Chapter 35

Something was wrong. Kat used her vamp speed to find her mates. One was a succubus hybrid, and she was trying to comfort a younger demon who felt terrorized. Kat was at the who did this to you stage so she could kill who hurt the young demon, but the siren was trying to tell us something.

The mate bond was stronger than a siren’s lure. I was at least trying to fight it and hear her out because I had a feeling it had to do with our mate. I hesitated, but I couldn’t even hear a fucking siren over the pounding in my ears because my mate was near and she was weak.

I heard Benji blow the door to her cell in. This whole place was filled with the sounds of supernaturals getting their revenge on their captors, but all I could hear now was the sound of my mate sobbing and I needed to make it better.

I stepped in her cell and something wasn’t right. I could see Benji and Cas’s outline, but something was off. Their auras were wrong and neither one of them would just be standing there while our mate cried.

They didn’t turn when I entered the cell and called their name either. I touched them. Stone. Interesting, but fixable. I peered around the statue to our sobbing mate. I had my suspicions, but I didn’t know she was a green witch first. I could see her hair moving. Snakes.

Our mate was Medusa. Di didn’t tell us her name, but he didn’t really lie about her either. She had been god touched by Athena, but she was cursed, not blessed like we originally thought. We would have refused to take the job if he told us we were rescuing Medusa because she was so lethal, but if he’d clued us in she was also our mate, we would have thought he was lying to get us to take the job.

I kneeled next to her. As a Smith, I could transfigure anything. I could change Benji and Cas back. I was pretty sure my blindness meant I was immune to her, but if I was wrong, those necklaces the bearded guy gave us were starting to make sense right along with his identity.

I kept mine on under the collar I borrowed from Father Nathan, but Benji and Cas couldn’t wear jewelry. Theirs would have gotten confiscated, and I’d been wearing theirs, too. I was pretty sure I just needed to put the necklaces on them and change them back and we could be with our mate.

“Hey, little one. Don’t cry,” I said, trying to touch her cheek.

“Don’t look at me! Didn’t you see what I did? My snakes bite.”

“Medusa, I’m blind. The Coalition took my sight the first time. I don’t think your curse works on me. Even if it did, three strange men hired us to break a green witch out of here and refused to tell us her name. Pretty sure that’s you.”

I explained the necklaces, and that I didn’t think her snakes would bite me. My familiar was a python, and I had an affinity with snakes.

“Why didn’t you tell me Di sent you? Aren’t you mad about Pax and Benji? I am.”

“We had to be sure you and Di’s green witch were one and the same so we didn’t put you in danger. I’m not mad because I can fix this. Benji got to show off. My turn. Watch this. And I can’t see it, but I’ll feel it if you check out my ass when I turn around.”

“I didn’t get to see the shadow wolf, but it scared everyone. Can you really fix what I did?”

“Of course. And Benji would be happy to show it off to you. The damned shadow wolf likes belly rubs and has worse happy tail than the stray Pitbull Benji brought home.”

I was trying to make her smile because she was clearly upset. Inside, I was crossing my fingers this would work. It should. Stone was like any other substance and witches were who you went to when you wanted to undo a curse. This was a god curse.

Di did lie about a few things. We weren’t heroes in one of Athena’s quests unless she’d changed her mind about Medusa. I highly doubted it if we were breaking her out.

I took the necklaces off and slipped them around Benji and Cas’s necks. I placed my hands over their hearts and concentrated. Please let this work. I felt them turn from stone to a beating heart. They both stumbled into me.

I could tell Medusa was worried about how we would react to her, but we didn’t care. Cas pushed me out of the way and scooped her up.

“Mine,” he growled.

And then Cas kissed the shit out of her, threw her over his shoulder, and went marching out of the cell.

“Let’s get out of here.”

I should have done that. Show off.