by Lan Chan
Black eyes crinkled at the edges. “Agreed.” He shuffled the papers in front of him.
“This thing that has happened to you,” he observed. “It’s the mating link and not Shayla’s influence, isn’t it?”
I nodded. There was too much shifter in my blood for some of the things I could do to be high-magic related. If I was that way inclined, I would be able to use the high magic instead of being this resistant to it. No, this was the mating link. This was Sophie’s influence protecting me. The territorial link was the same. A gift of our true mating.
“You know there’s no going back now?” Durin said. “One day, when you’re ready, the Reserve will be yours.”
I nodded. “There’s no way I’m going to be chained to a desk again, though.”
Durin sighed. “I didn’t think so.”
By the time I handed everything back over to Durin, evening was closing in on the Reserve. I knew I was stalling when I found myself pacing the perimeter outside Basil’s mansion. Looking at it from the cover of the tree line, I couldn’t help the distasteful growl that ruffled the hair of the small creatures in the underbrush.
The thing was a bloody monstrosity of mish-mashed architecture and decor. Basil had made unholy alternations to it because Lex and Betty wanted things that were not in keeping with the architecture of the place.
Great. Now I was some creep sitting in the bushes debating home design. The lion flashed me a toothy grin. Taking a breath, I made myself move out into the light. There were voices coming from the kitchen. I heard them clearly despite being so far away.
“We would prefer to return to Ravenhall,” Giselle was saying.
“I would prefer you to return to Ravenhall too,” Basil agreed. “But at the moment, there is too much resistance.”
“From what I can gather, it’s safer there.”
“Safe is a relative term.”
Somebody groaned. “I don’t care where we stay,” Matilda said. “As long as I don’t have a mountain pressing down on my head, I’m happy.”
The wards that Basil placed around the mansion scraped at my skin as I shoved past them. There came the sound of static, followed by a fizzle of smoke that wafted from the grass. The back door opened.
Basil stalked out. “You couldn’t just knock like a normal person?” he asked. “I don’t have all day to keep resetting wards because you idiots can’t wait two damn seconds.”
“Patience is not one of my virtues.”
He glared at me. “I’ll say.”
“Max!” Betty’s wide blue eyes reminded me so much of Lex that I froze for a second before I scooped her up in my arms.
“Hey, Nanna.”
She swatted playfully at me. “Come inside. I’ve made dinner.”
The lion poked its tongue out in disgust, but I kept myself from doing the same. Hastings women were many things, but they should be kept well away from the kitchen. We passed by Odette in the alcove that led to the cellar.
“Please tell me you have something as a backup,” I pleaded with her. She grinned and waved a baguette at me. Great. This wasn’t the first time we’d had a competition to see who could fill up on bread the fastest before Betty brought out her dishes.
When we entered the dining room, Nora squealed. “Hi,” I said. She threw her arms around me. Her scent of sunflowers and saffron enveloped me.
“It’s good to be back,” she said when she pulled away. Her eyes stared up at me. “You boys never stop growing, do you?”
“I’ll try,” I told her.
Mani was less enthusiastic about my arrival. He shook my hand sedately and patted me on the back. Nora tried to hide her smile behind her hand. Two seconds after Basil came back in from setting up the ward, Mani grabbed me by the elbow and they marched me into the kitchen.
“Sit,” Mani said. I might be alpha, but in this house, on this topic, he would not back down.
Basil took a seat on my left, Mani the one on my right.
Nora and Betty came in grinning at me with absolutely no sympathy whatsoever. “Right,” Mani said, “before we eat, let’s talk about this mating thing.”
So I guessed the night was just going to be one nightmare after the other. And yet, the lion inside me lay down and rested its head on its paws with contentment.
42
Sophie
The air that hit my nose was too fresh even for the Reserve. When I cracked my eyes open, it was to the sight of celestial architecture and rich, soft bedding. Seraphina. So then I guessed it wasn’t a dream.
