Chapter 14

Quentin stared at his mate,torn between anger and wanting to hate him and the clawing need inside of him to touch him. Which is why he was keeping his arms crossed and his hands locked between his elbows and ribs. If he released them, he’d do something stupid like grab Kaine’s cheeks and kiss him until they didn’t need to breathe.

His toes curled in his shoes as he resisted the urge to step forward, to be close to him. He should be used to being abandoned. Unwanted. Yet this time, it hurt, and he wasn’t sure why. They hadn’t decided to get together… Well, they had decided to get together to fuck, but they hadn’t decided to date or be married without the option of divorce. But his mate should give a shit, and while Kaine said he did, and he had a good excuse, wasn’t it just an excuse? The same kind that he’d been hearing from the day he was born.

“The only reason I’m hurting is because you ignored me. You don’t know what it’s like to have people say they love you with one breath but act as though you’re an inconvenience with the next.”

Kaine’s thoughts flared bright and sharp as if his butterflies had wings made of razors, red hot razors that would cauterize every wound they made. “You’re right, I don’t understand that feeling. But my family is complicated.”

“Because you’re a royal bastard? There is quite a resemblance between you and the king.”

Kaine’s smile tightened as if Quentin had hit a nerve. “That would be easier.”

“How would it be easier? Or is that another secret that you can’t tell me?” Lashing out was not going to make Kaine want him, but it was safer if there was a distance because then Kaine couldn’t hurt him.

Kaine stared at the carpet and sighed. “I’m so used to keeping secrets that telling someone isn’t easy. And this, mid-argument, is not how I wanted to tell you.”

Quentin tilted his head but kept his arms crossed. He wasn’t ready to forgive Kaine for leaving him with his staff for the last five days. Sure, he got to learn a bunch of cool stuff, but Orion wasn’t the most talkative guy, and he was as strict as fuck when it came to what Quentin should be doing and what he shouldn’t be doing. Turning up at Kaine’s door was one of those things, and Orion had nearly picked him up and hauled him out of the building. “How did you want to tell me? Perhaps a text?”

“Stop being such a bitch. I know you’re hurt. I can feel it.” He tapped the center of his chest. “The bond, remember? I can sense what you’re feeling and the edges of your thoughts. It won’t be long until you can read mine. I don’t know how long it will take me to learn how to read yours.”

“Ah, so you want to tell me before I find out for myself?”

“I want to tell you because it’s the right thing to do. You’re my mate, and because I was raised with all this stuff, I know how much that means. Not everyone gets a mate.” Kaine raked his fingers through his dark hair. From the mess it was in, it looked as though he had done it a lot today. “I get it. I’m failing you even though I’m doing my best to keep you safe.”

“You’re keeping me in play. That’s the right words, yeah? I’m carrying on as if nothing has changed and grabbing the footage and?—”

“Because that is the safest option. As soon as they work out that you have told someone, your life is in danger. I’m not lying about that. It’s why I can’t be seen on the street with you. Why you can’t come to my house. Because if it was up to me, I would’ve already moved you in.”

“What makes you think I want to move in? I don’t even know where you live. It might be further for me to travel to work.”

Kaine laughed and shook his head. “You wouldn’t need to work at the bar anymore.”

“Why?” It wasn’t as though he loved the job, but it suited him fine for the moment.

“Because you wouldn’t need to work at all.”

Quentin stared at him. “But you work.”

“Let’s call it family obligation, for the moment. I don’t need to work.”

The Chief of Security must be on a pretty good pay…but enough to stop working? Or was there family money? And he hadn’t denied being related to the royal family, only that it was more complicated than being the product of an affair.

Kaine stepped forward. He ran his hands up Quentin’s arms to his shoulders. “I know asking you to trust me is a lot.”

Every cell in his body trembled with delight that Kaine was touching him. They were only inches apart. He wanted to lean forward so there was nothing between them.

