Chapter Fourteen

“Dane, I see you have completed your soul bond.” The purser of the ship wore a beaming smile on his handsome face when Marcus and Dane entered a room filled with men who were probably all paras. “Congratulations.”

Marcus kept his back straight and tried not be too obvious while he waited for Dane’s reaction to Raoul’s statement.Yeah, he had said some kind things at breakfast, but he’d promptly been his cold self ever since.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” was all Dane said, his expression completely unreadable.

Flustered, Marcus remained passive. While he knew Dane had avoided their soul bond, he’d also saved Marcus’s life by binding their blood. Which maybe he’d done because he wanted to save Marcus as well as himself. Dane only seemed to warm up to the idea of them being soul mates after he learned Marcus was a spiritwalker. He’d mentioned becoming good friends and perhaps more, but what did more mean? Friends with benefits? Lovers and partners?

Hell if Marcus knew!

Everything about Dane felt like a contradiction. While the incubus induced sex had mislead Marcus’s heart, they had agreed to get to know each other. Hopefully their rocky start would level out, but he didn’t want to get too far ahead of himself. In over his head already, he’d dove in to this whole mate thing without thinking he might drown.

He turned his full attention to the men in the conference room. Dane had explained the purser was king of the Fae and his husband, Captain Leonides, was the son of the Greek god, Dionysius—which might explain all the elaborate parties aboard, seeing as the captain’s father was literally the god of sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.

The old man in the room was introduced as a High Order air wizard named Darrius, who apparently had served at one time as Nathan’s mentor. He even looked like a wizard, with his wise eyes and wild grey hair. The track suit was less baller than a robe, but somehow it worked. Two men stood by the door like guards. Marcus recognized the one as Kevin—the wedding coordinator from hell, as Skip had described him.

Dane gestured to them. “That’s Kevin and Jacob. They’re Fae Lords like me.”

“Should I call them my lord, like Keenan did us?” Marcus whispered.

He made a dismissive gesture. “Absolutely not. As my mate, you are their equal. You have no need to use their titles.”

Kevin fumed, but apparently Dane was correct because he offered no complaint besides a death stare. Marcus was more than a little amused by the haughty smirk Dane gave him. Definitely a story there.

The silence in the room felt decidedly awkward—what with everyone staring at Marcus—so it was a relief when Theron and Lewis arrived. They’d had a pleasant breakfast an hour ago, but there’d been an unspoken decision to nix the paranormal with Kendra there. And while Lewis’s test of her magic resistance had been revealing, it seemed unnecessarily unkind to talk about things that would go over her head.

Seeing as the king wanted to speak to them immediately, Marcus hadn’t had a chance to see Skip, Jeremiah, or his cousins yet. So when Lewis walked right up to Marcus and hugged him, the tension Marcus had been carrying melted enough he could take a full breath.

Needing an anchor of normalcy in this crazy new world, he squeezed his little friend hard.“I’m really trippin’ here.”

Patting him on his biceps, Lewis smiled up at him. “Are you kidding me? It’s totally a trip, but it’s going to be okay. You have a soul mate,” he said, his face alight with the same happiness he wore at the end of a Hallmark movie. “It’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to you, trust me on that.” Then he looked at Theron, glowing with joy.

“Yeah,” Marcus whispered, letting go of his friend. “We’ll see about that, I guess.” He glanced at Dane and once again could not read his facial expression.

Why did the man have to be so damn feisty one minute, then completely stoic the next?

It was equal parts adorable and infuriating.

Flashes of the way they’d fucked the day before filled Marcus’s mind. The man had passion for sure. At least while under the influence of incubus magic.

Will you ever want me that way?

Theron embraced him next. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Marcus patted his big shoulder after he broke the friendly hug. “So you’re a Magi?”

“Indeed.” Theron returned his pat then stepped back.

“He’s super powerful. Blessed by the Fae,” Lewis added and Marcus had to wonder if it had been killing him not to brag about his fiancé. “When we bound our souls, it was so romantic. Until his power woke up and shorted out the whole ship. Do you remember that?”

Marcus vaguely recalled a power outage on the last cruise. Rather than wonder how that’d happened, he fixated on Lewis calling their binding romantic.

“When did you guys bind your souls? Did you say the special vows? Did Dane make you cut your palm? Seems unnecessary, right? I mean it’s your hand. So many tendons.” Lewis went on, one brow up and smiling like he was getting the synopsis of a rom-com. “Tell me everything.”

“It was unnecessary to slice our palms. Marcus was bleeding to death from a gunshot wound,” Dane said.

“Gunshot wound!” Lewis exclaimed in horror while Marcus wondered what special vows they hadn’t made because he’d been unconscious.

