by Nicole Hall
Aiden speared him with a look. “I’d be careful what you’re implying there.”
Seth laughed. “Why? Are you looking for a fight that badly? Besides, Maddie denied me, and Cassie would rather light her tavern on fire than let me step foot anywhere near her.”
“Skulking around her stable must have felt great for you.”
Seth shrugged. “I’ll take what I can get. If you’re done procrastinating, want to share your terrible plan with me?”
Aiden crossed his arms. “Can’t you just pluck it from my mind and then conveniently blurt out the worst part, and only the worst part, in front of my mate?”
Seth tilted his head. “Your mate, huh? I hadn’t realized.”
Aiden resisted the urge to throttle him. “Which part of the bond were you unclear about? You seemed pretty fucking knowledgeable when you were getting in the way. How did you know about completing the binding, by the way?”
“Once upon a time, I listened when the elders spoke. The challenge ring doesn’t reward you with a mate, only a binding and supposedly increased power. I haven’t tested it. Keris sensed something I didn’t and took advantage.” Seth whistled. “She really took advantage.”
Aiden scoffed. “She was just causing trouble, as always.”
“Well, yeah, of course, but she also made sure you’d have the best motivation to not do anything stupid.” Seth frowned. “Except it looks like you’re doing something stupid, so clearly, she can’t anticipate everything. That’s refreshing.”
Aiden shook his head and started walking again, knowing Seth would follow. “I’m hunting Torix.”
“With Maddie behind the wards instead of helping you?”
“Yes. The bond made it so she couldn’t raise her shields without cutting us both off from part of our magic. She won’t use her shields, and I won’t deliver her to Torix defenseless.”
Seth snorted, and Aiden glanced back at him. “Defenseless? You think she’s defenseless? You’re still not paying attention. You wouldn’t be wearing that shiny bauble if it weren’t for her.”
The golden necklace felt heavy around his neck, and somehow sad. No…disappointed. He knew better than to discount ancient magical trinkets, but assigning moral judgements seemed like a step too far. Aiden didn’t want to examine the fact that he was probably projecting his own emotions, so he changed the subject.
“What’s done is done. I’m going after Torix alone.”
Seth sighed. “Not alone, I guess.”
Aiden grumbled, but there was no dissuading Seth when he decided on something. Better to keep moving. Seth walked along in silence for almost an entire minute.
“What happens to Maddie when she figures out how to get past the wards, and she will, if Torix kills both of us?”
“He’ll come for her with everything he has, steal her magic, and probably regain some semblance of his former power which he’ll then use to torture her for a long time.” Aiden spoke casually, but the fear of that exact outcome gripped his heart. If he died, whatever magic remained within him would revert to Maddie, so he hoped the boost would give her a fighting chance. More likely, if Torix figured out the bond between them, he’d try to contain Aiden’s power somehow.
Seth scowled. “That’s what I remembered from last time. I just wanted to be sure.”
Last time. Three of them against Torix, or so he’d thought. Seth’s exile gave Lexi an excuse to travel to Terra. She’d convinced Aiden to follow Seth through the doorway. Lexi excelled at manipulation, only displaying aspects she thought they’d like and keeping the rest of her hidden.
Like the part where she obsessed over a Dark Fae, then traded her husband for power.
They’d only dated a few weeks, and while he’d enjoyed her company, they’d rushed the marriage. Aiden couldn’t believe he’d ever thought himself in love with her. The strength of his feelings for Maddie threw his half-marriage with Lexi into stark contrast.
Seth cast several sidelong glances at him while they walked, but allowed Aiden to stew in silence.
Twenty minutes later, they weren’t anywhere closer to Torix as far as he could tell, and Seth was equally useless. Aiden kicked a pinecone into the brush, then looked up at the sun peeking through the canopy. Almost noon, Maddie would be up soon. He’d given her a light suggestion to sleep, but it only lasted so long.
Seth peered into the brush after the pinecone and shook his head. “This isn’t working.”
Aiden turned on him with a growl. “No shit, cousin, but I don’t have a better way to find Torix.”
