by Lynn Hagen
His mate collapsed in the chair as Jet pulled away, still hunched down as he smiled up at Raven. “Good?”
Raven snarled and gripped Jet’s face, planting a kiss on his lips. “Fucking amazing.”
The compliment thrilled Jet. Any compliment Raven gave him made Jet’s heart sing. He wasn’t used to getting them.
Raven pulled Jet onto his naked lap and nuzzled his neck. That was nice, but fuck, Jet was horny, too.
His mate chuckled against his skin. “Are you feeling a bit left out?”
Jet elbowed him. “I have a hard dick, and you’re not touching it.”
Raven tapped his finger against Jet’s denim-covered cock.
“Keep teasing me and—” Jet gasped as an image flashed in his mind. It wasn’t focused, but he caught glimpses of a room and some guy standing over him, smiling down as he held a needle in his hand. The image danced around, as if someone had been holding a shaky camera.
He flew off Raven’s lap and bumped into the desk, falling on his ass while Raven stood and pulled his pants and underwear up.
“Jet, what is it?” Raven sounded panicked as he kneeled next to Jet and slid his hand under Jet’s head. His mate’s eyes were filled with worry. “Why have you gone so pale?”
“I—” Jet slammed his eyes closed again when another image appeared. It was Jet’s arm, he was sure of it, and there was an IV stuck into the crook by his elbow. Blood. The IV was draining Jet’s blood.
He rolled over and vomited, his limbs shaky as he heard a hollow, evil laugh. It rang in his ears, but he knew it wasn’t coming from Raven.
“Do I need to call a doctor?” Raven asked. “Talk to me, Rainbow.”
“Memories,” Jet choked out. “Flashes of memory.”
Raven ran his hand up and down Jet’s back. “Breathe, sweetheart. In and out. Slowly.”
Jet did as Raven instructed, but another image, a more powerful one, slammed into him so hard that Jet fell to the floor, barely missing the vomit. Raven pulled Jet into his arms, sat on his ass, and curled Jet to his chest.
He was in a cage, a small one with barely any room to move. Others were there, locked up, too. Jet couldn’t make out their faces. He wanted to make out their faces, just in case they were still locked up and needed his help. But he had no idea where he’d been kept prisoner.
He saw the others were hooked up to IVs that were above their cages. They were being drained. Just before he lost what was playing in his head, Jet saw Sindri walk into the room, smiling at the cages.
“Oh god!” Jet tried to wrestle himself out of Raven’s arms, but his mate kept a tight hold on him. What if Sindri and Alston hadn’t been trying to arrest Jet and Poppy? What if they had been trying to take them to that god-awful place? Jet felt as if he couldn’t breathe, as if the walls were closing in on him.
“You’re safe!” Raven tightened his arms around Jet. “You’re safe, Rainbow. It’s just a memory. What do you see?”
Jet pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead. “I think someone is capturing fae and draining them for their blood.”
Now more than ever Jet had to find Poppy. He had to protect his innocent cousin from the monsters out to get them. If Sindri had truly been involved in this, that would explain why Jet’s powers had failed him. The bastard had used dark magic to bind them.
He looked up at Raven. “We need the Ultionem.”
Jet knew what his statement meant. Panahasi would discover that he’d left the dark realm, but Jet couldn’t and wouldn’t leave those people to suffer.
No matter the price he would have to pay for their freedom.
Chapter Eight
Raven sat in a chair at the conference table in Prince Christian’s office. When he’d made the call, Raven hadn’t expected to meet with them this fast. And he was uneasy, as Panahasi stood next to them, staring down at Jet.
If the demon leader thought he would punish Jet for leaving the dark realm, the guy had another think coming.
“And that’s all I remember,” Jet said.
Raven felt how stiffly Jet sat on his lap. His mate was just as uneasy as he was.
“It sounds like you managed to escape somehow,” Maverick said. “Are you sure you don’t recall any landmarks that might help us?”
Jet shook his head. “The images come in snatches, and I’m not able to hold on to them for very long.” He looked at the men sitting around the table. “And I don’t want to. They’re terrifying.”
