Well.
There were going to be two monumental failures in that family if I had anything to say about it.
Behind her, the scenery was less clear. Muddled. Smoky.
“Can’t you make it clearer?”
“The mirror shows what it wants to show,” Ravena told me curtly. “I am but a conduit.”
“It looks like she’s in a tent,” Darius muttered, twisting his head this way and that, as if to examine it from all angles. “Like… Like a general’s tent on the battlefield.”
Our eyes met as a thought occurred to me. “We might already be too late.”
“Our scouts haven’t detected anything like that in the area.”
“She could have it enchanted.”
Darius exhaled sharply, and while he looked on the verge of storming off, he stayed put and returned his gaze to mirror. “What is that?”
“What?”
“There…” He pointed to the right side, behind Jasmine’s shoulder, and I peered more closely. The figure was small with delicate limbs and gentle features, albeit it was as unclear as the rest of the background of the scene. Only Jasmine was in full focus, but from what I could make out, it looked like a child.
Jasmine had no children. I seriously doubted it was hers.
So, what was it doing there?
I shook my head. “I don’t… Is that…?”
“A child?”
“Are you sure you can’t go closer,” I asked Ravena, wondering if she was just screwing with us for kicks, but the glare she shot me suggested otherwise. Shrugging, I looked back to the mirror. It didn’t matter why there was a child there, or if it was Jasmine’s, or if it even was a child. All that mattered was finding her. “If she walks out of the tent, will the mirror follow her?”
“It will.”
“Then we just have to wait for her to leave,” I said, nodding. “We can’t make heads or tails of anything while she’s in there.”
“Then we’ll wait,” Darius agreed. “I doubt it will take long. She’s never been one to sit still.”
“Or brood over a map making strategical decisions,” I said with a smirk. Darius’s little half-chuckle was enough to tell me the joke had landed where it needed to. Still, I couldn’t shake the shadowy figure behind her, its features dancing in and out of focus, and I swore I saw ropes wrapped around it, just below the shoulders. A prisoner, maybe? “But this child…”
I set my fingertips on the edge of the mirror, an unconscious movement to bring it closer to me rather than me going to it, but the instant physical contact occurred, the image changed completely. Gone was Jasmine in her tent with her maps. Instead, I saw Darius.
Wounded.
Alone.
Blood trickling from a gash on his temple.
He crawled across a field slick with blood, his clothing tattered. Other broken bodies lay strewn around him, their faces obscured, but their pain palpable. I trembled, some magnetic pull forcing my fingers to remain on the mirror, forcing me to watch him suffer, crawling for something, someone, his cries incoherent but his despair evident. Tears blurred my vision. He was so alone.
And I…
I was nowhere to be seen—nowhere in this vision as my dragon lay dying, suffering, in his last moments.
As the first tear dribbled down my cheek, the connection broke. I yanked my hand away as though the mirror burned me, but before I could get a word out, a crippling static feeling shot through my body. My eyes widened. My body crumpled to the floor.
The last thing I remembered before I fainted completely was Darius shouting my name—and the feel of his strong arms catching me.
Chapter 13
Even though I couldn’t see the storm from within Darius’s hall, I felt it. I lived it, sitting in front of the small fire in the hearth with my knees drawn to my chest and my eyes heavy. Rain hammered the boarded-up windows, cold and foreboding, a telling sign that summer was on its way out. Every few minutes, lightning struck, illuminating the few holes and gaps between the boards. I glance up, counting until the thunder cracked. They say every second was a mile away. That was where the heart of the storm was. The last flash of lightning had but two Mississippi counts before the thunder rumbled, seemingly right over the mountain range. Its raw power made the small hall shudder. I felt it in my bones.
