Chapter Ten

Wren

Hayden returns from her latest supply run, driving the van's tires through the wards on almost the same treads as where she left which will make repairs easier.

Her ghost friend pushes out of the passenger side, Maximus in her arms. "Good luck, Render."

What does she mean? Has something happened to Hayden? Were the lights in town too much for her? Or the headlights on her drive back? Has she had another headache? How fast can I summon Theodopolis for a healing potion? Regardless of how much I hate the demon, his alchemist crafts better potions than wizards in multiple realms.

The damn ghost disappears with my dog before I can ask.

I wrench open the driver's door, prepared to wrap Hayden in darkness until I can find a fix for whatever's hurting.

"Hello, mate." She steps out of the van and into my shadows, toeing off her sneakers. "Let me be very clear about what I want. I want you. Now and for as long as whoever you say fated us to be together will let us have."

My mind short circuits, my magic surges, and I can't catch a thought. Not a single one. I stare at her in my shadows, at the way my darkness moves around her. It loves her like I love her.

She strips her leggings to her ankles and lifts her shirt before my brain kicks in. Wrapping shadows around her wrists like manacles, I take over while she's still struggling to free herself from the fabric twisted at her feet.

The scent of her desire? I need a taste of that.

I run a shadow along the neckline of her shirt, ready to pull it down and see which of her pretty animal-print bras she wears today.

"You're mine now," I say in a low, demanding voice. "Trapped so I can do whatever I want to you." I stroke a teasing touch along the place where her thighs are pressed so close together in her temporary binding. I could get used to this. Especially the way she shivers. I should've restrained her more in our play. "What do you say to that?"

Licking her lips, she says, "Take me. Claim me."

She doesn't know what she's asking for. I freeze, struggling to keep control over my desires when she uses such dangerous words. A true claiming. My cock aches to sink inside her heat, and I touch my tongue to my fangs where I can almost taste her blood.

In that moment, I see decades with her.

The fantasy made real.

A future.

"I'm sure of it," she rushes to add. "I don't need a moment more to think about it. Whatever is keeping you from truly making me yours, whatever reason you had for this delay, don't let it stop you. Us being together will work out, just like you said." Her eyes go wide. "Unless you don't really want forever with me."

What? No .

Barking explodes from the house, Maximus appearing in three-headed form in the doorway with revenants running his way. He blinks out of existence, reforming a second later to attack the hind leg of one of the beasts.

"Stay here," I tell Hayden and rush toward the house.

The abominations flood out like a legion. Where did they all come from? I destroyed the labs, the necromancer's stashes, each of his lairs. Had these creatures all waited in the ley lines beneath the house?

"Maximus!" Hayden's scared cry tears at me. My mate doesn't fear much, didn't fear me upon first sight. "Wren, I can't see him." Her footfalls sound as though she's running.

Absolutely not. She could get hurt. I snap a shadow to hold her back. "Don't you dare come closer. Stay behind the wards."

The wards. Fuck . I didn't reinforce the wards after she came back.

I lash out at the revenants, whipping my magic in purple snares to cut through them. They fall one by one as I rend them into nothing, but there are so many. I concentrate on stopping them from getting to my mate.

"Revenants!" Glenda's yell comes from behind me. "Everyone protect Hayden. Draw them away."

Maximus yips, reappearing and taking on a creature who looms above him.

"To Hayden," I order him. He vanishes.

I glance back to see her standing in her shirt and panties atop the van with the three-headed pup at her feet, growling and snapping at any revenant who comes close. She wouldn't be any safer inside the van. In fact, I'm grateful she has taken the high ground, wielding the wrought iron pieces I brought her from a seventeenth-century architectural marvel like they're stakes. I don't know if iron works against revenants, but I appreciate her fierce spirit.

Ghosts zoom around my mate, drawing away the creatures who follow a human soul—alive or dead. Bertie the Bard sings off-key as he floats back and forth to lead creatures away. Glenda darts in front of Hayden as a ghostly shield. Her befriending the ghosts may save her life. With them, I have more than a fighting shot at making it through this with my fated mate.

Maximus snaps and growls with all three skulls, ferociously defending her. Or at least her ankles. She still grips the iron, swinging it when the rare creature makes it past me to chase her phantom protectors.

I target around the ghosts to rend each revenant, picking them off easily now.

"Why tell me we're fated mates in the first place?" Hayden asks on a shout.

"Because we are." What the hell dimensions is she thinking?

"Then why don't you want the mating bond?"

Snagging another revenant out of the air, I rend it into specks so infinitesimal that the pieces of the pieces of souls stitched together couldn't be resurrected by a god. "I do ."

"What aren't you telling me? Why keep secrets when I say I'm ready to be your mate?" The tense set of her jaw and the grip she has on those iron pieces—by gods, she's fiery. My brave and beautiful mate would take on revenants, risk madness to challenge me and make me a better reaper.

I can't deny her the truth, not when she's putting hers out there for everyone to hear. "I wanted you to have a choice since I took that away the night you died. I brought you back. Selfishly." I slam another revenant to the ground. " I'm the reason you have the headaches." Holding the creature, I take out two more. " I'm why you're in pain." With a snarl to rival the worst wolven fiend, I finish off the trio with far more violence than necessary. "You should have a choice this time."

"Well, I choose you." She shakes an iron bar my way. "I love you . So there. Choice made."

She loves me.

My mate loves me.

Like an obsessed crusader, I tear through the last of the revenants, rending them ruthlessly to get to her so I can drag her off the roof and into my shadows. My magic pulses around us. I bury my face against her neck, needing to sink my fangs into that sweet spot on her shoulder and claim, take, possess.

Maximus yips, jumping into my shadows to lick at her face before disappearing again.

"Time to finish what I started," Hayden says, seduction dripping from her tone.

"Ooh," Glenda interrupts, clapping from the top of the van with my dog at her feet. "I knew the revenants had interrupted something big given the whole missing pants situation. We could be twins! Talk about Bangus Interruptus."

I will not rend my mate's best friend. I will not rend?—

"Time to go, Glenda," Hayden says.

"Right." The ghost giggles. "Be sure to have a real good time." With that, she vanishes, taking Maximus with her.

With her ghosts gone, the revenants defeated, and my magic swirling around us, we have the rest of our lives to celebrate what the gods have granted us.

To bond.

To finally finish what I started that fateful night.

To claim the one woman meant to be mine.

She will be my forever mate.

Starting right now.

"You made your choice." I bind her to me with my shadows, remembering what she said the first time I touched her in this form. Prove it. Her playful taunt repeats in my mind, a teasing challenge I'll never stop trying to meet. I tighten my grip until she lets out a sigh of submission. "Let me prove to you why it was the right choice."

" Yes , Shadow Daddy."

I can't wait to claim this woman. She's everything.

Minx.

Miracle.

Mate.

Mine .