Bound

Outsider

XAVIER POV

I closed myself to our connection with the goal of surprising Claire, and could barely contain myself with the excitement. It grew every second and threatened to burst through my chest. I finally understood the appeal of having a tail, longing for something to shake out the overspill of emotion. I tried just wiggling my butt.

Yeah that kind of worked. So long as no one was watching. Rough bark steadied excited hands as I watched the revelry around the bonfire from behind a grandfather pine tree.

Usually I was in the thick of things, but sneaking around and watching the joy surrounding me was a new and thoroughly delectable experience. It was indisputably superior to the scouting for danger I had been employing this skill set for recently.

There.

There she was.

Her dress floated and swirled with the slightest provocation, midnight blue at the hem fading to sea dragon blue around her neck. The moon light illuminating one side and the fire light swirling across her skin on the other. Wild and perfect. My Moon Goddess.

With an owlet on her shoulder, a baby on her hip, and a pup running around her bare feet trying to catch the hem of her dress as she danced.

I needed help for the next stage of my plan. But Ben was in owl form in a puddle of puppies, wings splayed wide with talons waving in the air. Xanra was, well, otherwise occupied, and that just left Alexi. For my current purposes, the modified mating link served me perfectly. For all other purposes, I was going to flay him alive for altering the way Claire and I were bound.

Alexie jolted as if electrocuted when I brushed against his mind. Dread and excitement swirling through the wolf in equal measure. I allowed him to stew for a few seconds, wanting to exact a little taste of revenge, but not wanting his reaction to alert Claire to my presence.

Mila claimed the children and Alexi took Claire's hand, dragging her from the hedonistic dance floor. I took the two creatures in. Their movements were still unsure towards each other, full of stops and starts. Colored with a shyness that was at odds with the fiercely confident creatures I knew.

One was my mate. Someone who had known me for a greater length of time and was associated with more formative memories than any other person I had chosen to have in my life. I could not remember a time where Alexi and I had not been bound with something tighter than friendship; The blood of our covenant being thicker than the water of the womb.

The other was my mate. Someone who was designed to know me to a greater depth than any other creature possibly could. When I looked into their eyes, a piece of my own soul was mirrored. My brow furrowed at an errant thought, given that they were also mates...had I been drawn to the parts of their souls that resided in each other?

Did any of us actually have a choice over the ties that bound us? A wry smile tugged at the contemplative set to my lips - Did free will even exist? I let that maudlin muse fall by the wayside, it had no place here tonight. Not when Alexi had taken Claire's hand, and was leading her around the fire to a private garden where I was meant to be right now. I melted back into shadow and danced around moonbeams that would call attention to my presence.

Without a monument to spare, I crept around evergreen trees and vaulted the large bushes that turned the stage for my play into a sanctum. A sanctum ringed with overwhelmingly fragrant rose bushes and stone benches.

The pair of my mates entered stage left, and began to sway to the beat of drunken drums woven into the lilt of uninhibited vocalists. Both human and lupine. A perfectly round manicured lawn softened the falls of bare feet as they danced.