by Katie May
“Listen to what?” I shoved my large hand into my hair, the brown strands
no doubt sticking up in all directions. “That you were willing to let my mate
die?”
“I never would’ve let it come to that,” Atta insisted firmly, wrapping her
arms around her chest and dropping her gaze to her slipper-clad feet. “I
just…”
When she trailed off, apparently unable to continue, I quirked an eyebrow
and pressed, “You just?”
“I just needed to make sure Mali was all right,” she confessed at last, her
words running together in her desperation to make me understand, make me
see. But how could I? My sister, my closest friend, had let my mate suffer for
days. I wasn’t saying that I’d forgiven Z for keeping this a secret from the
others and me, but in her mind, there was no cure, no way to save herself.
She’d chosen to suffer in silence, only so we wouldn’t bear the brunt of her
burden.
But Atta?
This entire time, she knew exactly how to save Z, and she chose to
remain silent. She could fire off all of the excuses she wanted, but it didn’t
change the fact that betrayal carved open my chest, slicing at my sensitive
heart until it wept red, sticky blood.
“I don’t want to hear your excuse.” I focused on something over her
shoulder, as it pained me to stare directly into her eyes.
Wrath percolated in my stomach, demanding an outlet. I wanted to rage,
scream, attack. Break everything inside of this room until the carpeting was
covered in glass and wood.
But instead of doing any of that, I thought of my sweet, precious mate
and her bright eyes staring back at me. Gradually, my temper abated until my
bear was no longer clawing at my brain, demanding to be set free.
“I was doing what I needed to do for Mali,” Atta hissed through gritted
teeth, her hands clenching and unclenching repeatedly by her sides. “I had no
idea what would’ve happened if that bitch Aaliyah discovered she told me the
truth about Z. I couldn’t risk—”
“So you’ve been meeting with Mali?” I glared at my sister, who at least
had the decency to look sheepish. “The woman who betrayed her best
friend?”
“She didn’t know what was going to happen,” Atta protested
immediately. Weakly though, as if she didn’t quite believe it herself.
Mali’s second mate, Zack, was the man who’d poisoned Z in the first
place. Not only that, but he killed one of Z’s best friends, Diego.
All because of Mali.
All because the stupid girl believed his false words and lured Z and Diego
straight to him.
“She loved him,” Atta continued softly, and I scoffed.
“Zack was a monster. No one is capable of loving him.” I shook my head
to banish some of the mounting anger that always seemed to arise when I
thought of the cold-hearted assassin. “But enough about Zack and Mali and
Aaliyah. Tell me what you know.”
Atta tentatively smoothed a hand down her golden dress, the color that
represented all shifters, as her green eyes flashed with pain. Maybe it was my
tone of voice, since I never usually raised it with her, or maybe it was the
stiffness of my posture.
Either way, she knew that something between us had been altered
irrevocably.
Taking another deep breath, she whispered, “It’s a poison common in the
Mage Kingdom.”
“Obviously.” Fuck, did I really think she could help? That she would
suddenly procure the answer to all of our problems in a vial?
“It’s commonly used for their executions,” she continued, watching my
reaction carefully. At her words, I froze, my spine straightening.
“I’ve heard about that,” I murmured in fear, my mind spinning a mile a
minute and my heart racing. “It’s one of the most potent spells in the entire
world. Apparently, it’s created by generations of mage kings. As soon as one
ascends to the throne, he adds a tiny bit of his power and blood to the potion,
making it even more potent.”
Fuck! No wonder Bash couldn’t heal her and Dev couldn’t wish away the
poison. It was literally centuries of magic combined.
“Exactly,” Atta said with a decisive head bob. “But I was also told that
they keep a cure nearby. Apparently, one of the kings came into contact with
the poison a few hundred or so years ago, and since then, they always keep a
vial of the cure on standby.”
I’d heard that rumor too, but I hadn’t even begun to believe that the
poison in Z’s veins was that. How the fuck did Aaliyah get her hands on
something like that?
“Atta.” I moved so I was directly in front of my little sister and placed my
hands on her shoulders. I was so large and she was so small, she appeared
delicate and breakable beneath my much larger hands. She didn’t flinch as
she would’ve done with my father. She knew that I would never hurt her.
“Thank you.”
“I can’t even begin to explain how sorry I am for keeping this from you,”
Atta admitted softly, tears filling her mossy green eyes. “But I hope we can
move past this, brother.”
“I…” Hesitating, I bit down on my lower lip. I knew Z would want me to
forgive her, and I knew I would, but not yet. “I need time.”
Her face fell, but she didn’t try to stop me as I stepped around her
towards the door. I needed to go to my brothers and Z and tell them the news.
