"I got your favorite." His words came out in almost a whisper, like it was hard for him to be near me.
Tee climbed up and peered around me to see the steaming bowl of soup with all the fixings.
"Damn. Well, if that’s how you treat prisoners, I’m gonna like it here," Tee sat back in my lap and kicked up her feet, playing cool. "I personally am a pizza girl. Got any of that?"
"Not today," Easton said. "I could grab some tomorrow—"
"I’ll take some Pizzeria Mozza pizza, the lemon one with capers. Tell them light on the fried parsley though," Tee spit out her order like Easton was a waiter and not the slightly-less-evil warlord who had barely spared her life.
Easton pressed his lips together, but Drake yelled from across the room. "You just be glad you’re breathing right now, and leave it at that."
Tee glared and Easton set the takeout on the table before turning and actually looking at me. His eyes swam with hurt as he asked, "Can I talk to you for a second?"
Shit. I didn’t want to talk, but I found myself gently scooting Tee off me and standing. My heart fluttered nervously as Easton moved out to the porch. I followed him until my chain held tight, just outside the door.
"Look," Easton ran a hand through his blond hair and sighed. "You need to understand something. Bodie… he doesn’t like witnesses."
Just the mention of Bodie’s name had me looking toward the woods, searching for that stupid wolf. My heart sent out a signal, like radar, and a tiny ping came back. Bodie was far away, probably running, probably still in his wolf form. But didn’t he deserve it? I mean, what the fuck?
"You mean I should feel grateful that he managed to curb his killer impulses?"
"Yes, that’s exactly what I mean," Easton replied.
"You can’t be serious."
Easton shook his head. "Bodie’s not like other guys. He’s got a huge pack to defend. He became alpha at fourteen. He’s had ruthlessness pounded into him. If he wasn’t vicious, his pack would suffer."
I shook my head. "Maybe if he wasn’t vicious, the whole magical community wouldn’t suffer," I retorted with sass.
"That’s not how this fucking works and you know it!" Easton growled, his bear rising to the surface and changing his eyes gold. "Why the fuck don’t you say the same thing about the Mage Council, huh? Larry told me about the bones from murdered people they use for their strongest spells. I saw a fucking mage let his friend die so he could use the dude’s bones. They’re fucking sick. Why aren’t you down on them?"
My stomach dropped out. Trite never talked about what the council did. No one ever talked about mage spells or how they were performed. That shit was classified. Even when we’d gone to college together, certain buildings had been for mages only. No one else had been allowed inside. I knew my parents were terrified of stepping out of line. I’d always thought that was because they were social climbers, sycophantic assholes. And maybe they still were… but… murder bones?
"That’s one asshole," I said, holding my head high despite how lost and confused I felt. "You can’t tell me it’s all of them."
I turned my eyes from Easton and stared out at the trees, trying to process his words.
Why would mages have kill orders instead of arrest orders? Why would we send the bodies off to the Mage Council afterward? Bile crept up into my throat.
No. That couldn’t be right.
"Larry’s wrong," I decided with a nod as I turned back to Easton. "He’s not a very skilled mage. He had to come out here while Drake was babysitting me, just to fix my spell. Maybe he has to use bones for spells but that doesn’t mean—"
"Deny all you want. I can see by your eyes you believe it." Easton cut me off. He tugged down his shirt and pointed at his neck. "When I was younger, I didn’t see the war as necessary either. That was before Iris."
Immediately, that name set off a spike of irrational jealousy in my chest. I swallowed hard and leaned toward him. "Who is that?"
"The siren who helped push me to this," Easton took a step closer and I could see an old scar on his neck. It looked like rope burn.
Horror flashed through me and I reached for his hand.
No. He couldn’t be saying what I thought…
Easton didn’t let me touch him. He shook his head and stepped back, biting his lip as he stared off the side of the porch into the mix of deciduous and pine trees.
"We were secretly together when I was seventeen," he admitted quietly. "I already had a hard enough time at home with my parents and she said she had it the same. But she was lying. One night she tried to lure me out so that the mage she was actually dating could off me."
