by Aidy Award
Thus far she’d been quiet. Letting everyone else defend and protect her. That irked him deep inside. He should be the one to protect her.
In any other circumstances he would wrap her in his arms and... better to not even think it.
He never would be able to do any of that fantasy.
The bears parted, and they all saw her dip her head.
Soft words floated out so quietly Fed had to strain to hear her confession. “I’ve hurt so many people. I helped Omega hurt you all.” She swallowed hard. “I helped them create soul stealers.”
Fed would make her pay for that.
Even if it meant his own soul was the currency.
Six: Responsibility
The group around Tia erupted into a barrage of protests. They didn’t understand. But her lion did.
Topper, the same woman who’d helped her and her sisters escape so long ago whistled so loud everyone quieted down. “Shush your faces, girls. I’ve got something to say and I want to make sure Tiaret hears it.”
Even the lion waited for Topper to speak.
“Girl, you listen, and you listen close.” Topper took her by the shoulders and stared so hard into her eyes. “This is not your fault.”
“But—”
“Shh and I’ll tell you how I know it isn’t.” Topper waited until Tia nodded. “Good. You listen too, pussy.”
“Auntie.”
“Cat.”
“Get on with it,” her lion growled.
Topper rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. “No matter what you think they made you do in there, it was to survive. That’s what you are, a survivor. Your mama made sure of that. You remember.”
Kady and Ash both stared at Topper with their mouths hanging open.
“Yes, girls. I erased your memories like your mother asked me to, but Tiaret was stolen away from me before I could do that. She remembers it all, don’t you, honey?”
Tears pooled along Tia’s eyelashes. She didn’t want them to see her cry. Both Kady and Ash were so brave, she didn’t want them to see how weak she was.
“It’s okay to cry, child. You do that, and you own the choices you made to get through the dark days and then you move on.”
Tia didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know what to feel. This whole thing was too overwhelming. She was sure at any moment Kelebek was going to crawl across her face and she was going to wake up and be back in her cell at Omega.
“Oh no. Kelebek. He was in my cell.”
The man who was also her lion frowned when she said that. “Your cell?”
“Yes. Where the Red Witch,” Tia looked over at her sisters, “Scarlet, kept me. She’s become very powerful.”
She couldn’t hold the tears back now. She’d dealt with her parents’ deaths and her abduction long ago. But Kelebek had been her only companion for so long.
“Who is this Kelebek?” Her lion asked.
“My butterfly. My friend.” A new emptiness opened in her heart. If he was dead because she hadn’t protected him, it would break that hole open never to heal.
He narrowed his eyes at her and then turned on his heel and stalked away.
She didn’t say or do anything right. “Where is he going?”
Kady’s mate scowled at her lion’s retreating back. “He knows he’s in the wrong and going off to curse the Fates.”
Kady patted her on the arm. “He’s not great at being around a lot of people.”
That Tia could understand. Besides the little bit of time she spent with the soldiers this was the most interaction she’d had with people in a long time. It was exhausting and overwhelming.
Ash nodded. “Fed is always disappearing.”
Fed. She rolled it around in her mind. It didn’t quite feel complete. “Is that his name?”
“Wait, you don’t know?” Her sisters exchanged a look.
Kady wrinkled her nose. “So far, he pretty much sucks at being your mate.”
Uh. Mate? “I don’t understand.”
Kady laughed. “Yeah, Ash and I didn’t at first either. Come on. Let’s let the boys spend some time with their mother and we’ll go to my house. I’ll explain this whole soul mates thing and you can fill us in on the whole parents part of our memories we seem to be missing.”
Tia stared after Fed and watched him transform into the lion she knew so well. Or thought she had. He was not who she’d thought was. He was also so much more than she’d expected.
Kady gathered a whole group of women and they welcomed Tia into their fold. They cooked for her and treated her as if they hadn’t been apart a day in their lives.
They asked her dozens of questions, only some of which she could answer. A few she just didn’t want to talk about. Her sisters seemed to understand that none of them were a hundred percent ready to talk about how their parents had died yet.
She showed them innocuous spells she knew like how to conjure a teapot full of hot tea, and other more important ones like how to set up a temporary ward so that one couldn’t be affected by anyone else’s magic.
These women had so much life and love around them. While one part of Tia’s heart was refilling with this reconnection with her family and witches who used their magic for good, another part remained so empty.
She felt that hollow in her chest the most when Topper and Lacey left, and the bears returned. Tia had to blink back a new barrage of tears watching her sisters interact with their mates.
One of the twin bears lifted Ash’s glasses off her face and rubbed her temples.
She sighed and leaned into him. “How come you don’t wear glasses like Ash and I do? Do you have a spell for that?” Kady asked.
Tia frowned. “No. I don’t know if I even need them.”
Ash clucked. “Didn’t your fosters ever take you for an eye exam?”
“I don’t know what fosters are.” No one had ever taken her anywhere, except away from her parents and away from Magic.
“You know the different homes that took you in when you were growing up. Foster parents,” Kady said.
