by Katie May
Nightmares. Cut them off quickly and forcefully, before any feelings were
developed.
They would forget about me, and I would continue hunting their kind.
Easy.
Not easy.
They were my mates, and I, theirs.
Maybe, just maybe, I could avoid the eruption that such a revelation
would cause.
“ This is my mate, Zara,” Devlin said softly. Proudly. So fucking
obliviously.
Cue: the volcanic eruption.
Lupe jumped to his feet, eyes flashing gold. I had seen a Shifter like this
once before, mere seconds before S was attacked, and it caused pinpricks of
terror to shoot down my spine.
“Don’t fucking joke about that.”
“Excuse me?” Devlin slowly moved to his own feet, rolling up his sleeves
in the process.
Don’t look at them. Don’t look at them. If you don’t look, it’s not real.
I kept my eyes on Diego. He was absently cutting at his chicken, but I
was relieved to see that he hadn’t taken a bite nor did he address the girls
trying desperately to get his attention. Bash was glaring at him, as if he hoped
his eyes could physically penetrate Diego’s mask.
As if he felt my eyes on him, Bash’s gaze flickered towards me. He stared
at me with absolute hatred before purposefully turning his back on me to talk
to the girl beside him.
My mate’s an asshole, I thought before immediately cursing at myself.
Not mate.
Nope.
I couldn’t even fault him on his behavior. I wanted to do the exact same
thing. Ignore. Ignore. Ignore. If I didn’t acknowledge it, it didn’t exist.
“She’s my fucking mate!” Lupe sneered.
“What the fuck man?”
As the guys argued over top of me, I couldn’t help but compare this
situation to kids fighting over a toy. I wasn’t a damn possession, and I had no
intentions of being their mate. I would cut off my own hand if that would
somehow remove this ridiculous bond I felt with each of them.
Lips pursed, I took a tentative sip of my water. I wasn’t actually thirsty,
but I was desperate to do something with my hands besides fiddle my thumbs
like an imbecile.
“I knew she was my mate from the second I laid eyes on her,” Killian
whispered softly, and two furious eyes turned in his direction.
“She can’t be all of our mates,” Dair said reasonably, though there was a
tightening to his voice I had never heard before.
As if I fucking knew him.
I didn’t know him. I didn’t know any of them. It was the mate bond
between us, a biological concoction designed to provide the most babies
possible, not an actual connection. Feelings weren’t involved. Knowing them
wasn’t involved. It was just a stupid bond. Nothing more.
Everything more.
Did they really have to talk about me as if I wasn’t there?
Diego was still sitting stiffly in front of me, listening to whatever Bash
was saying. A girl draped herself over the Mage Prince’s lap, and he tensed. I
felt irrationally jealous at the two of them together.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“Enough!” I hissed, and the four men immediately turned to look at me,
chests heaving. Under their combined stares, I felt my nipples harden and my
pussy clench with need. I didn’t know what I was going to say. Deny the
bond? Scream at them? Admit my own confusion? Kiss the shit out of them?
Instead, I merely picked up a chicken leg and bit into it.
Yup. I was going to eat chicken as a way to ignore my feelings. If it
happened to be a full rotisserie chicken, more power to me.
“Are you going to say anything?” Devlin asked. What did he want me to
say? Deny that I felt a bond with all of them instead of just him?
Instead of answering, I turned my attention back towards my chicken.
“Don’t fucking ignore me Zara,” he said, slamming his hand on the table.
“You’re acting like a child!”
“Don’t talk to her like that!” Killian’s voice was as cold as I had ever
heard it.
Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.
“I just can’t fucking deal with this right now,” I hissed. “Not today.”
Not ever.
“Figure out your own shit with each other, and then maybe we’ll talk.”
For a moment, I thought they were going to push the issue. It was Dair
who relented first, expression sympathetic.
“You’re right. This isn’t fair, and you probably have a lot of questions.”
I didn’t want his damn pity. He was right though. This wasn’t fair.
Nothing about my life had ever been fair, but this just felt like a cosmic joke.
“Fine,” Devlin said through gritted teeth. He jumped to his feet, and
angrily grabbed at Lupe’s shoulder to pull him up as well. “Let’s talk
brothers.”
He said that word - a word that should’ve been said as a term of
endearment - like it was the worst possible curse word he could think of. I
flinched instinctively at the venom in his voice, but did not tear my attention
away from Diego.
Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.
Lupe wheeled Dair out of the room, and Devlin followed after him. He
didn’t even bother to look back at me, as if my mere presence disgusted him.
As if I had a say in any of this.
Only Killian stayed behind. I could feel his eyes on my neck. He didn’t
say anything, I didn’t look at him, but his companionship provided me with
much needed comfort.
