he continued, as if Jared wasn’t obviously glaring at him. “Should I get another room made up for you?”
“Two rooms are fine,” Whitney replied. “Owen’s like family. He and I can take one room and leave the other to Jared and Cas.”
Cassie shot Whitney a thankful look of appreciation. She could feel across the bond that Jared didn’t like the second in line to the lycan night human family, and she didn’t blame him. It was like all the friendly genes went to Turner and the leftovers to his brother. She hadn’t read the blood oath, but caught enough to know that Jared needed to keep his anger in line. Anything that could be construed as aggressive would be counted as breaking the oath. They didn’t seem to go light at all on Jared. Cassie found it odd. None of them knew him, but assumed he was someone he wasn’t, but then again, she felt everything across the bond. He wasn’t too happy with how Eric was addressing them, and Whitney’s offer calmed him right down.
“Let me show you to your rooms so you can rest from your trip,” he continued to talk and then began saying something about when the grand staircase was first built and rebuilt, and Cassie continued to tune him out as he droned on with a lecture on the artist who designed and decorated the inside of the house over two hundred years ago.
Stopping in front of a doorway, Eric pushed open the door.
“This room will be for you, Miss Whitney, and your friend,” Eric explained. At least he was nice to Whitney, but she kind of had that sort of presence. Everyone that didn’t go to their school tended to be nice to her.
Owen led the way into the room and almost seemed like he was harboring as much annoyance with Eric Winter as Jared was. Turner’s older brother was rubbing both of them the wrong way.
“I would suggest resting. Dinner will be at two,” Eric explained to them.
Cassie had to stop her mouth from dropping open. Who ate dinner at two? Didn’t people sleep? Cassie forgot how backward the night humans were. She had expected by arriving at lunchtime they would have plenty of time to go meet with the seer. It looked like there were more plans made than she knew about.
Eric walked over to the next doorway. He opened it and pushed the door open, standing just inside as if he were holding it open for them. Cassie got the hint that they were to enter and walked into the lavish sitting room. Eric stayed at the door as Jared passed him, both guys not taking their eyes off each other.
“The fridge is stocked, as is the bar,” Eric explained. “There’s a bathroom off of the bedroom and a balcony off the second window in the room here. If you need anything, just push one on the phone, and there will be someone up to help you immediately.” Eric talked much quicker than he had before. “Do you need anything else before I retire to sleep?”
Jared shook his head no, and Eric slipped out of the room silently, not letting the door click before he was already gone far enough down the hallway to not be seen.
“Friendly,” Cassie said sarcastically.
Jared’s anger melted away, and he laughed with her.
“What was up with all the tension between you guys?” she asked.
Jared shrugged. “Shifters don’t tend to like other shifters.”
That explained why Owen didn’t like Eric either.
“But you aren’t technically a shifter anymore, right?” Once he lost his animal, Cassie was sure they classified him differently, if she was remembering Whitney’s quick impromptu lesson on night human classifications correctly.
“Old habits die hard?” Jared guessed with a shrug.
Cassie meandered over to the window with the balcony. She didn’t open it, but gazed out. There was a small wrought iron table and set of chairs on the carved stone balcony, but it was more the view that caught her attention. From their room, the whole city laid out before them. Brown, red, gray, and a couple blue roofs dotted the landscape before the huge mountains surrounding the town.
“It’s pretty,” Cassie said as she continued to stare.
“Sure is,” Jared answered.
Turning, she found him still in his spot across the room. He wasn’t looking outside. Cassie blushed.
“We should get some sleep. They plan to keep us up all night, right?” Cassie asked, trying to break the tension in the air and realizing that wasn’t the best plan. She’d just offered to sleep with him.
Jared laughed as her cheeks reddened again.
“Yes, you should get some sleep. I’ll be fine without it. I don’t need it like you,” Jared replied.
Cassie walked over to the doorway that had to lead to the bedroom since the only other one led out to the hallway from which they came. She reached for the handle when there was a knock at the other door. Jared walked over, sniffing the air, like he didn’t know what to expect, but wanted to. He stopped at the door.
‘Go in the bedroom,’ he ordered Cassie.
Cassie planted her hands on her hips. Jared was acting a little too much like bossy Nate for her tastes.
‘No,’ she replied. She wasn’t going to let any night human boss her around.
Jared laughed. ‘I should have expected that reply. Sorry. There’s another lycan at the door. It isn’t Eric, and I’m worried that they came to our room so quickly.’
‘Did something happen?’ Cassie asked.
‘No. I didn’t do anyth
ing, but my father warned me that this wasn’t the safest idea. He said they will be looking for a way to start a war, and they might try to provoke me.’
Cassie’s eyes bugged open at him. That was never discussed before they left. She might have instructed Jared to stay back if he had told her. She understood through everyone she had overheard during the week that no one trusted the wendigo. From all their stories and those which the kidnapped witches brought back, she didn’t blame them. But she did know Jared, and she trusted him. He wouldn’t hurt her or anyone else unless provoked. Did they send someone else since Eric didn’t get a rise out of him with his obvious glaring and snide remarks that Cassie just ignored?
‘Well, see what they want and then I can get some sleep,’ Cassie told him, prompting him to open the door. Jared laughed again. He found her spunk amusing and not annoying like Nate.
Jared cautiously opened the door. Cassie stepped forward into view as soon as she saw who it was. Turner was standing there, grinning ear-to-ear at her.
“There’s my long lost sister,” Turner joked, walking right past Jared and scooping her into a hug.
Jared growled behind Cassie, and Turner set her back down.
“He’s a bit protective, but not the one I was expecting to see.” Reaching out a hand to Jared, he introduced himself, “Turner Winter.”
Jared kept his anger in check, but Cassie knew enough to step back and give him a little more incentive to cool down.
“This is my newer mate, Jared,” Cassie introduced Jared since he was still glaring at Turner.
‘Calm down,’ she told him across the bond. ‘I met Turner last summer and again the last time I ran off with Whitney. He dropped everything to show us around and take us everywhere when we were here last time.’
‘And you’re that close now?’ Jared was referring to the hug.
Cassie tried not to laugh, but she couldn’t help but smile. ‘Turner likes how my life is playing out and thinks I must be his long lost sister that he doesn’t have. There’s nothing romantic about it, so cool it.’