Rain leaned against the counter in her bakery, staring at Chase’s magnificent backside as he conferred with Luke. Calista had activated the coven’s emergency call tree, and every witch in New Orleans had been accounted for…all alive and well and on high alert for any suspicious activity. Isaac would be weak after the encounter last night. He didn’t pose an immediate threat, which gave her mind time to ponder Chase’s admission.

She was his fate-bound.

Her heart did a little flip in her chest. She needed to get him alone so they could talk about what this meant. He’d said he hoped she would be his mate, and she wanted to reassure him that she wanted the same. Of course, if she could get him alone, there wouldn’t be much talking going on for a while.

Warmth bloomed below her navel, spreading through her body to chase away her fatigue. She’d slept maybe an hour last night, but she’d stay up all day if it meant sharing her bed with the sexy werewolf standing in her doorway.

She ran her tongue across her teeth, wrinkling her nose at the gritty sensation. She hadn’t showered or used a toothbrush in more than twenty-four hours. A quick glance in the mirror revealed disheveled hair and mascara rings beneath her eyes.

She grabbed a napkin and wiped at the day-old makeup as Snow approached from the kitchen. “I double-checked all the totems. As soon as the guys get out of the doorway and lock it, the charm will be good to go.”

Rain nodded, trying to wipe the grin from her face. She shouldn’t have felt this happy when her life was in danger, but she couldn’t help it. “I’m his fate-bound.”

Snow smiled. “So I heard.”

Chase looked over his shoulder and caught her gaze as he motioned for her. She pushed off the counter and stepped toward him, and he took her hand. “Tell him what you told me about the tulpa. How to defeat it.”

“The only person who can stop it is Isaac, but he’s not going to do it voluntarily.”

Chase squeezed her hand. “But it’s not real…”

She nodded. “It’s a figment of Isaac’s imagination that he’s managed to make other people see, but in reality, it doesn’t exist. As long as you can convince your mind it’s not real…”

“Then it can’t hurt you,” Chase finished for her.

“Unless it gets ahold of a weapon. It can manipulate objects.” She shivered. “It held a knife to my throat.”

Luke cringed. “The blue moon tonight is good timing. Our wolves will be at their most powerful, so if we can find him, we can take him out.”

Chase stiffened. “My wolf is bound.” He looked into his alpha’s eyes. “The bastard tricked me into taking a binding spell. I can’t shift.”

“Shit.” Luke narrowed his gaze. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“I was embarrassed. I…Crap.” He looked away. “Goddamn truth spell. I didn’t want you to think any less of me. You and your old man…y’all saved my life. I wouldn’t be here today if not for the pack, and I don’t want to let you down. How can I be your second if I can’t even shift?” He chuckled and wrapped his arm around Rain. “That’s a truth I didn’t even know myself.”

Guilt snaked its way into Rain’s chest, squeezing it tight. “I’m so sorry.”

He pressed his lips to her hair. “It’s not your fault.”

Luke shook his head. “I don’t have to tell you all the things that could’ve gone wrong when we went into that coven house…and I’d have been fighting alone.”

“Not alone. I can fight.” He leaned into her side. “I’m sorry, man. I let you down.”

Luke inhaled deeply. “On the plus side, you won’t have to fight the blue moon to take care of your woman tonight. You’ll stay here with Rain. Macey will be your backup.”

“Doesn’t she have to work?” Poor Chase. She could tell he didn’t like his friend thinking him unable to guard her on his own.

“Macey hasn’t taken a vacation since she joined the police department. She’s got plenty of days saved up.” He clapped Chase on the shoulder. “We’re hunting in turns. Call the bar if you need help. Someone will be around.”

Chase nodded and tightened his grip on Rain as Luke strode out the door.

Rain locked it, activating Snow’s protection charm, and turned to Chase. “What does he mean ‘hunting in turns?’”

Chase shuffled to the counter and sat on a stool. “The younger, weaker wolves have a harder time fighting the shift on a blue moon. They’ll hunt first. The strongest go last, since they can hold the beast longer. We can’t have a hundred wolves hunting in the swamp at the same time, especially since the pull of the moon is so strong that we usually kill the first living thing we see.”

She moved toward him, situating her hips between his legs and wrapping her arms around him, pushing the image of his last statement from her mind. “Luke doesn’t think you’re weak. You didn’t let him down.”

He sighed. “I did. I let you all down. I should’ve known that tulpa wasn’t you. Anytime you’re near me, I feel the bond in my heart, and now that I look back, I didn’t feel it then. It didn’t act like you. Hell, it wouldn’t even speak. I let my guard down and got distracted, and I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.”

