Not Quite Free

by Kaye Draper

  Theo stroked Angel’s shimmering silver hair back from his face and leaned in to press a kiss to his forehead, the fiend’s eyes closed and expression full of pain and yearning that I felt echoed in my own bruised heart. I sat back on my haunches and gripped Angel’s uninjured hand in mine, bringing it up to press my face against the back as my tears fell.

  Angel didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve any of the crap I’d put him through all our lives. He was so much better than me. So much stronger than me that I could never even hope to keep up. So instead of facing that fact, I’d run. And I kept running. I’d made him chase me right into his own death. My heart ached and my breath stuttered in my chest as a million memories assaulted me, of Angel, always Angel. He was always there, waiting. Sometimes pushing, sometimes giving me space. Sometimes angry and frustrated, sometimes resigned and understanding. But always there. He couldn’t just...go away now.

  The soft click of the door opening brought my head up, and I had a second to register the beautiful, voluptuous woman standing on the threshold before I was pulled up and engulfed in a bone-crushing hug, my senses enveloped in the sensation of warm, sea-scented air and ancient water. Then Athena set me on my feet and turned to her son.

  “Ahh, my sweet angel.” She huffed out a breath. “I don’t blame them. I never do. No one here knows how to care for us.” Her eyes drifted over to Theo, who had stood when she entered. “You’re the one who called for me? His Theo?”

  He swallowed and blinked, trying to stop the tears I could see shimmering in his eyes. “Yes.” He didn’t hold out his hand or make any polite introduction, which just told me how fucked up he was right now. Theo turned back to Angel and gestured helplessly. “He’s told me a little bit about his healing abilities, but...what does he need? I don’t understand. Please.”

  Athena gave him a sympathetic look and patted his arm. “He was careful not to start a true bond with you, wasn’t he? Always so careful.”

  Then she shot a withering gold glare my way. “Except with that one.”

  I blinked at her. “What?”

  She rolled her eyes and went to Angel, running her hands over his aura, feeling about with whatever weird senses and magic she possessed. “You know why we work at the Mushroom, Sam.”

  It wasn’t really a question, but I answered anyway. “Yeah. Well, mostly. I don’t know how any of it works though.” I shot a look at Theo, feeling left out of the loop. “And what did you mean by healing abilities?”

  Athena answered me, her eyes still on her son as she did something with his magic. “The males of my kind always have far stronger magic than the females,” she said evenly. “That’s why Angel is so powerful, even though he’s half human.” She reached out to stroke his cheek, giving him a fond but sad look. “It’s always been hard for him to find any sort of balance between the two sides.” She shook herself and looked up at me, then Theo. “In answer to your question, sirens—as the people here call us—are nearly immortal once they bond with their partners.” She waved a graceful hand. “It’s an evolutionary thing. We maintain our magic and our lifeforce through intimacy—sex, affection, physical touch. But once we form what you shifters would call a true mating bond, the connection is for life. And it becomes our life.”

  Seeing my blank stare, she clucked and shook her head. “We can draw power and lifeforce from our bonded mates in a way that we can’t with casual lovers. We can heal injuries, prevent aging...it makes a siren nearly invincible. We’re still not very strong physically—which is why we evolved to keep multiple partners around us—but nothing can kill us, if we have our bonded to help with healing.”

  Theo sank back down to sit beside the bed, touching Angel’s shoulder as he stared up at the other fiend. He never seemed much like the full fiends I’d met, and seeing him in the same room as Athena made him seem even more human. “What do we do? Please, explain what he needs and I’ll do it. Anything.”

  She let out a sigh and gave him a sad headshake. “You aren’t bonded to him yet. Being here with him, touching him, talking to him, sharing your energy with him—that will all help comfort him and ease his pain. But he’s dying. He needs his bonded.”

  Her eyes met mine and I swallowed hard. “We’re not bonded mates,” I choked out. “I...this is all my fault.”

  Her fingers touched under my chin, urging me to look up. “It is your fault, you silly, headstrong, stubborn, little thing. Now make it right!”