Seth raised a brow. “You mean besides bringing Maddie along and fighting him together? You know, at your strongest?”
“I told you. I’m not using Maddie for bait.” There had to be another way to find him.
“You make it sound so sordid. There’s nothing wrong with bait if you have a solid plan in place to deal with the consequences. This ‘wander around until you trip over Torix’ plan sucks, and unless you lock her away until Torix is dead, Maddie will always be bait.” Seth braced his hands on his hips with a sneer. “How do you think she’ll feel about being locked away again? How would you?”
Aiden frowned. “I’d never lock her away. She’d—”
“What do you think you did this morning?”
Aiden opened his mouth, then shut it again. The wards functioned to keep Torix out, but he’d had Seth adjust them to keep Maddie in for a while. Ideally, Aiden would have been back before she woke, so he hadn’t considered Maddie’s reaction to being stuck inside. Seth was right, protecting her was one thing, but he’d become her captor.
“Fuck.”
Seth nodded sagely. “Yeah. I was waiting for you to realize on your own, but you’re as hard-headed as your mother.”
Aiden’s stomach roiled as he realized in his attempt to save his mate, he may have driven her away for good. Seth clapped him on the back and turned toward where the wards stood strong.
“It’s not too late to fix it. We can come up with a better plan. One where you don’t run off half-cocked and get us both killed.”
Aiden shrugged him off. “I should have known you were only worried about yourself. The last time I came running it was to help you, and it cost me my wife and my freedom.”
Seth threw his hands up. “How is Lexi’s bad decision my fault? I didn’t ask you to come after me, and I certainly didn’t trade you to some asshole for more power. Not that it did her any good.”
Aiden remembered the look of surprise on Lexi’s face when Torix had turned on her. They’d come through the doorway not long after Seth, but instead of his cousin, they found a Dark Fae waiting for them. Torix had pulled Lexi to him and sucked some of her life away. She’d whimpered. That little noise stuck with him more than anything else that happened after. Even knowing the truth, he wasn’t sure she’d feigned it.
Torix offered him a deal. Servitude in exchange for Lexi. Without Seth for backup, Aiden agreed instantly. Torix tossed him a knife and told him to slice his palm, then hand it back. Jaw tight, he’d done as instructed. Moments later, Torix forced him to shift and trapped him as a wolf.
Aiden watched Torix let Lexi go as promised. But instead of running, Lexi sidled up to him and slipped her arm through his. Her fear abated, replaced with a smirk he didn’t recognize. He tried to shift, to talk to her, to tell her to get away, get home. Torix’s magic held him in place, and Lexi met Aiden’s eyes as she congratulated Torix on a plan well-executed.
Aiden still didn’t know why she’d chosen Torix over him. If she’d been unhappy, she could have asked for a divorce, and they’d have gone separate ways. Luring him to Terra seemed like a vast overreaction. She hadn’t bothered to explain.
Torix, for his part, ignored Aiden once he’d gained control. He turned his focus on Lexi. With a growl trapped in his throat, Aiden stood helpless as Torix trailed a finger down her face and leaned in for a kiss. Lexi responded, and Aiden felt part of himself die. His wife had betrayed him in every
way that mattered.
Seconds later, her eyes popped open and she tried to pull away. Through his pain, he watched Lexi become pale and struggle against Torix’s hold. She weakened, then Torix dropped her limp body at his feet. Aiden raged at the loss of his trust, his freedom, and even Lexi. The growl finally escaped, and Torix turned back toward him.
He flicked his fingers, and Aiden struggled to breathe. Torix leaned down so they were eye to eye and spoke softly.
“You’re mine now, wolf. Better to accept your lot and make the best of it. I hate having to kill my toys before I’ve had a chance to play with them.”
Aiden vowed to fight with everything in him, even if it resulted in his death, but before he could follow through, an orange tabby cat came racing out of the brush, spitting and hissing.
Seth hadn’t been gone; he’d only been hiding. Torix smiled dangerously, and Aiden could suddenly breathe again. “Ah, Lexi had said there might be two of you.” He cast a sidelong glance at Aiden and took a step toward Seth. “Tell me, wolf, what would you do to protect this one?”
