No More Choices (Void and Light Book One)

Chapter Eighteen

~Akiriya~

I woke up when my alarm went off at seven o'clock. Emory wasn't in the bed, but I could hear the faint sound of running water so I assumed she was just taking a shower. I walked over to my closet and looked at the clothing inside. My tired eyes glanced at each article of clothing and I even picked out a few nice ones but I just didn't feel like they were enough. I wanted to blame the fact that I needed to go shopping but I knew what it really was.

Yeah that's right, I wanted to look nice for them. What was wrong with me? I had never wanted to look nice for anyone ever. Well, okay, maybe that wasn't exactly true, we'd all had that crush that we wanted to impress back in middle school, but I was more mature nowadays. I continued rummaging through my closet when the doorbell rang. I ran to the door and opened it, not bothering to look through the peephole.

"Good morning!" Clarice said as she walked into the apartment. She held a cup of coffee in one hand and a blueberry scone in the other. My mouth watered at the food and I realized that I was starving. She wandered into the kitchen and gasped. I ran into it, hoping that nothing supernatural had decided to pop up. What I found instead was plates full of food. Waffles, bacon, and omelettes. She looked at me, "Since when do you cook?" she looked closely at the plates, "and not burn anything?"

"I didn't make-"

"I made it." Emory said coming up from behind me and resting her head on my shoulder. She smelled like cherries and I came to the conclusion that she could keep the soap that she used for as long as she wanted. Emory looked up at me and smiled, "I didn't know what you would want, so I made some basics."

I smiled at her and something squeezed in my chest, "Thanks."

"Um, someone want to tell me what's happening here?" my head snapped to Clarice, breaking eye contact with Emory. She looked at me with wide eyes. Her jaw unhinged and she dropped her scone on the floor. She narrowed her eyes at me, "Okay, what is with you and all of the hot kids? Are you guys like, a thing?"

"No."

"Yes."

Emory and I looked at each other and I raised an eyebrow at her, "We are?"

She blushed and lowered her head, looking at me through her lashes, "Well because of the mate bond, we're meant to be, the three of us."

I looked at Clarice and noticed that she had stopped paying attention to us and was now filling a plate with food. I pulled Emory to the side.

"Mate bond?" the hell did she mean? I vaguely remembered Jarek saying something about mates. You were going to attack my mate, I felt it. I couldn't sit by and wait for her blood to be shed.

"Did no one explain to you what happened when you touched the kitsune and I?"

"Uh, it never came up...did you say kitsune? You mean Jarek right?"

She rolled her eyes, "Yes him. Your touch caused us to be marked with your mating symbol." she held her palm out and right below the protector symbol was the same one that had been hovering over my hand the day that we met.

"How did that get there?"

"Do you remember when woke up, kissed me and touched Jared and me?" I nodded. "Well, you were in what shifters call a protective state. You had the need to protect what you felt was yours, just like when Jarek shifted to keep you safe from Yama."

I was about to reply to her when Clarice pokes her head up front the table where she was eating, "Did I hear Atiyama's name? Because I really have to get a piece of that."