by Marcy Jacks
Miles was terrified to ask. He was pretty sure he knew what happened, why Renford no longer had a mate, but at the same time, he didn't want to know the answer to this question.
“What happened to Renford's mate? He died, right?”
“Yeah.” It looked like Marek was rubbing his jaw again. “He was killed by warlocks, and Renny swore bloody revenge on every warlock from that day on.”
Chapter Eight
Swore bloody revenge, and then there’s an attack happens on the coven, the kids are all terrified, Miles gets kidnapped, brought here to a cabin on a few minutes away from the coven and…
Now he really was going to be sick.
Miles sank down to his knees, clutching at his belly, sticking his face between his knees and trying to catch his breath.
“I'm real sorry,” Marek said. “This is probably the last thing you want to hear.”
“No fucking kidding.”
Miles couldn't catch his breath. No matter how much he tried.
His mate was a killer. A cold-blooded killer who had tried to kill Arty, who had initiated the attack on his coven, kidnapped him and brought him out here where they could…
Miles didn't want to think about that, about how he'd been alone with this guy, naked and vulnerable in front of him.
He wanted to get out of here. He wanted to get back home and make sure everyone was all right. That the kids were all right.
“Can…can you take me back home? I don't think I should be here.”
The strange way Renford had acted all made sense. He was ashamed of himself for mating with Miles, not because it was in his culture to hate warlocks, though there was that, too, but he clearly was angry with himself for mating with the enemy.
Bloody revenge. That's what Marek had said.
Had those been Renford's exact words? Did it matter? The guy tried to kill Arty. Arty was lucky to be alive if a dragon had come after him.
“Yeah, I'll fly you home. Everyone is worried about you, and if I go back without you, they'll be even more pissed.”
“What happened? Is everyone okay?”
He had to know that much.
“Your wise man, or elder, whatever, Alistair, he's dead.”
Marek couldn't have gut punched him any better than if he'd actually put his fit into Miles’s stomach.
“What? Are you…no, that can't be. He's the most powerful warlock in our coven.”
“I'm really sorry,” Marek said, and Miles knew it was real.
He had to focus a little more on his breathing.
“Before he died, he stuck Jason into some kind of shackle. It hinders his magick, blocks it. Jason's pissed because now we have to figure out how to get that shackle off him, and the rest of the elders and warriors are pissed because that's one less person to help until they can pool together the magick to get it off.”
Even though the thought of being without his magick was enough to make him shiver in terror, Miles couldn't bring himself to care that much.
Who cared about someone else having trouble with their magick when he was here, finding out that his mate, the man he was going to be connected to for the rest of his life, was a killer, and he might have had something to do with Alistair’s death.
Who was he kidding? With all this information out, he definitely had something to do with it.
“Do you still want me to take you back? You can have a minute to think about it if you need. There's still the chance this isn't as bad as we're thinking it is.”
He wanted to stay. God help him, but he wanted to stay here, to hear Renford's explanation for all of this.
What if he asked and Renford flew right off the handle? What if Renford hurt him, or worse?
He didn't want to believe that was possible. Miles did not want to believe that his mate would be capable of such terrible acts, but what the hell was he supposed to do?
He would be an idiot to stay.
“I need to get back to my sister. I need to go home.”
Marek nodded, and he shifted back into his dragon shape, allowing Miles to climb on.
Miles left without so much as leaving Renford a note.
It didn't matter. He was pretty sure his mate would know where Miles had gone when he came back and found the home empty.
Miles just hoped this wouldn't hurt the other man too much.
* * * *
When he got back, not as many things were in chaos as he thought they would be. The kids were all happy to see him, even the older ones who liked to bitch that he was a stickler for the rules, and didn't let them have any fun.
His sister hugged him and kissed his forehead and cheeks as though she thought she would never see him again. Her eyes shone as she fought back tears, and then Miles was guilt-ridden for having enjoyed himself for a little bit while she worried here, taking care of business.
He had been in bed with his mate, having sex for the first time in his life, and loving every second of it while she had been here thinking he might be getting tortured and killed.
She handed Miles his glasses with tears in her eyes and a smile on her mouth. Happy tears that he was home and safe.
He felt like such a dickhead.
Miles had been worried about what Marek had said about Alistair. He'd hoped against hope that maybe it wasn't true. That maybe Alistair had pulled through and was alive.
No. He really was dead. And even though they were a number of other elders within their coven, Alistair had always been the central focus of everything. He was the oldest. Everyone considered him to be the wisest. Not to mention the fact that he was powerful as fuck. And that was the power he had even as an old man.
If Alistair was as powerful as he was now, then there was no telling how powerful he was back in his heyday.
It was one of the things that made everyone respect him so much. That he had managed to retain his magical abilities even with age, and they were of the sort that was enough to give any young warlock a run for his money.
