In a world of magic, it was hard not to think something was at play here. Something brought them to the woods outside that cabin. Something was pushing her towards these men. They seemed bound to one another, haunting dreams and appearing out of thin air. Enticing one another with scents and sweet words.
Groaning she blew out a breath lifting curls off her forehead. There was too much she didn’t understand about this world, about herself, to know why any of this was happening. She haunted an Incubus when she didn’t have a dreamscape. She made a Vampire crave her and softened a Berserker. According to them, these things were impossible.
She’d done them effortlessly, as if by magic.
Unnatural magic none of them could identify.
Magic affecting her too. She could feel it now, in the way she burned for Ridhor in the pit of her stomach as she thought about the way his nostrils flared, his eyes blown. She wanted him to want her, even though she fought it.
Agitation bit into her. She was bouncing back and forth, making her head spin. One moment she was combative, the next she was longing. She felt torn between two versions of herself, neither fitting right.
It was frustrating. Outside of being the warrior she knew she was, there was a big question mark where other parts of her should be.
Sighing, she grabbed the elastic off her wrist and pulled her mass of curls above her head before tying it in a messy bun. She suddenly felt hot and wanted the hair off the back of her neck so she could feel the sharpness of the breeze on it. She fell back on her elbows on the grass, watching the girls play.
The scent of oils and pine stiffened her slightly.
“Hiding from us?” Ridhor sat beside her. She could feel his gaze taking her in from head to toe.
“Is it normal to smell when I’m aroused? Is that just a thing?” She sounded petulant.
He was silent for a moment. “It’s typically only normal to smell your mate’s arousal. Sure, you could smell hints of arousal, but you would more be smelling the scent itself and not the emotion.”
“The scent itself?”
Ridhor, never one to beat around the bush, nodded. “When we are aroused we excrete evidence of that. Pre-cum for men, women get wet. Those things have a scent that can be smelled by any being capable.”
“And that’s not what you’re smelling on me?” She was still so perplexed.
He slowly shook his head. “No, although we could smell that too. We are smelling your emotion. Your regular scent becomes almost unbearable.” He admits. “When I walked into the kitchen it was like walking into a wall that set my whole being on fire.”
Pulling at a hangnail, she fiddled with it until the skin came free and she pulled off a chunk. It was deep, the skin reddened where she bled a little bit. The slight sting reminded her this was real. “I don’t understand a lot of this.”
“Neither do we.”
“You said something about mates?” She tried to guide the conversation. “What does that mean?”
“Mates are not common anymore. When the realms were cursed and we became unable to procreate, a lot of people just ignored the need to mate. Mating makes us monogamous and there isn’t a point in finding your mate and becoming monogamous if you can’t have a family. There are still some who find their mate, usually with the intervention of Fate.”
The ruler of The Veil intervened and helped people find their mate. Seemed like such a frivolous thing to worry herself with. Then again, that was what people believed she did. Played a hand in their everyday lives.
“With certain beings, it’s beneficial to Fate for us to be mated. For example with Cricket and Alette. Alette is a very powerful Pixie and because her powers tend to be more passive, that kind of power needs to be protected. Fate pushed her towards her mate, a deadly assassin, ensuring she and her power were kept safe. It also makes Alette immune to the elements as Cricket is an elemental Pixie.” Ridhor’s tone was blasé as he explained it to her, as though he wasn’t talking about the hands of Fate and the way she meddled in people’s lives.
“Did Fate herself decide they would be mated or did she just push them together?”
“Only the two of them know for sure. There are mates and there are fated mates. I haven’t heard of anyone being fated mates in over a century.”
Mates.
Fated mates.
This was all becoming more and more surreal.
Zura giggled as she leapt onto the Nightmare’s back and they both landed in a heap. Their high squeals would have been infectious if she wasn’t so distracted.
“So, the three of you smelling my arousal means what? We’re mates?” She asked. No one would decide who she ended up with, if she ended up with anyone at all. Mates or not, whether she was with them would be completely up to her, not Fate standing behind The Veil pulling the strings.
Ridhor’s eyes burned into the side of her face but she refused to meet his gaze. She needed to avoid falling into him right now.
His hand came up to run through the thickness of his beard. “I think Orren believed he was your mate. You sought him out in the dreamscape, and the way his eyes flared when you first met and he took you in. I think that’s why he’s so adamant to find out what you are. Once he knows what you are it will be easier to protect you.”
“I don’t need to be protected.” She threw her hands in the air, annoyed. She could kill any of them, which should tell them she didn’t need their protection. The last thing she would ever tolerate was someone treating her as some helpless thing. She was far from it.
“I know that. I’m just telling you what I observed with Orren and his behaviour.”
He was right. She shouldn’t be getting annoyed with him. True to form, she was asking the hard questions and he was giving her truthful, unfiltered answers. She was shooting the messenger because she didn’t understand it. “Do you think I’m Orren’s mate?”
