by Raye Wagner
“Here we are,” Rage said, squeezing my hand.
I gave a nervous chuckle. “How did we get here so fast?”
I waited, still clinging to his hand as he slid around the narrow corner of the path, and then I followed. We inched down the trail and out onto the cliff face, and I closed my eyes and leaned into the wall of earth behind me.
Mother Mage, I am going to vomit.
“You’re nervous,” he observed, and my eyes popped open to take in his cocky grin. He slid in front of me, shielding me from the open air and steep drop, pressing his body into mine and sending heat up my spine.
“I can’t believe you’re afraid of heights,” he rumbled, fitting his body to mine. He pressed tighter into me, the length of his torso moving in tandem with mine as we breathed. Running his fingertips up my arms, he threaded one hand into my tangled hair. “Don’t worry, Nai.”
I craned my neck up to glare at him. “Fear is a healthy response to this insane plan. If you land wrong, the water will break your neck.”
He chuckled and cupped my face. “Good thing we heal quickly.”
What? I blinked at my—clearly—crazy mate. “That’s it? No pep talk? Just … ‘heal quickly?’” My voice rose several octaves as I hyperventilated. “Rage—”
“Hush, my love. I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you.” He brushed his lips against mine, and my mind fritzed.
Holy shifter babies. He just called me his love. Yum.
Rage pulled back just enough to loom over me, and then he stroked his thumbs up my neck, tilting my head back.
My breaths grew shallow, and I licked my lips, suddenly filled with a very different type of anticipation. I swallowed. Hard. Forgetting the fact that we were about to leap to our deaths and focusing solely on the fact that my mate was sexy as all hell.
“Are you trying to distract me?” I asked, my voice breathy.
His green eyes brightened, and he grinned.
“Is it working?” He chuckled, sending a rumbling vibration through me. Lowering his head once again, he spoke with his lips hovering over mine: “I love getting a rise out of you.”
Each word caressed my lips, and I had zero control over how my pulse thrummed under his touch. He drew back too soon, and I licked my lips again, wishing for more. I wanted time with my mate—alone time with him with no pressures or demands on us. Just for an hour. Or maybe double that. Or more. Probably more.
Well, we had a few more minutes before jumping to our deaths, and since he’d offered himself up as a distraction…
I slid my hands up his chest and then, clinging to him, looked up at him through my lashes. Something deep within me, a primal urge seized me, driving for—Mother Mage—completion of our mate bond.
My breath quickened, and the rest of the world fell away.
I want him. Hell, I need him.
He groaned and grabbed my waist. His eyes darkened, and his gaze dipped to my lips. When his fingers inched up the hem of my borrowed t-shirt, he grazed my skin. “Do you—” He sucked in a ragged breath. “—feel that?”
Every feather-light brush of his skin against mine was delicious agony. I wiggled my body closer, tighter, to his. “What do you feel?”
Again, each word came out of my mouth breathy and filled with longing. In the back of my mind, the voice of reason murmured something about responsibilities, but I shoved away the thought. We had a few minutes to spare, right?
“You,” he breathed, slipping his hands under my shirt, “in my soul.”
His skin was warm and his hands callused. I arched my back, panting as he slid his palms across my bare skin. He nipped and sucked his way down my neck, letting his teeth graze against the more sensitive area at the swell of my breast.
“Rage,” I gasped, straightening.
He growled, a low possessive sound that set my heart racing. Then, he crushed his mouth to mine. His kisses were fierce and demanding, but I was just as hungry for him as he was for me. Each passing hour made the inferno build between us.
I sucked his lower lip between my teeth, letting them graze his sensitive flesh, and was rewarded with another growl. Our tongues tangled and teeth clashed, and I met him kiss for kiss, stroke for stroke.
He slid his hands up over my ribs, skimming the base of my breasts, and I gasped. Holding me firmly, he rotated his hips, grinding into me—
Whoa.
