“I know,” Brandon said softly. “Jessie told me.”
“So you understand why this is...” She gestured helplessly between them. “Why I can't just...”
“I understand completely.” And he did. Her caution wasn't personal. It was a survival instinct born from her mother's tragedy. “I'm not asking for your trust right now. I'm just laying out the option. What you choose to do with that information is entirely up to you.”
She looked at him for a long moment, once again searching his face for something—deception, maybe, or hidden motives.
“I need to think about it,” she said finally.
“Of course.” Brandon stood when she did, giving her space.
She slipped the book back into her satchel, clutching it close. “Thank you. For being honest with me.”
“Always,” he said, and meant it.
She turned toward the door, then hesitated. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“If I said no—if I decided not to do this resonance binding—would you still help me? Answer my questions, teach me what you can about controlling the surges?”
The question surprised him, though perhaps it shouldn't have. She was testing him, trying to determine if his offer of help came with strings attached. He wondered how many assholes she’d encountered to make her so cautious. He wanted to pummel every one of them.
“Yes,” Brandon said without hesitation. “You don't owe me anything, Muriel. Not trust, not access to your magic, nothing. If you want my help, you have it.”
Something shifted in her expression—not quite trust, but maybe the willingness to consider it.
“I'll think about it,” she said again, and this time when she left, she seemed more confident than when she arrived.
Brandon watched through the window as she disappeared down the street. His magic stirred restlessly in her absence, already missing the complementary energy of hers.
He looked at the chaos Muriel's magic had created—the withered fern, the blooming plants, the slightly warped floorboards, and couldn’t help but smile. Her magic was raw and pure, just like her.
Waving a hand, he set everything back to the way it was.
He'd meant what he said. He would help her regardlessof her decision. But he hoped she'd trust him enough to try the binding. Not just because it would keep her safer, but because when he'd covered her hands with his, he'd felt something shift and settle in his chest. A rightness. A recognition.
She was meant to be his.
Now he just had to prove to her that he was worthy of being hers.
5
CHOICES AND CONSEQUENCES
MURIEL
Muriel madeit three blocks from The Glas Tann before the full weight of everything hit her. She stopped on the sidewalk, clutched the satchel against her chest, and took a deep, cleansing breath.
Overwhelmed didn’t begin to describe how she was feeling. And Brandon’s theory that her mother had known about all of it? Mind blowing. Siobhan Brennan had been a quiet, broken soul. Nothing about her hinted at her as the keeper of a priceless, powerful artifact, ancient bloodlines, or secret societies.
Then again, maybe that was the point.
Jarring as it was, so many things were starting to make sense. Her mother's reclusiveness, for example. She hadn’t simply been a broken-hearted woman hidingaway on the outskirts of werewolf lands with her daughter.
She’d been trying to protect them from the kind of evil Muriel was struggling to understand.
As if in confirmation, the book warmed and vibrated softly in her arms. Sentient, Brandon had said. Sentient and somehow in tune with her.