Aiden managed a shake of his head to warn Seth off. He couldn’t bear to lose his cousin along with everything else. Seth either saw the shake or sensed that Aiden needed him to run. He paused in his theatrics, then turned and took off in a spray of pine straw. That had been the last time he’d seen his cousin until Maddie had lured him out in Cairo.
Seth watched him now with guarded eyes. “I’m sorry for leaving you, and for what happened to Lexi. Well, not sorry, she got what she deserved, but I’m sorry for the effect it had on you. You protected me, and it wasn’t your fault that you couldn’t protect Lexi. There was nothing you could do, literally. Maddie isn’t Lexi, and you need to get that straight if you plan on keeping her.”
Aiden’s fists clenched. He’d made the same argument with himself, and hearing someone else say it didn’t make it easier to implement. “I know. I know Maddie is her own person. I know Lexi wasn’t my fault. Losing Lexi was hard, but losing Maddie would destroy me.”
“You love her?” Seth asked.
“I love her.”
Seth nodded. “Then trust her. Let’s go back and get her before Torix really does show up. You can grovel for forgiveness later.”
Aiden hesitated, then nodded. His Maddie was fierce, powerful, and determined to fight her own battles. He couldn’t tuck her away until the danger had passed if he wanted to have any chance of a life with her after. And he wanted a life with her. They just needed to survive first.
Seth rolled his eyes. “Finally, you’re making sense. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a lot broodier than you used to be.”
“And you’re a lot more devious. How long did it take you to figure out how to bypass the banishment?”
“Not as long as it would have taken you.” Seth grinned.
Aiden snorted as he stepped over a fallen branch. “Not all of us are geniuses. At least you were able to take care of Lexi, whether or not she deserved it.”
Seth sobered. “What do you mean?”
Aiden stopped moving at the confusion on Seth’s face. “Her body. Torix had complete control over my form in the beginning. It wasn’t until the Fae stuck him in a tree and curbed his power that I could exert myself. He took me back to that part of the woods often though. I think it was a subtle torture for me as well as a way to keep an eye on the rest of the Fae. He liked to multi-task.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“I never saw Lexi’s body again. I assumed you’d taken care of it somehow.”
Seth shook his head slowly. “No…I’d been freshly banished. The most I could do was send a message through the doorway for Keris. I thought you’d taken care of her body.”
They stared at each other in dawning horror.
Lexi was dead. He’d seen her die. Their bodies could recover from most injuries, but having the lifeforce sucked out of them circumvented the healing. Her power had vanished, eaten by Torix. He’d felt it.
Seth grasped Aiden’s forearm. “Could she still be alive somewhere?”
The prospect hit him in the gut. His malicious wife could be alive. Was it possible? Humans could have found the body. Or Fae. Or dryads. Or really any of the other races that populated the planet. It would be impossible to find out if someone had discovered the body of a random woman in a desolate section of woods on another continent over a hundred years ago. The internet was a marvelous thing, but there were limits.
Seth jostled Aiden’s arm. “Seriously. Would you be able to tell?”
Aiden grimaced and shook him off again. “I doubt it. We never connected that way. If she was nearby, I’d get a sense of someone from our clan, but it’s never happened. If she did survive, wouldn’t she return home?” The first thing he’d done upon being freed was contact his family. He’d vowed not to return without killing Torix, but he’d wanted them to know he lived.
Seth scoffed. “And risk the chance someone found out she’d sacrificed her husband, who also happened to be the son of the clan’s leaders? Yeah, if I were her, I’d for sure stay in Terra where she could at least push around the humans.”
“That does sound like her. And Mother would definitely have told me if Lexi had returned when we reconnected last year. Punishing Lexi would have been the highlight of her century. If Lexi’s in hiding, we should find her. She’s—” A breeze brought a hint of Torix’s scent to him even though they’d turned back.
Seth lifted his face to the wind and inhaled, then frowned. “Is that what you’ve been following this whole time?”
