Chapter Six

Dane was furious at Kevin.

Absolutely fucking livid.

Lying in bed the other night, minding his own business, his cell phone had pinged.

Dane wasn’t too versed in how to use it or the tablet his king had given him, but Adam had made sure the entire para crew’s phone numbers had been programmed into the cell, so the screen flashed Kevin had sent him a text.

When Dane had opened it, it seemed Kevin had attached a video with his message: Thought you might wanna see this!!

While Adam had warned Dane not to open attachments if he didn’t know the sender—something about bacteria infecting the phone—he’d figured if a fellow royal sent him something it might be important.

He’d forgotten how spiteful the fairy was.

The video had been of Marcus on a stage, singing an acoustic pop song Dane vaguely recognized to a cheering and dancing audience. It had been karaoke night in Alexanders and, apparently, Marcus was not only a fantastic singer with a smoky, sexy quality to his voice, but he could move his hips and arms in a sensuous way that had riled up Dane’s libido faster than incubi magic.

Kevin had zoomed in on Marcus in a lewd fashion which made Dane long to clock him one!

Stupid fucking Kevin.

Dane might not be good with technology, but he knew what emojis were and promptly sent Kevin a middle finger. Kevin had sent back a string of laughing faces.

Dane had barely stopped himself from throwing the phone across the room.

Instead he’d watched the two-minute video again.

And again... and again.

For two whole days.

If that song played on a loop through his mind now as he sorted books in the library?And if Dane was forced to take his dick in hand like some shifter caught up in mate bond lust... ugh! It was entirely Kevin’s fault!

Stupid jerk-face fairy.He deserved a knuckle sandwich!

“There you are,” a feminine voice startled Dane.

There’d been a shift in the air of the library to indicate the arrival of a sprite magic, but Dane hadn’t immediately identified sassy little Penelope’s individual magical signature.

His own ineptitude annoyed the crap out of him.

At one time Dane had taken his powers for granted.?Now he simply longed for better control.

The ship had docked in Jamaica that morning, and thankfully most of the humans had gone ashore. Even though Dane now spent all his time in a different realm, just knowing the humans were crawling all over the ship made him antsy. At least Marcus wasn’t on the ship for the afternoon, which was a relief.

Or was it?

“Since when do you work here?” Penelope remarked. “It took forever to find you.”

Good. I don’t want to be found.

Book in hand, Dane turned to give the sprite a blank stare. She took in all the dusty tomes, feet floating above the ground and gossamer wings fluttering like a butterfly at rest.

Ever since the king had sent him to assist Darrius, Dane had spent every moment in the beautiful magical library. Perhaps the size of the formal dining room, the library held hundreds of books and artifacts. A handful of paras had visited since he’d taken this assignment, and fortunately they’d been looking for books, not him.

Being in a different realm didn’t eliminate the aura Marcus put off, because all Fae realms were connected to the main one. Nor did the distance stop the longing inside Dane to seek out and find his mate. But the pull seemed quieter here, while surrounded by ancient, mysterious magics and protective charms.

He loved being in this library and Darrius didn’t seem to mind if he paused to read as he cataloged the ancient texts and books. In the middle of reading now, he’d been interrupted by the saucy female water sprite.

“You’ll never guess what I have,” Penelope taunted, her attention back on Dane.

He rolled his eyes.

“Aren’t you going to ask what it is?”

With a sigh, Dane returned the book in his hand to the library cart he’d been sorting alphabetically. Taller than her, he looked down at her as she flashed a piece of paper with a colored pencil drawing.

“Your mate drew me. Don’t I look a beautiful?”

“So what? You told him to draw you as a water sprite,” Dane drawled as he studied the skilled drawing.

Like Adam’s sketch, no magic emanated from the paper.

Penelope stomped a little foot like she stood on the ground, her wings fluttering. “I told him no such thing. I didn’t even know he drew me until Adam told me. Apparently, your mate thought I was pretty and used me as his muse.”

Dane didn’t miss on the emphasis she used, but he refused to allow her to see any of his jealousy or irritation.

Because he wasn’t jealous or irritated, right?

“He just so happened to draw me as a water sprite. Don’t you find that interesting?” she pressed.

Everybodyaround Dane seemed to find that interesting. Ever since Marcus had drawn Adam as a fire-wielding wizard, the rest of the crew had been hounding his mate, asking him to draw them in a magical style, all in hopes he would correctly interpret their species—which Marcus did perfectly.

Every. Time.

“What is your point in telling me this?” Dane prompted, waving his hand for her to get on with it.

Or she could just get out, that would be even better.