“Yes. As we were trapped by magic sigils that were draining me, and Marcus was dying, I needed to take my true form. I tore open my wrist with my teeth and placed it over his wounds, thus binding our blood. There was no time or need for special vows.”

“What?” Marcus breathed, shocked.

Lewis went three shades paler and Theron’s brows shot up. Everyone in the room looked stunned or awkward, except Dane, who spoke so frankly Marcus didn’t know what to think. Unlike Lewis’s romantic gushing, Dane could’ve been explaining options on the latest truck model in the dealer’s lot. And he tore open his wrist with his own teeth? WTF?! Talk about major cojones or perhaps sheer desperation to pull that off. Dane said it had been a moment of life or death, but Marcus hadn’t expected something so savage. Such urgency obviously left no time or need for special vows.

Stupid, but the realization that their bonding had been a violent necessity and held no romantic significance for Dane, as it had for Lewis and Theron, hurt.

It shouldn’t, since he’d been dying and Dane’s actions had saved their lives.

But still...

“Yes, well, that was very brave, Dane,” the purser/king said after an awkward cough. “You mentioned you had something to tell us of utmost importance?”

Focusing on the task at hand and dismissing his pathetic hurt feelings—the whole being mates still felt like an abstract concept—Marcus stood side-by-side with Dane and allowed the smaller man to do the talking.

What the fuck could he say anyway?

Dane straightened his shoulders. “Yes, Your Majesty. Thank you for meeting with us so quickly. As this pertains to Magus Theron’s work, and he and his mate are friends with my mate, I asked them to be here. I believe we have discovered something intriguing about my mate’s identity.”

Marcus bristled at the word ‘mate’ because Dane spoke it with such lack of feeling. On the elevator, Dane had seemed to be bragging about their bond. But now, it was cold and impersonal, especially juxtaposed to Lewis’s effusive remarks about his own soul binding. Dane said ‘mate’ as if he were a thing not a person.

“My name is Marcus,” he snapped before he could help himself.

Everyone’s eyes darted to him, ripe with shock and questions.

“My apologies, Marcus,” Dane said with a slight tip of his head before he continued.?“I believe we have discovered something intriguing about Marcus’s identity.”

Though Marcus delighted in the contrition in Dane’s lilac eyes, it frustrated him he could not understand both sides of the man some goddess designated as his soul mate for life. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that dead people were speaking to him through his pencils. Knowing half of every couple in his inner circle was a magical being, yeah, not helping his nerves either.Nor was the knowledge his father had been truthful when claiming spirits spoke to him.

It must have been impossible struggling with mental illness while actual spirits were speaking to him. Or maybe the spirits caused the illness, and Marcus would plunge over the deep end too one day? This newfound empathy for his father irritated the hell out of Marcus after everything the man had put him through.

Woosah, he told himself, taking a full breath to center his mind. Then he pushed everything aside and tried to stand with as much dignity as he could muster as Dane explained what they’d learned last night.

“Marcus is a spiritwalker, though his Navajo brethren do not call them such,” Dane began. “In simplest terms, he is a conduit to the dead.”

“The oracles of Delphi communed with the spirit world,” the captain remarked. He was a sexy Greek man, tall and muscular with dark hair and dark eyes. Exactly how one might imagine the son of an Olympian. “Every culture is thought to have human vessels the dead will speak through. Mediums, oracles, prophets, they come by many names. But we have not seen anyone with this gift in many decades. Did you know of this ability, Marcus?”

“No, I didn’t,” Marcus admitted, awkward at being the center of attention. “I still don’t know how much of it’s true. Although it appears I’m drawing paras on the cruise in their magical forms... or whatever.”

“And he’s drawn things he hasn’t seen with his own eyes. Visions of lost and imprisoned paras, in fact. I know his gift will aid us,” Dane announced.

Was that a hint of pride in his voice?

Yes, because he’s only interested in what you can do for him.

While he hated that nasty voice in his head, and he wanted to give the man who’d been holding his heart in limbo the benefit of the doubt.Dane had lived through hell and deserved some grace. And Marcus needed to stop allowing his own insecurities to cloud his thinking.

Sadly, it was proving much harder said than done.

“What has he drawn?” Darrius questioned, curiosity ripe in his gaze. The man really needed a gnarled old wooden staff to compliment his wild wizard hair and red track suit.

Dane indicated the sketchbooks they’d retrieved from Marcus’s cabin.

Like the dream of being in high school in his underwear, Marcus held his breath as Dane set his books on the table for everyone to see. He wasn’t usually secretive about his art, but when Dane opened the first one it felt both intrusive and inevitable.

“This is my true form.” Dane jabbed a finger at the being Marcus had seen just the once. “He drew this months ago, yet I only took my true form yesterday.” Then he pointed at the unicorn. “And this is the one who saved my life, once when I escaped my captors and again when she saved Marcus from a gunshot wound.”