Bash should have more information about the poison and cure. If my
estimation was correct, the ride to the mage kingdom should take less than a
day. That would give us a few hours to find the cure before we had to travel
back to the capital, located in the center of all the kingdoms.
We could do it.
We had to.
Just before I left, though, I hesitated, looking over my shoulder to spear
my little sister with a soft look.
“Thank you, Attie,” I whispered, and her answering smile was glorious.
“Go save your mate, brother,” she said. And just before the door swung
shut, I could’ve sworn she added, “While I go save mine.”
FIVE
AXEL
For some reason, the little girl was afraid of me.
It was completely ridiculous. I wasn’t even carrying around my
favorite machetes, creatively named Mary and Larry. Mary was a
little shyer than her brother, more subdued. Her kills were always quicker
too, due to her sharp nature. Now Larry, on the other hand…
He liked to take his time. Make his victims bleed and hurt.
Larry likey when they hurty.
Was it weird to talk about your weapons as if they were your children
instead of inanimate objects? Probably. I blamed it on my lack of sleep the
last few nights.
Oh, and the fact that I murdered people almost daily, earning myself the
nickname of the Butcher. You couldn’t be what I was without losing tiny
pieces of yourself, and consequently your mind, in the process.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I told the little hybrid for the one millionth
time. Well, one million and one times.
“Go away, butt face!” s
he bellowed, and though her tiny voice quivered
with fear, her face, when it popped over the top of the sofa, was hard.
The girl, whose name I still didn’t know, was the younger sister of Miles,
the teenage boy Z met and befriended at the vampire carnival. When he died,
Z had made me promise to find his little sister and take care of her.
I didn’t know why Z trusted me, maybe she didn’t know about Larry and
Mary, but I was determined not to let her down.
At least not yet.
I knew that would happen eventually, though, when we returned to the
capital.
Unease slithered in my stomach, but I forced it away as I peered at the
little girl and attempted to make my voice calm and soothing.
The strange, strange little girl who, somehow, had both mage and human
DNA inside of her. A hybrid. The first of her kind.
Something fiercely protective entered me.
I knew without a shadow of doubt that this tiny human would be hunted
and killed if anyone discovered what she was. For so long, humans and
nightmares had been living side by side, with no sign of harmony in sight.
But this girl? She was proof that change was upon us. That nightmares and
humans could live as one. That breeding between our two species, which had
once been deemed impossible, could actually occur.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said again, holding my hands up and
forcing a smile on my lips. Since I didn’t usually smile, unless I was
embracing Mary while Larry jealously looked on, it probably came out all
weird. I was pretty sure only one side of my mouth quirked upwards and my
eyes started blinking rapidly.
Dammit.
“Where’s my brother?” the teeny tiny human continued, once again
popping her head up from behind the couch. The windmill she’d been living
in with Miles was surprisingly well maintained. Only a few cobwebs rested
on the highest wooden boards where they couldn’t reach, and there was no
dust in sight.
“What’s your name, kid?” I asked, venturing a step forward. When a fire
ball ripped by me, just barely missing my adorable face, my grin widened.
She was definitely a little badass spitfire.
“I’m not a kid!” Her chestnut hair, streaked with red and gold, flew
around her face as her brown eyes sparked green with her mage power.
“Look,” I rolled my eyes and took another step closer, “I’m not gonna
hurt you, Spitfire. I don’t even have my lovers here with me today.” I spread
my arms to show that Mary and Larry were, in fact, absent.
She didn’t need to know that I’d put a spell on them to make them the
size of toothpicks and then shoved them in my pants, right next to my balls.
They made them all tingly. My balls, I meant.
“How do I know that?” she demanded, and I had to give her credit—she
may have been young, but she wasn’t stupid.
She had every reason to fear me, and rightfully so. If she knew who I
was, the Butcher of the kingdom, she would cower and run.
But instead of confessing that to her, I simply let myself dematerialize
into nothing but a shadow, the threat clear enough.
If I wanted to, if I intended on harming her, I could easily disappear and
reappear seconds later behind her, a blade to her neck.
But I didn’t hurt children. That was a line I would never cross, not after
my own old man beat the shit out of me and my mom before meeting his…
err…untimely demise.
Mary didn’t like Daddy Dearest. And Larry liked to join in on the fun.
Hesitantly, her face betraying her nerves, the tiny girl scrambled to her
feet, keeping her back against the wall so I couldn’t sneak up behind her.
“Mary-Lynette,” she stated at last, and I swear it was fate or some shit.
“I know someone named Mary,” I said, smiling wistfully at the thought.
Shaking my head, I focused back on the tiny human. “But, kid, there’s a lot
we need to talk about.”