Annoyed by his lackluster reaction, Penelope stopped flaunting the picture in Dane’s face and turned it around so she could admire herself.

“What the hell?” Dane plucked the paper out of her hand.

“Hey, don’t rip it!” Penelope cried but she knew better than to snatch anything from a royal.

Dane’s hands trembled as he clutched the paper tight, staring at the sketch on the back of Penelope’s drawing.

No, there’s no way, he thought to himself, sweat beading his brow. No, he can’t be here. This is just a coincidence.

Please be a coincidence!

Penelope narrowed her eyes at him. “Your heart’s beating fast. Why? What’s wrong?”

A part of Dane wanted to tell her. Penelope might appear sassy and self-absorbed, but even his fucked-up magic sensed the purity in her heart. But Dane hadn’t even told the king what he’d been through at the hands of the warlocks and their bloodthirsty humans, so he couldn’t very well confide in a water sprite he barely knew.

Perhaps Dane’s paranoia was acting up. More than one gargoyle existed in the world. What were the chances this drawing could be the creature Dane knew?

Dane had never seen his statue, after all.But those eyes, he knew them...

Get it together, Dane!

After a steadying breath, he handed the drawing back, grateful his hand didn’t tremble too much.

And if it did, at least she didn’t remark upon it.

Penelope studied the gargoyle. “Why did this upset you?”

“It’s ugly,” Dane declared. “I don’t like ugly things.”

Penelope shrugged but he wasn’t sure if she believed him. “I can understand that. We’re Fae and all Fae are beautiful, even dryads in their own way, I suppose. Why would we like anything ugly like a creepy old gargoyle?”

“Is that all you needed to show me?” Dane demanded, wanting her to leave and desperate to be alone in this beautiful library without the distractions of anyone reminding him of his past, his mate, or his broken future.

He was safe here aboard the Pride.

I’m safe. I’m safe. I’m safe.

Penelope huffed. “I just wanted you to see the pretty drawing your mate made of me. He’s nice, you know. He didn’t want to take my money, but I paid him anyway because that would be disrespectful to our king and His Court, seeing as he’s your mate. He said he’s going to give it to a charity. Isn’t that nice?”

“Delightful.” Dane’s voice dripped sarcasm like molten lava.

“You don’t have to be so snotty all the time,” Penelope snapped then disappeared with a pop.

Dane did feel bad for being rude to her. His list of apology cards grew longer by the day. Any amends would have to wait until Marcus left the ship, however, because Dane would doubtless accumulate many more offenses.

Needing a distraction, Dane returned to alphabetizing the books on the rack. The next book was about shifters of North and South America. He thumbed through it, trying to keep his mind off anything and everything to do with Marcus or the memories of what a wicked gargoyle had done to him. He paused at the chapter on wild mustang shifters. A brief scan of the contents indicated how most of them had relocated to Canada or the Australian outback. They traveled in herds and, unlike most shifters, their female leaders possessed elemental magic. He’d never heard of shifters with magic beyond changing into animal form. Apparently, as he read on, Asian bear-cats were rumored to have magic, as well as some shark shifters.

“Huh,” he murmured, mildly intrigued.

After he finished the chapter—not thinking about Marcus at all!!! Well... mostly not, anyway—he turned the page to the next topic, thunderbirds.

Halfway through reading about only one thunderbird per generation existing while not revealing itself until the dawn of its twenty-first birthday, something uncomfortable itched at his mind. He pushed it away, trying to concentrate, but the more he stared at the words, the less they made sense. He read a sentence over and over again, but none of it absorbed. A pull came from deep inside his soul, like someone had taken a needle and thread, then looped it through his belly only to pull his insides out and toward something.

He shook his head and wiped his brow with a sudden trembling hand.

His vision clouded.

Then his heart beat faster.

Dane quickly put the book down, wondering if it exuded some sort of unknown magic.

Though the book was no longer connected to him, the feeling increased. He’d only been in the library for a few days, and none of the magical books or artifacts had affected him this way.

Frankly, he didn’t think it was the book.

His heart now raced impossibly fast. He closed his eyes as visions flashed through his mind. Blue sand beneath his body, green sky above. It flashed to tropical palms next... warm sunshine and the crush of waves on a beach.?Then Dane felt a breeze moving sultry air around him, and he smelled the scent of Caribbean’s spices and grilling meat. Laughter and voices danced around him. Someone spoke in patois as people laughed...

“He’s in danger.”

Closing his eyes, Dane stopped up his ears and shook his head madly at the whispered voice in his head. It didn’t sound familiar.

Yet he knew her voice.

“He’s in danger, Mercurian. Go to him.”

Dane sucked in a gasp and his eyes flew open. His mind jolted with sudden clarity.

