Chapter 45

There’s always a moment in your life that defines you. The one moment that is imprinted on your mind for years to come. For centuries to come. It’s that memory you’ll treasure above all else, the one you’ll cherish when you’re on your deathbed.

And my moment is coming face to face with the man I love.

The man I thought I lost.

“Kai…” My voice trembles, breaks, and then I’m running towards him, trusting that he’ll catch me.

His arms wrap around me as he sweeps me off my feet, burying his face in my hair as he whispers words meant to soothe and calm.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m okay.”

“I’ll never leave you.”

“I’m sorry.”

I don’t know why he’s apologizing, but as his words penetrate my head, infusing me in a layer of warmth, I fall apart. I cry and cry and cry, wrapping my legs around his waist as my hands tangle in the hair at the base of his neck.

“Never. Leave me. Again!” I sob as his grip tightens.

“Never,” he vows with a finality that could lead nations to war. My dark, devilish king.

“I thought you were dead,” I continue as I cry my heart out. Relief is a palpable entity, one that coils around me like barbed wire, digging into my skin until I’m weeping blood.

“I would’ve been,” Kai admits on a shaky breath as he rubs a hand down my back. “If he hadn’t saved me.” He nods his head in the direction I know Damien and the newcomer to be.

The newcomer who’s silky, baritone voice reminds me eerily of Nick’s.

“As you can see, I am not the villain you accuse me of being,” the man in question states softly, as if admonishing a disobedient child. “Would you please remove the knife from my throat?”

“What do you want?” Damien hisses, his cold, cruel voice at odds with the gentle way he spoke to me only minutes ago. I’m too tired and weary to enter anyone’s mind and use their eyes as guidance. Instead, I rely on my other senses, listening to the new man’s huff of indignation.

“I thought I was doing the right thing by protecting my… What do we call each other? Brother?”

Kai tenses in my arms, and I just know he’s glaring at the man over my head.

“I appreciate you saving my life, but I am not your brother.”

“No?” Genuine confusion, and maybe a little bit of hurt, seeps into his voice. “Then what would you call the mate to your mate?”

Silence reigns, so intense and potent that I’m practically choking on it.

And then all at once, like a pebble being thrown into a tranquil puddle of water, chaos erupts.

“What?”

“No fucking way.”

“I vote we just kill him.”

“Oh! Idea!” Rion pipes in eagerly, his loud voice carrying over the others’. “I packed nipple clamps in my bag?—”

“I thought I said to only pack the essentials,” Kai growls out, and I can’t help but laugh giddily. No reason, except for the fact that he’s alive. He’s okay.

He’s here.

He never gave up on me, on us, on our baby. He fought the Grim Reaper and emerged victorious, bearing down on the Labyrinth with the fires of hell in his eyes.

“Nipple clamps are essential,” Rion protests. “Now, if you’ll stop interrupting me like a meanie butt…” He waits, as if ensuring everyone is listening to him, before he steps up behind me. I can feel his warm breath on my neck as he wraps his arms around both Kai and me, holding us tightly and rocking us back and forth. He nuzzles my back as he speaks. “So, what I’m proposing is called the Waterfall.”

“The Waterfall?” Cain repeats in a half delirious voice, barking out a laugh.

“No. Inter. Rupting,” Rion snaps, pausing between “inter” and “rupting.” “So we’ll take the nipple clamps to Trench here?—”

“Trench?” Abel interrupts, and I just know that my trickster demon is doing this to rile Rion up.

“Trench Coat Man,” Rion elaborates with a hiss—a literal hiss, like he’s a cat preparing to claw at someone’s face. “Now shut the fuck up and let me discuss torture options, dammit!”

“Sorry. Continue.”

“Anyway, so we’ll take Trench’s balls—after we remove them from his body of course—and connect the nipple clamps?—”

“Oh, enough of this!” Bronson growls, and I hear the sound of flesh hitting flesh.

“Brother!” the newcomer says, sounding aghast. “Why would you hit me?”

“I am not your brother!” Bronson seethes. “Tell us who the fuck you are and what you want!”

“Bronson!” I warn, my voice wobbling ever so slightly. “Stop it. Don’t hurt him.” I don’t know why I’m defending this man, this stranger, but the thought of harm coming to him leaves a sour, acidic taste in my mouth. I tell myself that it’s because he saved Kai and brought my dragon back to me, but I know that’s not entirely the truth.

“Buttercup…” Rion whines, still nuzzling my back. “Can’t we just do an itty-bitty little maiming?”

“No!” I snap, and Kai shifts us so Rion is dislodged from my back. Keeping my voice low and soothing, I plead to the man, “Just tell us what we want to know.”

There’s a pause before he finally speaks, almost as if he’s considering his words. “I assumed you remembered me from your dreams, but perhaps I was mistaken.”