“How did that happen?” Raoul demanded.

Marcus’s brain spiraled as he tried to process Dane’s words.

The unicorn had saved Dane’s life twice?

While he knew Dane had been in bad shape when he escaped the warlocks and the unicorn had healed him the first time, Dane hadn’t mentioned being injured yesterday too. Unless he meant I was his life... now, too impossible to believe.

Don’t get your hopes that high!

“We were lured into a trap by one of my former jailers, a gargoyle by the name of Lowery,” Dane explained in that familiar dispassionate tone Marcus was growing to loathe. “He shot Marcus in order to lure me to him. I felt him dying. When I came to investigate, Lowery trapped us both in a room protected with the same sigils that held me captive for decades. In addition to Fae, demon, ogre, and warlock blood, they now carry traces of elven and shifter blood. Some sort of equine shifter if my new senses are not off. Lowery somehow discovered I had a human mate and was displeased about the Goddess’s choice for me. Not only had he shot him, but he had cast a spell on Marcus to erase my soul connection inside him.”

“Displeased about the Goddess’s choice for me.”

Those words felt like bile in his throat and he fought a swell of embarrassment and hurt. How could Dane say that in front of strangers and Marcus’s friends?

“A spell to break a soul bind? Is such a thing possible?” the captain said, aghast.

Not as shocked as his husband, the king nodded. “It is the vilest of ancient magic. Forbidden.”

“It is not dissimilar to what the vampire bite almost did to Brother Liam,” Darrius added. “When the undead turn a person mated to a Fae, but not yet bound by blood, the link is permanently severed when the person fully becomes vampire. When this happens almost no one even knows of it.”

The Fae in the room looked as horrified as the captain. Theron pulled Lewis tight to his side, perhaps shaken by news of a spell to sever a soul mate connection.

I knew it. Magic does exist to break soul bonds.

Though such magic was dark and forbidden, just knowing it was out there made the pain tugging behind Marcus’s heart intensify.

“Thankfully Theron already recognized his bond to Brother Liam and his grandmother was able to stop the severing in time,” Darrius went on. “And now the two of you are together.”

Theron kissed the top of Lewis’s curls, and they both shared a smile, though strained by this conversation.

Wait, what? Who was Brother Liam? Marcus thought Lewis was Theron’s soul mate? He was so overwhelmed with all this new information and his own uncertain future, dammed if he could keep up.

“And why in the Treaty, I insisted the Undead Conclave only turn humans the Fae have vetted for soul bonds, to lessen the chance of separating unbound mates. But I fear since we are not all together, some bonds may have unknowingly been broken. May the Goddess reunite the lost souls.”

“May the Goddess reunite the lost souls,” all of the Fae, the captain, and Theron intoned like a prayer.

Confused, Marcus looked at Dane, but his mate was stoic as ever, eyes on his king. He continued in a flat, even tone, “Lowery and his masters are the vilest of monsters, so it was only a momentary surprise to me that he’d used such evil magic. He told me he would stop the severing spell if I allowed him to place a nullifying collar on me. Marcus would still die if I donned the collar. Lowery assumed I would accept that because his soul would eventually return to me in a more pleasing form. But I foiled his plan and bonded our souls. Taking my true form, I used my newfound powers to escape to a realm I had visited once before. I did not recall the first visit until the unicorn reminded me. I do not know why she allowed me to retain the knowledge of her saving Marcus’s life, but I assume she wanted me to explain everything to my mate.”

“I can sense her power on both of you,” Raoul remarked and Theron nodded.

“The aura I am sensing belongs to a unicorn?” Darrius clasped his hands, all but swept up in the throes of extasy. “How delightful! And lucky for you both,” he quickly added with a serious, more composed demeanor. “Of course that’s the most important thing. That she saved your lives.”

Marcus hoped his face remained stoic as Dane spoke as if giving his commanding officer a full report. Like the entire thing had been simply a means to escape a prison.

A transaction.

“His soul would eventually return to me in a more pleasing form.”

Humiliation swept through Marcus, Dane’s words like repeated knives in his heart. Was this cold, detached delivery of Marcus’s almost death and their forced soul bind simply how a Fae Lord spoke to his king? Or was it a defense mechanism of sorts? Or did Dane just not care?

For decades, Dane had been hurt by both humans and paras, far worse than Marcus probably knew. Perhaps he was protecting himself from being hurt again. He’d told Marcus that soul bonds could not be broken, yet they were discussing a spell to do just that.

If Marcus disappointed him, would they use the spell on him?

The tight sensation behind his heart pulled painfully, and he rubbed his chest, willing it to go away.

Dane looked at him sharply, his own hand brushing over his heart.

Their eyes met.

Marcus knew so little of the man, he couldn’t get a read on what brewed behind his lilac gaze.