Marcus was in danger.

Though Dane had avoided his mate from the moment he’d laid eyes on him, the man had visited him in his dreams, and Dane was constantly aware of his presence. With the slightest effort, even when Marcus was far away in St. Petersburg—Dane hated the fact he knew where Marcus lived in Florida—all Dane had to do was think his name, and he could feel his presence anywhere in the realms.

“I don’t want a human mate,” he said desperately to the magical tomes and scrolls surrounding him, as if somehow the ancient wisdom penned on those pages could help or answer him. “I can’t have a human mate.”

“Mercurian,” the female voice warned.

Dane couldn’t deny the use of his true name any more than he could deny the terror inside him.

Something was wrong.

Really wrong.

Telling himself he would follow his gut and make sure Marcus was alive, then return to the library, Dane reached out with his magic.

Effortlessly, he pinpointed Marcus’s location and, after the briefest hesitation, he teleported himself nearby to access the situation without Marcus seeing him.

The scent of Caribbean’s spices, smoking palmetto wood, and roasting meat, along with the salt of the ocean, suffused the stuffy wind. He had materialized in an alley behind a jerk chicken place on a tropical island—Jamaica no doubt, since that’s where the ship had docked today. In the distance he heard honking cars, voices, and the bark of a dog.

Dane felt Marcus’s presence acutely. He followed it toward a gate, and tentatively pushed it open and stepped into another alley. Debris and litter lined the patchy ground as a chicken pecked at the earth.

Marcus was very close.

With no humans around, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The alley led to a door and Dane knew his mate was on the other side.

Marcus’s heartbeat pulsed so close, but fainter than it should’ve been.

As he approached, Dane smelled blood.

Panic set in and he shoved open the door.

“Marcus!” Dane ran into the center of the room where his mate’s prone body lay on the ground in a pool of blood.

Fuck, were those bullet holes in his chest?

Distracted by his bleeding mate, Dane didn’t see the sigils on the walls, ceilings, or the floor around him... until it was too late.

He heard the click of a lock as laughter filled the room.

A laugh he’d hoped to only hear again in his nightmares.

A pulse of magic, far more powerful than Dane expected, slammed into him.

Dane landed on top of his mate’s bleeding body. Marcus groaned in pain, and Dane registered that as a good thing.

He wasn’t dead yet.

“Don’t try anything,” a gravelly voice warned. “I have an iron charm infused with your blood. I will not hesitate to use it again.”

So that’s what knocked me over.

The clever fucker.

The surge of magic from the sigils pressed in on him, leaching his magic. He fought the draw and leaped to his feet, simultaneously gathering shards of his power together. Though physically stronger than the last time he’d faced his captor, a talisman infused with his own magic could be dangerous.

“Lowery,” Dane growled.

The gargoyle leaned against the locked door in his human form. His charcoal eyes were as hard as stone, those dark brows arched, and his ears slightly pointed. Ashy blond hair pulled into a tight ponytail made his face as severe and cruel as his heart.

“I finally caught up to you,” Lowery taunted, voice rough like gravel. “I didn’t think you would take this bait. Not with how much you’ve been avoiding your mate.”

Dane learned long ago not to answer Lowery’s taunts. He’d always make assumptions, spouting wild guesses about Dane, in order to trick him into giving more information away than he’d intended. Clueless as to how Lowery had found him aboard the Pride or discovered Marcus was his mate, Dane would give him no details today. No doubt the gargoyle had been lurking around the ship, spying on them. That must be how his mate had seen Lowery in his gargoyle form when he’d sketched it on the back of Penelope’s drawing.

How had Dane not sensed the magic of his jailer?

More accurately, his jailers’ bitch.

Stupid, stupid!

I’m not safe anywhere.

Lowery was a sadistic bastard, fond of saying things like: “this hurts me more than it hurts you.” Or the perennial favorite: “I’m their prisoner too, so I have no choice but to do what they say.”

Decades ago, Dane had been foolish enough to trust the dark magic creature before him. Lowery had complained how the warlocks and their humans possessed his statue, controlling his magic and keeping him locked in human form, leaving him only able to project himself as his gargoyle. Since they possessed his statue, he remained their slave as much as a chained Dane was their prisoner. Lowery befriended Dane, playing the fellow victim.

Dane had fallen for it—hook, line, and sinker.

But their “friendship” had been Lowery’s means to get information from Dane to please their captors.

Now, capturing and shooting Marcus would be Lowery’s way of luring Dane back to those evil bastards.

Well, I’m not going.

“Let him go,” Dane ordered, his magic crackling as he tried to weave together the broken shards in order to fight back. The sigils may have locked him in here, but he would not go down without a fight.

