by Marcy Jacks
He noted them, but he didn’t nod his head or say hello.
Gold had warned him about that once.
“Just don’t push your luck,” he’d warned. “They don’t like the idea of a warlock being here. They don’t want any trouble.”
“I wouldn’t hurt them.”
Gold had glared at him. “You really think anyone would believe you if you told them that?”
He had to admit Gold had been right.
So he walked on by, hoping no one followed.
No one did, but he did feel the heat of eyes on the back of his head.
Sebby couldn’t leave the territory entirely. With his stupid luck, Gold would notice from above and come to stop him.
No. He just headed to the pond up here. Gold had told him about it. Sebby had once asked to see it. Gold had instead made love to Sebby on the couch, and Sebby forgot all about the place.
Made love.
It had sure felt that way at the time.
He doesn’t love you.
Sebby winced as the thought rushed through his head.
He trudged ahead, and he couldn’t stop the thoughts from coming at him even more.
He doesn’t love you. He never did. You’re making him do this.
“I’d let him out of the spell if I could.”
The problem was that he wasn’t sure how. Love spells weren’t his specialty. He didn’t have a specialty.
He’d wanted a temporary servant, and while Gold had accused him of wanting a slave, Sebby supposed having a lifemate was the equivalent of a slave for life.
He sighed, finding the pond.
He stopped, looked over the lush greenery, the reflection of the sun on the water.
When he’d heard of a pond, he hadn’t expected something so big. There was a dock with a small boat tied to it and a shack on the dock itself.
That must have been where the life jackets and whatnot were kept.
He’d always thought of a pond as being something small and slimy. This looked as though people could go fishing here and make some pretty good catches.
Sebby had been confused when Gold had explained how nice of a place it was.
Gold had looked almost normal when he’d explained it. As though, for the first time since the spell had happened, he wasn’t thinking about how angry he was about it or how much he hated Sebby for doing it to him.
“I’ll take you up there one day. There’s a kissing tree,” he’d said with a laugh.
Sebby had blinked. They’d been sitting on the couch. Gold had a couple of beers in him, and his cheeks were flushed as he’d loosened up.
“Yeah. The mates all go up there. They carve their names into the poor thing. As though this was still the 1950s or something.”
Gold got a far-off look in his eyes. “I’ll take you there one day.”
Sebby had smiled at the idea, and in the very next moment, the light, airy expression on Gold’s face had vanished. It was as though he was back to his old self. His eyes hardened, and he was quiet for a time before asking if Sebby wanted to go upstairs with him.
Sebby knew what that meant, and he’d been wanting the sex for hours because of their mating. He gratefully went.
Sebby found the tree easily. It was the largest of all and leaned precariously over the water.
Sebby went to it, and he smiled as he saw all the initials carved there, some with hearts surrounding them. A few others had the years they were carved in next to the initials, as well.
The freshest one appeared to belong to Rey and Aiden.
He touched the bark. What would it look like with his and Gold’s initials there?
Sebby briefly thought of finding something sharp he could use for it then decided against it.
Once Gold was free of him, the man wouldn’t appreciate having his name carved with Sebby’s on the tree the dragons here used for their mates.
Gold might one day want to put in his own initials here with whomever he took for a real mate.
Sebby lowered his hand. He couldn’t look at the tree anymore. His chest constricted as he walked away from it.
There was a bench in front of the water. He went to it, sat down, and wished so hard that everything had been different.
He wished he were a better warlock. He wished he were Gold’s real mate, and that he hadn’t done this to them.
And he wished he could tell the other man that, despite how angry Gold was with him, he was grateful Gold had treated him decently.
Back home, he would have been killed for this. He was already on the list to be killed. Horribly. Painfully.
Gold had been angry, he’d been furious, and he’d been a little testy at times, but all things considered, he’d been kind.
He never hit Sebby. He never denied him food. In fact, not spending the night with Sebby, while it had hurt him, could almost be a form of respect.
After all, Gold was under the impression Sebby didn’t want these feelings either. He might have been trying to give Sebby his space.
Maybe.
He shouldn’t be thinking about all of Gold’s good points. He was going to make himself cry, and the burn in his eyes was already unbearable.
He scrubbed at his eyes, banishing the heat.
The blur was just because of the way the light reflected on the water. That was it. There was nothing else to it. He could handle this. He could handle it when he felt the mating break off.
Sebby leaned forever, putting his elbows on his knees. “I just wish…things had been different.”
“Yeah, so do I.”
Sebby tensed, his heart jumping fearfully as Gold came to sit down next to him without warning.
Chapter Twelve
Sebby was screwed. He was so damned screwed he didn’t even know what to do with himself.
He was sitting. Right. There.
Gold finally looked over at him. The man smiled, as though he hadn’t just scared the shit out of him.
“I thought you were getting ready to leave.”
Gold reached his hands up and back in a long stretch. He settled his palms behind his head. “Don’t sound happy to see me or anything.”