Raven tightened his hold on his mate and pulled Jet to his chest. He hated that Jet was shivering and wished he could wipe those memories away, if only to bring his mate some peace.
Panahasi sat next to them and turned his chair so he was facing Raven and Jet. “I can unlock those memories, Jet. But are you ready to know the truth? Are you ready for that?”
“No,” Jet admitted. “Is there any way to relock them once you have the information you need?”
Panahasi gave Jet a warm smile. “I can tell you from experience that if I do that, if I lock them away again, it will always bother you that you can’t remember. Nobody likes missing any kind of time from their life. But I can make it to where you don’t react to them, where you aren’t afraid of them.”
A frown puckered between Jet’s amber eyes. “You can do that?”
Panahasi nodded. “You’ll remember, but your emotions won’t cripple you.”
Jet looked at Raven. As badly as Raven wanted to keep Jet safe, he couldn’t keep him sheltered from his own thoughts. “It’s up to you, Rainbow,” he said. “Either way, we’ll accept it. If you don’t want to remember, we’ll walk out of here, no harm, no foul.”
Raven would make damn sure of that. He knew the leaders were just and fair, but he would fight them all if he had to.
“Raven’s right,” Nazaryth said. “We won’t force you to do this.”
Nazaryth was the leader of the winged beasts. That was all Raven knew about him. But he had a fierce, protective look in his eyes as he gazed at Jet.
“But those people might still be locked in those cages,” Jet whispered. “I can’t leave them like that, to be used as banana bags for whatever Sindri is doing with their blood, my blood. I might not practice dark magic, but that doesn’t mean my parents didn’t teach me how to use it. I know a lot of the spells require blood, and that’s never a good thing. Sindri has to be stopped.”
Panahasi lifted his hand. “May I?”
Jet once again looked at Raven. “Are you sure about this, Rainbow?”
His mate sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “No, I’m not sure about this, but I can’t let those people suffer.” He nodded at Panahasi. “Go ahead.”
A slight growl rumbled in Raven’s throat when Panahasi pressed his hand over Jet’s chest. They were newly mated, and seeing another man touch his mate made Raven want to kill every person in the room.
“Hold your temper, wolf,” Rakeym, the leader of the shadow elves, said.
Raven gritted his teeth as Panahasi closed his eyes and his lips began to move. No words were uttered, but the longer he held his hand against Jet, the more Jet whimpered.
His mate slammed his eyes closed as tears slid from them. “No!” Jet shouted until Panahasi placed his other hand on Jet’s forehead. His mate settled as his breathing evened out.
Raven was dying to see what Jet and Panahasi saw. He wanted to know what had been done to his mate. That would help him help his mate when Jet’s memories were unlocked.
Panahasi’s jaw clenched as he removed his hands. Jet’s eyes opened, and he buried himself in Raven’s chest.
“I remember,” Jet whispered. “I remember it all.”
Raven didn’t ask. He simply held his little fairy, giving him the comfort and security he needed.
Panahasi turned to the men at the table. “From what I saw, we have another drug lab and the faes’ blood is a key component.” His eyes narrowed. “We have to find the lab. From Jet’s memory, I saw at least a dozen cages
, and some of the people in those cages have been killed by being completely drained.”
Raven held his mate tighter. That could have been Jet’s fate. His little fairy could have died before Raven had even known he’d existed. The thought made his blood run cold.
“Why hasn’t this been discovered sooner?” Raven asked. “How could this atrocity have gone on under your noses?”
Raven wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, but he couldn’t shake the fear that he could have lost Jet to the blood-stealing animals.
Panahasi looked at him with kind, understanding eyes. “I have two mates to tend to who take up a lot of my time. I have a team of warriors who count on me. I am a member of the Ultionem, and that job in itself is a huge responsibility. As much as I would like to solve all the world’s problems, I cannot be everywhere at once, and neither can anyone else in this room. We are powerful, but overloaded, Raven.”