  I stared into her terrifying other eyes as they swirled and glowed like liquid gold. “How?”

  “You’re not fully bonded to him, true. But you know as well as I do that there is a partial bond there. Why else has he suffered all these years, Samantha Forest? He sang to you. He shared his magic and his life force with you.” She rolled her eyes. “And I don’t mean whatever he did to make you so angry a few months ago.” She shook her head. “I still remember the exact day he came to me, his powers barely emerging, and declared that he’d found his mate and now I’d never have to worry about him being weak.” Her gold eyes searched my soul, and I was afraid they found it lacking. “Of course, I told him it wouldn’t be that easy. Love never is. And the minute I got a look at you and saw how much you were like that stubborn old monster who raised you, I knew my poor boy was in for a world of hurt.”

  I closed my eyes, unable to stand the intensity of her fiend eyes. She was right. A bond had started to form between us the day we met—the day he saved my life. Much later, when I finally realized what was going on, I’d come so very close to accepting him as my mate. But I’d been afraid, so afraid, of the power I felt inside him—the power he’d have over me—that I resisted. “It’s too late,” I breathed, wanting to curl up beside Angel and follow him into death. Because I was a stupid, blind fucker and this was all my fault. Shit, we’d only been fifteen at the time. I had no idea that the magic that let me keep living that day also meant I was bonded to a stranger for life.

  “No,” Athena said softly, giving the point of my chin a little squeeze. “It’s not too late. But it will be in a few minutes, when he’s gone.” I opened my eyes as she released me. Athena always had this force of being, this way of making you feel like you were in the presence of something ancient. But at that moment, she looked so vulnerable and...tired. “I can’t force you. I wouldn’t, even if I could. But if you love him...can you please bring my son back to me, Samantha?”

  I turned away from those searching gold eyes and went to stand by Angel’s bed, looking down at his beautiful, still face. I was about to give up every last ounce of freedom I’d ever fought for. It would make the last fourteen years of struggle, and yearning, and denial into something pointless and wasted. I wasn’t my own person. I never had been. Not since the siren walked into my life.

  “Sam.” Theo’s voice was soft, understanding. He knew exactly why I had resisted for so long. Hell, he said he hadn’t even attempted to broach the subject of a mate bond with me because he understood how much I hated the idea. “I would trade places with you in a heartbeat,” he whispered, his eyes never leaving mine. “But I can’t. I have no connection to his magic. I’m sorry. It has to be you.”

  I took a deep breath and tugged at my jacket and long-sleeved t-shirt, struggling to wrestle my still-healing right arm out of the sleeves. Athena came to help, peeling me out of the blood-crusted leather, then the shirt and tossing them aside in a heap. I struggled out of my boots, then stood there in my socks and sports bra, feeling ridiculous. And desperate.

  “In you get,” Athena said, holding up the edge of the blanket so I could slide in next to Angel without a barrier between us. He was still bloody and naked, since no one expected him to live out the next half hour. I curled up under the blankets with my head on his good shoulder, wiggling around so I wasn’t laying on his arm, then I wrapped my arms around him as best I could and pressed my face to his chest, breathing in the scents of Angel—of water, and magic, and home.

  “You know how it’s done?” At
hena prodded.

  I nodded against Angel’s smooth, cool skin. I might be broken, but I was a shifter. Fin and Emerson’s people didn’t feel or form mating bonds the way my people did. It was all pretty one-sided on my end, so it was easy for me to connect to them. But with another cur who felt the mating call, things had to be more...formal. There was a whole ritual, a bloody ceremony that the forest shifters used to claim a mate. But I knew most of it was just for show. The important part was the exchange of energy and life force. All I had to do was open myself up to Angel’s magic. I just had to let him in again.

  And bleed for him.