Ridhor grabbed onto her chin, gently turning her face so he could look at her. “I think no matter what is decided for you, nothing matters unless it’s your decision. Fate or not, unless you decide Orren is your mate it means nothing.”
She let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, dropping her shoulders down from her ears as she relaxed a bit.
It meant a lot to her that he knew she couldn’t be led to a decision. The strength she wore as armour went all the way down to her will. It was important to her he knew that. Hearing he did made her stomach do a backflip.
Her eyes met his and she smiled lightly. “You said you could smell me too.”
His nod was slow, his eyes glued to hers. “Yes.”
“Would that mean you’re my mate as well?” The very notion three men were mated to her seemed like some kind of joke. All the memories that hadn’t been lost to her made her feel she was human. There weren’t groups of people married in the Mortal Realm. Well, polygamy was very much a thing, but it wasn’t anything that was out in the open.
He was telling her something that seemed exclusive to mates was something all three men could do.
She didn’t think she could smell their arousal. Maybe that meant they were mated to her but she wasn’t to them. She had no idea if that was even a thing. She didn’t know much right now, leaving her feeling unsettled.
His cheek rippled and she knew he was tensing his jaw under his thick beard. She wondered if his Adam’s apple bobbed at the thought. His eyes bore into hers and she crossed her legs as her stomach tightened.
His nostrils flared and she realized he could smell her, just as he had when he walked into the kitchen. Unlike in the kitchen, the thought excited her for a moment. Something about it being the two of them, frozen in this moment as her scent overwhelmed him only intensified the need building inside her.
Eyes blown, they dropped down to her lips, tracing them with unparalleled focus.
Her heart beat hard and heavy in her chest as she held her breath, waiting. “Am I your mate?” He repeated her question. “Fuck, I hope so.”
<
br /> 28
ORREN
Having Melas in their lives was a constant dance. He took one step forward with her and three steps back, only to pursue her once again. Proving they weren’t a physical match for her was the few steps forward he was desperate for, then just as quickly they discussed the unusual scents smelled between them and they took so many steps back he didn’t feel like he was even on the dancefloor anymore.
He desperately wanted to build a bridge of trust between them, then cross it. Melas was too guarded to even let him try. Orren would catch her looking at him with her eyes slightly clouded in thought, her expression blank, hiding her emotions behind a stoic mask. When she would catch him meeting her gaze, she would flee.
It was starting to chip away at his confidence.
They barely spent any time together. He would enter the room and she would leave it just as abruptly.
Silent as a Boogey, she appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. She swallowed slowly, pushing her mass of curls behind her shoulders. She hesitated there for a moment. “Hey.” Her voice was neutral, not giving him the slightest indication of what she was thinking.
After discussing mates with Ridhor, he wondered if the general idea of someone pulling her strings made her balk at the idea. She was a very independent person. Knowing there was someone out there just for her may make her wary. Andrei pressing the issue with her, assuring her there was no doubt in his mind all three of them were mated to her, only made things worse.
The idea of being mated at all was so new. It was a lot to swallow, especially still believing she was human.
Most humans were in a relationship with a single person at a time.
The worst of all the options was she was hesitant about being mated to him specifically.
She always seemed to tense up when he was around, pulling the walls around her closer to be sure she would keep him out. The idea of mates was intimate, and intimacy wasn’t necessarily something they were open to with one another. At least, not in a way even remotely similar to how she was with Ridhor.
Uncertainty ate away at him. He found himself wanting to put it all out there so they could figure it out and move on. They were both adaptable, once they addressed the issue, they would adapt accordingly.
He only had to get her to address it.
Orren let a quizzical smile spread slowly on his face, adjusting his weight on his stool to lean back from the island and make himself seem a little more approachable.
Melas moved to the coffee pot, always her first destination in the mornings. He watched her move with effortless agility. The long stretch as she reached for her mug, the way she started the milk pour close to her mug, lifting it slightly before setting the milk down. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
Somehow, she made watching someone pour coffee captivating.
“You’ve been avoiding me.” He said finally when she turned to look at him.
She let the words settle between them, her mug clutched between her hands. “I didn’t think you were someone I spent enough time with to avoid.”
It was true, they hadn’t made attempts to spend time together but there had been a shift. He didn’t think they’ve spent more than a few minutes in the same room lately. “Maybe not. Still, I’m almost sure you are.”
Melas met his gaze, holding on to it as though that small gesture alone would be enough to convince him it was all in his head.
It wasn’t.
He knew just as well as the other guys did. Andrei went so far as to joke about his scent driving her away.
“It’s the conversation about us being mated. It made you uncomfortable.”
Melas set her mug on the counter beside her. Crossing her arms across her chest, she leaned back on the counter. The muscles in her jaw flexed for a moment, this conversation not one she thought she would have to have. “I think it’s a little presumptuous of you guys to think we’re mated merely because of this whole scent thing.”
