Chapter 18: Fake Mate for Real

Chapter 18

Fake Mate for Real

After that bombshell left me too stunned to speak, the previously-silent Matthew stood up and took charge, handing out tasks to everyone present in a way that no one ignored, not even Nate.

Ian took the SUV’s keys and went to move it around by the garage, promising to put mine and Drew’s bags in a spare bedroom. Calder dragged Drew to the corner of the basement, stuffing one of the couch’s thin throw pillows under his head, and sat down on the floor next to him, leaning his head against the wall and closing his eyes. His body language radiated a total lack of concern. I hated seeing Drew lying there like that on the hideous orange carpet. I wanted to drop to the floor and hold his head myself, stroke his hair off his sweaty forehead. My fingers practically itched with the desire to touch him. I felt so cold without him next to me.

On the other hand, no one would be more capable of keeping him under control than Calder, and if he woke up to me touching him…I had to sit on my hands to keep them from reaching out, though. My body had become oriented to Drew’s, like a compass always pointing true-Drew-north.

Jared squeezed my arm, told me Calder would keep me and Drew safe if we needed it, and went off to “see if there’s anything edible in the kitchen.”

Not that it mattered to me, since I couldn’t taste anything—but the state of the house in general didn’t give me much hope for the rest of them.

And Matthew pulled Arik aside, spoke to him urgently but too quietly for me to hear, and then vanished up the stairs after Ian, Jared in his wake.

Which left me under the scrutiny of the pair of people I’d actually come here to see, what felt like years ago.

“Now that they’re out of the way, let me try to explain,” Arik said.

And then he did, with Nate interrupting every thirty seconds—but I got the gist.

It made my head spin so much I could hardly focus on what I was hearing.

They thought my instincts leading me to choose their website out of all the others was a manifestation of magic they believed I had latent in me. Nate used the word “divination,” and even though Arik grimaced in a way that suggested he didn’t think much of that type of magic, he didn’t argue, either. And they told me I wouldn’t have been able to see anything but the motion of Nate’s hand when he knocked Drew out unless I had something they called “magic sight.”

They seemed to disagree about nearly everything, so their identical looks of disgruntlement when I started to laugh my ass off made me laugh even more, bordering on hysteria. Because what the fuck did you say to that?

“That’s—I can’t—magic? Me?” I choked out. “I’m human, I’m—”

“I’m human too!” Nate protested. “Warlocks always are. Werewolves and the like have their own names for anyone who can use magic as a craft, and not just innately.”

“Okay, but how come I’ve never noticed before?”

Arik sighed and raised one eyebrow at me—wow, that really was obnoxiously condescending, maybe I should stop doing that myself—and suddenly Nate’s apparent state of near-constant irritation with his business partner made a lot more sense. “You have amnesia,” he pointed out. “How the fuck would you know?”

I gaped at him, my mouth opening and closing a couple of times.

He was right, the asshole. How the fuck would I know?

“And that changes everything about your current problems,” Arik went on. “I’m guessing you’ll have been thinking about this too, and I’d have thought they wanted to create someone who could, say, work until they dropped without complaining about the pain from injuries, and so on. That would’ve made sense if you were a boring old human. No offense.”

He seemed to be waiting for me to acknowledge that.

“Um. None taken?”

Arik nodded, choosing to ignore Nate’s muttered, “You’re such a dick.”

“But since you saw Nate’s little parlor trick—” (“Fuck you, Arik, you can’t do that!”) “—you must have some magic. It’s not in question, and they would’ve detected it. That’s probably why they kidnapped you in the first place. And that changes things. We think they might’ve been experimenting on you, trying to figure out how to suppress or remove magical senses. Only they were fucking idiots, because it doesn’t work that way. Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding—”

And thank God for Nate, because Arik sounded like he’d set up his soap box and meant to stay there for a while.

“Yeah, yeah, nobody cares,” Nate said over Arik’s protest. “Look. Bottom line. Magic doesn’t get processed in your brain the same way your other senses do. Arik and I agree on that. But opinions differ, okay? And yes, Arik, the differing opinions are wrong and stupid, thank you. They were fucking with your brain trying to shut your magic down, and they shut down a bunch of your other sensory input instead. That’s our working theory.”

He sat back and nodded, looking smug.

And honestly…I didn’t blame him. Either of them, since Arik seemed annoyed but equally smug.

They’d thought of all of that in the last hour, mostly while sniping at each other. I’d have been smug if I’d been half as smart and knowledgeable.

On the other hand…

“That’s really interesting,” I said sincerely. “But does it help figure out how to fix me? And that’s secondary, anyway. Drew’s the one who’s really in trouble. I’m—stable, you know? I’m not getting any worse. I could live like this forever if I had to. He can’t. I told you how it’s gotten way worse just in the last few hours, right? As long as Drew’s okay, I’m fine.”

