Page 24 of Plus-Size Sold Mate
That gets his attention, making Luke stop. So, I take advantage of it.
“You want your people to accept magic, apparently. I heard your dad arguing with you over it,” I tell him, not wanting to pull my punches now. “If you expect your pack to unlearn decades of fear, then you should probably start by doing the same.”
His entire body goes still, and in his silence, I watch the internal battle playing out across his face.
Luke was raised on the same cautionary tales most shifters around here were, and that’s not hard to believe. They’ve all heard about magic corrupting, seducing, and destroying, but they never hear about how it heals and protects, how it can be the one thing that turns the tides, if they ever allow it to.
Finally, he sighs and scrubs a hand down his face. Both of us know he’s caught now.
“You’re not wrong,” he admits, voice lowering. With another breath, he drops into the chair next to mine. “Those messages were drilled into my head growing up…and I used to believe it all. We were told magic was a kind of sickness, and anyone who touched it couldn’t be trusted.”
While it isn’t at all surprising to hear, the willingness to concede is.
“And now?”
Luke stares out at the ocean for a long beat, quietly contemplating. “And now I know I have more work to do myself. Seeing magic work with my own eyes wasn’t enough, it seems.”
I watch him in return for a moment, more curious than I intend to be. Even if I don’t want to lend him too much grace right now, I can tell he really has caught himself in this.
“Why do you care about your pack accepting magic use anyway?”
His fingers tap almost restlessly against the arm of his chair. “Because I saw something that didn’t fit the narrative I was used to hearing.”
Even if I should, I don’t drop it. “What did you see?”
Luke lets another bout of silence stretch between us before he begins. “My friend and comrade, Caleb, bonded with a witch. Everyone was against it until she used her abilities to protect him and their little girl. I didn’t want to believe anyone could use it for good either, until I couldn’t ignore what was right in front of me.”
The quiet reverence in his tone says it all, and I take in every word despite myself. I didn’t expect someone like him to be so moved by it, especially after how rigid with duty he had been during the ceremony.
“So now you want to change things.”
He nods. “I want to be the start of that change, even if it takes time.”
I catch myself loosening my grip on my resistance just enough to listen, and as I take him in, catching the sincerity in those blue eyes, my pulse flutters a little faster.
Looking away, I force my eyes back on the water, urging that annoying feeling to leave.
As easy as it might be to misconstrue his intentions, I know it has nothing to do with me. Those thoughts were put into motion before me, and if anything, he’s doing it for the pack, and maybe even to appease whatever guilt he might harbor.
“That doesn’t mean I trust you. And I’m not going to stop reading my book.”
Luke exhales, and the tension eases a bit. “I know. I don’t expect you to.”
I don’t want it to, but something softens in me enough to be aggravating.
When I study him again, I catch how tired he looks. Not in a lack of sleep sense, but worn in a way that suggests he’scarrying something heavy, and it has been that way for some time now.
A quiet urge in me wants to feel empathetic, and to maybe even form a bridge of some kind between us, like a truce. But the ceremony still burns in the back of my mind, along with the way my choice was erased by tradition.
For a moment, only the ocean moves around us, stretching toward the horizon while the bond hums quietly. Without being demanding or urgent, it’s just present.
I don’t want it, but I also know it isn’t just something I can shove aside.
Whether I trust him or not, and if I can even bring myself to forgive him, nothing about this arrangement is simple.
But either way, I’m not giving up who I am, and who I always have been.
Chapter 8 - Luke
