The man she shared her bed with held secrets. How did she not know? Now the death card was staring him in the face.
“Trust Death. You’ve been wondering if you’re walking into a trap. You’re not. It’s all real.”
He relaxed.
Flynn had been wondering if Death had been screwing with them, and this helped.
Kiera gathered her cards.
“I’ll escort the witch out,” Jolie offered, standing. “Flynn, can I have regular clothes? You don’t want Detective Gress ogling my breasts.”
That’s all he had to hear.
They were all back in regular clothes.
The men shook Kiera’s hand, and they headed out of the room. They figured Jolie needed a moment. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be to get her cards read.
“Can I talk to you a second?” she asked Kiera.
“Sure.”
“What is he hiding?”
“I can’t tell you that, Jolie. It’s his private reading. That’s breaking the rules.”
She began crying.
“Oh, honey, don’t cry. It’s not that bad.”
“It has to be. He’s hiding things.”
She sat beside the woman. “If I tell you, then you have to keep this quiet.”
“Okay, I can do that.”
“He feels like not having a career is killing a piece of him. He misses being a detective.”
She knew that would always be there. Until he was ruling over the Tueur, as a ‘cop’, of sorts, he’d have to work through it.
“What else?”
She didn’t like telling this to Jolie.
“What is he mourning?”
“A wife,” she said softly.
Jolie felt sick.
They were no longer bonded, and now he could leave at any moment, and she could lose him.
This had been her fear.
She wasn’t his wife and she didn’t know how she ever could be—not in a threesome. Someone would always be left out.
Kiera saw her tears.
“Why don’t you marry him?”
“I can’t marry one, and not marry the other,” Jolie said sadly. “Legally, I can only have one husband, and I don’t want to choose who I love enough to marry in the human manner and who I don’t.”
Kiera sat back and considered. “Have you ever heard of a handfasting?” she offered.
“No, what is it?”
Kiera took her hand. “It’s where a witch picks her partner in a ceremony. She takes him as her chosen under the God and Goddess.
“Again, I can’t choose one over the other…”
Kiera laughed. “Handfastings are not approved by governments as marriage, so they are not regulated. If you choose to marry two men at one time, as a partnership, you may, as it is a ceremony showing the action of choosing to make the commitment.”
Jolie took it all in. “So I could have a ceremony and choose to handfast myself to both men?”
“All you would need is a priestess, an altar, a few rings, and the men,” she added, “willing of course.”
Jolie felt the wheels begin to turn in her head, and it sounded like a good idea. She could marry both men, not legally, but really, what did legal matter when you would outlive the laws that were passed?
“Do you know any priestesses?”
Kiera’s Irish laughter filled the kitchen. “Yes, and I even have rings in my shop. If you are looking for a location, I happen to have the ideal Irish garden at my cottage outside of town. I live over my shop for work purposes, but it’s gorgeous at my cottage—and secluded.”
She grinned wickedly.
“Well, Kiera, it looks like I’ll be planning a wedding.”
And it would be one neither man would forget.
∞ Chapter Twenty-Two ∞
Early Saturday Morning
Paris, France
When Clariel came back to the flat, her roommate was nowhere to be found. She reached for Mathew, and he didn’t answer. Even when she called for him a few times, he didn’t bother to unblock his mind.
It was odd.
They were supposed to go out and grab something to eat.
Literally.
The party scene was closing down for the night, and they were going to pick a few drunken kids, have a few sips, get tipsy on their booze-laden blood, and call it a night. They had schoolwork that was due on Monday, and they were going to head to the library to play ‘human’ in the morning.
When she headed into his room, there were canvases tucked under his bed, but no Mathew to be found.
Curiosity got the better of her.
She peeked.
And it scared her.
There were paintings of Jolie, Flynn, and Jacques, only they were decayed, bloody, and very obviously dead.
Mathew wasn’t okay, and now she was scared shitless.
As she stood there, she heard the key in the front door. Shoving them beneath the bed, she rushed across the hall to her room. When Mathew found her, she was lying on her bed holding a book.
“Hey! Sorry I’m late.”
She could smell blood.
He reeked of it. Someone had been out feeding without her, and Clariel knew that was dangerous.
Mathew was doing bad things.
“Are we going to go out and find dinner?” she asked, trying to keep her heart slow. She knew what he was doing.
She could see the blood lust in his eyes.
“You know, I’m going to call it a night. We’re still hitting up the library tomorrow, right? If we do, can we swing by the art store first? I’m out of blood red paint.”
Yeah, she knew why.
The evidence was under his bed.
“Yeah, great! It’s by the fabric store. I need a swatch for my project. We can even grab tea at that place on the corner. They make all these earthy blends. It’s tres chic.”
He grinned. “I love you, Clari. I’m glad I’m here with you,” he said, giving her a kiss on the forehead. “If you go out, be safe. Call me if you need help.”
