38. Shay

THIRTY-EIGHT

Shay

T he three of us walked quietly back to the hallway where our rooms were. I didn't know what I was feeling about any of what Jada had shared, so I could only imagine what Brielle was thinking. She'd lived her whole life thinking she was psi, and here we found out she was actually omega. If Kane couldn't somehow get the law changed, she would be hunted to the end of her days.

It was heavy and terrifying in and of itself. But now she had fertility powers she had no idea how to use, and no living omega to speak to about it.

We stopped in the hallway, but none of us let go.

"You two okay?" Leigh asked, worried gaze flicking between Brielle and me.

I shrugged one shoulder, unsure how to respond. I was confused, concerned, and about a million other things I couldn't quite put my finger on. It wasn't a good answer, so I kept it to myself.

"I'm better than expected," Bri said with a forced smile. "At least now we know . What the heck to do with this information… no idea. But we know, and that's something. "

"Knowledge is power," Leigh murmured, giving Bri's arm a supportive squeeze.

"Exactly. And believe it or not, I got a message back from Aunt Kari earlier. She said she'd love to meet and asked when we'd be back in Johnson City."

"That's good news," I said, finally summoning a smile. "She's got to know something about… all this, right? At least the curse part."

"I hope so." Bri blew out an unsteady breath. Gael and Kane finished their conversation off to the side, and Gael took a position at the mouth of the hallway, ready to stand guard for the rest of the night. I pretended I didn't see Leigh checking out his butt, even though she absolutely did.

"We should all get some sleep, my love." Kane spoke quietly as he walked up to Brielle's side.

Leigh yawned, then nodded. "I agree. I'm beat. See you babes on the flip side."

At first, I curled up in the giant king-sized bed as I waited for Dirge to come to our room. But then the nerves got to me, and I moved to sit on the edge. Being nervous was first-rate stupidity, but telling myself that didn't tamp down the wild beaver that had taken up residence in my stomach. There weren't any trees in there, so he was just gnawing on me instead.

So much had happened, and we'd had no time alone. Other than earlier, when we'd almost fallen into this very bed. But now there was the fact that I was at least some part fae, possibly immortal, and oh yeah, we had somehow created a fractured soul bond.

Nothing at all to derail a couple. Ugh.

Was he going to be weirded out that I might be immortal? That still worried me. He hadn't seemed bothered when he'd been taking all the air out of my lungs with that kiss . My panties got soaked just remembering how his lips felt on mine.

The nerves had me wanting to stand up and pace, but I didn't want him to know I was nervous. If confidence was sexy, then jaw-clenching, leg-shaking anxiety had to be a whole 'nother level of un -sexy.

There was a soft knock at the door, and then he was there, letting himself into the room and stopping my mental gymnastics with his dominating presence. He was drop-dead gorgeous, and my pulse picked up as we locked eyes. I had to resist the urge to squirm, the heat building in my belly as he crossed the room.

"Hi," I murmured.

"Hello, beautiful," he said. The cocky half grin I'd already come to love was there, but there was a sadness in his eyes that didn't mesh with the heat I was feeling.

"Everything okay?" I asked, even though I was suddenly scared the answer was no.

"Not exactly," he murmured, stopping in front of me. He raked his hand through his hair, and I gasped when I caught sight of his hand.

"For Goddess's sake, what happened? Did you and Reed get into a fight? Oh, shit. Did Finn's sleuth come back?" I stood and carefully grabbed his wrist, pulling his hand closer so I could see his bloodied, busted-up knuckles.

"No, nothing like that. Just… got a little angry and decided to box with a tree."

"Umm." I stared at him, confused. What the hell had happened in the last twenty minutes that had him beating the fuck out of a tree? "Should I ask what you were angry about?"

His sigh was weary, and his shoulders were tense under my fingertips after I dropped his hand.

"You can tell me anything," I whispered, searching his face as if the answers were written in the sculpted shape of his eyebrows or the hard line of his jaw. The jaw I wanted to kiss every inch of.

Clearly not the time, Shay, I scolded myself as he slipped his arms around my back and buried his nose in my hair.