“There are more reasons besides the way you smell that have convinced us you’re our mate.” It was true. He never felt this fierce need to be by someone before. He was not a fresh soul, he’d been around a long time and been with more people than he could keep track of. Even beings who managed to stay in his life for years at a time had not affected him the way she did in mere months.
There was something there.
He was sure of it.
“Have any of you even stopped for a moment to think I’m not available to be your mate?”
Orren frowned. “I know with your memories missing you’re guarded, but it won’t be like that forever. I understand not wanting to create a bond while you feel part of you is missing. We’re in no rush.”
Lifting a brow, the corners of her mouth dipped down. “That’s not what I mean. I mean I have a daughter. I had a life before all this. For all we know, I’m already with someone, partnered up. We could have been together for years, raising Zura together before all this happened.”
The thought filled him with anxiety.
She was telling him her availability was not reliant on her memories or their current situation but there could already be someone in her life filling the space he so desperately hoped she would make for him.
For all three of them.
The possibility there could be someone else, someone who carved their initials in her heart and been both a parent to Zura and a partner to Melas made nausea spread in his belly.
“I don’t think that’s the case.” He hoped it wasn’t.
She pursed her lips. “Because you don’t want it to be the case.”
He ran his hand over his jaw. “I hope you aren’t attached to anyone but that’s not the main reason I don’t think you are.”
“Because you think Zura is Thiriel’s and you don’t think we’re together?” Her whole posture told him she was closed off even though she continued the conversation. Her shoulders were slightly raised, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, and she kept her facial expressions fleeting. She didn’t want him to get close to her, not even when they were discussing the possibility of being mated for life.
Orren hated that. “No. It’s been a while since you woke up in our cabin. There has been no one, besides Thiriel, looking for you. If you were already attached to someone they should be scouring the Seven Realms trying to find the two of you. And if they aren’t, they don’t deserve you.”
Melas and Zura burrowed into their hearts in a way none of them were comfortable admitting, not to one another and not even to themselves. Ridhor made his feelings evident in the way he provided for them. He turned away from Orren and Andrei as though they hadn’t been a team for centuries. That spoke volumes.
Andrei was ever the flirt. He made his lust for her evident every chance he got, even joking with her about it. He hadn’t been sure she would be receptive, she usually laughed it off.
He wished he could ease the tension between them. He craved the easiness of the relationship between her and Ridhor.
“We don’t even know what happened to us. If there was someone in my life, maybe they were affected by it too. It would make sense since whatever magic seems to be hiding our memories is supposed to keep anyone from knowing about us. It stands to reason, if that’s the case, my partner would have been affected as well.”
That made sense, and he didn’t like it.
“You guys are making all these changes because you feel you have to since I’m supposedly your mate. Even though I don’t have any interest in being anyone’s mate.” She pushed loose tendrils back from her forehead in the way she did when her emotions were building and she was trying to keep them hidden. “Who’s to say when my memories return I don’t remember a wife or a husband? And they don’t remember us too? What would all of this have been for? Trying to convince us what being mates could be like when I would have all these feelings come back for who I was with before. There’s no sense to it.”
Orren’s jaw flexed. “Being mated is much m
ore than just being with someone.”
“So, I’m just supposed to forget the love that might be there because I’m your mate?”
It was selfish, but he wanted to say yes. His feelings for her were only growing. It was so intense now, he couldn’t even imagine what would happen the longer they knew one another. Not having her lean on him, confide in him, share those moments with him during the quiet of the night like she did Ridhor was making his heart ache.
If her memories came back and she just walked away, back to whatever life she had before, he would lose his mind.
He was sure they all would.
They may not have gone through with a mating ceremony, but he could feel it in the depths of his soul they were meant to be together. The thought of there being someone else out there, waiting for them—
Sighing, he shook his head. “Usually mates are the business of Fate. She wouldn’t have put you in a relationship with someone and mated you to another.”
Melas raised a brow. “What if I met the three of you separately? You’re saying she wouldn’t mate me to another while I’m in love with someone else, but all three of you believe I’m mated to you. If I met Ridhor alone and we built a life together and then one of you popped up, it would be exactly like we’re talking about. Me with one person while mated to someone else. Why do I have three mates? If I have three already, why not four?”
“It doesn’t work like that.” He hoped it didn’t. He hadn’t had a second thought about the three of them being her mates. It seemed natural. Something told him he wouldn’t be as open to having someone else, someone none of them knew, also mated to Melas.
Her face scrunched. “How do you know?”
He didn’t. As much as he hated to admit it to her, he didn’t know how mates worked. For all he knew, she was right.
Letting out a breath, she dropped her shoulders slightly, her posture becoming more relaxed. “Look, I’m sure you’re a nice enough person— Incubus—” She shook her head at the correction, and the confusion furrowing her brows made him smile. “Whatever. I’m sure you would make many beings very happy to be mated to them, however that works. I’m just not interested in being mated to you, or Andrei.” She paused for a second and he held his breath, jealousy stopping his heart. “Or even Ridhor.”
Hidden In Darkness (A Seven Realms Book Book 1) Page 22