Jason had walked up to him and slapped him on the back before pulling him into a hug. He asked if Miles was all right while slyly sneaking glances at Marek from the corner of his eye.
He wasn't the only one to do this. The entire coven seemed to look at Miles with some hint of suspicion or pity in their eyes.
They were probably wondering what had happened to him. And likely hoping that he might have some information on the dragons who had come and attacked them.
One look down at Jason’s wrist was all it took for Miles to realize that bit of information had been correct, as well. He was wearing a shackle. Miles could feel the magical energy radiating off the thing.
Definitely Alistair’s work. With him gone, it would mean a whole lot more warlocks would have to get together to help take the thing off.
A few people had come out and asked him what he had been doing with Renford, but he had been too embarrassed to answer. Others didn't ask at all, even though he could see the question in their eyes.
Why would Miles be taken? Why kidnap him and then leave him open to be brought back? He wasn't anybody important. He wasn't one of the elders. He wasn't a warrior. And as far as anybody knew, and they would be right, he wasn't privy to any secrets their coven might have that a dragon would want.
So why take him?
Miles ducked and deviated those questions as if they were bullets. No way. Never was he going to admit to what happened.
If what Marek and Jason had said about the start of their own meeting was true, then he didn't want the warriors and the elders to think that something criminal had happened to him.
Something other than the kidnapping of course.
It was so weird. Even though Renford could very well have had a hand in killing Alistair, Miles couldn't bring himself to let everyone know they were mated and fucked.
Because he knew they would immediately believe Miles had been forced in some way, and he didn't want his coven thinking that about him.
He migh
t be a filthy murderer and a betrayer, but he was no rapist.
He was going to have to answer these questions eventually. Miles was not a fool, and he knew the elders would eventually want this information. They would be out for blood after what happened to Alistair.
For now, Miles just wanted to be by himself. He went into his own bathroom and had a shower, a long one, trying not to think about what Renford might look like when he came back home and found Miles gone.
Would he be worried?
Would he feel betrayed that Miles had left?
And better yet, did any of that even matter when the guy probably killed Alistair. Even if he didn't directly do it, if he had ordered the attack, then it was as good as the same thing.
And that was his mate.
Renford was his mate, and he hated warlocks because they murdered his first mate.
Miles would hate them, too.
He would want revenge. And he would want to kill people.
He wasn't sure if he would have the spine to actually do that, but he would still want to do it.
And Renford had done it. He'd tried to do it with Arty, and he'd done it with other people.
He'd had a mate before Miles, and that person was dead.
Holy shit. He was never going to get over that.
He couldn't spend long moping. There was clean up to be done and plans to be made. The kids needed some sort of schedule to keep their lives feeling normal while the houses that had been destroyed were being rebuilt.
For that reason, Miles only gave himself about an hour before he went back outside and started helping.
It felt good to use his magick. To help move rubble and debris. When he'd been with Renford, Renford had made it out as though he never wanted Miles casting spells at all.
And Miles couldn't believe he'd allowed himself to agree to something like that.
He was such a pushover.
But helping to remove the rubble, making sure the water wells were still working, and making himself useful felt nice.
Angelica watched him carefully, clearly worried he might break at any second.
He didn't care. He tuned out all the stares and pretended he couldn't hear the whispers.
He just wanted to work.
He was also a little jealous of Jason.
Glancing to the side during a water break, Miles watched as his love, a dragon, used a pair of metal cutters in an attempt to get the shackle off, with zero success.
But at least Jason had someone. He and his dragon lover were allowed to stay. Even though there were people looking at Marek with a great deal of suspicion, no one was trying to lock him up or tell him he couldn't help.
Miles imagined it was the massive physical strength the guy had as he lifted a fallen roof off one of the single parents and his kid that made people come around to having him here.
Some people were still suspicious, but eventually, the remaining elders came out and, with clear reluctance, announced that Marek would be staying as an ambassador of Keagan’s clan.
The vote they’d had on whether or not to put Miles in a shackle similar to the one Jason wore scared the hell out of him, though.
Luckily, with Alistair dead, and the amount of magick it took to suppress someone’s magick, they decided to abstain from the decision.
At least for now.
His magick might be taken away. They were thinking about taking his magick away from him because they didn’t trust that he wasn’t working with the dragons who’d attacked them.
Jason was in a shackle, why wouldn’t they do that to Miles?
It was crazy, and Miles suddenly wished he hadn’t come home.
Staying with Renford was likely a mistake, but coming back here?
What if they put that thing on him and decided never to take it off? They hadn’t even decided to take Jason’s shackle off, coming up with some bullshit excuse that they couldn’t spare the energy for it when there were so many more important tasks to take care of.
Angelica grabbed Miles’s shoulder and squeezed. “Don’t you worry. I’ll talk with them. I know you didn’t have anything to do with this.”