At the sight of the fire settling, I added more kindling that Darius and I had collected before the rain started. Bits of twigs. Spiny, dry underbrush. The fire consumed them all within seconds, drawing life, drawing energy, in order to carry on crackling. I leaned in closer as the heat swelled, finding comfort in the warmth, enjoying the way it danced across my cheeks. The flames had lulled my inner voice to sleep a half hour ago, seeming to quiet her frantic chatter. If only it could do the same for me.
I couldn’t shake the vision I’d seen in the mirror. Darius. Suffering. Dying. All alone in a field of blood and corpses. When I’d come to, courtesy of Ravena’s potent smelling salts, I had learned that the black mirror chose who to give visions to. It went by physical touch, but, Ravena had noted, it responded primarily to the blood offering. I had provided three droplets of blood—and apparently, the mirror had something desperate to share, just waiting for me to connect with it as we searched for Jasmine.
Terrified, I had spent the rest of the afternoon sitting outside. While Darius hadn’t wanted to leave me, I forced him to sit and watch the mirror, to follow Jasmine’s movements. That was what mattered—not my vision. Unfortunately, as the hours had dragged on and Jasmine refused to leave her tent, we had decided to call it a day. Knowing that she was preparing for war was good enough, for the time being, and we returned to the Sanctius clan village the same way we had left it: portals and flying.
As if sensing I wouldn’t do well sleeping at the makeshift camps within the belly of the mountain, Darius had told me we’d spend the night in his old hall. He removed some of the wood planks in order for us to get inside, but for the most part, it still looked abandoned. While I had protested the idea at first, wanting to be close to my family and Catriona, the vision of Darius’s death plagued me well into the night. I hadn’t been able to focus or contribute much to conversation, and in the end, separating myself from everyone to collect my thoughts had been the best approach.
But Darius was still alpha, so I had insisted he see to everyone inside before turning in for the night. As the sound of the doorknob rattling reached my ears, I figured he had finally returned. A quick look at the old ticking clock told me it was shortly after midnight.
“Fucking rain,” Darius grumbled as he came staggering into the room, drenched and dripping. My lips twitched into a smile at the sight. Dragging his seemingly useless rain poncho off and hanging it on the hook behind the door, he met my eyes and scowled. “You’d think it was the end of the world with how it’s coming down out there.”
“Makes you wish we were inside the mountains, huh?” I winced at the morose quality of my voice. While the vision wasn’t guaranteed to come true, I couldn’t deny its effect on me. The thought of Darius dying… Well, that alone was enough to send me spiraling.
“Hardly,” he remarked. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here with you.”
I tore my gaze from the fire, my smile turning appreciative as he stripped out of his wet shirt and tossed it aside, followed quickly by his pants. Shadows flickered across his body, highlighting the toned curves of his chest, his thick shoulders, and the defined bam-bam-bam of his abs. How I’d ever managed to snag a man so sinfully sculpted was beyond me. Apparently, I’d done something really good in a past life, because the mere sight of him, with his skin glistening from the rain and his boxers clinging to his thighs—well, I finally understood the phrase fire in her loins that all the old romance novels went on about.
Strolling to the bed, he provided an ample view of an equally stunning backside and rippling muscles shifting along his back. He toweled off briefly with a blanket, then grabbed another and headed b
ack for me. I returned my stare to the fire, flustered for a better reason than before. At least I knew the vision-induced funk didn’t distract me from everything. Nothing like a perfect ass in clingy boxers to chase the blues away.
“How are you feeling?” he asked as he settled down beside me, wrapping the blanket around both of us. As his arm snaked around my waist, I shuffled in closer, curling up against his warm chest. My hand lazily wandered the muscular dips and curves. I grinned when he twitched as I passed over a known ticklish spot. “Kaye…”
“I’m… okay,” I admitted softly after retreating a little, fiddling with the frayed edge of the blanket over my shoulders. “I’m sorry I’ve been so out of it. That vision… It really shook me, I guess.”
