Vinna’s brow furrows in question for a moment and then lifts back up in understanding. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a phone, glances at the screen quickly, and then chuckles. “Yes, he did. Sorry, I never check this thing,” she confesses, and a couple of the guys around her snicker. “What’s going on? Are they from Tierit?” she asks, nodding in my direction.
“No, she just learned about all of that like you did,” he answers, and her eyes once again widen in shock.
Mine do too. Wekun has mentioned Vinna a couple of times in the past. I had no idea who he was talking about though, and I assumed it was a friend back home. So it surprises me a little to hear that she’s as new to this whole Sentinel thing as I am. Did she also wake up in a strange world, with her life fucked up beyond all recognition?
“What’s going on, Wekun?” she demands, confusion and concern etching themselves into her features.
Wekun takes a deep breath, but his eyes light up with excitement. It makes me chuckle a little when Vinna suddenly regards him even more warily, as though Wekun’s excitement is something that people should be cautious about.
“You two are part of the same Sept,” Wekun answers and then pauses dramatically like he’s waiting for her to start jumping up and down while she asks really!
I look from Wekun back to Vinna and decide he’s barking up the wrong tree; she doesn’t look like a bouncy, squealy kind of girl.
“What does that mean?” Teo asks.
“It’s like a coven, only it’s something that only Bond Wielders have.”
“But I have a coven,” Vinna declares, gesturing to the males all around her.
“No, you have Chosen, just like Falon does,” Wekun corrects.
“Chosen?” I interject, confused. I haven’t heard that term before.
“Your mates,” Wekun quickly points out.
Oh. Okay.
“You both have Chosen, which is who you share magic and abilities with, but separate from that, you have a Sept. You all carry the same rune, which will start to work when the Sept is complete. It’ll connect you to each other in a very powerful way.”
“But not in a mate kind of way, right?” I ask as I try to think back about what Wekun said about Septs before. “Because, you’re hot and all,” I tell Vinna, “...but that’s not my thing.”
“Ditto,” Vinna agrees. “No offence,” she offers me.
“None taken,” I reply.
Wekun releases a deep breath. “Why does everything have to be about fucking?” he asks rhetorically, looking from me to Vinna.
“TGV Forevahh,” she answers simply with a shrug, and all the guys with her chuckle.
Their reactions confirm what my nose has me suspecting already, and I turn to Vinna with an impressed smirk on my face. “All these guys are your mates?”
She smiles and gives them a warm look before turning back to me. “They sure are.”
“Fuck, and I thought three was a handful,” I mumble, looking back at my guys.
“That guy’s like easily two and half Chosen’s worth,” she tells me, pointing at Zeph over my shoulder. “Yeah, the grumpy looking one,” Vinna confirms as I look behind me.
I snort out a laugh at her description.
“Sorry, I’m not the best with names,” she confesses with a sheepish shrug.
I smile at Zeph, who just raises an unamused eyebrow at me, and wave her off. “No worries, the grumpy looking one is accurate.”
We both chuckle, and then I feel hands on my face, coaxing me to tilt my head back. Zeph looks down at me and shakes his head. “I’ll show you grumpy,” he whispers in my ear, and it does all kinds of things to my body. I smile, and he plants a quick kiss on my lips before letting go of my head. I drop my chin back down, and Vinna looks perplexed as she rubs at the underside of her chin.
She then tilts her own head back, flashing me a peek of an identical rune under her chin.
“That’s your Sept rune,” Wekun tells her, answering the questions in her gaze.
“Oh,” she chirps, shocked, and then her shoulders relax a little like she’s relieved. “I thought it might be something else,” she confesses, and all at once her guys move closer to her, like they’re all magnets responding to her pull.
I watch as each of them discreetly reaches out to touch her and soothe her in some small way. I realize that they all just responded to whatever intense emotion Vinna was just feeling, and I’m completely captivated by the way they seem to ground her and calm her. She relaxes right before my eyes, simply from their presence and the small intimate things they’re doing to fortify her soul.
I don’t know her, although I think that’s definitely going to change based on our Sept runes, but it’s a beautiful thing to watch her be loved as deeply as she clearly is. Vinna gives her mates a grateful smile and leans into all of them, and I can practically see the soul-deep connections that link all of them.
“Well, now that we’ve gotten introductions out of the way, I’m hoping you both can help me,” Wekun starts, pulling me from my observations.
Vinna stands up a little straighter, confidence pushing the vulnerability out of her light green eyes.
“We’re here on a job already, but what’s going on?” she asks.
“I think the two might actually be related,” Wekun supplies cryptically, and it’s clear Vinna doesn’t know what he’s saying either.
“Aydin said you’re here about missing wolves, right?”
“Right,” Vinna agrees.
“Well, I think the third member of your Sept might be one of them,” Wekun announces, and shock filters through both me and Vinna.
A third member of our Sept?
I’m not even sure how I feel about having a Sept to begin with, let alone surprise,