“We’re going to examine both of you,” Nate said with a glance at Arik, who nodded. “And he prefers to do these types of exams outside, so lucky you! We’re getting out of the basement that time forgot. Calder, you mind toting him along?”

“Nope, don’t mind at all,” Calder replied, getting to his feet and reaching down for Drew.

He even sounded sincere about that. He could’ve been in bed upstairs—with Jared, obviously. And I didn’t have any particular interest in Jared, but Calder had the right to be annoyed at the interruption, I thought.

“Drew’s going to be so glad to see you alive and okay when he wakes up,” I said. “And thank you. You have no idea.”

And then I blinked in astonishment as Calder—smiled. A friendly-looking, normal (mostly…the teeth weren’t quite standard) smile that made him look years younger and incredibly handsome.

Maybe Jared also had the right to be annoyed by the interruption.

“We’re glad to see you alive. And yeah, we are okay. You’ll get there too.”

He turned away and heaved Drew up onto his shoulder with no effort at all.

Well, that was his limit for emoting, apparently. But I felt a lot warmer as we went up the stairs again, even though we headed straight outside into the chill of the wee hours, a cool breeze sweeping through the trees and making everything rustle mysteriously.

What followed was one of the weirdest—albeit also most boring—hours of my life.

Arik and Nate laid me and Drew out side by side on the ground, and then they took turns circling around us, putting their hands on various parts of our bodies, muttering to themselves and to each other, and then doing it all over again. Sometimes when they touched me I had a funny sensation, like a prickling on my skin. Nettles, or something. And once, when Nate had a firm grip on my skull for a couple of minutes, I could’ve sworn I felt something hot explode inside my brain.

Since I still seemed to be alive afterward, I let it go.

But seriously. They expected me to pay for that?

Halfway through, Drew stirred and started to growl, and Nate casually knocked him out again.

It got incredibly dull and repetitive and incredibly cold and damp. We’d hit the very chilliest, darkest part of the night, the couple of hours before pre-dawn. They had a nice view of the stars out here, and I shivered and stared up at Orion’s Belt, barely visible over the treetops across the house’s grassy side yard.

Nate and Arik had retreated a few feet away to confer. I’d been letting them have at it, sneakily reaching out to brush my fingers over Drew’s and feel his warmth, but a few words caught my attention: “…needs a mate bond to stabilize him.”

My heart did a funny little flip. “Do you mean Drew?”

“Yeah,” Nate said. “I’m sorry. We’d need a lot more time to try to work on what’s wrong with him. More time than he’s got.”

Arik chimed in with, “His energies are fucked to hell. Mating bonds stabilize normal alphas and settle their instincts. He needs it more than most.”

A low laugh from behind me reminded me Calder hadn’t left.

“Yes, I realize I’m also mated to one,” Arik said tartly.

“I wasn’t arguing.” I could practically hear the shrug in Calder’s voice. “It worked for me.”

I pushed myself up to sitting, reluctantly letting go of Drew’s hand in the process. It fell limply to the ground, and it felt so wrong, that lack of strength in his touch.

“There has to be something else you can do,” I said, a little desperately. “If mating’s the only way to save his life, I’ll do it, of course. But he—he just got out of a mating contract he didn’t want. Doing this while he’s not in his right mind? Betraying him like that…” I trailed off, my stomach churning.

“Absolutely not,” Nate said. “No. And not for his sake. You said he was just about off his rocker, around the bend, etcetera.” He made a twiddling motion by the side of his head, as if I hadn’t gotten the point. “To mate you, he’d have to be conscious, and if he’s conscious, he’ll be insane. I doubt he could even get through the mating process without killing you by accident.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but Arik was nodding along, and I heard Calder let out a sound of agreement.

With all of them against the idea, I wouldn’t be able to carry that point even if I wanted to.

“Then you have to think of something else,” I told them. “Paying client, remember? And don’t tell me I haven’t paid yet. I will. Well, Drew will. I don’t have any money.”

Nate sighed, fidgeted, and started to say something apologetic—and then froze, his face lighting up with what I could only pray was inspiration.

“Arik,” he breathed. “What about that spell you used on Matthew?”

Arik stopped, stared, and then said slowly, “That might actually work.”

“You’ll have to leave out the part where they get sick and die, but—”

“Get sick and die?”

They both turned, matching startled expressions on their faces, like they’d forgotten Drew and I were even there.

“I made some mistakes,” Arik said after a second. Nate snorted, and Arik flipped him off. “But it could work. The spell mimics a mating bond. When Drew wakes up, he’ll feel like you’re his mate. It ought to settle his instincts and simmer him down. It’ll buy time for a more permanent solution, if nothing else.”