“Chase.” She cupped his face in her hands, running her thumbs through his beard. “This is a ghost from my past. He’s going after you to hurt me. I accept all the blame, and I am sorry for letting you down.”

He smiled weakly. “You’re pretty with your hair all messy like this.” He ran his fingers into her mane and tousled her curls, but his attempt at flirting didn’t mask the sadness in his eyes.

“Is something else bothering you?”

He pressed his lips together and lowered his gaze, obviously wanting to say no, but the truth spell wouldn’t allow him to lie.

“You can trust me. With your secrets. With your heart. I will never hurt you.”

“I know.” He looked into her eyes. “Doesn’t make it any easier to admit weakness. I’m second in command of the sixth largest wolf pack in the country. I’m not supposed to show my pain.”

She kissed his forehead. “Let me be your safe place.”

“I’ve never missed the blue moon hunt. My wolf is bound, but there’s a humming in my blood. An ache. And I’m under orders to stay here, but I really want to hunt the bastard down. I want to break this spell, remove your curse, and dammit…I want to live happily ever after with you. Beauty and the Beast did it. Why can’t we?”

She smiled. The more he spoke, the more compelled he’d be to keep going. To spill all his emotions. It was how truth spells were designed to work. “I have to admit, I like all this raw honesty.”

He blew out a hard breath. “You know I’d never lie to you. Truth spell or not.”

“I also know you wouldn’t willingly wish…out loud anyway…that our lives were like a Disney movie.”

He chuckled. “You know me well.”

“I have an idea.” Snow strolled in from the kitchen with her hands clasped behind her back. An excited look danced in her eyes. “I think you can both have your happily ever after. Rain, you could create an unbinding spell to free Chase. Your magic is strong enough.”

Rain rested her hands on Chase’s thighs and shook her head. “No, Snow.” A trickle of dread inched down her spine. Please shut up. Not this. Not now.

“I’m not sure if we can take his blood now, or if we need to wait until the sun sets.” She glanced out the window. “We might as well wait. There’s an hour of daylight left. What do you think?”

Oh, goddess, no. She said it.

Chase stiffened. “Who’s blood?”

“Yours. Duh.” Snow pranced toward them and held the unbinding spell in front of her. “And look. We haven’t even collected the blood, and the incantation has already appeared with him simply being here.”

“You…want my blood.” He blinked at her, the incredulous look in his eyes piercing her heart. Sliding off the stool, he stepped away from her and took the spell from Snow’s hand.

Rain’s heart pounded against her ribs. “No, Chase. It’s not like that.”

Snow continued, apparently oblivious to the tension. “With Chase’s blood, I can complete the spell and unbind your powers. Then, with your magic back, you can write a spell to unbind Chase’s magic, and boom. Happily ever after for both of you. Isaac won’t stand a chance against both of you with your magic intact.”

Chase scanned the paper and read the words aloud. “Two drops of blood from a first-born werewolf, given willingly, beneath a blue moon.” He dropped it on the counter. “All this time, you’ve been after my blood?” His eyes tightened, his brow pinching as his expression wavered between unbelieving and appalled.

Her hands trembled with the need to touch him, to comfort him, but as she reached for him, he stepped away. “No. I mean…yes, the unbinding spell requires werewolf blood, but I wasn’t going to ask you for it after…”

“But you were going to ask me for it before, weren’t you?” The confusion in his eyes tore her heart to shreds. “Is that why you agreed to date me? So you could get my blood for your spell?”

She could have denied it. Sworn she’d never intended to ask, but she couldn’t lie to him. “Originally, that was the plan.”

“Well, shit. And there just happened to be a blue moon around the corner, so you thought you’d…” He raked a hand through his hair and turned away from her. “What the hell, Rain?”

“This isn’t coming out right.” She curled her arms over her head, clutching at her hair as she looked to her sister, widening her eyes in a help me out look.

Snow chewed her bottom lip and drummed her fingers on the counter. “She’s been hot for you since you met. The fact that you’re a werewolf and can break her curse is a bonus.”

He growled.

“I’m not helping, am I?”

Rain glared at her. “No.” She stepped toward Chase and put a hand on his arm.

He jerked away. “Don’t.”

Her breath lodged in her throat at his rejection. “Please let me explain.” She reached for him again but let her hand drop to her side. She had to make him understand. “I’ve been living with this curse for seven years. When the council sent me the spell to break it, I was over the moon. The ingredients have been revealed one by one as I gather them, and the final one appeared the day after I met you.”