“I know.” He slid a finger down my cheek, a whispered caress as the fire spit and hissed at us from the hearth. As if to appease it, I tossed in some more kindling, and while the flames grew higher, the tantrum ceased. After settling back against my dragon, I closed my eyes and listened to the steady beat of his heart, smiling when he kissed my forehead. “You know, what you see in that mirror isn’t prophecy. It isn’t guaranteed to happen. I don’t think even Ravena understands the nuances of that thing. She claims to understand it, but I’ve always thought of her as more of a servant to a magical object’s unyielding demands.”
“Hmm.” I hummed my acknowledgement, but even then, there was no way I could just forget what I had seen. No one ever wanted to see a loved one suffering so horribly. Whether it was prophecy or not, I was sure I’d have nightmares about it when I finally let sleep take me.
“Besides, we have to focus on Jasmine,” he muttered after showering me with a few more pecks—my forehead, my temple, my cheek. Each one stoked the embers of desire within me, spurring that particular fire back to life with ease.
“We’re preparing for an attack,” I said with a slight shake of my head. “I don’t know what else there is to do. If we can’t find her, we’re just sitting ducks until she graces us with her presence.”
And that was if she ever attacked. After reconvening with Zayne when we returned to the village that evening, we had all considered the possibility that there was no attack, that Jasmine was just spreading rumors, falsifying her location, in order to send the shifter world back into chaotic scrambling. To incite fear. To push us into hiding. I wouldn’t put it past her, of course, but I also told everyone that I thought her rage and her need for revenge—to come out on top—was stronger than her ability to play mind games. Catriona had backed me up on that. For now, we treated her as a very real threat, and preparations continued deep within the mountain in response.
Hogar had actually finalized a few dragon saddles, which would allow some of our supernatural fighters to fight in the sky if necessary.
“Well, even if my vision wasn’t prophecy, our viewing of Jasmine was in real time,” I said after a brief pause. One of Darius’s hands wandered over my side, grazing my curves and smoothing along the dips in my body. Distracting as it was, I was able to almost ignore him. “If she has a child with her, a prisoner, we have to find them.”
“We will.”
“Yeah?” I glanced up at him. “And how do you know that? How are you so sure?”
“Because together, we can do anything,” he rumbled, stealing a kiss from my lips this time, drawing my bottom one between his teeth ever so gently. My eyes fluttered closed as my head tipped back, his hot breath dancing across my sensitive skin. Desire coiled within my core. When he released me, I straightened up with a gulp, my heart racing.
“What is this, an after-school special?” I teased, though the breathy quality of my words took the sting out of the jab. He grinned, one of those knee-buckling, pulse-pounding, swoon-worthy grins, and it took everything I had within me not to pounce on him right then and there. “I do not approve of these underhanded tactics of distraction, Mr. Thomas. This is a serious conversation.”
“Well, maybe I’ve just missed you, Miss Allister,” he countered huskily, “and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to get my hands all over you without ten other people watching.”
While I loved our banter, the reminder that I had been away—trapped, prisoner of a djinn courtesy of a fae psychopath—put a bit of a damper on things. As if sensing his mistake, Darius drew me in to his chest again, rubbing my back beneath the blanket.
“You know, we haven’t really talked about what happened during the trials. Not in detail.”
I swallowed hard. He was right, of course. I’d gone into some vague detail about what Aden and I had experienced while collecting the artifact, but we’d been so busy with everything else, that this was the first time we could actually talk. However, when I peered up at him, I found I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to share the fine details of each trial, because not only would it make him worry, it would make him feel guilty for having me go through it alone—especially the third trial.
“It doesn’t matter what I had to do,” I said softly, then gasped when Darius caught my chin and tilted my face up to his, our eyes seeking one another out.
“It matters to me, Kaye.”
Licking my lips, I exhaled my surrender, a gentle concession to the fact that he had a right to know. However, as I tried to explain what had happened, I realized I couldn’t find the words beyond stating that my strength, my wisdom, and my will were tested—thoroughly. And that I survived unscathed, until a certain djinn tricked me for the last time.
