by Harper Wylde
“Fuck,” Killian grumbled, diving his hand through the thick tresses of his red hair. “For what it’s worth, I was against the entire fucking plan from the start.”
Hiro shot Killian a glare, focusing on Joshua as he lifted his hand in a calming gesture. “I’m not sure what you think you know, but I’m sure this is all just a misunderstanding. I was there, remember? It was just an accident, two alters getting out of hand, it’s not uncommon.” There was no flash of guilt in Hiro’s eyes, no indication at all that he was lying—I wasn’t sure if I should be proud or concerned that he was able to lie that well.
Joshua’s lips quirked in a smile as he shook his head. “Very good, Hiro. You do your training proud.” He sighed, tugging at his clothes as though only then realizing they were in disarray. “This will be easiest if Damien evaluates me first.” He arched a brow at my Gargoyle in challenge. “I assume if I pull down my walls, you’ll be able to assess my character, my motivations, and tell if I’m lying? Your father has always been complimentary of your skills.”
Damien nodded slowly as I grasped his hand. It’ll be fastest. If he’s truly a Council spy, we need to find a way to take him out quickly. He won’t be as fast as us, and can’t take us all on at once. If you see me move for him, join me. I wasn’t sure why my Phoenix appeared irritated at his comment, but she squawked and chirped as if annoyed he believed he’d find a traitor on our doorstep. Damien breathed deeply, his eyes remaining open, even as Joshua’s closed. I felt him strengthen the wall between his mind and ours, protecting us from anything he may see. It took only a minute, though each breath I took seemed to drag on forever, before Damien grimaced, paler than I had ever seen him before.
“He’s not a spy,” he said on a grudging whisper. “He truly doesn’t believe in what the Council does and wants to help in any way he can.” Confusion filled me. Why did he look so upset when this was a good thing?
“None of us liked the plan, Joshua, but we didn’t see another way to retrieve the venom we’d been tasked with retrieving.” Theo’s voice was cold and precise, now that he had been cleared to speak.
“I would have just given it to you if you’d asked.” Frustration poured from the Basilisk and he threw his hands out to his sides as he spoke.
“We couldn’t risk it. There was no way to be sure where you stood in regard to the Council. You live under their roof. You’re slated to take over your father’s position. You’ve been groomed for it your entire life,” Hiro pointed out.
“And Damien hasn’t been?” Joshua motioned a hand toward D.
“He’s right,” Damien agreed, appeasing Joshua, and clearly trying to bring some order back to a conversation that was quickly spiraling out of control, though a little color had come back to him. “I was. Had been. But I left the commune a long time ago for this very reason—to distance myself from the Council and the politics I disagreed with. You’ve stayed, never giving any indication that you disagreed with their process.” The words were almost a challenge as he stroked a soothing hand across my back.
“Then we’ve gone about things in different ways, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t on the same side.” Joshua narrowed his eyes at the guys, leveling each of them with a hard look, one after the other. “I’ve always planned to change things. It’s the only reason I never moved out, never started my own life, and turned down all my own wants and needs. It’s always been for the greater good, or at least that’s how I’ve reconciled it with myself to make the sacrifice seem worth it.”
“So, you don’t agree with the Council’s messed up politics?” I asked, needing the verbal confirmation of what I already thought I knew.
Joshua searched my face, and I visibly saw the wind go out of his sails. “No,” he murmured softly. “I thought you knew that. Saw that in me.” Out of all the ways I’d wronged him, this was the moment I felt Joshua’s hurt the most.
“I didn’t know you.” I shrugged. “I had no way of knowing where you stood. It wasn’t until we got together that day for our date when I started to see beneath the facade you erect for the Council. And I understand it, because I have to do the same thing. I have a hard enough time pretending to bend to their will, and I’m only there on occasion. You live under their roof, under their thumb.”
“I dance to the beat of their drum to keep myself safe, biding my time until I’m able to step up and change things.” Joshua sighed and ran a hand over his blond hair. “It’s not the way I want to live.”
“Us either,” Hiro interjected.