“I can’t wrap my head around the fact that you were shot yesterday,” Lewis cried, causing Marcus to look away from Dane. Lewis shook his curly head and gaped at Marcus. “Or that a unicorn saved you. Are you okay now?”

“Right as rain,” he lied.Dane still stared at Marcus oddly.

“Let’s focus on what you’ve come here to tell us,” Raoul declared.

Everyone stood at attention, but Lewis and Marcus shared a weird glance. Were all fairies so impatient and dismissive? Marcus could be grasping at straws, but it might explain some of Dane’s brusqueness. The Fae King was no paragon of patience and Kevin had been a veritable drill sergeant as a wedding coordinator.

Yeah, maybe all the Fae were dismissive and curt.

Raoul aimed his dark gaze on Marcus. “Dane says you’ve drawn imprisoned paras? Show me.”

All eyes turned to Marcus and he squirmed from the sensation of being under scrutiny. He was generally the largest man in the room, but the presence of these paranormal beings outmatched his muscular stature. Coupled with the whole Dane thing, his entire being hung off a razor’s edge.

“I draw things I see,” he said. “It wasn’t until Dane looked through my sketchbooks that I even knew some of the people were real. He’s the one who realized what was happening.”

“Imagine my shock when I saw this.” Dane grinned, flipping open the second sketchbook to show the drawing of an apparent werewolf couple fostering a rare white wolf.

“That’s Chuck and Stan,” Theron declared, unique eyes wide after seeing the would-be romance novel cover. “And young Wren.”

“Indeed.” Captain Leonides tipped his head to the side and studied Marcus with a penetrating gaze that seemed ancient somehow.

Well, he was some kind of demi-god, right?

“And Keenan,” Dane added, flipping to the drawing with the little sprite locked in a cell. It made Marcus queasy to see his drawing of a man weeping and in chains after meeting the very man this morning.

The king and Kevin shared a sharp glance.

Marcus remembered Dane explaining how the two had rescued Keenan.

“How did you see this?” the king demanded. “Did it come to you as an entire image, or bits and pieces? Or perhaps in a dream?”

“Tell us,” Kevin insisted.

Marcus rubbed the base of his skull. “I never really thought about it. I’ve been drawing everybody on the ship magically because that’s what they asked for. I just see them and it sort of pops into my head. Before that, it was just something cool I thought of, so I drew it.”

“If we gave you pen and paper right now, would you draw whatever popped into your head?” Raoul asked.

“I could try, I guess.” Though he had no clue if it would work on demand. If the Ghost Dance was disrespectful, as Hector had implied, then what would spirits think if he declared, “Hey, help me draw something to make my boyfriend want to keep me.”

Were any of the ghosts listening?

Were they here now?

Were beings in the spirit world watching him all the time, dropping hints he’d never noticed?

The notion was kind of creepy.

I’ll never be comfortable jacking off again!

With a wave of his hand, Raoul produced a stack of papers and a pencil out of thin air and set them on the table, gesturing impatiently for Marcus to sit and begin drawing something he didn’t know he could.

Marcus shared a look with a beaming Lewis.

“Magic is so cool, right?” Lewis gushed.

“Okay, Harry Potter,” he muttered as he sat at the table, uncomfortable with everyone staring at him so eagerly, including Dane.

“I enjoyed those books,” Theron remarked.

“Yeah, and he read all seven books in less than thirty minutes,” Lewis complained.

“How?” Marcus asked.

“Magic,” Lewis replied. “I think it’s cheating.”

“It is not,” Theron argued.

Raoul cleared his throat, silencing the conversation. He impatiently looked at Marcus. “Well?”

Marcus picked up the pencil and twirled it like a baton between his fingers, his mind blank. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to draw. Any ideas?”

“Whatever you see,” Raoul said.

“I see eight dudes staring at me,” Marcus said irritably, then he flipped the pencil and tapped the eraser on the table.

“But what do you see in your head?” Kevin said, and Marcus was shocked he didn’t stomp his foot.

Hell, Dane wasn’t half as arrogant or bossy as these other Fae, a realization that managed to settle Marcus’s nerves. He heaved a sigh. “Look, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here. I just had a conversation with my asshole father last night. It’s the first time I’ve talked to him in nine years, and he tells me that spirits talk to him, which I always chalked up to schizophrenia. But apparently, I have this spiritwalker thing in my bloodline. But I don’t hear voices. I just get ideas and I draw them. It’s not like something I have any control over.”

Dane placed a finely-boned hand on Marcus’s arm, the pale skin a delightful contrast against his skin and ink.

“How about I help you?” Dane said, gaze kind and earnest.