“Kaye… I know this is difficult, but—”
“All that matters,” I said, raising my voice over the crash of thunder. This time, the pounding rattled the covered windows, feeling like a tiny earthquake pulsing through the longstanding mountain range. I took a moment to collect myself, my eyes swimming with tears before I could fight them. “All that matters, is that I came to a decision at the end of the third trial. It was the most intense of the three. The magic was there to break me, and as I fought, I realized… I realized that I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live, to fight… to… to be your mate.”
Darius’s brow twitched upward slightly, his eyes boring deeply into mine. He took a moment, as if needing it to process my words, and when realization washed over him, I couldn’t help but smile. Catching my lower lip between my teeth, my smile bloomed to match his, and I nodded, tipping my face up just as he leaned down, our mouths colliding together in a rush of passion that made my toes curl.
His tongue swept across my lips, and I happily parted them, allowing a dance of tongue and teeth to commence as I twined my fingers through his hair. Long, wild, wet—and all mine. My inner voice seemed to have called in the angelic choir, because I’d never felt her happiness quite like this before—while she said nothing at all. Pure silence. Yet her pleasure became mine, pumping hard through my veins with every touch, every caress of Darius’s hands over my body. They roamed as though on a mission, cupping my breasts through my shirt, questing downward to curve over the swell of my backside. A little yelp slipped out when he hoisted me up with firm hands on each cheek, and hauled me onto his lap.
I sat straddling him, my hips writhing as if with a mind of their own, up and down his torso, tendrils of pleasure unfurling through my core. The soft groan caught in his throat suggested I wasn’t the only one savoring the moment, and as his mouth left mine to press hot little nips along my jaw and down my neck, I felt him grow hard against my center.
“Darius,” I whispered, my fingers digging into his shoulder and my eyes widening when he sucked hard on the sensitive skin where my neck and shoulder met, “I love you so much. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you an answer before, but I know now… I can’t imagine my life without you. I want to be your mate, your partner…”
I trailed off, moaning wantonly when he bucked beneath me, the bump of his hardness sending a jolt of pleasure through my body.
“My everything,” he growled against my skin. “You are my everything.”
The feel of his fingertips against my
flesh, digging under my shirt, made my breath stutter, and I lifted my arms to oblige as he yanked my shirt off over my head. If I hadn’t, I suspected he might have just torn it from my body, shredding it to pieces in his haste to touch me, taste me—and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. The desperation for skin-to-skin contact—I understood it. I suffered from it, and had suppressed my desires for too long. For the sake of the war. For the militia. For our families.
No longer. It was time to take, to be selfish, to give in to those primal urges roaring to life within me.
“I need… more,” he snarled as he dragged his mouth down my bare body, my bra a distant memory. I leaned back to give him better access, arching my back and tossing my head in wild abandon. His lips trailed across each creamy mound before closing over one pink, beaded pearl. The feel of his tongue, the hint of teeth, raking over the hardened bud sent a delicious combination of pain and pleasure coursing southbound—destination: the wetness between my thighs. I whimpered his name as he swept his thumb over the other bud, and he responded with another growl, rolling us over and onto the blanket.
“I need more, Kaye,” he whispered, his voice a gravelly, husky mess that did wicked things to my mind and body. “I need all of you.”
“Take it,” I told him, lifting my hips when he thumbed the waistband of my black leggings. “All of me. It’s yours.”
“And I’m yours.” He descended upon me with a savagery that should have frightened me, but as I bowed to his lips, my arms snaked tightly around him. All I wanted was more. More of him. More of us. More of everything.
Tearing his mouth from mine, he eased down my body again with a sudden agonizing slowness, the kind that made me twitch and whimper, pressing my lips together to contain the squeal as his tongue delved into my navel while his hands ripped my leggings down. Straightening up for a moment, he seemed to consider me, his greedy eyes drinking me in.
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