That embarrassment hit Sebby again hard. “I didn’t mean it like that. I was just…” He glanced away. He didn’t know how to describe this. This was entirely fucked up. He’d just been caught talking to himself, in a place where he shouldn’t be, right before he’d planned on leaving this territory for good.
Gold sighed. “I know you didn’t.”
The man seemed to have trouble looking at him.
Sebby commanded his heart to slow down. It was trying to race right out of his chest, and Sebby had, by now, become very aware of the fact that Gold could hear that beating.
He would know how nervous Sebby was.
He needed to relax himself. It wasn’t as if the other man would be able to tell that he had been planning on fleeing. He was completely fine. He didn’t have a thing to—
“Why do I get the feeling you were planning on making a run for it?”
Sebby tensed.
His brain scrambled for a quick lie.
“I just wanted to come up and see the tree you were talking about.”
Smooth. Very smooth. Tell the man who didn’t want him around that he’d come up here to see the famous love tree everyone adored so much.
Gold nodded. “The tree everyone carves their names onto. You came to see that?”
Gold finally looked at him.
Sebby couldn’t hold his gaze. He looked down at his hands as he clutched at his knees.
His knuckles had turned white.
“Yeah.”
Gold still stared at him. Why? What was he trying to do? Was he trying to intimidate him?
It was totally working.
“I came up to see you. To ask you about something.”
Sebby nodded. “All right. Shoot.”
Gold breathed in deep. “What would you think if I said I was thinking about leaving t
he spell alone?”
Sebby’s frantically beating heart stopped for a full second. It hurt. His chest felt weird after, but it happened and then started up beating again faster than ever before.
“You don’t want to break off the mating?”
Gold shrugged. “Well, maybe not.”
Sebby looked up at the man. Gold’s cheeks were darker than usual. He almost looked…embarrassed? Maybe worried.
“I was just thinking about it. You might have cast the spell on me, on yourself, too, really. It might not even matter anymore at this point because we’ve fucked enough times that we might have cemented it.”
“I thought we were just doing that to ease the ache of the mating?”
And it always felt so good to do that.
Gold shrugged again. “We were, but being intimate could help strengthen it, as well. Didn’t you know that?”
He had known it, but he’d also been under the impression that was something they could help to control.
“Are you saying you don’t want to break off the mating with me?”
His heart soared.
Gold crossed his arms. “I’m saying that having you around all the time wasn’t such an annoying thing. I liked it when you made me breakfast today. You’re quiet and polite, so it’s not like you get underfoot. The sex is pretty good, too.”
“Oh.”
Gold looked at him. Sebby couldn’t meet his eyes. He looked away from the man. Not because he was desperate to avoid having Gold see how humiliated he was, but he was just…sad.
“What? You don’t like it?”
Sebby shook his head. How was he supposed to tell Gold that he’d hoped the man would want the mating because he liked having Sebby around? Not just for the sex. That seemed kind of shallow at this point.
“I mean, if you want me around only because you want me to make your breakfast, I can do that, but…you don’t…I don’t know…like me?”
He was so desperate to hear it. If this had been happening to anyone else other than himself, he might have yelled, He’s a jerk! You’re an idiot! Get out while you still can! Neither of you want this!
Except Sebby did want it. So badly it hurt to think about ending it.
“You’re good in bed. Why’s that such a hard thing to hear? It’s a compliment, really.”
Sebby nodded. “I suppose that’s true.”
“But you’re not happy.”
Sebby shook his head. “I know you only care for me, that you only remotely like me because of the mating, but I guess I was thinking…I was hoping that you might start to care for me more than just a burden that was forced on you.”
Gold seemed to laugh nervously. “What? Are you crazy?”
Sebby looked at him. Gold seemed to purposely avoid eye contact. He seemed annoyed again.
“Of course I care a little. That’s not what this is about. It’s about…”
Out of nowhere, Gold stopped himself. His shoulders seemed to deflate.
“Look, I know that I’m an asshole to you, but come on, you can’t blame me for that so much, can you?”
Sebby shook his head. “Not really. It was an accident though. The spell.” He had to make Gold believe him on that one. “I swear to God it was an accident.”
Gold pressed his lips together. He nodded. “I…believe you.”
The man actually smiled at him. “You suck too badly at magic for it to have been on purpose.”
Sebby blinked at that. He waited for his brain to translate those words into literally anything else other than the joke Gold had told.
When it didn’t happen, he chanced a smile. “Really? You believe me?”
Gold nodded. “Yeah, watching you try to do magic for my brother…don’t get me wrong, I’m still a little mad at you for that. You could have turned me into a duck or something up there, trying to do your garbage magic on me.”
Sebby laughed. “I was a little desperate to get away, remember?”
“I don’t understand that.” Gold looked at him. He no longer smiled, but he seemed more curious now. “If you’re so terrible at using magic, why not just let the other warlocks take your powers from you?”
Sebby frowned and tilted his head a little. “What do you mean?”