Desire rocked through me so strong it was need. My lips parted, and I moaned. “Rage…” I panted his name. “Rage…”
In response, he growled again and slid his hands lower, over the arch of my hip bones, pushing beneath the waistband of my borrowed sweats, pressing his palms flush against my butt, the pressure of his fingertips coaxing me to move with him.
Rage pressed kisses across my jaw, whispering against my skin, “I love you, Nai Crescent—”
I gasped at his declaration, ready to tell him the same thing, when a twig snapped beside us.
“I found him!” a man cried out.
The sound of the voice doused our passion, and Rage tensed against me.
Crap!
“If you’re going to bang her, Rage, you might want to get a room,” the jerk called from beside us. I peered over Rage’s shoulder to see a guard not ten feet away down the narrow path. I didn’t recognize him, but he was probably a Midnight Pack wolf and clearly knew Rage.
Frick. Think.
Rage growled, a low threatening sound so different than seconds before, but we didn’t have time for him to shift and fight. In one fluid movement, I grabbed the dagger tucked in my belt, pushed Rage behind me, and turned toward the intruder.
“Get hi—!” The man’s sentence cut off with a wet thwack as my dagger sank into the dude’s neck.
Rage spun toward me, his eyes wide but focused. “We need to go.”
I leaned to look past him, but Rage stepped between me and the body. “Don’t look.”
I killed the guy, but now I was too delicate to look at the body? I was about to press him on it except … killing out of self-defense and staring at the consequences of the action were two different things, especially since these were members of Rage’s pack.
He spun, leaned over, and pulled my knife from the body, cleaning it on his pants. Then, he handed it to me to tuck back in my waistbelt. Before I knew it, he grabbed my hand, and we stepped forward a few steps to look down at the water.
The world blurred as anxiety washed over me. Gray stone, blue sky, and dark water were all I saw. I swallowed hard, but before I had time to think through what was happening, Rage jumped, pulling me down with him.
Oh. My. Flippin. Ma—
We cleared the edge of the rock, and my stomach rose into my throat, making it impossible to scream as the dark water rushed up to meet us.
Rage yelled—an incoherent bellow—and I sucked in a ragged final breath. Pointing my toes, I slammed my arms tightly against my body as I became a human torpedo into the water.
Please, don’t let me die.
I closed my eyes a split second prior to the icy water rushing in around me. White light exploded behind my eyelids. The pain registered afterward, a deep bone-jarring, crushing sensation, there and then gone. The agony disappeared as fast as it had come.
What the mage?
Understanding slammed into me, worse even than the force of impact. Wherever Noble was, he’d just suffered from my first pathetic attempt at cliff diving because of our shield bond.
Rage’s voice came into my mind: ‘You need to move, Nai, or you’ll end up fifty feet under water.’
Raising my arms up, I then screamed as they were wrenched overhead by the force of the water.
‘Come on, love,’ Rage coaxed. ‘Keep fighting.’
Where was he? It was so murky, and I couldn’t sense how deep I’d gone under.
My lungs burned, and I swam and swam, my fear climbing every second I remained below the surface. ‘How do I know I’m swimming in the right direction?’
�
�You’re getting closer,’ he replied. ‘I can feel you. Just keep swimming.’
I snorted at the Finding Nemo reference, and relief coursed through me when the bubbles coming out of my nose rose and the light grew brighter. Seconds later, I burst through the surface, grinning and relieved to see Rage right in front of me. I sucked in a lungful of air—
And Rage pulled me under the surface. Again.
‘Why’d you do that?’ I snapped, trying to wrench my hand from his.
‘There are guards crawling all over the shoreline, Nai. Your silvery hair is practically a beacon in the afternoon sun.’
Crap.
‘Well, we need to breathe!’ This close to him, I could make out his features in the water but not his expression.
‘Just be careful,’ he replied. ‘Just your lips.’
He allowed his mouth to break the surface, barely, but the crown of his head and neck remained under water. After a super short breath, he reappeared in the murky water. ‘Got it?’