Neither were the raised voices just outside the door. “You have to be reasonable, Max,” Megan’s voice said. “What Sophie did was–”
A bitten-out growl stopped her short. “Tell me again what I have to do where my mate is concerned,” he said, “I dare you.”
“She has to be observed!”
“If anyone comes anywhere near us right now, they’re dead.”
I grabbed the covers and tried to shimmy under them, but I found myself having trouble moving. My weak limbs coupled with this tent I was wearing becoming tangled meant I was thoroughly frustrated in a second. The door busted open. I played possum.
Max slammed it shut so hard behind him it made the building quake.
“Give it a rest,” he snarled. “I can feel that you’re awake.” His anger was like a razor. It cut me to the quick far more efficiently than anything else. This was not the reception I had been expecting. The fury I could feel radiating off him made me apprehensive.
He snatched at the blankets near my legs and yanked them off. I shrieked at the sudden cold that stole around my limbs. Glancing down, I realised I was in one of his T-shirts again. The hem had ridden all the way up my thighs.
Through the link I felt him fighting with his own protectiveness. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t dream of being so inconsiderate while I was still unwell. But the blunt force of his anger was riding him mercilessly at the moment.
It didn’t help that my relief that he was okay feathered across the link. Not daring to take my eyes off him so I could inspect the thread, I looked up into light grey eyes brimming with violence.
“How long did you hide it from me?” It said a lot that he kept himself at a distance. I fiddled with the sheets. There was no point lying anymore.
“Since the Unity Games.”
He blinked slowly. Inside the link, I could feel the lion inside his heart opening its mouth and roaring its discontent.
“And you thought you’d do what, exactly? Keep lying to me for the rest of our lives? What the hell is wrong with you humans?”
I tried to push up again but couldn’t really move. “Can you please stop yelling? It’s hurting my ears and –why can’t I get up?”
His whole body twitched. There was about a millisecond of resistance before both sides of him gave way to instinct. He sat down heavily beside me. Wrapping an arm around my back, he lifted me and laid me against the pillows. When I was securely positioned, he slid his arm away.
Right. So he was really pissed then.
“You’re this weak because from what we can tell, you transmuted the soul of a malachim,” he said. Though he had clawed back a measure of control, his eyes were still flashing. None of what he said made a lick of sense.
“Can you repeat that, please?”
The muscle in his jaw tensed. “Max. If you can’t be civil–”
He punched a hole in the wall beside his shoulder. I had seen it coming through the link, but the sound of brick and mortar disintegrating made me yelp anyway. The door opened.
“This is ridiculous,” Astrid said. He turned around and snarled at her.
She started laughing. It was super creepy. “Come on, Max. Come at me.”
“Get lost!”
She did the opposite. “You’re making too much noise. You can’t just yell at her until she submits.”
The deathly look he gave her said that was exactly what he was going to do. She teleported beside me. H
e lunged at her. I thought for a second she might get away again, but something flashed in Max’s eyes. When he reached out, his palm latched on to her arm. She glanced down at where he held her, confusion marring her beautiful face.
“Like I said,” Max grated. “If anyone disturbed us they’re dea–”
I picked up the glass by my bedside and threw it at him. Actually, I tried to make a grabby motion, the strength left me, and I just pushed the glass off the table where it promptly shattered into pieces on the marble floor.
The sound drew their attention. That was good enough, I supposed.
“Stop bullying everybody! Get lost!”
His lips pulled back at me. I felt the fury in my chest igniting in response. “I’m sick here!” I screamed. “I don’t need you making a racket.” Looking down at what felt like my useless arms, I wailed, “Why can’t I move on my own?”
Astrid threw her arms in the air. “So I take it you’re both insane.”
Without asking, she reached out and grabbed my shoulder. Before I could cry out, a rippling pain coursed through my chest before we landed in a strange room with white-and cream-decor. The bed I now sat on was plush to the point of overwhelming. It smelt of pine, citrus, and Max.
Astrid slapped his hand off her. “Stay here and work this out. I don’t want to hear any more growling.”