“He’s free to go, if he can get up off the ground after those bullet wounds,” Lowery said, flippantly tossing his hand, black pointed nails clicking. “It’s you that I want. They’re angry you escaped. I was punished.”

“Good.”

He never even flinched. “I should’ve noticed you were getting too skinny and brought smaller manacles.”

That sick feeling in Dane’s stomach he’d experienced in the library heightened, and instinctively he knew.

His mate was dying.

Bullets tore through both para and human flesh. While a para might survive that many shots, a human would not. But something else was happening to Marcus.

The sigils were draining Dane already, but they were affecting Marcus too.

And then he felt it.

They were sucking away the part of Dane’s soul inside Marcus.

“You feel it now, don’t you?” Lowery taunted, his gaze cruel.

“Stop the spell, Lowery.”

“Only if you come with me. Once I have your collar back on, I’ll stop the spell. Part of your soul will stay inside him, and when he dies and comes back in another lifetime, you’ll be reunited. Eventually.” He shrugged. “Possibly. Maybe, maybe not. Until then, you’re coming with me.”

Dane would never go back with Lowery, to the warlocks and their wicked humans who feasted on his blood in order to live their twisted version of immortality.

That left him with only one choice.

He gifted one regretful look at Marcus then narrowed his eyes at Lowery. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” he said, tone dangerous. “You will never hurt me again.”

“No?” Lowery laughed. “I’m destroying your soul bind. I’m sure that hurts you plenty. You’ll be weak forever!”

Without another word, Dane brought his wrist up to his all-too normal teeth and savagely bit into the flesh, ripping skin and tendons. Blood?burst across his face and clothing. The agony was excruciating but Dane had endured worse.

Pain was not something he feared.

Dane knew the second Lowery understood.

“No!” his once-captor screamed.

But Dane was faster than the gargoyle.

He fell to his knees and slammed his brutally mutilated wrist to the gaping bullet wounds on Marcus’s chest.

Many Fae needed an incantation to complete a soul bind.

The second Marcus’s blood fused with Dane’s, he knew such trivialities were beneath his power.

In an instant, his mind filled with the scent of dark chocolate and vanilla. Symphonies of electric violin, drums, and chanting filled his ears. A gust of air swept over the room as their souls reached for each other.

Despite the dangerous situation, his groin shimmered with arousal.

Beneath him, Marcus groaned.

The boxes inside Dane flew open faster than he could process. The puzzle pieces began connecting, the broken mirror now as smooth as glass. The two lines of their souls twined together, his soul fusing to Marcus’s until it created a tightly woven tether, a connection nestled right behind his heart.

The binding broke whatever dark spell Lowery had been using on Marcus.

Their soul bind was complete.

And the ground shook as Dane’s power fully awakened.

A pulsating blast reverberated from Dane, knocking Lowery back and setting off multiple car alarms in the distance. Shouts and chaos ensued out on the streets as Dane’s power took out the electricity in the whole city.

In a blink of an eye, Dane felt his body stretch and contort. The pale skin of his wrist healed as it turned blacker than midnight, his hair now long and white, and his body three times it’s former size.

“Shit, fuck!” Lowery cursed, afraid for the first time.

Before Dane could blast the bastard, the fucking coward teleported out with a pop.

The sigils on the wall sparkled with warlock and demon magic, along with the blood of different Fae—their kind registering and cataloging in Dane’s mind effortlessly... sprite, Fae, shifter, druid, gnome.

None of it was his blood, so Dane knew the fuckers had more paras in their clutches. With a sweep of his hands and only a small bit of surprise at his new glistening black skin and claws, Dane erased every sigil on the wall, freeing the stolen magic so it could be reabsorbed by the Goddess.

Laying at his feet, Marcus sucked in a rattling breath, heart beat stuttering.

“Oh no you fucking don’t,” Dane declared.

Dane had not expected his true form to be so large, nor so powerful, but he was grateful when he easily picked up his giant mate and cradled him close.

Despite the chaos and almost capture, feeling Marcus in his arms made his heart rate calm and his breathing ease. His magic no longer remained on the attack as the twined bond of their souls tightened, warming behind his heart. The rumbling in the ground settled as his magic calmed, finally reunited with the missing piece of his soul.

“Don’t you die on me now,” Dane hissed between his teeth.

Cradled in his arms like a baby, Marcus reached up and touched Dane’s face, his fingertips trailing down his jaw. “Dane, is that you? Where have you been?”

Marcus’s soul must have been able to recognize him even in his true form, but Dane recognized two other things in that instant.

Marcus was no mere human.

And he was going to die.