“Sindri will pay for interfering in your mating,” Zeus said. “And for what he’s doing to those other fairies.”
“Fae,” Jet said from where he was tucked against Raven. “We liked to be called fae, not fairies.”
Raven was starting to think that was Jet’s preference, but he didn’t dispute him.
“Fae,” Zeus said with a small smile. “I’ll remember that, Jet.”
“And I’ll deal with King Arion,” Panahasi added. “Jet and Poppy have my permission to live outside the realm. But you have to understand why there is a restriction.”
“Because not all Unseelie have good intentions like Jet and Poppy,” Raven answered. “I get it. But men like my mate and his cousin live in fear of your decree, not knowing that if they don’t have ill intentions, they can just come to you and plead their case.”
“Like I said,” Panahasi said, “I can’t be everywhere at once. But if I tell the Unseelie they can plead their case with me, how many men and women do you think will try to deceive me, try to trick me into thinking their intentions are good? For now, until I can think of another way, this is how it has to be.”
Raven was just relieved that Jet and Poppy no longer had to be in hiding. At least not from Panahasi.
“It seems I need to pay that realm another visit.” Panahasi sighed.
“I’ll go talk to Arion,” Rakeym said.
Raven had no doubt the shadow elf would scare the hell of the Unseelie. The guy was freakishly tall, had blue skin, long dark claws instead of fingernails, and mismatched eye color. He looked deadly as fuck.
But Rakeym wasn’t the only lethal man in the room. Raven had never been with the entire Ultionem group before, and he had to admit, they were extremely intimidating.
Panahasi smirked as he turned his head slightly and stared at the shadow elf. “I want to talk to them, not send you in and end up with a decimated race.”
Rakeym shrugged. “I’d just use a handful as examples, not the entire race.”
Jet went stiff in Raven’s arms, and Raven had to bite back the snarl he wanted to give Rakeym.
The demon leader turned back to Raven. “I’ll blanket your property with protective spells.” He smiled at Jet, and the warmth in Panahasi’s smile seemed to put Jet at ease. “No offense to you or your cousin. I’m sure you two did a good job, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to add a little more.”
Jet smiled. “No offense taken. I don’t think we even got them right.”
Raven knew Jet wasn’t completely fine. He still felt his mate trembling slightly. The memories had been unlocked. He would see how much damage that had caused when they got home.
“We’re on your side,” Prince Christian said from the head of the table. Raven wasn’t sure who was scarier, the vampire or Rakeym. “Thank you for coming to us with this problem. It will be dealt with as swiftly as possible.”
“Shifter-style.” Maverick Brac winked at Jet, which made Raven snarl.
“I’ll send you guys home.” Panahasi stood. “But until we find where that lab is and track down Sindri, watch your backs.”
“My cousin,” Jet said. “I don’t know where Poppy took off to, and he’s very naïve.”
Panahasi closed his eyes. He stood still for a moment before he opened them. “One, Poppy is far from naïve,” Panahasi said. “Although he has a pure soul. Second, he’s at Derek Mitchell’s home.”
“I know who that is,” Raven said. Derek Mitchell owned most of Maple Grove. Why would Poppy be there?
As if reading his mind, Panahasi said, “He’s Derek’s new assistant. I’ll have a word with Derek. Poppy will be safe. I’ll make sure of it.”
Raven was relieved. “Thanks for all your help.”
Panahasi threw his arm out, and a black vortex hole appeared. Raven stared wide-eyed at it. “Trying to shoot me and Jet into the cosmos?”
“It’s a direct route back to your house,” the demon leader said. “Step through it.”
Raven got up and held Jet’s hand. He wasn’t sure about this, but they had no way back to Maple Grove, which was two hundred miles away.
As they stepped through, Raven heard Maverick say, “Watch your step. The landing is a doozy.”
Raven and Jet slammed into the grass of their backyard. He would have to let that bastard Maverick know he was the king of understatements.
* * * *
That evening Jet stared down at his arm. No mark had been left where the IV had been inserted for two weeks. There wasn’t even a blemish, but Jet rubbed at the area anyway as though he could still feel the needle embedded in there.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Raven sat on the couch and pulled Jet onto his lap. “No rubbing your skin off. Talk to me.”