If he uncrossed his arms, he’d fall into Kaine’s waiting embrace, and then where would he be?

Would it be another five days of waiting and hoping?

“Tomorrow, we’re pulling one of the triggers. Nothing may happen, or everything may happen. Or perhaps the Board will give a nervous flutter. I don’t know. You need to use this new magic of yours to be alert, and if you sense anything that doesn’t feel right, you need to tell Orion.”

“What if I’m wrong?”

“I’d rather you be wrong and alive.”

“Can I just stay with you?” He hated the needy whine in his voice. What the fuck was wrong with him? He was used to being on his own and not needing anyone. His hands slipped free of their prison, but he wouldn’t let himself move closer.

“No. Because the moment they see you in my house, they will know. And I have no doubt that my house is watched. It’s what I would do.”

“If you were them and you pulled the trigger, what would you do?”

“It depends on if I had everything ready to go. If I didn’t, I would either ignore it and see it as bait to draw me out, or I might take out those I had blackmailed and clean up loose ends. I would also speed up preparations and act as soon as they were ready. But I would wait two days before acting because, for the first day, everyone would be on high alert. On the second day, everybody will be dealing with the fallout from pulling the trigger. They’ll be distracted.”

“And where am I in all of this because I’m assuming I’m one of the blackmailed people?” And he didn’t want to be thought of as a loose end that needed cleaning up.

“You aren’t the only one. And where you are depends on what happens. I have already sent Orion instructions.”

“I want to know.”

“You’re not an agent or an operative. You’ve never dealt with people who are armed with guns and magic.”

“And I don’t want to deal with any of that stuff, but I want to know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

“Hiding.”

“In your secret library?”

“I never said it was secret.” His hands were warm on Quentin’s shoulders, and it was becoming harder and harder to resist moving closer to him. Was he being a bitch?

Quentin frowned, sure that Kaine had. “Did you think it?”

“There is a secret library. And I want you to look at it. But I need the king’s permission, and for that I need to tell him I have a mate, as it’s also a security risk.”

“Oh…and for how long am I supposed to be your security-risk secret?”

Kaine stepped forward, closing the distance, and wrapped his arms around Quentin. “You aren’t a secret. You are my beautiful, wounded mate. A glorious distraction that I have been trying to resist, so I can save the world as we know it.”

For two breaths, Quentin stood there with his hands by his side, not wanting to relent. But he didn’t want Kaine to hate him. To think that he was a bitch and that it was all about him when there were bigger issues.

But it felt as though it was all about him.

He had issues… He always had issues, but this time they were different, because they involved Kaine, and magic, and other things he couldn’t talk about to other people.

With an exhale, he let his arms lift and wrap around Kaine’s waist. The tension drained out of Kaine’s body, which let some of the anger flood out of him. Maybe not all of the anger was his. If Kaine could sense his hurt, then perhaps he could sense some of Kaine’s emotions too, even if they weren’t in the same room.

“How can I tell which are your emotions and which are mine if they’re blending together?” His words were muffled against Kaine’s shoulder.

“Practice. It also takes practice to not let the other person bring you into their internal turmoil. I know all of this in theory, but I can’t do any of it yet.”

“So it would be helpful if I wasn’t annoyed with you for the next couple of days.”

Kaine nodded, his cheek brushing against Quentin’s. “That would be nice. Because I’d like to not die or be responsible for the death of any of my operatives.”

“Yeah, I’d like that too.” He did not need the weight of that responsibility, directly or incidentally. “I thought being a witch was going to be fun. That having a mate would…”

He’d hoped magic would somehow fix everything. Instead, it complicated everything in ways he could never have imagined.

“Nothing is fun when you’re first learning it. No one likes to feel like an idiot when you’re used to solving all the puzzles and being ahead of the game.”

“I’ll remember never to play chess with you.”

“Or any other strategy game. Apparently, I’m always like this.” He drew in a sharp breath, realizing that he’d said too much.