Easton laughed, but the sound was cold and dead, without a trace of humor in it.
"I only just realized now, that the asshole probably wanted my bones. I killed him. And when Iris came at me…" He stopped talking as tears gathered in his eyes. "When she was gone… I tried to end it. Drake found me. Stopped me. Saved me."
"Easton," I reached for him again, aching to touch him, my heart split open by his story.
The silence stretched out between us like a lonely desert road.
He stomped down the porch, away from me, but turned back after he was halfway to the treeline. "We live in a shitty reality. Shifters especially. Bodie’s had to deal with more than you could ever imagine and has become harder than you could ever imagine. That pixie in there? Leaving her alive leaves him fucking vulnerable. Which leaves his pack vulnerable. And you just spit in his face."
It felt like I’d been slapped. My cheeks stung. My neck heated. And worst of all, my heart felt like it had been shoved into a meat grinder.
"Don’t be just like everyone else, Aubry. Don’t just stay on the other side of things because you were born there. Open your eyes. The two sides to every story? You can see them, if you just fucking bother to look."
Easton turned and I watched him walk away from me, into the forest. Part of me wanted to call him back. But no words came. I just stared as he disappeared into the brush, my entire body aching under the weight of his absence.
It was nearly an hour before I went back inside. By then, my soup was cold, ruined. I curled up on the couch and stared at one of the iron curtain covered windows.
Tee walked over to me, stumbling a little on the lumpy cushions. "Ok, spill all the tea," she commanded.
"You didn’t hear?" I asked with an eye roll, knowing full well that she had.
"I wanna hear your version."
My head sank into my hands. But a second later I sat up and twisted around. Where was Drake? Why wasn’t the asshole silently gloating in some corner, smoke rings rising from his lips?
"Where’d he go?" I asked Tee.
"The sour-faced one? Upstairs," Tee answered.
I listened for the tell-tale sounds of Drake punching stuff but it was silent.
"He took a bowl of that Vietnamese stuff with him," Tee added. "Now, come on… tell me, are you really mates with that shifter?"
I sighed. "I dunno, Tee. There’s some sort of a connection, yeah. But .."
"But you like the other one, don’t you?" Tee shook her head, her pink hair flopping back and forth.
I gave a hopeless shrug. "I like them both, I guess, which doesn’t make sense. I’m so screwed up. I should hate them, shouldn’t I, Tee?"
Tee smacked a hand to her forehead. "Oh, girl. This whole thing is all sorts of fucked up."
A mocking grin invaded my lips. "And the award for shittiest parents ever, who’ve totally messed up their daughter’s sense of relationships and romance so she equates it with all kinds of drama, goes to—"
Tee interrupted me with a laugh as loud as a bullhorn. "You can blame a lotta things on your shit parents, Princess, but not this. A mate bond is a different thing altogether. It’s inherent magic. It doesn’t discriminate."
"What the hell does it really feel like, Tee? How do I know? And if it is real, what the fuck am I supposed to do about it?" I ground out in a furious whi
sper. "He’s a criminal."
My voice broke. Bodie was the opposite of everything I’d ever pictured for my life. The opposite of everything I’d wanted, aspired to be… but there he was. And I was drawn to him like a fucking sailor to the sea, a faerie to a flower. There was this pull between us, like gravity, and as much as I swore I hated him… part of me didn’t. Deep down I didn’t hate him at all, even though I should have.
Tee climbed up the back of the couch and straddled it, her police uniform a black stain that didn’t really look out of place on the beat up old material. "Those are some tough questions. And I’ve got answers. But I don’t know if you’re ready to hear them. I think you need to calm down first. So… instead, I’m gonna tell you something else."
"Good news, I hope?" I asked.
"Well, I get to say ‘I told you so’ but other than that, no. Not good news."
I groaned. "You are not trying to deflect and tell me about scented gunpowder or something are you?"
"That wouldn’t just be good news, it’d be great news. No. Not that. Triton, whom I’ve always said is a creep, is under investigation by the Mage Council. When your boys caught me, I was tailing him."