Oh. “No. The witches who I lived with didn’t do things like that.”
A cloud passed over Kady’s face. Literally. Tia was the one who supposedly had power over the elements, but since they’d met Kady had manifested snow, wind, sunshine, and now clouds. They seemed to be connected to her emotions.
“Mah wah, you’re getting tired.” Black, the big bear with a sad place in his eyes swatted at Kady’s cloud.
“Am not. I’m only worried that Tia might have had a worse upbringing than I did.”
Ash put her glasses back on her face. “Or me.”
One of Ash’s mates pulled her into his lap. “Love, we cannot change your sisters’ past.”
The other one finished the thought. “But we can help make her future the best it can be.”
Black, the eldest of the three bears continued. “We owe you a debt of gratitude. You have only to ask and we will do anything we can for you.”
“I, uh, I... it wasn’t me. I didn’t do anything.”
“You did. Not only have you given us the gift of returning our mother to us, who the spectrals stole, you are the key to ending the scourge.”
“No. I’m not.” Tia stood and accidentally knocked over the chair she’d been sitting in. “That was a one-time thing. I don’t even know what I did, or how it happened.”
Kady reached for her. “Tia. It’s okay.”
“It’s not. You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“My mate is right, little sister. Your magic is not responsible for these creatures. You weren’t there when my soul was taken. But I was there when you protected yourself from becoming one yourself.”
What? “But... you’re not—”
The rest of the room dropped into silence. A darkness drifted through Black’s eyes. “No. My soul is intact. Because of Kady.” He kissed Kady on the top of the head and she squeezed him tight. “I don’t have conscious memories of that time. It
’s more a sense. I can—” Black frowned and thought for a moment. “I can sense the light from your soul and I recognize your magic. Those men who’s souls were stolen when you were with them never had a chance. Your shield gave them only the time to find piece with their makers.”
The pain, anxiety, and utter exhaustion finally overtook Tia and she let those tears she’d been holding back since childhood fall. She wavered on her feet and her knees gave out.
Instead of crashing to the floor, she was caught and held in someone’s strong arms. She couldn’t see who through her tears, but she felt safe and tucked her head into his chest and let the darkness take her over.
She had the sense of being tucked in and hugged the solid pillow next to her. The bed was so soft and all wrong.
Tia let the familiar spell surround her. Her fireplace crackled and without seeing them, she knew the rocking chair and teapot were there waiting.
Maybe someday she wouldn’t need these memories. Maybe now she could make new ones with her family.
That word was even more uncomfortable than her new tiny house. What did she know about being in a family?
She didn’t even know how to be around them all. Tomorrow. She would try to figure it out tomorrow.
When her dreams came, they were disjointed flashes of scenes she couldn’t identify. One recurred between all the other flashes. Fed standing before her, a soft glow in his eyes and a smile on his face for her.
She opened her eyes, not wanting to see the next part again. She blinked a few times and her heart jumped right out of her chest.
He was here.
Tia sat straight up in the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin.
“Shh, little witch. I am not going to hurt you.”
“You aren’t? Why not?”
“We’ll discuss that along the way.”
“Where are we going?”
He frowned at her but didn’t answer her question. Instead he held out a hand. “I’ve brought you something.”
He opened his hand and Kelebek fluttered out and across the room to her. She stretched her hand out and he landed in her palm. More tears fell. “Why? Why would you do this for me?”
“Because you’re mine, Tiaret.”
A shiver went through Tia’s chest at the sound of her name coming from his lips.
Mine.
What did that even mean? The mate thing Kady had said she would explain, but hadn’t?
“Your sisters came to check on you and brought you a gift too.” He tipped his head toward the little side table where an oblong box sat.
No one had ever given her a gift. She picked the box up and hugged it to her chest. She would treasure it forever.
“The gift is inside the box.”
Oh. Tia found a split in the box and the lid flipped up on a hinge. Inside sat a pair of glasses. She took them out and held them up to the light of the fire.
“They said to tell you Lacey gave them a spell to make them fit whatever correction your eyesight needs.”
Cool spell. Tia put the glasses on and turned to look at Fed.
Oh my. Even in the dark she saw him and his features in sharp detail. He took her breath away. He was beautiful
He sighed. “Don’t look at me that way.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“You can not seduce me. As much as I’d like to run my tongue along every single one of those curves, grip your lush ass in my hands, and let you ride my cock until sunrise, it’s not going to happen. Don’t try.”
“You want to lick me?” Was that a thing people did? She’d read stories in books left behind by the staff at Omega where people went on adventures in strange places like New York City, and had sex and fell in love. In some of those books the man would use his tongue between the woman’s legs or the woman would use her mouth on the man. She did not remember anything about all over licking.
The thought of Fed doing that to her made her legs want to clench together.
“Don’t act like you don’t feel the pull between us.” The amulet around his neck shimmered in the dark.
Pull. That didn’t describe what was happening to her body. It was so much stronger than that. Tug, yank, tow, lure, wrench got closer.