Marcus couldn’t help it if he swooned a little. He could get lost in those eyes for the rest of his life. He’d been dreaming about being with Dane and seeing him again. Being touched by him. The reality was so, so much better than his dreams.

Then he frowned.

And so much worse.

He doesn’t really want me, that voice reminded him. He wants what I can do for him.

He forced the thought away as fast as it came. Dane said twice that he wanted to become friends and get to know each other. That would never happen if Marcus constantly doubted the man and his own worth too.While Dane’s mercurial moods and sharp words made it difficult not to have doubts, Marcus wanted to trust him.

And those pretty eyes seemed so genuine just then, trusting Dane felt as natural as breathing.

“All right.” Marcus glanced at his audience and was marginally amused when Lewis gave him a double thumbs-up. “Um, spirit people?” he said to the ceiling. “My pencil’s listening if you got something to tell us.”

Then he began sketching.

Of what he had no clue.

First it was a few sweeps of pencil. Lines... dots... a shape...

Where Dane’s hand touched him, warmth emanated. A tiny place in the left side of Marcus’s chest and behind his heart, heated in turn. He used his free hand to rub his chest while his right sketched more lines—no. A wall. Then... a room?

“Are you putting your magic into me?” Marcus whispered to Dane.

“Yes, I thought it might help.”

He offered the man a crooked smile of gratitude. “Yeah, I think it is helping.”

Minutes flew by as a fever slowly consumed Marcus. He sketched things as they came to him. He barely flipped over a new piece of paper before his mind filled with another image. They came so fast, almost eagerly. He briefly registered what he saw before the next image leaped into his mind. They began to flood his mind, too fast to collect into usable images.

“Slow down,” he muttered, wondering if the spirits heard him because he suddenly felt more in control. His heart pounded, fingers moving on their own, like the time he and his sister played on the Ouija board.

Like he wasn’t even moving the pencil!

He saw rooms, fields, people.

His pencil flew across the pages.

Finally, he sucked in a healthy gasp of fresh oxygen as the stubby pencil dropped from his cramped hand. His fingertips and nails were dark from lead, and the outside of his hand smudged black from the drawings. He was sweating profusely like he’d just done one of Theron’s warrior workouts. When Dane released him, Marcus let out a shuddering gasp. That tiny tug of warmth behind his heart seemed to swell, and then his pulse slowed and his vision sharpened. Like waking up from a dream, he stared at the men in the room, blinking and trying to get his bearings.

“Are you well, Marcus?” Dane asked with concern at the same time Lewis asked, “All right there, buddy?”

“Yeah,” Marcus said, rubbing the palm of his right hand to ease the cramped muscles. “I think so.”

“You’ve been drawing for over an hour,” Theron told him. “I used magic to keep sharpening the pencil.”

Marcus stared at the nub of pencil on the table as the men passed a stack of papers amongst themselves.

“Really?” Marcus snatched one of the papers off the table. Though it felt as if he was seeing the drawings for the first time, he recognized them on a cellular level.

Well, that had never happened before.

“Here, give them all to me,” he said as he realized what he’d drawn. “It might make more sense this way.”

In a moment, all thirty pieces of paper Marcus had sketched while he’d been in some magic induced trance—what the actual flying fuck?—covered the conference table. Instinctively Marcus separated several of them into three specific groupings.

“Why did you separate them?” Raoul asked, his eyes earnest. The captain stood close behind him in support. Marcus envied the natural way the captain placed his hand on the small of Raoul’s back and Raoul didn’t even flinch or notice the touch, their relationship so comfortable.

Marcus stopped himself short of answering that he didn’t know why he’d separated the drawings, because he did.

This is so trippy!

“These are all different,” he said, growing more confident as he studied the pictures. “Three different rooms, but maybe in the same place?” He stood and walked around the table examining the images intently. The first grouping featured a man with dark hair, naked and chained to a wall, emaciated and filthy, his back to them. The hint of sigils on the wall framed him like a prison.

“It is very lifelike,” Dane said, his skin ashen.

Feeling a need to protect the small man, Marcus placed a hand on his shoulder. “Were you somewhere similar to this?”

Without looking up from the image, Dane nodded.

Not even questioning himself, Marcus tugged Dane into a tight embrace. The man trembled in his arms, fingers fisting his tank top. He laid his cheek on Marcus’s chest while his eyes remained glued on the drawing. Marcus pressed his head closer, his fingers coiling in those soft blond tresses. He marveled at how Dane fit so perfectly against him, face nestled between his pecs, arms comfortably the height of his waist.

Nothing felt more right in the universe than having this man in his arms, safe and out of harm’s way. Seeing the drawings had no doubt brought back horrible memories for his poor Dane. Marcus didn’t know who had hurt him, but if he ever faced them, magic or not, he would beat their asses.

The powerful surge of protectiveness surprised him.