She was right. Her news completely sideswiped me, like a mud slide during a car chase. My mind was the car, completely uncontrollable and about to break through the guardrail and tumble down the cliff.
"This information is supposed to help me calm down? What the hell?" I leaned forward on pins and needles. "The council has clearly gone mad."
Tee gave me a regretful look. "I don’t know if they’ve gone mad as much as he has, hon. Trite’s the one who’s been running around starting fires."
I shoved back, scooting away from her. "No way."
Tee just stared at me with her large eyes, blinking sadly.
Trite’s face rushed into my mind. The last time I’d seen him… he’d smelled like smoke.
"But that was after the fire," I muttered to myself. "We all smelled like smoke."
"What?" Tee leaned over. "You talking about the Tuesday fire? That’s what the news is calling it. That was definitely a mage fire, hon."
I shook my head. "I know, but it couldn’t have been him."
But then a memory popped into my mind. Of the night Trite and I had gone out, the night the fucking Mage Council had demoted me, the night I met Easton… Triton had smelled like smoke then, too. I’d thought he’d taken up a stress-induced habit. But maybe I was wrong.
"I’ve been shadowing him for the past five days," Tee said softly. "It was him."
"Why? Why the hell would Triton do that—"
"He’s looking for me." A deep voice interrupted us.
I spun on the couch and turned to find Drake. He stood in the middle of the room, tray in his hands, half-forgotten. My own hands started to shake. The world was completely falling apart.
"Is nobody who I think they are?" I bit out in irritation. "What the hell did you do?"
There was a long beat of silence. And at first, I thought Drake was gonna pull his standard asshole move and just walk away from me. But he didn't. He actually looked down at the ground. Almost like he was ashamed. Which couldn't be right. Alpha a-hole never admitted he was wrong. Even when he tried to serve us a can of expired beans the other night and I refused to eat them. He hadn't admitted he was wrong even when I heard his stomach grumbling later in protest. He'd just disappeared.
Probably into a bathroom for three hours thanks to food poisoning.
"When I was younger, I didn't have as much control," Drake began.
I instantly froze, not wanting to interrupt him. He'd never made small talk before. Ever. Let alone important talks about his past.
He didn't look at either of us as he continued. "I used to have a problem controlling my fire. Well, not controlling it. I didn't want to control it. It was too beautiful. I love how fire just does whatever the hell it wants and says 'fuck you, outta my way or I'll destroy you.'"
Drake abruptly stopped talking. He turned and marched toward the kitchen, setting his tray down on the counter and leaning over it.
I glanced over at Tee with wide eyes.
"Is he the unhinged one?" she whispered.
"He's The Shadow," I replied softly.
Her eyes widened. "No!"
I nodded then glanced back over at Drake. "Your story didn't really fill in any of the gaps there, Horntail."
Tee gave me a high-five. "Nice HP reference."
"Thanks."
Drake shook his head and started up the stairs. I turned and glared at his back over the rear couch cushion. "You're just gonna leave it like that? Why the hell is Trite after you?"
Drake stopped on the steps, back still to us. When he spoke, he almost sounded sad. "Because I killed his parents."
What! It felt like Drake had punched me in the mouth. Then it felt like Triton had too. He’d always told me the fire that killed his family before we met was a random accident. Was I fucking Alice? Had I gone through the looking glass?
The dragon shifter stomped the rest of the way up the stairs and disappeared.
I flopped around in my seat for a bit expelling my pent up anxiety and shock. Then I dragged my fingers through my hair, raking it back. "Trite." I felt pity, anger, and disbelief all braided together.
Tee shook her head. "What the council knows and what they tell everyone... I wonder if he found out the truth when he got a minor seat on the council last year?"
I pressed my lips together. "He didn't even tell me."
"Might not have been allowed to. They told me I couldn't even tell Aaron about this investigation assignment on penalty of treason," Tee said.
My eyes widened. "Then why the hell are you telling me?"
"I'm a prisoner. In a near-death situation. Duh. What better time than now to break all the rules?"
"They’re not gonna kill you, Tee."
