by Marcy Jacks
When he was gone, Andrei looked down at his mate, at the wide-eyed, pale expression on Jesse’s face, and he couldn’t help but sigh, as well. “Can we all just take a break right about now?” he asked. “I want to go and have a talk with Jesse.”
Dimitri, Stefan, and Lucian looked among each other, as if they were all thinking the same thing.
“Sure,” Stefan said, not sounding the least bit happy but more because he sounded depressed as fuck.
“Come on,” Andrei said softly, looking at his mate.
Jesse jumped slightly, looking at Andrei then at the other dragons in the library before he nodded and allowed himself to be taken out.
Andrei got out the door and maybe halfway down the hall before Jesse broke down.
“Taylor’s gone?”
His voice broke, and it was a knife in Andrei’s heart.
He turned abruptly, pulling his mate into his arms. Jesse sobbed as he leaned against Andrei’s chest, clutching at his clothes.
Andrei stroked his back and hair, wishing this were something he could fix right now.
He couldn’t. Whether he was at a hundred percent or not, this wasn’t something Andrei could fix by beating the hell out of someone.
“We’ll get him back. He’ll be fine,” Andrei said, feeling very much as if he was making promises he wouldn’t be able to keep.
Jesse shook his head, still crying. “He was alone!” he sobbed. “I should have been there.”
Andrei closed his eyes, feeling his mate’s pain.
“You shared a room with him?”
Jesse nodded.
Andrei could feel his lover’s pain, and he was pained by it himself, but at the same time, he was selfishly glad Jesse hadn’t been in that room that night with Taylor.
He’d already lost one mate. He couldn’t handle it if he’d lost another before having the chance to know what he really had.
“I should have been there,” Jesse said.
As if he thought he would have been able to do anything to protect his friend.
Likely, he would have gotten in the way of the kidnapper and been killed.
Andrei pulled himself back from his mate, holding tightly to Jesse’s shoulders, ignoring his shattering heart as Jesse sniffled, tears running down his wet face.
“You weren’t there, but that’s all right because Seth and I, and everyone else in this house, is going to do everything possible to find Taylor.”
“It’s been days!” Jesse cried. “What if he’s dead?”
“No, don’t think that,” Andrei said, even though he was thinking that exact thing.
Short of a small miracle, or something going incredibly wrong for the kidnapper, Taylor’s chances weren’t looking so good.
Still, Taylor was part of the new dragon clan. Seth owed it to him to perform a search, Andrei knew this, and he said as much to his mate.
Jesse sniffed, still looking as if he was struggling to keep himself together. “Are you sure?”
Andrei rubbed his hands up and down Jesse’s shoulders, trying his best to comfort him, knowing how hard this had to be for him.
“I’m sure. I’ll bet a few searches happened before we had this update.” A lot of what was spoken about was really for Andrei’s benefit since he’d been out of commission for so many days.
“When Miles calms down, Seth will come back. He’ll let us know everything he’s been doing to help get Taylor back. I bet he already fucked up a couple of the kidnapper’s plans. Maybe even slowed him down a bit. We’ll get him back.”
God, he hoped he wasn’t lying to his mate just then.
Jesse blinked at him. His smile was slow to form, and soft, as if he knew what he was being promised was unlikely to come to pass.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for trying. I…I’ll do my best to help out with anything you and the other dragons need to get him back. I don’t know what I can do, but even if it’s just staying out of the way, that doesn’t matter. I’m just glad you all care enough to try something.”
Andrei’s heart ached to hear his mate speak such words. Sometimes he forgot the life his mate used to live, back before he was set free by the dragons.
Andrei pulled his mate closer, holding him tight, and once again, he had the selfish, relieved thought that it hadn’t been Jesse who had been taken, that he hadn’t been inside that room.
He kissed the top of Jesse’s head, promising himself that he would make amends for such a thought by bringing his friend home.
Whether it would be alive or dead would be something he would only find out in the future.
For now, he held tightly to his mate and thought about how fragile the universe really was.
THE END
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