“These pictures could be in the same place,” Theron said after a while, pointing to a series of drawings featuring three small people in adjoining cells. Marcus wasn’t sure if they were children or tiny adults. The third grouping of sketches was of a room with shelves and tables filled with strange artifacts, including the gargoyle he’d sketched earlier on the ship.

Dane ended their tight embrace, but did not step away so Marcus kept one arm around him. Marcus pointed at the image of the room with the antiques. “That gargoyle. I saw it. Here on the ship.”

“There are no gargoyles on my ship,” the captain declared.

“Yes, there is. I saw that gargoyle twice,” Marcus argued. “Once by the elevators and the second time by a fountain on the promenade deck. Is that... him?”

In his arm’s, Dane trembled and Marcus knew the answer.

“How did no one else see him?” Raoul demanded, eyes flashing black. “How did a gargoyle get passed the wards?”

“Gargoyles separated from their stone can retain their invisibility and skirt around wards by slipping through the shadows or using portals,” Darrius explained.“It is part of their magic, mostly used to guard places. But it gives them advantages with stealth. We’ve not encountered one, but I will have my team scour the areas Marcus mentioned, see if we can trace his whereabouts.”

“It’s him,” Dane whispered in a stone-like voice, hands convulsively tightening on Marcus’s back and abdomen. “That’s Lowrey. He was my jailer. That’s his real statue. I recognize his eyes.”

“Real statue?” Lewis questioned. “Not to state the obvious, but I have no idea what that means.”

“A gargoyle is a dark magical being,” Darrius explained, another good storyteller. “Its soul resides in a stone edifice once used to protect buildings, usually ones with something magical hidden inside. Artifacts, portals, dens of paras, and the like. They are not shifters in the traditional sense, they are more chameleons with magic. They can take any shape they wish, but their magic is at the mercy of whoever has their stone statue. Much like a jinn becomes slave to the one who holds its lamp, a gargoyle must answer to whomever possesses its stone. But unlike a jinn, who’s demon power is contained by a lamp, whether a gargoyle’s source of power comes from their stone or their soul, remains unknown. How much power they have if unbound is untested as well.”

“If that statue belongs to the guy who hurt you, let’s destroy it,” Marcus declared vehemently.

If Marcus could freeze time in that moment, with Dane still clinging to him, gazing up at him with adoration and gratitude in his big eyes, he would do it in an instant.

“Yes, well,” Darrius hedged, glancing at the captain. “It might warrant further study before simply destroying it.”

Dane frowned but before he could reply, the Fae King fussed with the drawings again, picking up on the one with the naked man on the dirty floor. He studied it intensely. “You’ve just found the possible location of some of my people.” He pointed to the sketch of the three little ones in the jail cell. “A water and meadow sprite, and a brownie.” He slapped the paper in his hand. “Those are powerful sigils on the wall, so it’s possibly a Fae Lord. I don’t see his face, but he may be one of the Court as he doesn’t have wings or markings like the other Fae.”

“He could also be a powerful shifter, warlock, or wizard,” the captain added gently, as if not wanting his husband to get his hopes up.

Damn, they really love each other.

“We won’t know till we see him.” Raoul snatched up the drawing of the bunker door in a field. He flashed an urgent look at Marcus. “Is this where these cells are?”

When Dane stepped away, Marcus missed the warmth of his body. He smoothed his tank top, well aware of the moisture Dane’s sweat or tears had left behind. He wanted to pull the man close again, more than he wanted the very air in his lungs.

But he showed self-control.

This relationship was new and unconventional. Not what either of them expected and definitely not what Dane had wanted. This soul mate business had been forced upon them because of the nefarious dealings of a gargoyle.

Best to just cool his jets for now.

Pushing aside the tumultuous emotions inside his heart, Marcus addressed Raoul. “I guess so?”

“Your Majesty, may I?” Theron questioned with a tip of his head towards Raoul.With all the sword classes he taught, and his regal demeanor it made so much sense he was some sort of knight serving a king.

Raoul handed the drawings over and Theron studied them intently. “I believe I can use this one to teleport.”

“If they’re holding a Fae Lord, their magic will be very powerful, Theron. You cannot rescue them all alone.” Raoul looked at his demi-god husband, then nodded after they communicated silently. “Put Lieutenant Briggs on alert that we will have new arrivals. I will go with Theron and bring all of the mated lords. Let’s see them take on a force of that size.”

“And the artifacts,” Darrius interjected. “People first, always! But we mustn’t leave behind any of these books or artifacts.”

“Agreed,” the captain said.

“I will ready a new space in the library.” Darrius wore the look of a child on Christmas just before he disappeared with a pop.

“Whoa,” Marcus breathed. Though he had been teleported twice, it was his first time seeing it happen.

Freaky as a two-headed chicken, as Skip liked to say.