‘I’m not five, Rage.’ I rolled my eyes and mentally muttered. ‘Alpha male…’
‘I heard that.’ Rage’s voice was playful, and he chuckled. ‘I was possibly a little overprotective.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ I smirked and kicked up to the surface to take a baby breath.
The waves slapped over my face, making it nearly impossible to catch more than a mouthful of water. And how were we going to find Sadie and Audrey from below the surface? There was no hiding under a cloak of darkness for several hours yet. I needed…
Shaking my head, I rolled my eyes at my own stupidity. I was a high mage with all five elements at my disposal. Granted, I needed some major training, but I had an idea.
We took turns breaking the surface, and each time, I tried to pull the water in a dome over me. Every time it fell, but the time between forming the bowl over my head and it crashing down stretched a little longer with each attempt. By the twenty-fifth breath, it held.
‘Let’s go up,’ I told Rage, and then explained what I’d been doing. We broke the surface, together this time, and I pulled the water toward us. A slow, small wave lifted up and overhead without touching our faces and then continued its journey to shore.
‘Either bring in the wind or make all of the water choppy. Your dome won’t look natural to the guards,’ Rage told me.
My jaw dropped, and I scrunched up my nose with irritation. ‘Oh, sure, add wind. As if this wasn’t challenge enough.’
He grinned and pulled me close for a sloppy wet kiss. As if that would be enough for me to forgive him. All right. It was enough.
‘Let me try again.’
After a deep breath, I felt for the power inside of me, trying to untangle it into separate threads. My fire power felt hot, water felt cool, spirit felt light, earth felt dark and damp; but air, it felt like it was barely there. Was it my weakest power? Or was that just how it felt? It was time to find out. The more I tried to grab on to that floating, barely-there feeling, the more it flitted away. Sighing with defeat, I noticed a gust of wind rolled across the water.
‘Just like that,’ Rage said, grinning.
‘But…’ I had no idea what I’d done. I blinked and then giggled. It couldn’t be that easy, could it? I sucked in a deep breath, filling my lungs with air until I thought they might explode … and then I slowly released it through pursed lips.
The wind rolled across the sea, making the waters choppy. As the gust reached shore, the branches swayed.
“Well done.” Rage looked at me with pride and then pointed toward the guards, who were looking up at the sky now.
I snickered and then spotted the twins in the canoe. They stopped rowing as the waves rocked the canoe.
Yikes.
Treading water, I spun and blew a hard breath in the direction of the guards and then released the strands of power I’d teased apart, making the waters less choppy for the girls.
Rage and I shared a look of relief, and a moment later, the twins arrived.
“Thank—” The words never finished leaving my throat. Something grabbed my ankle and pulled. Hard.
I screamed in the water, which was the stupidest thing ever because all the air left me in a rush, and then I had to hold my breath.
Whatever tentacled thing that had me was dark … and slimy. I scratched and clawed, but it held firm as it dragged me down. I thrashed, but we were deep and the water murky enough that I couldn’t see what had me.
‘Rage!’
‘I’m here.’
Rage had hooked his hands under my armpits and pulled, but the creature pulled back. No matter how hard I kicked and flailed, I couldn’t get free, and they were playing freaking tug-of-war with me!
‘The knife!’ Rage screamed into my mind—so loud and sudden I flinched. But it snapped me from my stupor.
Reaching behind my back, I tugged the blade free and, careful not to slash into the abyss like a madwoman, ran my free hand down my leg, cringing at the slimy tentacle-thing around my ankle. Then, I sliced through it with all my might.
A high-pitched hiss rose in the water, and then I was free. Black oily blood rose to the surface with Rage and me as we swam like crazy for air. We popped up to the surface, both gasping, and I giggled with relief, so grateful to see the twins reaching for us. Something dark breached the surface beside me, and I swallowed a shriek as a black tentacle, hacked off and oozing onyx blood, floated by.
Rage grabbed me, cradling the sides of my face, and crushed his lips to mine. The kiss was fierce and filled with the fervor of relief. “You scared the magic out of me, woman!”