“Yeah, I know Torix is somewhere local. I was hoping to surprise him, but the direction keeps changing.”
“That’s not a real scent. It’s really subtle magic layered to seem like a scent.”
“Are you sure?”
Seth sniffed once more, this time in the direction of Aiden. “Yeah. You and Maddie are strong and clear, but that one is like a bad photoshop job. Why would Torix want you running around the woods chasing a false trail that leads consistently away from the cabin?”
Aiden didn’t need Seth’s sarcasm to figure out Maddie was in more danger than he’d realized. He cursed, then took off running. The cabin wasn’t far. Most of the time he’d spent wandering had been in large circles. Seth crunched through the leaves behind him, no longer cloaking himself in silence like he usually did.
The bond assured him of Maddie’s health, but Torix’s scent trick had easily fooled him, so Aiden hesitated to take anything for granted. Once he got to her, nothing would make him leave her side again.
When they were still too far away from the cabin, Aiden felt the wards shudder. He picked up speed and considered changing into a faster animal, but he couldn’t with his focus split. If Torix had found the cabin, the wards had lost their biggest defense, hiding in plain sight. Maddie believed herself safe inside them, and she’d be unprepared.
A second shudder, bigger this time with a familiar hint of magic woven through, made Aiden stumble. Torix wasn’t trying to break into the wards; Maddie was pushing her way out.
She cleared the circle, and a wave of anger and worry nearly knocked him over. The return of the full force of his magic, mixed with hers, unmasked the fake scent he’d been following. Without realizing it, he’d handicapped himself when he’d separated them.
“Dammit. Seth, can you get there faster?”
Seth panted, but kept his pace. “Not with whatever she just did to my beautiful wards. It feels like someone just rubbed my fur the wrong way.”
The fake-Torix scent disappeared about the same time Aiden’s sense of Maddie distorted. She’d figured out how to call a trod. He’d bet she planned to lead them to the nexus. The clever girl knew Torix would track her, and Maddie could wield the elemental power that filled the nexus to the brim. Hopefully, Torix didn’t have a way to use that magic against them.
Aiden took a sharp right and pounded through a new set of brush. They’d been travelling
parallel to the boundaries of the Wood, so they crossed over almost immediately. He called a trod and hoped the sprites helped him catch up to Maddie. His fear for her squeezed the breath out of him, but fear lied. He and Maddie were stronger together, just like she’d said.
It was time he stopped letting fear run the show. Like she’d said before, he wasn’t the only badass around. Maddie could handle herself, and he’d be whatever she needed him to be in the fight. If he could only get to the nexus in time. Aiden had made a lot of mistakes today, and he refused to let Maddie be the one paying for them.
15
MADDIE
The trod only made Maddie walk a short distance before reaching into the nexus. Sprites followed her into the clearing, and the path disappeared. Maddie had no need for the flat stone in the middle of the circle, barely visible under the pine straw, but she took note of it anyway. Muted daylight lit the trees around the clearing, and shadows darkened further into the woods. She suspected that anyone attempting to penetrate the shadows would end up back in the clearing, but she’d never tested it.
She nudged her power to search the area and discovered another obstruction between her and Aiden, probably because of the nexus. His power intertwined with hers, but something obscured her sense of him.
In the short amount of time between leaving the wards and entering the trod, Maddie had checked on Aiden. He hadn’t found Torix yet. She knew what Aiden felt like in battle, and though he’d been annoyed, he hadn’t been fighting. A part of her hoped that whatever was annoying him kept at it because he deserved a little discomfort after what he’d done to her.
She didn’t sense anyone else. Unless they could cloak themselves…Maddie told her pessimistic inner voice to shut up and dropped her pack near the edge of the trees. Her hand closed over the dagger Zee had given her, and a strange prickle of anticipation met her. She frowned and drew back.
The magical, aggressive dagger seemed to pout when she didn’t pick it up. She eyed the pack and decided having a weapon outweighed the risk of its potential sentience. Unfortunately, Maddie didn’t have anywhere to stash it that wouldn’t immediately be obvious. Her leggings weren’t meant to double as a sheath.