“Dreams?” Bronson roars.

“Trouble,” Cain asks, “what the fuck is he going on about?”

I shift in Kai’s arms, but when he tries to let me down, I cling to him like a spider monkey. There’s no way in heck I’m leaving his arms anytime soon, not after I thought I lost him. Not when the wound is still so raw, so bloody.

“I told Kai,” I confess. “I just assumed he told you.”

“I didn’t think it was anything serious,” Kai admits, placing his cheek on top of my head. His voice grows darker, nothing but a growl dripping in malice. “But perhaps I should’ve reconsidered.”

“I’ve just been having weird dreams,” I admit, trying to shrug. It’s hard with my body wrapped so tightly around Kai’s massive one. “I didn’t really remember them when I woke up, but they always left me feeling…strange.”

“Strange?” Damien asks curtly. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know how to explain it. I wasn’t unsettled afterwards, per se, but I felt like there was something important I had to remember. Sometimes I recalled the dreams in vivid detail, but other times, they slipped through my fingers.”

“That would be my fault,” the man confesses. “I am still learning how to control these new powers I have developed. I have been asleep for so long…” He trails off, his breath hitching. “I never intended to remain anonymous. I assumed our dear mate remembered me when she woke up after our encounters.”

“Don’t call her that,” Rion snaps.

The man makes a noise of bemusement. “Don’t call her what?”

“Mate.” This comes from Bronson, his voice nothing more than a hoarse growl. He sounds as if he’s seconds away from closing the distance between the two of them, digging his teeth in the other man’s neck, and pulling until blood colors the walls of the tunnels.

“But she is my mate,” the newcomer protests. “I recognized her as mine when she first entered the Labyrinth. I just did not have the power to visit and claim her.”

A chorus of growls erupt from my guys. Apparently, they don’t like the thought of someone other than them claiming me for himself.

“Who are you?” Logan interrupts, and the man releases a heavy, tired sigh.

“I apologize. I am still learning, and I am afraid my manners leave much to be desired. You may call me Nick.”

I knew it was him, I did, but hearing it confirmed dispels the breath from my lungs, leaving my head spinning.

“Nick.” Kai spits his name as if it leaves a foul taste in his mouth. “What are you?”

Without missing a beat, Nick answers, “I am the Labyrinth.”

The silence this time is heavy. So freaking heavy, I swear I can feel it clogging my airways like barrels of maple syrup. My hands shake where they rest on Kai’s neck, digging into his tender flesh.

“What… That’s… How… Impossible!” I’ve never heard Damien sound so out of sorts before.

But the truth of Nick’s statement permeates my very soul.

The Labyrinth.

In the flesh.

“It is true,” Nick declares candidly, seemingly oblivious to the shock rippling through us all. Or if he does notice, he chooses to ignore it. “When the mages and wizards created the Labyrinth beneath the prison hundreds and hundreds of years ago, the amount of magic wielded was enough to create a sentient being. A being so powerful and strong, his presence kept the Labyrinth afloat, despite the fact he was not tangible.”

“And you’re saying that you’re that being?” Abel interrupts with a choked laugh. “That’s fucking insane.”

“Is it?” Nick asks, and the question isn’t rhetorical. It almost sounds as if he’s curious about their thoughts and reactions, as if he wants to know if his existence is legit insane. When the silence stretches, not one of us daring to break it, Nick continues, “I have been asleep for hundreds of years, a sentient being able to see and hear through the walls of the maze, when I awoke a little over a year ago.”

“When I arrived,” I breathe, my nails digging into Kai’s neck. If it hurts him, he doesn’t show it, simply tightening his arms around me as if he wishes to protect me from Nick’s candid words.

“Yes,” he replies without preamble. “You awoke me, little one. I knew the second I set eyes upon you that you were my fated mate, the woman capable of freeing me from this prison. Because rest assured, I was in prison just like you all were. I may not have been a criminal, I may have been an innocent party, but I was still trapped in a cage with no hope of escaping.

“Over time,” Nick continues, “I was able to fine-tune my skills. My powers. I discovered that while I couldn’t quite hold on to a physical form, I could enter Nina’s dreams. I manipulated the tunnels to show Rion the exit when he was in here earlier. But it was only recently that I was able to take this human form and walk the halls I once controlled.”

“Hol-y fuck,” Abel breathes.

“I tried to do what I could to help you maneuver these dangerous paths,” Nick continues, “but I was weak. It was nearly impossible for me to hold my physical form and still manipulate the Labyrinth to get you to where you needed to go. I tried to help when the monsters attacked, but then you all got separated. I did what I could for my dragon brother and tried to lead all of you to the doorway.”

“Why the fuck would you do all of this for us?” Bronson interjects, but I already know. Before he even says the words, I know.