Max caught her by the shoulders and pinned her with his alpha stare. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice suddenly sharp with concern. My nostrils flared. Oh, so he could be all nice with Astrid, but I just got yelled at.
“Nothing.” She tried to pull away. Scrunching my nose, I sniffed out the lie. She was always so calm and collected. That she’d raised her voice at all was a warning sign.
Max shook her gently. “Don’t start with me, Ash,” he said.
“Stop calling me that. I’m not a child!”
She teleported away. Max and I exchanged a meaningful look.
“Andrei,” I suggested.
His top lip curled. “Without a doubt. How you managed not to kill him is beyond me.”
Weaker than a kitten, I could hardly move off the bed. Tired of being hampered, I closed my eyes and looked inside me. The mating link enveloped everything. It formed a protective circle around both sides of my magic. When I layered the Ley sight over it, I felt myself gasp. A thread now ran from the link and into the soul tether. Where my connection to the Ley dimension had been broken, the mating link had stitched it back, holding it secure with the strength of an alpha lion shifter. Where it joined with Max’s soul, other lines branched out and disappeared into the gold of his Ley sight.
The longer I stayed there, the stronger I became. The mating link fed me strength. When I finally opened my eyes, I was able to sit upright without feeling like a newborn calf.
Max’s expression was stone. “So, you’re cool with taking energy from the mating link but not with telling me about it in the first place.”
I swallowed. “Can we not have this conversation right now?”
He came at me, and I had to back up until my back was pressed to the wall. Not this again. “We’ll have this conversation when I say we’re having this conversation!”
He’d been fine with Astrid. But being near me seemed to rub up against his fur the wrong way. “Clearly you can’t be reasonable right now–”
He roared. It wasn’t ear-splitting with the sound of rolling thunder in it, but it was enough to make me viscerally aware of how much bigger he was, how his arms were slapped on the wall on either side of my shoulders, how very trapped I was at the mercy of a lion.
“Reasonable?” He breathed through his nose. “You hid the mating link from me. For over a year. I’m sure it was candy and roses from your side but that blood barrier you set up was poisoning me! It made me think and feel things I never should have. What if I’d hurt you?”
“Max…”
“Be quiet!”
Oh, hell no! “Excuse me –”
He kissed me. There was nothing gentle in it. His lips were demanding, his tongue scalding the inside of my mouth. The mating link burst with a kind of roaring inferno that sapped the new energy from me and had me clinging to the front of his shirt. Max’s left hand closed over my throat. So big. His thumb caressed the line of my jaw. I moaned when his teeth bit down gently on my bottom lip.
I traced the mark with my tongue when he moved away, his stubble grazing my ear. “Sophie,” he rumbled. The burning need in that single lament made something hot curl between my legs.
He pressed my head back against the wall. And then his hand moved back beside my shoulder. My eyes flicked open, mourning the loss of him. I wanted...I wasn’t sure what I wanted. The hostile sensation made me want to commit some violence of my own. “Max.”
“That’s about one millionth of what it’s been like for me,” he said, voice scraping at me with both desire and discontent.
I went still, feeling like a raging animal myself. His claws bit into the wall. Plaster crumbled onto the pillow. “You had no right to make that decision for me.” It was a rumble in the lion’s menacing tone.
“I made the decision for myself. I have a right to that.”
His laugh was laced with bitterness. “You had the right to reject me once I knew the truth. Hiding the most important connection a shifter will ever experience from me was not your choice to make.” His top lip curled, the edge of his fangs visible and growing sharper by the second. “I can still feel you fighting it. Trying to find a way out of it. I want to know why.”
Insanity stared out at me when I blinked. My heart thumped in my chest. It felt like it was beating too slowly. That voice rose up in my mind. Those ominous premonitions that threatened to make my throat close over.
“Sophie!” The snarl snapped me back to the present. I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“It’s my fault that Kai is gone.” Saying his name aloud brought back Apollyon’s threat. Pushing it aside for now, I focused on the present issue. Max’s expression showed confusion.