“I didn’t know there was another option,” Joshua admitted. “I’d heard rumors of a rebellion, of course, but I never had a way to verify if they were true until now.”
“What I don’t understand is why he brought you in. What changed that made him trust you? He risked his position in the rebellion, hell… his own life, to tell you that what happened was my fault and not yours. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful. I’ve been agonizing over this for weeks,” I finished softly.
Joshua inched closer, his body moving with a supernatural grace that could only be provided by his alter. My mates growled as he reached for me, and I held out a hand to hold them off. I knew, whether it was my Phoenix or something deep inside of me, that he meant no harm. I owed him this much, to see what he needed to tell me—maybe even to get answers to the questions I didn’t know how to put into words.
Joshua cupped the side of my face, his hands gentle and cold against my skin. His thumb trailed over the curve of my jawline and then jumped to mimic the motion on the soft flesh of my bottom lip. Someone growled behind me, Killian, I was sure, but I hissed a warning as I stared into Joshua’s soft eyes. The breath stalled in my lungs as his soft smile infused his penetrating gaze. I was nearly hypnotized, so caught up in him and his clean, spicy scent surrounding me that I realized belatedly he’d pulled a small, square picture from his pocket. It barely caught my attention, but when it did, I went completely speechless even though my Phoenix chirped and twirled happily.
“Does this symbol happen to look familiar to you?”
Four
Nix
“Where did you get this?” My quiet words broke the stunned silence that hung heavily across us. The sunburst like birthmark was clear in the picture, highlighted against green scales.
“It’s on my tail. I always thought it was curious. I shift so rarely though, and I didn’t know if others had the same kind of marks as I did.” His words were as quiet as my own, his fingers soft as they tugged the photograph from my numb fingers. “I was raised to believe in the mate marks, but I never realized that was what it was. Until now.”
“I think you better come in.” I barely managed to get the words out as a shiver racked me. I didn’t want to talk about, well, whatever this was, on our doorstep. Joshua had already overheard us, and the last thing we needed was more of that.
“Nix!” Killian objected, his voice cracking. I swallowed hard, my stomach knotting as I glanced over my shoulder, pushing at Damien with my mind. The reluctance was clear on his face, but he opened our channel, letting the emotions slam into me in a wave—fear, fury, doubt, suspicion, betrayal… That last one hit me the hardest and I winced, tears gathering in my eyes.
“Do you really want to talk about this on the doorstep?” I challenged, pleading with my eyes. One by one they stepped back, allowing first me, and then Joshua, to enter.
“This isn’t going to be comfortable,” Damien spoke up, rubbing his hand over his face as he eyed my wary mates. “Let’s all sit down.” Guilt swirled inside of me as my silent, brooding mates all took places in the living room around me. Hiro settled himself to my right on the couch, stroking a soothing hand over my hair. Killian claimed the seat on my left, his hands proprietary as they stroked over my thigh and then down the back of my neck over the necklace they had given me, clearly staking his claim on me.
“I take it all of you know what the mark means?” Joshua queried, remaining standing as he spoke. The silence
that met his words seemed to be confirmation enough. “I know all of you bear it as well, though I’d be interested to see it in person sometime. It’s difficult to see on myself, you know. I didn’t even know it was truly a sunburst mark until Ciarán told me.”
“Just to clarify, for those of us who can’t read minds…” Theo shot Damien a look, though he didn’t bother to return it. He seemed to be overwhelmed at the moment, processing everything he’d received from Joshua as well as the realization that there was another shifter supposedly fated to join our family. “What exactly did Ciarán tell you?”
Joshua shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets. “A lot of it was, well, simply odd.” Killian grimaced beside me and I held back the manic desire to laugh. Now was definitely not the time for that. “The gist was that you were working toward removing the Council, that the gathering of my venom had been a test, and that we were all mates.”
“And how exactly did he know that?” Theo asked.
Joshua wrinkled his nose, thinking back over his conversation with Ciarán. If it was anything like the conversations I’d had with him, he would have to pick the relevant pieces out of the insanity. “He mentioned the mate marks, said she bore the sunburst as well. That all of you did. He said that he could see souls and walk through dreams—that he could destroy souls.” The last part was said in a whisper, though all of us froze as we attempted to process what he said.