He could barely smile at her for the help. He was too busy wondering how fast he could run if they tried doing it, whether Angelica wanted it or not.
The sun fell and night came. Lying in bed, Miles wondered if Renford would come for him, if he would sneak in through his window and kiss him awake in the night, maybe steal him away.
Miles played with the idea of leaving his window open.
It was cooler outside that night, so he couldn’t justify it, but then there was the thought of whether or not he should keep the window locked or unlocked.
A simple window lock wouldn’t keep Renford away, and Miles didn’t want his window to get broken if the dragon shifter decided to come in, so he kept the window unlocked.
It took him forever to get to sleep.
Not because he was waiting for Renford to come to him. No. He was keeping guard, making sure no one came in through that window. That was all.
Waking up the next morning with the sun in his eyes wasn’t a pleasant experience. Especially not after dreaming of Renford all night.
His face, his hands, his touch, and the betrayal in his eyes every time he so much as looked at Miles.
Miles turned and reached back to the other side of the bed, disappointed, and even a little annoyed, to find nothing there.
The space wasn’t warm, the sheets undisturbed.
Renford hadn’t come for him.
The kissing had felt so real. His mouth still buzzed from it. The clenching in his chest was beyond anything Miles ever wanted to experience ever again.
It wasn’t real. Renford wasn’t here. It had only been a dream, and he hadn’t come for him.
Why would he? Miles hadn’t been waiting for him, but this just further proved that Renford hadn’t wanted him at all. He’d been compelled by the mating pull and nothing else.
Miles got up to start the day, but even before he could get his pot of coffee going, the commotion outside his window pulled his attention away from what he’d sleepily been doing.
There were dragons outside. Not just Marek. Multiple dragons, some in their human shapes and others in their dragon forms, large and imposing.
And they were in some sort of heated argument with the elders of the clan.
Arty was there. His dad, James, hugged him tightly, as though he were being reunited with his son after years apart.
Oh yeah, yesterday Miles had heard Arty had vanished. He must have gone back to the dragon he’d spelled to love him.
Or however that worked. Arty put up with his father’s attention with a decent amount of patience, but it seemed even he had only so much affection to give back as he tried to get James to focus on the matter at hand.
Miles felt like a prick for spying, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t hear much, but body language and facial expressions gave away what he couldn’t make out with his ears even after cracking the windows open.
Marek was there, explaining the situation to what looked to be the alpha dragon, Keagan.
He introduced Jason, pride in his face and voice, but then had to explain the attack, and what happened to Miles.
Renford’s name was spoken, because of course it was. It had everything to do with Miles.
It seemed the consensus was everyone believed Renford was in command of the attack that had taken place.
And they were getting ready for a hunt.
Miles ran out the front door to hear more.
Chapter Nine
It might have been a mistake to head out the front door at the first sound of Renford’s name.
He made for an obvious sight, hair rumpled, bare feet, and no robes. He only had on the rumpled sweatpants and T-shirt he’d been wearing to sleep, and he likely made for a less than impressive sight.
But he’d heard Renford’s name again, and it made his heart swell.
&nb
sp; He had to know more.
“What happened to Renford? I thought I heard you all talking about a hunt?”
No one answered him. James looked to the elders, to Edward in particular. It seemed Edward was going to be in charge now that Alistair was dead.
Alistair had been the oldest at just over a hundred years of age, but Edward was the next oldest at eighty-nine.
He was positively spry in comparison to Alistair, his eyes just as sharp, but he was stricter.
And Alistair had been one strict prick.
This was going to be a disaster.
"Keagan has kindly come with some of his more experienced warriors and, very kindly, offered his services in helping us find the dragon named Renford."
That wasn't exactly specific.
"Okay, but find him and do what?"
Miles looked at Arty, and then quickly had to glance away again, reminding himself that Arty had nearly been killed by Renford, and he might not like hearing someone else defending him like this.
But Miles couldn't stop himself.
"I just…want to make sure no one hurts him. I thought I heard someone mention a hunt. That doesn't sound so great, is all."
He was so fucked.
The man whom Miles assumed was Keagan heaved a heavy sigh, his massive chest expanding and retracting.
"Renford is a good friend of mine. I will do my best to bring him in as unharmed as possible for questioning, but if he confesses to attacking your coven—"
"He didn't attack us. He tried to save me by getting me out of here, that's all."
All brows raised at him, and Miles wanted to stick his head in the dirt and hide for the rest of his life.
"Is that the story you would like to commit to?" Edward asked. "This dragon told you this?"
Miles opened his mouth and then had to shut it again because, well, no. Renford hadn't said it exactly like that.
"Not really. He said he wanted to make sure I was safe. Things were already dying down when he took me."
"Were you in any real danger at the time? Your sister seemed to have a different memory of him. Hardly a champion or a savior."