SIX
Z
The Mage Kingdom.
We were traveling to the Mage Kingdom.
I’d never been there before, not even on missions when I worked
for the Alphabet Resistance, but I’d heard rumors about the kingdom that
evoked the sin of sloth.
When Lupe told us about the potential cure, I’d thought my men would
be ecstatic. And they were, at least at first.
But then they all looked at Bash, whose face had drained of color, and the
whoops and cheers diminished until the room was silent.
“I haven’t been there in years,” Bash confessed, shakily running his
fingers through his blond hair.
“The Mage Kingdom can’t be as bad as the vampire one,” I said, trying to
joke, though my tummy tightened at the thought of all I’d endured at the
hands of those sadistic bloodsuckers.
The pervy vamp I’d killed.
Miles’s death.
What seemed like a lump of coal became lodged in my throat, and I
attempted to clear it away.
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Bash murmured, and when his eyes flickered in
my direction, I saw something pained and haunted in his expression,
something I had trouble articulating into words.
“I’m not going to run into your harem, am I?” I joked. It was common
knowledge that a lot of powerful male mages had harems of women to give
them pleasure. Those fuckers were too damn lazy to do anything themselves.
When Bash didn’t immediately respond, I narrowed my eyes into slits.
The thought of him with a harem of beautiful women made me a teeny tiny
bit stabby.
Okay, a lot stabby.
Bash rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Of course not.” He gave me a look
like my question was ridiculous.
“But did you ever have one?” I pressed, turning my head to cough into
my sleeve. All of my mates stared at me in concern, Lupe practically
growling, but I ignored them. There was something immensely more
important than my impending death. “Before me, I mean. Did you have a
harem, Bash-hole?”
A cocky as fuck smirk danced on his lush lips. “So what if I did? Would
that bother you, little mate?”
“Fuck off.” I folded my arms over my chest and gave him a completely
unimpressed look, like the thought of him with other women didn’t cleave me
in two.
I knew I was unsuccessful when his grin widened, seemingly pleased
with my show of possessiveness and jealousy.
“Do you truly want the answer to that?” Bash took a step closer, placing
his arms on either side of me where I was caged in on Lupe’s lap once again.
“Here we fucking go,” Devlin murmured.
“I can sense the sexual tension,” piped in Killian, but we ignored them.
“Fine.” I held my chin up and met his dark green gaze. “Let me hear all
about the women you fucked. Your perfect harem.” His white teeth flashed
when he smiled before immediately disappearing with my next words. “And
I’ll tell you all about the men I fucked. About the way they—”
Lupe growled harshly, and another one of my mate’s made a disgruntled
noise in the back of his throat. But I didn’t look at t
hem. My attention was
fixed on Bash.
His eyes darkened, and his jaw clenched.
“Z…” he warned.
“What?” I asked innocently.
He leaned closer until his breath brushed against the shell of my ear,
sending goosebumps skittering down my spine.
“Don’t test me, woman. I’ll spell the shit out of every one of those men.
They won’t have cocks left once I’m done with them.”
I shouldn’t have found his words as hot as I did. Even with the pain
reverberating through me, tightening all of my muscles, I still found myself
growing needy.
Damn. Why did that turn me on so much?
I filed that under “topics for therapy,” right alongside my stab first, ask
questions later tendencies.
“But I thought you were going to tell me about your harem,” I pressed,
cocking an eyebrow, and he glowered.
“You damn well know that I have no harem. That I never had a harem.”
He leaned away from my ear, only to immediately press his lips to mine. It
wasn’t quite a kiss, but it sure as shit felt like one. The heat he emitted sent
waves of lust through me. “You’re just fishing for compliments. What do you
want me to say? That you’re the only girl I dream about? The only girl I
want? The only girl I—” He cut himself off quickly, backing away from me
with a thunderous expression on his face.
“The only girl you what, Bash?” I queried, my voice uncharacteristically
serious.
But instead of answering, my mage mate rolled his eyes and leaned back
against the wall, folding his muscular arms over his chest.
“I need to plan out the trip to the Mage Kingdom,” he said, changing the
topic with an ease that left me staggering and lightheaded.
Or that could just be the poison.
Sometimes, my mental thoughts cracked me up.
“We need to leave within the hour,” Devlin added.
“It’s going to take most of the day to get there,” Dair threw in. “And once
we’re there, we’re only going to have a few hours to find the cure and
administer it to Z.” His blue eyes, as bright as the sea itself and just as
inviting, met mine. “I don’t fucking like this, guys.”
“None of us do,” Lupe growled out, his arms tightening around me until I
felt blissfully trapped.
“But we have no other choice,” I finished for all of them.