“It is as I told you. Nina Doe is my mate.”

The breath leaves my lungs in a whooshing exhale as the rest of my guys hurl insult after insult at him, disbelieving scoffs reverberating through the stone room.

But I can’t deny the rightness that embeds itself in my soul. The truth of his words.

It’s scary to know that this man, this stranger, is my fated mate, but I can’t deny the surety of it either. I don’t know him and I don’t love him, but there’s a part of me that wants to learn everything there is to know about him. It’s the same way I feel about my men. The same way I feel about…Logan.

Nick is my mate.

Of that, I have no doubt.

The question is—what am I going to do with that knowledge?

“When we leave, my powers will leave with me,” Nick continues, his tone holding a note of warning.

“Leave?” Damien asks with a huff of laughter. “Why would you think you’re coming with us?”

“Because Nina is my mate and I love her,” Nick responds in confusion, and his words send a flood of heat through my body, followed immediately by a surge of ice.

Love?

No.

He can’t love me. Not yet.

Blood rushes to my ears, and I feel faint.

Continuing on as if Damien hadn’t interrupted, Nick says, “There is a chance that the entire Labyrinth will fall if I leave. That the magic prohibiting the inmates from leaving will fail.”

“Are you saying that the others could potentially escape?” Rion asks, and I can’t quite tell if he sounds aghast by the prospect or excited. With my crazy shifter, it’s hard to know for certain.

“It is a very real possibility,” Nick admits, sounding as if he doesn’t care either way. “But I am not leaving my little one.” For the first time since we met him, since he made himself known to our group, something dark creeps into his tone. “You will have to kill me first.”

“Nina,” Kai whispers, placing his mouth near my ear so only I can hear his words, “what do you want to do? This decision is yours, baby, and we’ll support you however you see fit.”

“I…” Biting on my lower lip, I think through my choices. We could escape, just the seven us, and leave Nick behind. He’s a stranger to me, an enigma, and I don’t know for sure if I can even trust him

At the same time, he saved all of our butts more times than I care to count. He saved Kai. He could be a psycho serial killer for all I care, but that fact alone puts him in my good graces.

And I know without a shadow of doubt that he’s my mate. The second he said those words, I sensed it in my very soul, almost as if my heart was screaming at me to listen and believe him. At the same time, my head was warning me against trusting him, trusting anyone who wasn’t one of the six guys I’ve grown to love.

“I don’t want to decide anything right now,” I confess, keeping my voice just as low as his. Despite that, everyone hears me, their entire attention fixed on me as if I’m the only thing that matters. “So we’ll bring him with us, and I’ll decide what to do with him later.”

Decide what to do with him…

As if he’s a stray dog that I’ll either let into my house or kick out onto the street.

Guilt fills me, but I push that emotion aside, tightening my arms around Kai’s neck.

“As you wish, Angel,” Damien murmurs, and from his tone, I can’t quite tell how he feels about my decision. Does he resent it? Resent me?

I don’t know what to do about any of this. In a span of minutes, I discovered one of my mates was still alive and that I potentially had a new one—one who didn’t exist until mere seconds ago. One who I thought was nothing but a figment of my imagination.

One who has been stalking me long before I knew of his existence.

“Come then,” Damien continues curtly. “If this door is the way out of here?—”

“It is,” Nick interrupts.

“—then we need to get moving.”

“Kai,” I whisper into his ear. “I don’t know what to do about any of this. I didn’t know?—”

“Shhh.” He rubs at my back soothingly. “It’s okay, baby girl. None of us expected this. But we’ll figure it out when we’re clear of this place once and for all. But no one, absolutely no one, will resent you, no matter what you decide. You got that?” I’m overcome by the enormity of my emotions for this man. Instead of answering, I kiss the side of his neck, grateful all over again that he’s alive and well. If I’d truly lost him…

“I love you,” I say into his skin.

“I love you more,” he responds gruffly. “But are you sure you want to bring him with us? If his magic fails, the other inmates might be able to escape the prison. Are you sure?—”

“Yes,” I interrupt. “I truly believe he’s one of my mates. I may not know him, but I’m not leaving him behind. Not until I can figure everything out.”

“Okay, baby. Okay.” There’s no judgement or malice in his tone, and I realize with a start that he’s telling me the truth. All of my men will support me no matter what I choose to do with Nick…or Logan for that matter, though I refuse to spend more than a second focusing on that thought. My men love me, love this family, and they’ll never begrudge me a mate because of jealousy or rivalry. It’s why Rion and Kai were able to put aside their differences when we first met. It’s why even now, my men rely on each other like brothers.

Like family.

“Let’s do this,” I say determinedly, taking a deep, calming breath to bolster my resolve.

Still in Kai’s arms, his lips brushing repeatedly against my temple, we step through the doorway.