“Interesting,” Theo murmured, and I shot him a look that clearly said he was crazy. “It’s old lore,” he explained to me with a pained smile. “Supposedly dreams are just a manifestation of our souls as we sleep. It’s why some claim that psychopaths don’t dream—they don’t have souls. The idea is that dreamwalkers are technically soulwalkers, they touch pieces of people’s soul as they sleep when they’re at their least protected.”
“That about sums it up.” Ciarán’s cheerful voice had us all swearing, and Joshua dove in front of me with a hiss, placing himself between the insane Celt and me. He was hanging upside down from the staircase, apparently channeling his inner bat as he fluttered his fingers at us in a wave. Killian groaned, laying his head in his hands, even as he kicked out at Joshua, not liking how close the other male had gotten. Joshua ignored the strike, his eyes only focused on whom he perceived as a threat. “It’s so nice to see a fully completed fluffle—it happens so rarely.” He flipped from the railing, landing without a sound as he strode over, dropping down into Ryder’s lap, despite the Ceraptor’s objections. “It’s okay, pretty boy. I know your affections are for those two foxy ones over there.” He wiggled his brow at us as Ryder’s head dropped back against the armchair in defeat, a blush mantling his cheeks.
“How did you get in here?” Joshua hissed. “I didn’t sense you at all.”
“We’ve stopped asking him that,” I admitted, attempting a shrug around Killian’s confining arm. “It really doesn’t do any good since he never answers, or if he does, I doubt it’s exactly true.” I shot him a knowing look and he widened his eyes in a show of innocence.
“Sister dearest! You wound me so!” He rolled from Ryder’s lap to lounge on the floor, posing like a model. “How can you disbelieve beauty such as this?”
“So, I take it the experience I had with him before wasn’t unusual?” Joshua inquired, exhaustion tingeing his words as he let his body relax slightly from its protective stance.
“You just kind of get used to it,” Hiro said on a sigh.
“I’m like a fungus—I’ll be growing on you before you know it,” Ciarán assured him cheekily. His attention turned to Theo and he offered him an approving nod. “You’re well informed on dreamwalkers, Kraken. I approve. To expand slightly, when I walk in anyone’s dreams, it’s like seeing a version of their face or their fingerprint. On rare occasions, I’ll walk into someone’s dream and it’ll be like meeting their twin or seeing the same imprint. When that happens, I immediately know the pair are the same, whether they know it or not. Those marks on your skin? They’re a physical manifestation of your soul. I’d be interested in knowing what you interpret a sunburst to mean.” Amusement colored his statement, though his eyes were cool and calm.
“So, we’re just supposed to take your word for it?” Killian spat at his brother.
Ciarán shrugged. “I did suggest the picture for this reason, though I should have known you were too stubborn to believe it—or believe me.” Ciarán sat up, his gaze intent on his brother. “I’ve told you before, I will not harm you or yours. One of these days, you will believe me.” He faced Damien next, arching a brow at him. “Gargoyle, you have seen his mind. Tell them.”
“He believes himself to be her mate,” Damien stated wearily, his face almost haunted. “He’s incredibly protective of her, it’s no act. It’s easy enough to see that Nix feels something as well, although she’d never admit it for fear of hurting us in any way.” A tear trickled down my cheek at that, and I turned my face downwards to hide it from their view.
“It is always difficult when things don’t go quite as planned,” Ciarán said solemnly. “Have none of you wondered why she felt hesitation in completing the mating with you? Why she insisted on waiting despite loving you? A piece of her was missing, a piece that you plan on denying her for your own selfish reasons.” A hint of anger had worked its way into his voice. Though he spoke the words to us, he seemed distracted, almost as if it was an argument he’d had in the past.