“Because I’m your mate? I don’t understand what that means. You don’t even like me. Why would you choose me to be—”
“I didn’t. The Fates decided. They’re sadistic bastards.”
He didn’t want her to be his mate.
“You’re saying we don’t have a choice?” Damn it. Anger she didn’t know she had inside of her bubbled up and burned the back of her throat. She’d had a lot of choices taken from her. Or rather a series of no-win scenarios. For the first time in her entire life Tia did not accept that. “I have a choice.”
Her voice came out much stronger than she expected it to.
Fed moved from the rocking chair to the side of the bed. “Do you?”
“Yes.” Please let that be true. It had to be. She’d given over control of her will for so long, she needed this one simple choice to be hers.
“Then make this one, Mate. You’ve been charged with crimes against the Coalition and the people of Honaw. The bears tell me you are not responsible, yet I know what I saw. You’ve caused chaos throughout the galaxy. Will you choose to come back to the Coalition justice station and stand trial?”
The inside of her mouth had gone dry and conjured a glass of water. Her hands shook spilling some of the water before she could even take a sip.
“Before you answer, I want you to understand that if you’re found guilty, the punishment is death.”
Tia believed Black when he’d said she hadn’t created the spectrals. She also hadn’t done anything to stop them from being created.
She had a part in allowing that evil into the world. Even if his Coalition didn’t find her guilty, she would at least be able to tell them about how she and her sisters had been able to restore one soul. Maybe with her testimony they might find a way to stop Scarlet too.
She would go. Because she deserved to be tried.
It was her choice.
“I’ll go with you.”
A dark rumble came from Fed and his brow furrowed. “You’re sure?”
She had the feeling it wasn’t what he’d expected or wanted her to say. “Yes.”
He paced back and forth through the little room for a few minutes, intermittently glancing at her and grumbling under his breath. “Fine. Come with me.”
He took her arm and hauled her out of bed.
“Right now?”
“If we wait either the bears and their mates will try to stop us, or I’ll change my mind and I can’t afford to do that.”
Gods this guy was confusing. “Do you get some sort of a bonus or a promotion or something for taking me in?”
“No.” He wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t saying something. “Now, let’s go.”
He dragged her out of the house in her bare feet. She was so flustered she didn’t even conjure shoes or her dress. The cool desert night hit the bare skin of her arms and breeze blew her nightgown.
“You don’t have to drag me. I said I would go. But I want to know what you get out of this.”
Fed stopped and turned on her. “The only thing I get is to avenge my family. Your spectrals stole their souls.”
That alone was why she knew she deserved to die.
Seven: Acquiescence
Fed picked his fragile mate up off the ground. He hadn’t meant to tell her that. Fates, he hadn’t even meant to push her to make this choice.
He directed her out of the garden and toward his ship. They were leaving Magic right now. He pushed the pang of regret telling him to let her say good-bye to her sisters.
Some king he would have made. He couldn’t even listen to the council of those around him and make one fucking simple decision.
He had to two choices. Believe that what he’d seen her do down in the darkness of the Task Force Omega base
was a crime... or not.
Had she been using her powers to create new spectrals or had she only been protecting herself, and even him?
His instincts screamed at him to stop being a fool and trust in the Fates. They’d chosen the soft, supple woman in his arms to be his mate. Shouldn’t he know if she was inherently evil or not?
His lion did.
Either that or it was fucking horny and didn’t care.
Fed had sat in her room watching her fitful sleep and had practically ripped the arms off the pretty rocking chair she’d manifested trying to keep himself from crawling into that bed with her.
His lion chanted it’s needs straight into his brain.
Mark, Claim, Mate.
Mine, mine, mine.
Protect her.
Great job he was doing of that last one. He’d done her a whole lot more harm than good. Right now, her knees were bleeding and she was trying hard not to let him see how she was holding back tears.
Such a brave mate he had. He was the one who was a weak coward.
“Shh, maw wah. Don’t cry.”
She sniffed but didn’t say anything.
He deserved her silent treatment. He would apologize while he cleaned her injuries. His ship was closer than taking her back to the tiny house. He’d never been comfortable in those things anyway.
Inside the ship, he set her on the bed in the small sleeping bay and grabbed his med kit from the wall. She flinched when he passed the antiseptic wand over her skin. He knew first-hand how much it stung.
When he was young his mother would blow on his cuts and bruises after she treated them when he came home from a day of playing with the other lion cubs in their pride. He did the same to her scrape.
Her eyes went wide, and she sucked in a slow hissed breath.
Shit. He was trying to be charming, not hurt her more. “Sorry.”
This cute little worry wrinkle formed between her brow and he wanted to kiss it away. She licked her lips. He wanted to kiss those too. “No, it’s okay. You don’t have to be nice to me. I get it.”
“Tia.” He sighed and grasped for words he wasn’t good at saying. “I’ve been a damn fool.”
He had a lot of groveling to do. Which was not something he had a lot of experience at. Crown princes didn’t spend a lot of time asking forgiveness. No time like the present to learn.