“Your Majesty, I wish to go with you,” Kevin insisted from his spot guarding the door. “My place is at your side.”

Raoul gave the dark-haired man an affectionate pat on the arm. “Of course it is, just not this time. You’re a deeply loyal friend, and I trust you with my life. But everyone who goes on this mission must have full access to their magical well, and you are unmated. I will not risk your life.”

Kevin bowed his head but Marcus could see he was not happy about being left behind.

“So that’s it?” Marcus questioned. “You’re going to take my drawing and teleport there? What if it’s... I don’t know? Not real. Will you end up teleporting into, like a wall or something?”

“Please don’t put those images into my head,” Lewis bemoaned while all of the paras stared at Marcus strangely.

“We do not teleport into walls,” Raoul declared, a hair shy of completely condescending.

“Excuse me for asking. I don’t know how this shit works,” Marcus muttered and felt a little surge of pride when Dane had to hide his grin.

With a clap of his hands, Raoul beamed at the entire group. “Let’s get my people back.”

––––––––

The Magus did an initial visit, confirming unholy magic and the presence of their people. Upon hearing Theron’s report, the king jumped into action immediately, ordering the Magus to teleport him, Dane and the five other mated Fae Lords to the vast grassy field with a barely visible road leading to a small bunker door.Theron immediately shifted them into a shadow realm juxtaposed to the field.

“Excellent. I can feel our people,” His Majesty announced. “Though their essence is muted.”

“One might not even notice if we weren’t looking for it,” Selena remarked. The red-haired Fae was mated to Rick, the polar bear shifter who ran the engine room. Dane had once lamented even a shifter would be a better mate than a human, but such thoughts no longer tormented him.

Excitement bubbled within him, hope he’d not dared allow himself to have for decades.

“It is the sigils hiding their essence,” Theron explained. “They are quite powerful, painted in para blood. Almost impossible to detect.”

“It’s a good thing we have my mate then.” Dane didn’t bother hiding his pride. Then he remembered what Marcus had said and quickly corrected himself. “It’s a good thing we have Marcus, I mean.”

The king offered Dane a faint nod. Approval of his correction, perhaps? Then he said, “Let’s go.”

Theron reached out a big hand and placed it on his arm. “Your Majesty, please. I am your Magus. Your hunter. I only verified our people were here before returning to the ship. Let me go inside first, then return with a plan.”

The king vibrated with energy and magic. Dane understood exactly how he felt. None of the Court had wanted a moment’s delay in rescuing their people. Dane hadn’t even told Marcus goodbye or that they were leaving. The king heard the news and commanded, “Theron, take us there now,” and the Magus had. He should probably apologize to his mate for the abrupt departure, but no one else told their mates goodbye, not even His Majesty or Theron. Time was of the essence.

Four unknown Fae were nearby, they could all sense them. And Marcus was the reason they were here. The fact that they soon might be liberating more of their people who’d been in a horrible prison just like Dane was still too unbelievable to be real.

The unicorn had not been wrong. His soul bond was a blessing from the Goddess. The unicorn declared She had a plan for the two of them. How had he been so foolish as to deny what the Goddess had given him? He knew not to take Her gifts for granted and yet he had. How in all the realms would he ever be able to make it up to Marcus?

Maybe by giving him his ugly tattoos back.

Ugh, I’m such a jerk.

Dane hadn’t even been thinking when he’d removed them, lost in the throes of incubi lust, he’d just wanted them gone. Until he’d seen the anger and disappointment when Marcus realized what he’d done. He’d seen the doubt and heard the disbelief in Marcus’s tone when he said he could give them back too. When he returned to the ship, he would try to make it up to him.

“I sense warlocks have recently passed through this field,” Theron said unnecessarily because they all could sense it. A few days ago, Dane would have been blind to the faint trace, but his full powers had been awakened by his soul bond with a spiritwalker.

Since they hovered in shadow, everything in the human realm appeared hazy as they crept towards the bunker. Dane was more than a little eager to prove his mate’s worth to the rest of the Fae Lords. He had been gifted a mate who was a key to finding their missing people.

“There are sigils buried in the ground.” Theron crouched down, picking up some loose dirt. A gentle breeze blew it away as it sifted it through his fingers.

“I will erase the sigils,” the king whispered.

“Yes, but please wait until I return. There may be an alarm,” Theron whispered as he straightened, blond hair moving like water in the shadow realm. “Remain here, in shadow. I will teleport to the cells and return immediately with a report and a plan.”

Raoul nodded his permission and Theron disappeared.The king might be their leader, but Theron was a trained hunter. Probably the best in the realm.