“Don’t worry so, little one.” Ciarán’s voice was soft now as he slid past a watchful Joshua, kneeling at my feet and lifting my head. “Just as your love for Hiro does not lessen your love for Killian, neither should your heart lack room for Joshua should you decide on him. A heart is not a jacket, limited by size, but grows to fit all who may need its care—remember that, Nix.” His words were low, meant for me, though he did not care if the others heard him. His mood shifted suddenly as he somersaulted away, popping up like a jack-in-the-box to face the others. “Besides, there’s an added bonus in this and it’s also the main reason why the Council prevents you from finding the one you are truly meant to be with. Once your mating is completed in its entirety, all of you will receive a boost in your powers, strengthening beyond what you can comprehend. You’ll feel a little of it now. It’s why your powers have all been evolving at such a fast rate, you’ve been feeding off of each other since your soul was nearly completed and so close together.”
“We’d be stronger? So, she’d be safer?” Ryder asked slowly. “You’re not just saying that?” His eyes were intent on Ciarán, who was currently doing back walkovers through the living room.
“Well, not exactly safe as pie, I’d say, considering even then folks would want to eat her up,” Ciarán answered from his backbend. “But, yes, pony boy, she’d be safer.” Ryder growled at the nickname, but softened as he considered me.
“I want proof,” Killian declared obstinately, glaring at Joshua. “He’s already shown he’s a threat to her. How is it possible that he’s mated to her as well?”
“That is an interesting conundrum,” Ciarán chirped. “I like it very much.”
“What do you want me to do, shift in your living room?” Joshua questioned in irritation. “I’m quite sure if I tried it, one or all of you would try your best to see if I could regrow my tail, and I am not quite up to that at the moment.” From the look Killian was giving him, I assumed he wasn’t far off on his guess.
“Just an idea,” Ciarán cooed, fluttering his lashes at us, “to avoid bloodshed? You are all strong, and your bond is already mostly formed. I have a hunch, given how much power you’ll create together, that if you all simply touched Nix at the same time, it may be a bit clearer.”
“If this is a joke, I’m going to rip your head off,” Killian warned his brother, who merely waggled his fingers at him in response. He sighed heavily, glaring at Joshua. “Don’t think I won’t take you down if you try anything,” he snarled, before laying his hand on my leg. The others approached, keeping a cautious d
istance from Joshua, each reaching a hand out to touch me—my leg, my arm, my back, and my head. Finally, only Joshua remained. His blue eyes were solemn, his mouth pressed tight with nerves as he slowly stretched out his hand. Without thinking, I lifted my own to meet his, completing the circuit between all of us for the first time.
I gasped as heat raced through me, a sound echoed by the others in the circle. My Phoenix screeched, a sound full of joy and power as she pushed at me, whirling madly inside of me. The air filled with sparks of every color, each of the males’ skin rippling as their alters pressed to the surface, connecting us. Joshua’s face was a reflection of pure bliss, and even Killian couldn’t hide his awe as the sensations swept through us. Slowly, the lights faded away, our alters retreating back inside of us, and we all let out a collective breath.
“Imagine how explosive the sex will be,” Ciarán remarked smugly from the staircase. He disappeared with a laugh as Killian roared.
Five
Killian
The vision crept into my head like a spark catching fire to old tinder, slow at first and then overwhelmingly consuming. The vertiginous feeling, which seemed to accompany the start of a vision, didn’t help me ground myself any faster. When the world finally stopped spinning, I lifted my head. The entire scene was familiar from the dark grey rock under my feet, down to the echoes of a savage battle beyond. Frigid air stung my lungs while determination filled me. I’d been in this vision before, many times, and I was desperate to know more. No matter how many times I’d been here, I still didn’t know where “here” was or how to circumvent what I was about to watch.
Grey clouds hung low in the sky and waves from the ocean beyond pounded against the rocky shoreline, each thundering crash brutal in its intensity. Swirling mist from the waves coated the ground, slickening it and making it difficult to traverse. A ragged, pain-filled cry rent the air and I stumbled in my haste to reach whoever had been hurt. I knew from times past that my brothers and my mate were on this godforsaken beach, and panic filled my chest at the bodies littering the ground. Faceless shifters filled my dream, their most prominent feature the deep red blood that spilled from their fatal wounds, staining the ground as it seeped into thirsty rock, a slash of color in the otherwise dreary, monochromatic landscape.