“Okay, I will.”
When he walked away, she grabbed her coat and headed out. She had a call to make, and she didn’t want him tapping into her head to hear it. She needed some distance to calm herself.
She’d made a promise to Master Flynn and Jacques.
Clariel was scared, but if Mathew was killing and losing control, she needed help.
And fast.
* * * H a r c o u r t e * * *
Jolie entered the room and all three men looked over at her. Tommy, Flynn, and Jacques had been talking about something they didn’t want her to hear. Had she not been deep in thought about the wedding ceremony, she might have heard something.
It worried her that they were being sneaky, but she was being just as sneaky.
“Am I missing something?”
Gress simply laughed as he headed toward her. “We were just discussing guy stuff.” He kissed her cheek and signaled with his beer bottle that he was heading out.
He, after all, had stories to read to Cari.
“Night all.”
Jolie waited for him leave, not buying a word he had said. Then again, maybe Flynn had decided to open up to his friend, and she didn’t need to interfere.
“Tomorrow night, we need to go out.”
Both men looked over at her.
“Before we have our typical fight, we need to visit Master Liam’s home to see if there are any ‘spells’ lying around. Then we’ll head to Master Patrick’s too. They should know what we’ve run into at our own home.”
She waited to see if they would object.
When they didn’t, she was surprised.
“I’m in,” said Jacques, sinking his pool shot. He grinned and held out his hand to his mate. “Pay up.”
Flynn took out his wallet and handed him a twenty without a comment or joke.
“If you guys don’t mind, I’m going to our room. I just want to grab a book and do some reading.
They stared at the man.
He was going to read a book?
That didn’t bode well.
“Are the children okay? Do you need to feed?”
Jolie felt her heart breaking at his pain, and she wanted to share her surprise with him, but the look on his face spoke volumes.
Flynn sometimes needed space.
“We’re good from before. Angelique is awake now. It looks like Jacques is up to bat.”
He headed her way.
When he reached her, he touched her cheek with his big hand. “I love you,” he said, and then gave her a gentle kiss on the lips.
Flynn headed out, without looking back.
“Don’t panic,” Jacques said.
It would be hard not to at this point.
“He’s a little rattled over the card reading.”
She was well aware.
“I know. I managed to pry out of Kiera what the cards meant.”
“What’s bothering him?” asked Jacques, taking a seat on the couch with Jolie in his lap. He was looking forward to feeding his child.
“Well, our Flynn feels unproductive. He misses being a detective.”
“Oh, we did leave rather abruptly. I know he was happy being at home and solving murders. When he takes over for the head of the Tueur, he’s technically the cop of all vampyre cops.”
She knew that, but the problem was now.
Flynn needed something to ease his heart.
Jacques leaned back and allowed Jolie to go with him, pulling her body with his until they were parallel.
“What can we do to help him?”
She thought about it, as she prepared to feed.
“What if we solved half of his problems? Do you think he’d be able to hold on a little longer?”
Jacques knew his mate. “He’s resilient, Jolie. He’d be okay. What is the mourning part?”
Jolie thought of the best way to broach this, since the man cuddling with her was part of their lives and unit. He had equal say.
They both had to agree or it wouldn’t come to fruition. There was no way she could hurt one man to heal the other.
“He’s mourning the loss of never having a wife,” she said, measuring the look on his face. The pain was a quick flash, as soon as he figured out where it was heading.
“Jacques?”
“I see.”
“I would like to marry him and give Flynn that peace.”
Truth be told, it was like being sucker punched in the chest. It stole his breath, making his heart hurt. Had what he’d done forced her to make this decision?
Was he to be excluded now as she made the decision to marry one man and just let him be the other guy?
“What do you want me to say?”
Jolie stared down into his green eyes. “I have a plan, if you’ll hear it out. It’s crazy, but it’ll give him peace.”
Jacques wanted to ask about his peace, but he kept it in. His heart was aching to the point he wanted to weep.
He’d love to have a wife too.
More than he ever thought he would. Who would have thought that he’d even want that in his life?
“Go ahead.”
“Kiera mentioned a thing called a handfasting. It is where you take a vow, a marriage of sorts, without the legal paper work. I want to give him that ceremony.”
Even though it hurt him, he’d still give her the world. He was willing to suffer forever if that was what was to happen.
He loved his mates more than himself.
“Okay, I think you should marry Flynn.” Those were the hardest words he would ever have to say.
“Jacques because it’s a ceremony, not a legally binding one recognized by any governments, I can take two husbands.”
She watched his eyes.
There was that brief moment of confusion.
She gave him the clarification he needed.
“Marry me, Jacques. I know marriage isn’t normally the way we usually do things, but I want you to marry me. Do it because you love us and want to permanently lock our lives together. Help me give him what he thinks is forever lost.”