  Shifting my hand, I pressed a claw to his perfect white chest, over his pec. Then I lapped up the tiny drop of blood I’d drawn, hoping it was enough. My clan would bathe in blood. But Angel had already bled out. He didn’t have anything to spare. And I was pretty sure that whole fuckery was just the clan being barbaric and over the top anyway. I slit my own wrist open deep enough to get it really flowing, then I moved up to reach Angel’s mouth. Theo pried Angel’s jaw open as if this was a natural, everyday occurrence, holding him so I could drizzle blood into his mouth without choking him.

  Then he closed Angel’s mouth and used a nearby towel to wipe away the gore that streaked his face and neck. I took the towel and pressed it to my wrist to slow the bleeding until it could knit back together. Then I settled in and wrapped myself around Angel once more, focused on our bond—on the mate I’d denied for so long and the connection his magic was already weaving between us.

  “I’ll go pay Josie a visit,” Athena whispered as I floated in that weird in between place between sleep and awake, feeling my strength drain away. “Watch over them, phoenix. They’ll be a handful, I know. But it will be worth it, I think.”

  I snorted to myself as I drifted off. Right. Like I needed Theo to look after me. That was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard.

  Please be okay, Angel. I’m sorry. I’m here. I’m yours now. Just please come back to me.

  Chapter 8

  I slept harder and deeper than I ever had before. Some distant, intuitive part of me recognized that it wasn’t just because I was healing my own injuries, but because I was also lending strength to my mate, letting him feed on something deep inside my being. I felt myself skimming the surface of consciousness briefly before I’d dip down into the depths of sleep again. Every time it happened, I felt an overly warm hand brushing through my hair, touching my cheek or my hand. The firebird was watching over us, me and my mate. So, it was safe to dream.

  It was full dark by the time I stumbled out of the river, pausing to cough up the water I’d been breathing just seconds before and wring out the hem of my sopping wet t-shirt. Unlike my usual nightmares, there was no fear this time. Only a calming sense of peace.

  Someone was slapping me helpfully on the back. That’s right, a pale, shimmering hand had reached for me through the muddy water and dragged me to the shore. I turned my head, still bent over and gulping in big lungfuls of air. Then I stopped moving and just stared. Big, luminous gold eyes studied me from a face that looked like one of those fancy human paintings I’d seen at the little museum in town, all perfect lines and pale skin that seemed to glimmer in the light of the moon.

  “You’re...?” I breathed.

  The boy tilted his head, a fall of sparkling silver hair swinging forward to brush his shoulder. “Angel,” he said with a soft smile.

  I gaped at him. “You’re an...Angel?”

  He huffed a laugh and patted me on the back again. “Not an angel, weirdo. My name is Angel.”

  I laughed at my own stupidity, pushing myself up straight and shaking my head, flinging water like a wet dog. “Yeah. Right.”

  I glanced back at the river, but I couldn’t see anything but the moonlight glinting on dark water. “Come on,” I said, heading off into the woods. “We need to get out of here before anyone else shows up.”

  The boy followed me through the trees and onto a narrow, but well used, path that led from the river to the cabin I shared with Josie. “What happened back there, anyway?” I said, trying to wrap my head around everything I’d just seen and felt.

  Angel lifted a hand to brush a low-hanging tree branch out of his way as he walked beside me, as quiet as any forest shifter. “My mother is visiting a friend in the woods.” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. The guy was taller than me, skinny and gangly, but with broad shoulders that said he would probably fill out as he got older. Unlike me. I bet I’d just be skinny and wiry forever. “I got bored with their yammering,” he said with a grin, “so I went for a walk.” His gold eyes went distant, as if he was seeing something other than the dark woods around us. “The river called to me, and I found you there.”

  I huffed at that. The river called to him? Sounded crazy to me. But then again, I had just escaped the assholes who were attempting to drown me by breathing under water.

  “You used magic on me,” I said, my slow brain finally catching up. “You’re a magic user.”