I hated it.
I didn’t like relying on other people, and I hated people relying on me. I
already had to look after Mali and Diego. Could I handle seven more?
No. I couldn’t.
With a heavy sigh, Killian followed after his brothers. I briefly wondered
if I had hurt his feelings, but that thought was washed away by a tidal wave
of anger. It didn’t matter if I had hurt his feelings. I had already accepted that
the universe made a mistake when it assigned me as their mates.
Me. A mate.
A lover.
It was almost comical.
At some point during my mental breakdown, Bash had followed after
them. He would hate me even more once he discovered the truth. They all
would. Would they blame me? Would they think I was a whore, despite
having no control over the bond? Why did it matter to me what they thought?
I felt his presence a moment before I saw his silhouette.
“You knew,” I whispered, eyes still trained on Diego.
Ryland’s answer was a breath against my neck.
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone? Why?”
Why didn’t you tell me? I wanted to say. In front of me, Diego shifted in
his seat, moving to cross one leg over the other. I scanned the area around
him, grateful when I spotted nothing unusual.
A large man a few tables over, however, was gagging, blood dripping
from his mouth. His eyes rolled back into his head just as his body dropped
like a bag of rocks. The girls around him screamed, and I noticed Zach
smiling slyly into his own cup of wine.
Poison.
Another competitor down.
Apart from the gi
rls, nobody paid the dead man any mind. I barely
processed it, though I wondered if it was because I was immune to death.
Mali stood in the doorway, eyes trained on the dead body in horror.
One down. Eleven to go.
“Reasons,” Ryland whispered, answering a question I had forgotten I had
asked. Nothing made sense anymore. Not this competition, not this life that I
was forced into, not even my relationship with the princes. I felt oddly numb
as I sat at the now empty table that once sat four handsome men. Numb and
alone.
They had discovered the truth, and they had ran.
They always ran.
Always left me.
Alone. So alone.
“You have to trust that things will work out,” he continued. This time, I
felt his nose against my neck. He was close. So close.
“What happened to your face?” I asked softly. I was still staring at Diego
and the dead body noticeable over his shoulder. Death. So much death. I was
surrounded by it.
I heard Ryland’s sharp intake of breath, but I couldn’t find it within me to
care that I had crossed some invisible line. I didn’t care about anything
anymore.
“I’m going to check on my brothers,” he said, ignoring my question.
“Make sure they don’t kill each other.”
And then he was gone, and I once again was alone.
My choice. I chose to be alone.
In a matter of minutes, I had completely destroyed my relationships with
each of the princes. If, of course, you could even call what I had with them
relationships.
Relationships were like big-assed orgies. Everyone was trying too hard,
only a select few received pleasure, and the rest were left with nothing but
crippling disappointment.
Instead of wallowing in my own self-pity, I focused on Diego. He
absently stirred his food around on his plate. I wondered if he could feel my
eyes burning a hole into his back. If he did, he didn’t acknowledge it.
Good boy.
It was only because my attention was fixated on Diego that I noticed the
figure walking towards him. Glinting in the artificial lighting, was a knife.
In that moment, I wasn’t Zara or Z or Susan. I wasn’t an assassin nor was
I an Assistant. I was just a girl attempting to save one of her last remaining
family members.
I jumped from my seat, reaching beneath my skirt to grab my own
dagger. The man was tall, a light splatter of blond hair on his chin and a
predatory glint to his dark eyes. He moved with a grace that identified him as
an Incubus. The sexual power emitting off of him in waves was another
indication. The Incubus raised his dagger, intending to slash Diego’s neck,
when I charged.
I deflected the blade with a knife of my own, twisting my body so I could
jam my elbow into his stomach. He staggered, the grip he had on the copper
handle momentarily loosening. I jammed my head into his nose, listening to
the satisfying crunch of bones being snapped. Both he and his weapon fell to
the floor.
I was thrumming with an incandescent fury. This man thought he could
hurt my friend? My family? He was going to pay for what he had done.
Mentally, I shuffled through the information I had gathered concerning
the remaining competitors. I knew this man to be James, and I knew him to
be a powerful Incubus. I also knew he had raped countless women, including
a nine-year old girl.
Leveling a punch at his face, I hit him until his features were nearly
unrecognizable. His eyes were bloated shut, and blood welled at the corner of
his lips. I was dimly aware of girls screaming, Diego saying my name, and a
cold laugh that could only belong to a psychopath.
Still, I didn’t stop. All of my pent-up aggression exploded out of me with
each punch to his once perfect face. I wanted him to feel the pain he had
inflicted on those women, the way he had destroyed their lives. I wanted him
to remember my face, my fist, before he died.