He drew in a few deep breaths, dragging my scent into his lungs as if it was what kept him upright.

"I don't think we can take the bond any further, but I don't know how to do that without hurting you."

Shock and anger whipped through me like a tornado. Whoosh, there went a flying cow, because it was soft concern to unbridled fury in a second flat.

I jerked back like he'd slapped me. "What do you mean, we shouldn't take the bond further? Why would you say that?"

Chagrin was on his face, but a solemn resolve too. And it really pissed me off.

"It's for your own good, Shay. I?—"

"Oh, fuck no. Did you really just say that to me? What are you, my father?" I yanked my hand out of his grip and began to pace. "You had better explain yourself right now. Because what I'm hearing is some misguided patriarchal shit, which boils down to you rejecting our mate bond, and I am seriously going to lose it if after everything we've been through, you're going to reject our mate bond for my own good ."

"I am not rejecting our bond. I just don't know what else to do." The sorrow in his tone stopped me midstride, and I turned to face him. To study him, really. What had changed?

"You'd better start from the beginning," I hissed through clenched teeth. I was still hot under the collar—no, scratch that. My wolf was pissed off. She was strong, and she didn't take kindly to him backing out of the bond. He was ours, damn it.

As soon as I realized it was her riding me so hard, it got a little easier to separate her fury from my own emotions. Confusion, mostly, but there was fear too.

"I've been thinking about the vision. "

"The Fetya's vision?" Okay, that was not at all what I was expecting.

"Yes, that one. They showed me you dying, but you're still alive. Your fae background meant that you couldn't die, not really. And as beyond fucking grateful as I am, I'm scared that they might feel cheated that they didn't get their price."

I ran my hand over the back of my neck, confused but trying to process what he was saying. "I thought me dying was the price."

"So did I, but you came back. What if they demand something else in exchange for your life?"

"Like what?" I asked, disbelief and the first trickle of fear starting to win over the fury as my wolf settled. Dirge wasn't abandoning us; he was concerned for us. We could work through this, right? "Do you think they'll take your life if I'm immortal?"

He shook his head. "They had the chance to take me, and they didn't. But Brielle has fertility powers now. What if… what if you get pregnant, and they take our child?"

Shock didn't feel how I thought it would. I'd experienced it a time or two, like when that assassin had stabbed me. That had felt cold, as if I'd been dunked in a bucket of ice water.

This shock felt numb, as if all the blood had drained out of me between one heartbeat and the next. My fingertips started to tingle, and I forced myself to breathe again. But then my brain caught up, and objections to what he said were popping up left and right like those annoying New Year's poppers.

"You can't know that. It's not set in stone that they would take another life. Your vision only saw me dying, and I did. We have no reason to believe they'd take my immortality out on our unborn children."

"No, it's not. But it's a possibility. And I promise you, I couldn't live with myself. I couldn't bear it if I caused you that pain." His shoulders slumped under the awful weight of it, and my heart broke at the sight of him. The fury was gone as quickly as it had sprung up, leaving nothing but determination in its wake. He didn't get to make this choice for me.

I could make my own choices, and I was choosing him.

"No, no . Stop it." I closed the distance with a speed I didn't know I possessed, wrapping him in my arms. "This is not your fault. Surely you know that?"

"It is a hundred percent my fault. How could you love me if I cost us our children, our future?" His words were a hoarse whisper, but I felt them like a dagger to my soul. He meant every word, and the pain in that question almost drove me to my knees.

"I could love you because you're my other half, Dirge. My soul mate. The one the Goddess made for me. Because you're brave and strong and loving. Because in your arms, I feel safety that I've never felt anywhere else. That's how."

"But what if?—"

"No." I put maybe a little too much force behind the word. "No, we're not going to even consider that possibility."

"Muzic? mea, we have to." Even as he said it, he gripped me tighter, like he was scared I was going to run away any second.

"No, we don't. We can't live our lives in fear like that, okay? We just… no. If these Fetya are so all-powerful, all-knowing, wouldn't they have known I was half-fae? That the assassin would stab me and my other side would kick in?"