“It feels weird,” Jet said. “I can recall everything that happened to me, but it’s like I’m detached from it. The memories don’t evoke any sort of emotions inside me, not even the fact that Sindri used a cloaking spell outside Poppy’s house to capture me in the first place.” That had been the shadow Poppy had seen. Now Jet even recalled stealing a car from the next town over and driving to Maple Grove.
He still didn’t know how he’d managed that in his weakened state. But at least now he knew who to return the car to.
“I feel like I should be a crying mess. I should be curled up in a ball in some corner, screaming for the memories to go away. But…I feel nothing at all, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.”
“I think it’s a very good thing.” Raven pulled Jet’s head to his chest. “After what happened to you, you need time to process everything. Maybe once you come to terms with it, you can ask Panahasi to let those emotions out.”
“Maybe you’re right.” It wasn’t as if Jet wanted to be a crying, crazy mess. He didn’t. It just felt weird, like those memories belonged to someone else and he was able to see them in his mind.
“You know what I think?” Raven asked.
“No, what?”
“I think we need a night on the town. To cut loose and have some fun. We can go to Tilted, or the diner, or Bistro, or wherever you want to go.”
Jet wasn’t sure if that was a wise decision, but a night out did sound good. Now that Jet had permission to stay in the human realm, he wanted to get to know Maple Grove better. This would be his town, too, and he wanted to find out why Raven loved it so much.
Not only did Jet have the ability to change his hair color with magic he could also do the same with his clothes. After he and Raven showered, separately or they would have never gotten out of the house, Jet chanted a simple spell and his T-shirt changed into a pretty red dress shirt. He chanted another spell, and his jeans, which had been dirty, were now clean.
The same with his socks and underwear.
“Red suits you,” Raven said as he entered their bedroom, beads of water clinging to his skin. The only thing he had on was a towel, so Jet hurried from the room before he snatched the towel away and molested his mate.
They ended up at Tilted, where Raven seemed to know quite a few people. There was no way Jet would recall the nam
es of all the people Raven had introduced him to, but he knew the difference between the humans and nonhumans because of the way Raven had said either boyfriend or mate. He would have tried to scent whether they were human or preternatural, but so many odors permeated the tavern that Jet was having a hard time deciphering them.
The guy who had been watching their house had split once they’d reached town. Jet hadn’t even learned who the man was, but he was glad others had their backs.
He had to admit, though, it felt good being here, around other people, listening to the country music and the roar of laughter all around.
They found a table where other men were sitting. “Jet, this is Darren, his mate, Lenox, Russell, and his mate, Kenny. You already know Cyril, and that’s his mate, Jeremy.”
Jet noticed Jeremy was drinking soda while the rest of the men had a beer in front of them. Except Russell, who was drinking ice water.
“It’s nice to meet you all,” Jet said. He felt a bit uncomfortable. Only for the fact that he was Unseelie. Although Cyril had been fine with it, he wasn’t sure how the others might react if they found out.
A waitress headed over to them, and Jet and Raven ordered tacos. Apparently it was Taco Tuesday. The conversation flowed, the laughter never ending, and the food was great, considering it was bar food. But Jet had a good time, until he felt the hairs on his arm raise.
He looked around, discreetly, but didn’t see Sindri or Alston anywhere. They would have stuck out like a sore thumb if they’d been there. They were tall, lithe, both with long blond hair, and they always wore suits.
Everyone in the bar was dressed down, wearing jeans and some sort of shirt. No one in the place had a suit on.
From under the table, Raven rubbed his hand down Jet’s thigh. He smiled at Raven as his mate listened to Russell talk about the addition he was adding onto Cyril’s house.
“If he keeps giving me things to do around there, he’ll soon own a damn mansion,” Russell said. “That’s if his dogs don’t eat me first.”
“I have no idea why Davidson doesn’t like you.” Cyril smirked and took a drink of his beer.