“Ditto,” I giggled, giddy with our freedom. “I want out of this water ASAP.”
Audrey pulled us into the canoe one by one, and it dipped with our combined weight. Rage and I stretched out across the bottom of the small boat, panting and soaking wet. But there were no shouts of alarm, so we weren’t seen.
Thank the mage.
“How long will it take to get to the island?” I asked, snuggling into Rage’s embrace.
“About two hours,” Sadie replied.
We lay in silence, and I stared up at the blue sky, enjoying this little reprieve before what was sure to be a crazy day, until something thick and heavy landed on top of me, startling me.
“Stay down,” Audrey hissed when I peeked out from the thick pelt. She threw the other bearskin over Rage. “The dock looks dead. No guards in sight, but I don’t trust it.”
“Neither do I,” Sadie said, shaking her head as the twins paddled toward shore. “Who leaves their shoreline unprotected?”
“That sounds like my uncle.” Rage grunted with disgust from under the fur. “He’s such an idiot sometimes. He probably sent all his guards to the mainland.”
“Or is it a trap?” I asked. “He’ll let us walk up on shore and then ambush us?”
Rage shrugged. “He isn’t trying to kill us. Not right now. And we need to get to Justice and Noble.”
Right. He wouldn’t kill us because of the shield bond. ‘But then, where are the guards? He wouldn’t send them all to the magic lands and leave Alpha Island unguarded, would he?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied in my mind, his voice colored with concern. “Be careful,” he added to the girls.
A few minutes later, we felt the canoe bump into the beach. No one said or did anything, and blood rushed in my ears as we waited for someone to jump out of the bushes and tell us they’d caught us. A few moments passed, and when nothing happened, one of the girls jumped out of the canoe with a splash and then hauled us onto the shore.
“It’s clear,” one of the twins hissed.
We leapt out of the boat. Rage and I each wrapped one of the furs around us to conceal our figures as the twins eyed the castle.
“Stop right there,” a woman snarled just behind the twins.
The girls froze, their eyes widening in fear, but Rage and I grinned at the familiar voice.
“Mom.” His voice broke, and he spun toward h
er, dropping the bear pelt.
I knew the moment she recognized him because she cried, “Courage!”
And then she collapsed to the ground, sobbing. He knelt next to her, and I stood awkwardly nearby as he pulled her into his arms.
“I thought I lost you,” she whimpered, and then she reached for me too. “Both of you.”
Tears sprang into my eyes as I knelt next to Rage, and she pulled me in for a hug. She grabbed Rage’s hand and tsked before turning her glistening gaze on me. “You should have told me about your fated mate,” she said, shaking her head at her son. “I would have helped you.”
Her voice broke, and I gave him the evil eye for making his mom cry.
Redness crept up his cheeks, and he hung his head. “I fought it myself for a while.”
“A long while,” I muttered, which earned me a laugh from my … future mother-in-law? Wow. Not sure where that rogue thought came from.
Rage crouched low and held his mom’s cheek. “I saw Dad. He’s with Honor, but we’re getting him back.”
She froze, and her brow pulled down in confusion. “You what?”
I swallowed hard and then stammered, “I’m a spirit walker … a high mage of spirit, I guess. We went to the Realm of the Dead. Now we have roughly thirty-five hours to kill Surlama and then we’ll be able to bring Honor back.”
Way to explain things, Nai. I was 67.4% sure that made no sense.
“Surlama,” Elaine hissed. “She’s in the basement of the south tower with the king. She said she’d help make sure the breeding companions got pregnant.”
Wait. What?
Rage shook himself. “Declan took a breeding companion?”
His mom stood, her nostrils flaring. “The king, my … husband—” she growled both titles with the same amount of respect—as in none. “—has taken multiple breeding companions. I’ve been moved into the guest quarters of the castle. He wants at least two heirs by next year. His own blood, not his brother’s.”
My mouth dropped open. More than one breeding companion was just disrespectful. If a woman could no longer have children, you took one breeding companion, not several.