"I-I hadn't considered that." He frowned down at me, brows drawn tight and low.

"Well, do. Because I'm not willing to live apart from my mate for a maybe."

He studied me carefully, fingertips tracing the line of my jaw before trailing down to my throat. He gripped the back of my neck, pulling me closer.

One second, we were balanced on the knife's edge of deep emotional pain; the next, his lips were on mine, devouring, wiping away everything but him in this moment. I opened up for him, and he backed me toward the bed as our tongues tangled. His hands were everywhere, one branded on my hip, the other anchoring me at the back of my neck, then roving to the hem of my sleep shirt.

His scent was heavy in my nose, spurring on my lust as I could smell the arousal spike his cedarwood with a layer of musk. My wolf growled her approval at what she sensed, loving that we'd brought our mate back around.

He pressed me back into the soft duvet with a look in his eyes I'd never seen before, passion and primal need, all rolled into one.

"Take this off," he demanded, tugging at my shirt as he sank to his knees, already peeling off the thin pajama shorts I'd slipped on while I waited for him.

I didn't hesitate, flinging the shirt across the room in my haste to strip. He was already shirtless, so I held onto his shoulders for dear life as his lips fastened onto my inner thigh.

A hiss escaped between my teeth as he roved higher, not hesitating to swirl his tongue around my core, driving me wild within seconds. I bucked up against him, wanting more, wanting all of him, but he pinned my hips with one hand, the other on my inner thigh keeping me spread for him.

He licked and sucked, straight past teasing into everywhere, all at once and not stopping until I screamed out my release, arching off the bed. It hit me out of the blue. One second, I was climbing toward that peak, the next, I was falling, stars bursting in my vision as he worked my clit with the flat of his tongue.

He rumbled low in his chest, a satisfied sound, and as I came back to myself from the orgasm, I thought it was enough to shake the whole bed. But when he froze between my spread thighs, I realized something else was shaking us—not just the bed, but the whole room was rattling .

"What the hell?" he murmured, extending a hand to pull me up.

My bones were still liquid, but I accepted the hand up as a pounding knock came on the door. I melted against his chest, my breath still coming in too-rapid pants, my knees useless jelly.

"We're under attack! We need to get to the airstrip right now!" Gael yelled over the din of rattling fixtures as an explosion sounded nearby.

"Holy shit, holy shit," I said under my breath as I frantically patted around for clothes. I snatched on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that were lying on the bed as Dirge pulled on a pair of black boots and a black T-shirt. There wasn't time for more, though my soaking, needy pussy did not enjoy denim so soon after Dirge had just rocked my world.

The thought faded as we ran out into the hallway, the rest of our pack pouring out in stages of half sleep, half confusion.

"What's going on?" Dirge asked at Gael's grim demeanor.

"ODL. They must have sensed Brielle's omega during the ceremony, because they sent a lot more than just three representatives this time." The cave floor rattled under our feet, and dread filled me like lead. Shit . This was not good.

"Oh my Goddess, this is terrible. They're attacking the Kodiaks because of me?" Brielle brought a hand to her mouth to cover a half sob.

Kane wrapped his arm around her. "We've got to get out of here. The Kodiaks are strong, yes, but the ODL can't find us here, or they'll suspect us after the issue at the gathering. We need to buy some more time to figure this out."

A bear shifter lumbered into the hall, letting out a vicious roar before shifting with painful speed back into a naked, thickly muscled man.

He was graying at the temples, and his eyes were full of death. One of Jada's mates. "We're keeping them at bay, but you need to go. To the airstrip, and straight to the skies."

"Thank you. We're in your debt," Kane said solemnly, and the shifter nodded once before sprouting fur along his arms and running down the hallway half-shifted. Another deafening roar echoed through the hallways a moment later, evidence he'd completed his shift and was heading back into the fray.

We bolted down the hallway as chunks of crystal began to fall from the ceiling, and the only thing that kept me together was the strength of Dirge's hand, tightly gripped in mine.