Jacques was overwhelmed.
She wasn’t excluding him.
She was making him part of their forever.
She would be his wife too.
“I know you would never leave, but Flynn needs this. I’m asking you to do this so we can be a happy family. Marry me, Jacques Degaul.”
Jacques pulled her down to him and kissed her long and deep. When he pulled away, they both had tears in their eyes.
“Absolutely, my love. It would be my pleasure to marry you both.”
“I want to blow his mind.”
He was the king of romance and details. He could do that for them both.
“Then tell me what you have in mind and let me make your dreams come true.”
And he would.
For both of them…
Jolie and Jacques worked out all the details while their unsuspecting mate slipped deeper into the darkness.
The pain began to fester.
It hurt.
The card reading had reminded him of how empty he felt. He would never have the later, the wife he wanted so very much, but he could hold onto the cop.
That he could reach. The witch had said he needed to achieve one to have peace, and it would have to do.
Flynn would hold up, pretending to be okay.
He had to be. After all, a demon didn’t have any right to have a wife.
He knew it.
And now he’d live it for eternity.
* * * H a r c o u r t e * * *
Flynn needed to be alone.
He wanted to think through all the things bombarding his brain. Everything was a whirlwind of emotions for him. What he wanted was to let it all go.
What was happening was the exact opposite.
He was stressing himself out.
When he’d left his mates, he knew Jolie was going to want to discuss it. She was big into sharing their feelings, but on this one—he wanted simply to be left alone.
He ached inside to have her as his forever.
Granted, she technically was, but it wasn’t enough.
He wanted to look down at his finger and see a ring there. It was a symbol to him, much like hers or even his badge.
It had power.
Those symbols were so very important in life, and he felt the loss of not having the one thing he craved most.
A wife.
He could hear the laughter from Rinnon deep within his mind. He found it amusing, and that irritated Flynn.
This was all making him insane. If he didn’t get something to focus on, other than the whole antiquated marriage issue, he was going to be hard to live with the rest of their lives.
Something had to give, and this was it.
As he stalked around the house, he could feel the light tickle to his mind.
It was distant.
It was familiar, but it wasn’t either of his mates.
Flynn opened up for it, and he was flooded with fear, worry, and stress—none of it his own.
‘Master! I need you!’
He knew it was Clariel by her energy.
‘Little one, what’s wrong?’
‘Mathew is losing it.’ She told him what she’d found beneath his bed, how he was sneaking around, and she had smelled blood on him.
A lot of it.
‘This isn’t good.’
She was aware.
‘What do you want me to do, Master?’
‘Stop calling me Master, and then keep your eyes on him. If he gets dangerous, to you, to himself, or to humans, you need to let me know.’
There was a pause.
‘Will you kill him?’
‘Clariel, honey, if I have to put him down, I won’t torture him. If he gets the attention of the hunters, they’ll make sure he suffers, and so will you. Just being near him puts you in danger if he’s over the edge.’
She was aware.
/>
‘I know, Master.”
Flynn sighed.
‘If he starts losing it, you contact me again, okay?’
‘I promise. If the hunters come…’
He didn’t give her time to say a word.
‘If the hunters come, you get out. Contact me, and we’ll find you. Don’t risk your life for his behaviors, Clariel. Mathew is taking a dangerous path.’
That’s what scared her.
‘Okay, Master. Thank you. I love you.’
‘I love you too, Clariel. Call me if you need me.’
She cut off the connection.
Well, he wanted something to deal with other than his issues, and here it was.
Damn freaking vampyres.
What the hell was Mathew thinking?
Apparently, he wasn’t.
As Flynn continued to dwell on this mess now, too, he had to start working on a backup plan…in case something bad went down.
They needed to be prepared.
More importantly, Flynn needed to ensure that Jolie was safe, and not worried about Mathew’s stupid, reckless, and dangerous behavior.
It was the last thing she needed.
Hell!
It was the last thing any of them needed.
* * * H a r c o u r t e * * *
She sat in her apartment, nestled over the shop, scouring her books for anything that would give her a clue as to who was crafting spells made to hurt people.
Kiera knew she had to find them, and with the help of the vampyres, she would bring them to justice. The law of three was nothing to scoff at, and the person perpetrating these spells needed to be punished.
It would be for the ones who were hurt, and for the ones who would still suffer from the evil.
It was her duty.
As she searched the spell’s origin, she heard him. It was the same voice from the dream, only now it was reaching her while she was awake.
But how?
It wasn’t possible, was it?
Sitting in her simple apartment, she closed her eyes to concentrate on his voice. It was low, deep, and so masculine that Kiera felt as if she was sinking into the rich baritone of it.
It sent shivers down her spine.
Dangerous Sacrifice (The Harcourte Vampyre Society Book 6) Page 27