  He kept pace with me easily in the darkness, the moon glinting and shimmering in his oddly colored hair and picking up bits of glimmer here and there on his pale skin. “Yeah. Just started developing it.” He rolled my eyes. “You should hear my mother go on and on about it. How it’s a gift and a responsibility. How I should be careful to be sure I mean it before I use it.” He grinned at me, completely unrepentant. “But did you see that back there? I think I’m doing just fine without the nitpicking.”

  I glanced at him to see a fierce pride shining in those gold eyes. “You killed those guys, didn’t you?”

  He arched his silver brows at me, his expression very fiend—one that said he didn’t know what the problem was. “Only two.” He gave another graceful shrug. “The water showed me what they were.” His expression darkened. “They wanted worse things than to drown a cur.”

  I shuddered as a sudden chill rippled over my body. I didn’t think it was from the breeze that danced over my wet clothes. He wasn’t wrong. I didn’t know who his magic had killed back there in the chaos, but I’d spent the last few weeks feeling eyes on me. My instincts had warned me to always stay where the adults could see me. Little protection as that was.

  “Who is your mom’s friend?” I asked, desperate to turn my thoughts away from the fact that I was happy this weirdo had just murdered some people. It would be my luck he was talking about the mother of one of those assholes back there.

  His shoulder brushed mine as we went through a narrow place in the path and I wanted to stop and lean into him. Shit. What the hell was that? “An old shifter we met in town a few times,” he said easily. “Do you know her? She isn’t like the rest of them.”

  I barked out a laugh. It was just too much of a coincidence. “Oh, I know her alright. She raised me.”

  He smiled at me, as if that was great news. “Really? Then it will be easy to make sure I can see you again.”

  I blinked at him, then made myself keep walking. The weirdo kept pace with me easily, rambling about the river and asking me a million odd questions about me. It was like he was suddenly just dying to be my new best friend.

  “Are you a boy or a girl?” he asked at one point. As if that wasn’t a stupid thing to ask someone.

  I felt my shoulders go up around my ears immediately, tension creeping into my tired body at the mention of my gender. “Does it matter?” I growled.

  He just shrugged and kept walking. “Nope. I was just curious, is all. You feel like...both. It’s nice.”

  I shook my head and kept walking, desperate to get home before I blushed myself to death. No one had ever seemed to like that about me. This kid was nuts.

  The cabin finally came into sight, the soft glow of the kitchen lights spilling out the front windows. I sighed and started creeping around the back.

  My strange new friend followed me. “What are you doing?”

  I huffed. “I can hardly go waltzing in there looking like this.” I plucked at my wet, muddy
clothes.

  He stopped and grabbed my wrist, halting me under the faint light of my bedroom window, and I tried not to notice the little zing of...something...that buzzed against my skin. “You don’t want Josie to know? Why? She’ll definitely want to know you’re being harassed.”

  I sighed, looking down at the point where his strangely graceful hand was still wrapped around my wrist. Normally, I’d kick someone’s ass for touching me, but with him it felt different. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. “That’s the problem, I whispered. She’ll get pissed off and she’ll want to do something about it. But she’s...broken. That’s why they keep her out here away from everyone else. All she’ll do is make things harder for herself by standing up for me.”

  Those bright gold eyes were glaring now. “But someone needs to stand up for you! You can’t handle these things all on your own.”

  I snorted. “Trust me, I’ll live.”

  “But...you almost didn’t.”

  I swallowed hard, vividly recalling how close I’d come to death—and his pretty, musical voice in the water, telling me to breathe.

  “Well,” I said, pulling my arm out of his grip. “Almost isn’t dead. Next time I’ll be more careful.” I bared my teeth in a feral grin. “Next time, I’ll have weapons on me.”

  He ran a hand through his sparkling hair and gave me a look I had a feeling I’d get to know all too well. It was part exasperation, part fondness. As if he really didn’t know what to do with me. “Next time, I’ll be quicker to help.”

  I huffed a laugh and turned to shove open the window I’d left unlocked for just this purpose. Josie didn’t like me out wandering the woods at night, even though we both knew my half-shifter nature sometimes demanded it. I couldn’t stand to feel boxed in.