“When you were running from them. When they boot you out of their covens, or whatever they’re called, don’t they just strip you of your magic? If you’re so bad at using magic in the first place, then why take the risk of casting a spell on me to get you out of there?”
This time it really did take some doing for his brain to understand this, and when he did, Sebby almost couldn’t believe it.
His mate, this dragon, seemed to be under the impression that when warlocks were angry with each other, that when they wanted to punish each other, they just banished each other after stripping them of their powers.
He almost didn’t want to tell Gold the truth. The fear that the other man wouldn’t believe him was alive and well, but he had to tell him. He owed it to Gold to be honest.
“Gold, when warlocks are ready to punish their members or cut off the weakest branches, like I was, they don’t just banish us. They kill us.”
He almost didn’t get the last part out. It was too hurtful to say. To even think it was a struggle.
Gold frowned, as if not understanding. Then a look of horror came over his features. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Sebby scratched at the back of his head. “Because I’m such a weak warlock, my powers are considered useless. A waste. It would have been better if what little power I had was split up between the rest of the coven. That entails slitting my throat and letting my blood drain into buckets. The coven would have taken the blood, cooked it with herbs, chanted to a red moon, and then drank it to imbibe what little power I had and make them stronger.”
He couldn’t look Gold in the eye any more after saying that. It sounded kind of dramatic and over the top when he got it out. He could hardly believe it himself.
How could he expect Gold, a man who wanted nothing to do with Sebby initially, to believe him?
To even care?
No. That was wrong. Of course he would care. Sebby was his mate. He would be compelled to care.
“Oh, baby, I am so fucking sorry.”
Sebby shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. Please, don’t even feel sorry. That’s just the mating making you say that.”
“Bull-fucking-shit it is!” Gold grabbed him by the shoulders. He pulled Sebby around, forced Sebby to look right into his eyes.
And Sebby was stunned speechless with the rage he saw there. The despair and the sick horror.
“Are you telling me they were going to fucking kill you? Your own people? Jesus Christ, don’t you have any family in that place? Didn’t anyone care to want to stop it?”
This was something else Sebby didn’t want to admit to and something he’d kept hidden from Silver when the dragon leader had questioned him.
“The head warlock is my father. He gave the order.”
Gold’s face dropped.
Sebby didn’t expect for the other man to kiss him so suddenly, or so passionately, on the mouth.
Chapter Thirteen
Gold couldn’t not kiss his mate after hearing something like that. He had to. He had to touch him. Had to taste him.
Had to comfort him.
In the only way he knew how.
He knew he was a selfish bastard, and he knew he didn’t show off his emotions well, but this…it was too much.
Sebby was too stunned by the suddenness of the kiss it seemed. He didn’t kiss Gold back. His mouth remained tensed, his body frozen. His hands lifted to Gold’s hands, which had come up to hold onto Sebby’s cheeks.
It was as if the man didn’t know what to do. To pull Gold in or push him away.
Gold would have deserved it if the man wanted to push him away. He really would have.
Gold pulled back himself. He was too ashamed to look Sebby in the eyes.
<
br /> “I am so fucking sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that’s what warlocks did. I didn’t know they were going to do that to you.”
To Sebby, of all people.
It was like kicking a sick puppy. Sebby was harmless. Gold hadn’t wanted to believe it in the beginning. He’d wanted to think Sebby was all kinds of evil, that he was manipulative, but…no.
Sebby had been more than patient with Gold. He’d put up with Gold tying him up in the basement, with Gold’s temper, with his irritation and his stony personality.
He’d done all that while trying to cook Gold his breakfast, doing his laundry when Gold had told him not to, tidying up the house, and offering Silver all kinds of useful information to their cause.
He was the sort of man who would accidentally cut himself when startled.
When Sebby didn’t say a word, Gold brought the man’s bandaged fingers to his mouth and kissed them.
“I am…so fucking ashamed of myself right now. If I had known you were fleeing from that, I would have let it go. I would have let it all go.”
“You…believe me?”
Gold looked into his mate’s eyes. His heart clenched at the idea that Sebby didn’t understand why he was to be believed, but then, with the way Gold had treated him…
“I do. I believe you.”
“I could be lying,” Sebby said. “This could be a trick to get you to have mercy on me when you break off the mating.”
Gold shook his head. “No. Don’t you see? I don’t want to break off the mating. That’s not why I’m here.”
He had to touch Sebby’s face again. Had to slide his fingertips across those smooth cheeks.
“I talked with my brother. He gave me some insight on something.”
“He did?”
Gold nodded. “He told me I either have to forgive you and move on, be a good mate to you, or let you go and stop holding this spell against you. I didn’t think I could do it. Not at first, but the idea of not having you around…I don’t care if it’s the mating spell. I don’t care if it’s not a natural mating. The thought of being without you guts me. It does. Even though I know this shouldn’t be real, part of me believes that it is real. What if the spell to force our mating was just the beginning?”