The muscles in his jaw flexed as he ground his teeth, but he let her continue.

“Seeing werewolf blood as the final ingredient, I thought I was doomed. I’d never find a werewolf willing to give me his blood. But you know how fate works. Was it really a coincidence that a werewolf couple wanted me to make the cake for their wedding right before a blue moon? Then you came back to apologize, and I thought maybe…”

He let out a hard exhale and narrowed his eyes.

She hurried to finish before he stopped listening. “But then I got to know you, and I fell in love with you. And when you told me your story…with what happened to you when you were a kid…I knew I could never ask you for the same thing that hurt you back then.”

He looked at the door. “Maybe I wasn’t wrong to distrust witches.”

“Chase, please.” She took his hand, and he didn’t pull away. “I wasn’t going to ask you. I should have told Snow I didn’t plan to ask.” She looked over her shoulder at her sister.

Snow lowered her head. “I’m sorry.”

“I love you, Chase.”

His phone rang from his pocket, and he slipped from her grasp to answer it. “Hello?”

He paused as the other person spoke.

“What happened?”

Another pause. “All right. I’ll leave as soon as Macey gets here.”

He shoved his phone into his pocket and looked at her, his eyes finally softening. “There’s been an emergency; Luke needs me at the bar.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. He sounded weird. Called from a number I don’t recognize, so it must be important.” He jerked his head toward the door at the sound of Macey knocking. Disengaging the lock, he swung the door open, stepping past Macey as she entered.

“I thought I was your backup, not your relief,” Macey said.

“I have to go.” He stopped outside the door and turned to Rain. “Macey will take care of you.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned and strode away.

“Everything okay?” Macey shut the door and turned the lock.

Rain opened her mouth to answer, but no words came. Nothing was okay. The man she loved thought she was using him, and she hadn’t tried to stop him from walking away. Her deranged ex-boyfriend was killing innocent people to make her suffer. What if the emergency Chase had to attend to was dangerous? Would he do something stupid trying to prove himself and wind up getting hurt? “I have to go after him.”

“Hold on.” Macey put her hands on her shoulders. “You’re supposed to stay put until the threat is neutralized.”

“Yeah, Rain.” Snow shuffled around the counter. “I’m sorry for blabbing about the spell. I thought you guys had talked about it already.”

“Well, we hadn’t.” Her voice came out as a trembling whisper.

Macey let her go but didn’t move from the doorway. “Whatever it is, I’m sure you’ll work it out when he gets back.”

“I’m not.” Pressure mounted in the back of her eyes. “I’m going to take a shower and lie down for a while.” She turned on her heel and trotted through the kitchen to her bedroom. Grabbing her robe, she headed to the bathroom and turned on the shower.

She had to get through to Chase somehow. To make him believe he could trust her. That she wasn’t just another witch out for his blood. She stood beneath the stream, setting the water as hot as she could stand it and breathing in the steam. The warm moisture filled her nose, opening her airways and clearing her mind. She’d make this right somehow.

With her skin pink and softened from the heat, she shut off the water and slipped on her robe. She padded to her bedroom, pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, and gazed at her disheveled sheets. Her heart ached at the memory of sharing her bed with Chase. Picking up a pillow, she pressed her nose against it and inhaled deeply. His musky, masculine scent lingered on the soft fabric, and a sob caught in the back of her throat.

A tapping sound drew her gaze to the window, and she glanced out the glass in time to see a shadow dart from right to left.

She started for the window, but her phone chimed from the bedside table. She picked it up, and a message from an unknown number lit up the screen: I have your boyfriend. If you want to see him alive, come to the swamp. Alone. My tulpa will guide you.

Isaac. Her hand trembled, and the phone slipped from her grasp, landing on the bed. The screen dimmed, extinguishing the message as terror twisted in her gut. She couldn’t let him hurt Chase. She would never forgive herself if anything else happened to the man she loved. To anyone.

Tiptoeing to the kitchen, she peeked into the storefront. Snow and Macey sat at the table, drinking coffee, so she grabbed a chopping knife from the block, padded back into her bedroom, and slipped it into her shoulder bag before shoving her phone in her pocket.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she snatched the bride and groom cake topper from beneath the dishtowel on her table and broke the couple apart, shattering the protection charm Snow had placed on the building. Opening the window, she crawled outside and ran to her car. Her hands trembled as she shifted into drive and headed to the swamp.

Tonight would probably end with one of them dead, and she had to make certain it wouldn’t be Chase.