“Z!” Diego shouted. His hands were on my shoulders. I knew I should
stop. I knew I had to.
Panting, I leaned over his unrecognizable face. He was hideous, the
monster inside of him finally being reflected.
“You're disgusting,” I whispered. My voice broke through the cries in the
room like the crack of a whip. “I hope you burn in Hell.”
Without breaking eye-contact, I brought the keen blade to his neck and
sliced. His hands scrambled to his neck desperately in a futile attempt to keep
the blood inside of him. Poor little James. Poor little Incubus.
Poor little rapist.
His unseeing eyes stared at something above my shoulder. People told me
that you needed to shut the eyes of the dead. It was a way to respect them.
This monster didn’t deserve my respect. I wanted him to stare up at me, the
girl who had killed him. I wanted the world to know he was dead and not
merely sleeping.
I wanted him to suffer.
“He’s dead. He’s dead.” Diego wrapped his arms around me and buried
his face into my back. I turned in his embrace, inhaling the smoky scent that
was uniquely Diego. He was no longer wearing the mask and cloak. There
was no point to that anymore.
Everybody had seen me kill the Incubus while Diego had cowered. They
may not know exactly who I was, but they would soon find out.
Diego’s eyes were warm as they scanned me, searching my body for any
noticeable injuries. There was no judgement or fear in his gaze, only love.
Blood stained my beautiful, purple dress. I could feel it in my hair and
coating my skin.
“He would’ve killed you,” I whispered. I found that I needed to justify
my actions. I wasn’t a monster.
I wasn’t.
Or was I?
I didn’t dare survey the expressions of those around me. The shock and
fear. The leers from The Damning competitors. I knew I had just revealed my
identity, the one thing that had made me safe, but I couldn’t find it within me
to care.
All I could focus on was Diego, alive and safe.
“Mali!” I scrambled to my feet, desperately scanning the sea of faces
without sticking on anyone in particular. “Is she okay?”
“I’m fine, but we need to go.”
Mali appeared in front of me. Her hair was disheveled, and her eyes were
wild. Still, she was okay. She was breathing.
Grasping her hand, I pulled her to me.
“We need to leave,” I said. “We need to get out of here.”
And I didn’t just mean the ballroom. We had to leave the Capital, this
competition, this life. Now that my identity was revealed, it wasn’t safe for
any of us.
“Okay. Okay.” Mali smoothed down my hair. “Just come on. You need to
trust me.”
Focusing on Mali, only Mali, I nodded.
I allowed her to pull me up and out of the ballroom. Diego followed
closely behind, his hand pressing against the small of my back. The heavy
doors swung shut behind me, and I winced at the sound.
And then the screaming began.
It was muffled through the closed door, but the noise was undeniable.
I broke free of Mali’s grip and ran back towards the door. All of those
people…
I knew for a fact that there were innocent people in that room. What was
happening to them?
“I’m so sorry. I made a deal.” Mali’s voice was a mere whisper, barely
audible over the screams.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Diego snapped.
Mali’s face was pale, and guilt flashed in her eyes. Guilt. It was an
emotion I was all too familiar with.
From somewhere behind her, a cold laugh reverberated through the room.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end at the icy sound.
Zack materialized from the shadows, and his arm went to wrap around
Mali’s waist.
“Mali?” I whispered, stunned. She refused to meet my gaze.
“Hello Z. Diego. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” His voice was as cold as his
face. The apathetic sound sent goosebumps down my arms. “I believe you
have already met my mate, Mali. Now, it is time for us to talk.”
TWENTY-SIX
LUPE
Never in a million years did I believe that I would meet my mate. It
was an elusive fantasy, something that was just out of reach. It was
like trying to grasp air - impossible.
But then she barreled her way into my life. She had been warm and real
and vibrant, slowly melting the ice around my heart. For the first time, I
wanted to do more than read books and scour libraries. I wanted to be more.
For her.
I should’ve known that I wouldn’t get my happily ever after. Shifters
rarely did, though I often wondered if our sin, Wrath, had anything to do with
that. Getting angry over the smallest of things was a sure way to screw up
every good relationship in your life.
I’ve always known that there was a possibility I would have to share my
mate. The waning population of females made this a necessity. But to share a
mate with my brothers?
All six of them?
I wasn’t an idiot. Even with Jax being wherever the hell he was, I knew
that Zara was his mate as well. It would explain his eccentric behavior and
his talk of the “blond-haired warrior goddess”. I didn’t know how to deal
with this information. She wasn’t mine, despite me being hers, and she might
not ever be. I knew she feared Shifters - I could see the flicker of unease in
her eyes and the way her body shied away from mine as if I would ever hurt