“What are you talking about?”
My head dropped and I traced the geometric pattern on the blanket. “I made a mistake with the words of light and my magic hit him before the kickback from the soul gate. It’s my fault all of this is happening.”
Gold ringed his eyes. He took in a deep breath and exhaled a few times. I braced myself, expecting true anger. “Sophie,” he said, voice soothing. “From my side of the soul circle, something was already trying to get him. Whatever it is you did, you probably saved him. And even if that’s not the case, you never meant to hurt him.”
“I…” Confusion made me bite my lip. “I don’t understand.”
He tipped my chin up, forcing me to look at him. “Whatever happened to Kai isn’t your fault.”
I picked at my cuticles. “How is that possible?” I was saying all kinds of crap as I tried to dredge up my memories of that day. It didn’t help. All I could see was the moment he disappeared.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. I felt tears pricking again. “Apollyon has him. His body, at least. I don’t know how to get him back.”
His arms closed around me, his muscles still tense in anger, but his protectiveness made it impossible for him to see me hurt. “Now we know where he is. We can find him.”
Through the link, I felt his certainty. He was a hunter, and now he had an idea of the prey he needed to run down. Chains broke in his mind. I heard a lion’s quiet rumble of relief. For a fleeting moment, I couldn’t breathe when I wondered if this quest would be what killed him. And then, the mating link dobbed on me.
It hummed with a sense of giddiness like it had done something it considered to be naughty.
“Are you kidding me?” Oh, shit. The link had presented him with my reasoning. His muscles strained but he didn’t move, and I knew it was taking everything in him not to react with violence. “Tell me you didn’t deny the link and reject me twice out of some ridiculous notion that you we
re protecting me.”
“I...”
He shoved himself up and began to stalk out of the room. “Max?”
At the door, he turned back around. “How else would you prefer for me to die?” he hissed. “What other way would make it acceptable?”
“I don’t want you to die at all!” I screamed at him, the very thought of it making nausea cling to my insides.
“Take a look around,” he said. “We’re staring down the barrel of a war with the Hell dimension. If I die protecting you or someone I love, then my death is worth it.”
“No.”
“Yes.” I hated the way he spoke so casually about it. Like him leaving me was acceptable. “I’m a shifter. Not some human. Don’t ever forget that.”
“I was just trying to protect you!”
He shook his head at me. “You were trying to protect yourself.”
“I beg your pardon? Where the hell are you going?” He was shutting the door even as I spoke.
“I can’t be here right now.”
“So, what? You’re just going to run away after...” I couldn’t even finish the sentence. Something carnal and abrasive scratched at my insides.
“I’m not going to force you into anything you don’t want, Sophie. So yes, I’m going to run away, because I don’t think you want your first time to be an angry rut on the floor.”
He slammed the door in my face.
Mortification heated up my cheeks. The smug bastard. Why did he just assume I hadn’t had any experience in that area? So what if I’d kissed all of one boy before I’d fallen quietly in love with Max when I was fifteen? I had lived with shifters. For all he knew, I could have gotten up to all kinds of mischief like they did from the time they were in double digits.
The mating link stroked a hot tendril over my soul. This was going to be a problem. If it was just going to offer up all my secrets to him, then what was the point in having my own thoughts? I needed to get some advice, but there was no way I was going to do anything right now while I was so weak.
My stomach grumbled. Scowling, I jumped out of bed. Poking my head out the door, I scanned the place. “What the hell is this?” The bedroom led into a short hallway. There was a bathroom on my left with an enormous shower and bath that replicated the one at the Thompsons’. The decor was light and bright. Whites and light grey with accents of green. I followed the light and froze. The end of the corridor opened up into a kitchen the size of the industrial one at the Academy. On one side was a hearth that I could comfortably stand in with my arms raised in the air and turn around without touching the sides. The world’s biggest cauldron sat inside it. Next to it was a similar set-up but smaller for everyday use.