She gave me a skeptical look. "Mark my words, that scaly one's gonna try."
I glanced back at the stairwell, even though I knew Drake wasn't there. Would he try? I couldn't be certain. The past few days, I'd loosened up around the asshole. He was still one of the most intolerable people on the planet. But evil?
Ugh. I was letting my stupid mate bond with the others interfere. It made me forget how many fucking "jobs" this asshole had pulled off. How many people on my force had been taken out on his orders? Jake, Kimberlee, Mason. My jaw clenched. Maybe Drake was that bad. I mean, he'd killed Trite's parents. He seemed so remorseful, I assumed it’d been an accident, but dead was dead. It didn't matter if the end result was the same, did it? My jaw clenched.
Tee studied my eyes. "And you're back in business. Aubry the Asshole has officially returned."
"Excuse me?"
"That's what we call you at work behind your back."
"You don't defend me?"
"Oh, sure, yeah. I'm gonna go defend the boss to my co-workers. Great way to build morale. Come on. Hating the boss is a universal bonding mechanism."
I shook a finger at her. "When we get back to the office—"
She raised a brow. "You don't really delude yourself into thinking you’re getting out of here, do you?"
"What?" It was like she'd punched the air out of my lungs. "Why would you say that?"
"You are mates with a criminal. One who's so fucking good he's invisible. And you're hot-to-trot for his best friend too."
"But that's all just insanity, right? Like, it's not real." I didn’t address the fact that I didn’t deny her accusation. "Prisoners hallucinate and shit. Get attached to their captors."
"You feel it when he leaves the room, right?" Tee asked.
My heart and face fell at once. "Yeah."
Tee shook her head, her smile sympathetic in a way that made me realize the worst. It was true. Whether I wanted it or not, Bodie and I had a mate bond.
Tee tried to soften the blow of that gut wrenching realization a bit by grabbing my hand and saying, "When I met Aaron, he was dating my c
ousin. But the pull we felt was intense. And I kissed him—against my better judgement—and everything in our lives just… flipped. Do you know how that made me feel? I was the bad guy, Aubs. Me. I was the asshole who broke a happy couple apart."
She sighed and rubbed a nervous hand across the back of her neck.
"It took years to reconcile myself to that," she continued. "But circumstances change. Time changes things. People change. Who's the good guy and who's the bad guy, who's the boss and who's the bitch—that can all flip on a dime. Days are good, bad, ugly, beautiful, brutal, and everything in between. But mate bonds…"
She shook her head, and I felt a weight sink down to the pit of my stomach, pulling me under the waves of my own misery.
"Mate bonds are forever."
20
Aubry
Outside, gravel crunched, and an engine sputtered as yet another vehicle pulled into the drive. What the fuck was this, a pump and dump? Were we selling gas, soda, and snacks now? I mean, Jesus…
The car door shut, and footsteps sounded across the pebbles. Slow and shuffling. Not anyone who was in a hurry, so not likely a bad guy—or a good guy, depending which side of the war you were on. The floorboards creaked as the newcomer strode across the porch and turned the doorknob.
"Sorry, I'm late," a familiar voice said just before entering the cabin. "I needed to restock my supplies. The fire from the other night really depleted my stash, and after spelling the pixie…"
I rolled my eyes. Larry. Of course. The Wizard of Waverly Place was back for another episode.
"No worries, Lar," Easton said from out in the kitchen. The bear shifter had returned from his little jaunt in the woods and was now stirring something in a pot that smelled mouth-wateringly delicious. The scents of tomato and red pepper wafted into the living room, along with the rich smell of cheese and bread. Italian food, if I had to guess, not Vietnamese, but I no longer gave any fucks. I was just starved for something that wasn't cold or scraped from a can.
Easton hadn't spoken a single word to me since he got back, and while I hated it, I hadn't allowed myself to speak to him, either. If this was some sort of cold, silent war we had going on, then damn it, I was going to win. It didn't matter how much I may have… liked him. My pride was the only thing I had left, and I was determined to hold on to it.
Fae Captive (The Mage Shifter War Book 1) Page 21