Left less than fifteen seconds later the Magus reappeared, his face alight with victory. “I have seen all of them. If His Majesty would erase the sigils in the earth, our entry should go unnoticed. Inside, the sigils are strong and the magic is an unholy mix of many powers.” He flashed a feral grin. “But we are stronger.”

While magic rumbled under their feet as the king removed the wards protecting the place, Theron began issuing orders to the rest of them. He touched them each, one by one, as he passed along instructions and images of the spaces where they would be teleporting. “You will retrieve the meadow sprite. You the water sprite, and you the brownie. You will stand guard for them. His Majesty and I will get back our Fae Lord.”

“He is of the Court?” Raoul asked, his face lit with rapture after his magic had done its task. Dane could no longer feel the wards.

“Indeed,” the Magus confirmed.

“And what shall I do?” Dane demanded, barely restraining himself from crossing his arms or stomping his foot. It was his mate who’d hastened this rescue. Was he just to stand in this field and wait?

Unacceptable!

“Gather the gargoyle statue and all the artifacts within the room,” Theron said with a glimpse of vengeance in his eye as he touched his arm. Instantly Dane had the image of the location he needed to go to. His irritation melted away as he nodded at the Magus. “Luca, you will stand guard.”

The stoic lord, whom Dane didn’t know well, nodded in agreement.

“We must act quickly,” Theron instructed. “There is no time to spare. The warlocks are not present now. But there are five armed human guards with traces of Fae blood in them. Their weapons have been spelled with magic suppressing ammunition so we must be swift and silent. Is everyone ready?”

With nods of agreement, all the Fae morphed into their true forms. The king’s glorious white form radiated power that dwarfed everyone in the field and whatever pittance of magic the warlock bastards were using to hide the prison. Dane hadn’t expected Luca to be poison green, whereas Stella and Selena, both sisters, were a deep burgundy, and the mated pair of Trina and Enrique both shades of silvery gray.

One by one, they began to disappear.

Dane drew on his now immense well of power and focused on the room of artifacts. Thoughts of Lowery and the torture the bastard had put him through danced in the corners of his mind. He closed his eyes and envisioned the room Theron had shown him, a room his mate had drawn. It was easy to do and felt as natural as breathing. A heartbeat later he stood inside it then Luca popped in beside him.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim interior so he could study his surroundings. Magic pulsed from the artifacts and he sensed a human pacing nearby.Luca pointed a green finger toward the door, and Dane nodded that he understood.

Dane could already feel the sigils weakening him despite being in his true form.

But he was no longer unmated and his power was stronger than anything a warlock might fashion. He was stronger than Luca, even, and a tiny, vain part of him was pleased the Magus assigned Luca as Dane’s guard, and not the other way around.

Swords, books, gold artifacts, and things Dane couldn’t identify covered tables and shelves. Perched in the corner sat a three-foot-tall crouching gargoyle with long claws, a wicked grin, familiar evil eyes, and wings tucked against its hunched back.

Dane’s first instinct was to explode the stone, but it would be far better to capture his jailer first. Seconds before the human guard reached the open door, Dane gathered his power around the contents of the room, wrapping everything inside it like a net. Luca attached his magic to Dane’s spell, which felt weird at first, but not unwelcome. With a curt nod, Dane teleported himself and everything therein to the private library aboard the Pride, Luca riding the edge of his spell with him.

“Wh-what? Oh!” Darrius cried, hand to his chest and eyes as wild as his hair. He squinted at Dane’s tall, dark true form then to the poison green of Luca. “Dane? Luca?” His shock quickly gave way to his unending curiosity as his gaze swept all the new additions to his collection. Everything they captured already filled the new space Darrius had created to the rafters.?“That was much faster than I expected. Have they saved the paras already?”

“They are doing so as we speak. They are all Fae,” Luca replied with a grin.

Dane pointed at the gargoyle. “Do not let this out of your sight.”

“I’ll put wards on it at once,” Darrius promised.

“Return to the king consort and update him,” Dane ordered Luca and the Fae bowed his head then obeyed.

Hmmm, guess I have some authority.

Dane teleported back to the field. He reached out with his powers and knew only Theron, his king, and the missing Fae Lord remained.?Though his task was complete, there would still be the filthy guards to dispatch and he wanted revenge. Dane focused on the image Marcus had drawn and felt for the presence of his king, then teleported to his and Theron’s side.

Neither of them seemed surprised to see him, both too shell-shocked by the contents of the cell. They gaped at a motionless, naked man on the floor. Equipment Dane recognized for blood-letting sat on a table nearby, the surface stained a rusty brown as the stench of blood, unholy magic, and filth suffused the air.

“Is he alive?” Dane questioned.

“Barely,” the king said.

“Do you recognize him, Your Majesty?” Theron asked.

Dane gasped the instant that he did.

“Yes, I do.” Raoul turned tortured dark eyes on Dane. “It is my brother.”