I glanced over at Drew sprawled on the grass beside me. In the light of the setting nearly-full moon, he could’ve been one of those Pre-Raphaelite paintings of overly dramatic people fainting on things: that dark wavy hair tumbling onto his forehead, and the contrast of his eyelashes against the grayish pallor of his cheeks, and the way his hand lay as if reaching out to me.

“Can we do it now?” I looked up at Nate and Arik. “Please. Anything.”

“There’s a chance he’ll wake up and start ripping your clothes off,” Arik replied bluntly. “Maybe not in a way you’ll like.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

And it didn’t. Nothing mattered but Drew being all right.

Not that I objected to the clothes being ripped off, either—at least not when Drew had some modicum of control over himself.

The spell didn’t take very long, and it didn’t cause any discomfort or anything like that. My previous experiences with having magic used on me had all been in that hellhole prison, so I’d braced myself for any kinds of horrors.

But it brushed over me like a whisper in physical form, a ripple along my skin and sliding down into my bones and innards. Silky-soft and over within seconds. Drew’s fingers twitched, but he didn’t wake up.

Arik lowered his hands. “All done. Let’s get you upstairs into that bedroom Ian set aside for you, yeah? I know it’s putting you at a little bit of a risk, but I think it’s better if you’re alone and somewhere that feels secure when he comes around. If he finds himself with his supposed mate and a bunch of unknown alphas and mages, he’ll freak the fuck out.”

“Hang on a second,” I said, as something horribly embarrassing but incredibly necessary occurred to me. “Which one of you is the healer in this outfit?”

“Me,” Arik said, and frowned. “You didn’t say you were injured.”

“Can we step aside for a second?” Even in the moonlight, I knew they wouldn’t be able to miss the way my face had gone all red.

Nate watched curiously as I scrambled up and stepped a few feet away, Arik following. “Can you heal my, um. Can you. I got kind of sore. Fuck, this is so—but if he needs to fuck me when he wakes up—”

My blush went nuclear as Arik bit his lip, obviously trying not to laugh. “No problem,” he muttered, and put his hand on my bare arm, closing his eyes. It felt like it had before, a prickle and a sensation of coolness.

I closed my own eyes and hoped this would never be mentioned again.

“All done,” Arik said briskly, professionalism restored. “Let’s go.”

We reversed our previous procession: Calder hefted Drew again, and Nate and Arik led us back into the house, up the stairs, and down a dim, musty hallway to a small bedroom near the end. Calder dumped Drew on the bed while Nate turned on the light, futzed around in the bathroom for a minute muttering about how no one ever replaced the toilet paper around here, and Arik wished me good luck and disappeared.

“I’m a few doors down,” Calder said. “I have better hearing than the average alpha. You call my name, even quietly, and I’ll be here. If you don’t call my name, I won’t, no matter what I hear. I’m going to trust you to handle this if you don’t ask for help.”

He left without waiting for an answer, and Nate slipped out after him, saying he’d come back up and put a couple of sandwiches and some bottled water in the hall for us.

And then the door shut behind him.

And I was alone with…God, my fake mate for real, this time? I choked down an inappropriate burst of laughter, and the chuckle that escaped sounded way too loud in the stillness. I couldn’t hear Drew breathing, even.

I went and switched out the light. The faintest pearly-gray gleam of the coming dawn turned the room’s one window into a ghostly rectangle in the darkness.

The bathroom was clean enough if I squinted, so I took a five-minute shower, slightly shocked to find a pristine folded towel on a rack. Carefully listening to make sure no one was in the hallway first, I cracked the door open and grabbed everything Nate had left outside the door…which turned out to be some ham sandwiches on a chipped plate, several water bottles—and a tube of lube.

I shut the door so fast I nearly took my nose off. A sticky note on the lube read, “This is on the house.”

Would I be able to look Nate in the eye tomorrow? Or Arik, for that matter, after the healing I’d had to request? Or Calder, who had better hearing than the average alpha.

Jesus fucking Christ. I couldn’t think about it. I had a drink, made a face at the sandwiches, put the lube on the nightstand because a good idea was a good idea even if it made me want to run away and change my name, and crawled into bed next to Drew.

After a moment’s hesitation, I curled up against him and put my head on his shoulder, wrapping my arm firmly around his middle.

There. His even breaths moved my head up and down gently, and I could hear his heartbeat.

After a minute, I lifted my hand and examined my fingers, rubbing them together as if strange colors might manifest out of them at any moment. Would I ever be able to do what Nate and Arik did? Would I want to? Had I known I had magic in my blood and my being, or had it been too insignificant an ability to ever come to light before now?

Maybe tomorrow I’d be able to ask some of those questions. Maybe I’d get some answers if we ever made it to Southern California and found out what my life had been like before I’d been abducted.

Would Drew’s family be furious with him right now? Would he have a life to go back to himself?

Too many questions, and none of them had available answers. I might not like any of the answers even if I could get them.

I stared at the slowly lightening window and waited for Drew to wake up.