Quentin curled his fingers into the soft fabric of Kaine’s shirt to stop himself from asking, but it was burning him up. “What do you mean, always like this? And I didn’t even know you had brothers?”

It was the first time Kaine had ever mentioned family. It was as if he’d hatched.

“Give me a day, please.”

“What if you die, or I die?”

“I don’t know.” He swore in some other language. “I wanted to do this so differently. I thought we’d go to my estate?—”

“Estate?” That was the second time Kaine had mentioned one.

“I have an estate and a title, not that I use either much.”

Quentin drew back to look Kaine in the eye. “What’s your title?”

Kaine paused for a heartbeat as if weighing the answer. “Duc de Maison de Falx.”

“Do you actually have falcons on your estate? Where is your estate?” When he suggested hooking up, the idea that he was picking up a duke with an estate had never crossed his mind. He hadn’t even known Kaine was the chief of national security. “Don’t dukes have royal blood?”

“They do. But I’m not a royal bastard. Everything I tell you makes your life that little more dangerous.”

“I think I have the right to know.” Didn’t he? He didn’t know the protocol, and he was sure there was some. And if Kaine was a duke, what was he? Aside from a glorious secret. What if the king said Kaine couldn’t have a mate?

Kaine’s thumbs swept over Quentin’s temples. “Your mind is like rapids tumbling over questions. I don’t have the time to answer all of them. Not tonight. Hopefully after all this shakes down, I will be able to tell you everything.”

“Then choose the three I really need to know,” Quentin said because he needed something.

“Or the three you will believe?” Kaine countered, his hands still on Quentin’s face.

“I only found out about shifters and witches a week ago, and yet here I am. I think I can handle whatever you tell me.”

“You freaked out about being a witch a week ago.”

“You’ve got to cut me a little slack for that because it was an unexpected situation. If I’d known who you were, I would’ve never…”

“No, but you would’ve come to my attention some other way, maybe because of what you were doing, and then things would’ve been different, but we still would’ve ended up here at some point.”

Quentin didn’t know if that was reassuring or terrifying. At least when he’d jumped in, he hadn’t realized the dangers. If things had been different, he might have run. How far would he have gotten? “It doesn’t bother you that this was inevitable, or am I thinking like a human, not a witch?”

“I am grateful to have found you…” He gave another one of those sighs, as though the weight of the decision was too much. When he lifted his head, there was something else in his dark eyes. They flickered with a kind of dark light. “I not sure how old I am or how many lives I’ve lived, Quentin. I am a phoenix shifter.”

Quentin’s mouth popped open, and he grinned. “That explains the burning butterflies.”

“Not to me, it doesn’t.”

“It’s how I’m visualizing my magic, so I’m not swamped by everyone’s thoughts. What does a phoenix look like?”

“A bird made of fire.”

“No body of flesh and blood?”

“None. It was weird when I first started shifting, but I’m used to it now.”

“And if you are a phoenix, you have no parents.” That must be nice.

“Correct. I was raised by one of my brothers. When we die, we hatch as a baby with no memory of our previous lives.”

While he was careful not to say his brothers’ names. Quentin suspected the king was one. Did that also make the prince one? “And your brothers are also phoenixes?”

“Yes…though we may not be blood related. We don’t know our own past because we can’t read the records in our secret library.” He gave Quentin a small smile.

“And here I am.” Like magic…like fate.

“Exactly. I’m hoping that we found each other in this life because you are the exact person I need. Maybe we met in a different life. I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to look to see if I have ever crossed paths with a mind reader. It’s not something I recall reading in my last two lives. Though my last one was cut short.”

“Meaning you died?”

Kaine nodded. “I was forty. Hunting accident.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I was the heir. Another had to be hatched, and more lies had to be told.”

Understanding of the situation was bright and clear. More lies of omission, but his family was complicated. And he was so used to keeping the secrets and telling the lies that it came naturally to leave bits out. “How come you aren’t royal this time?”

“Because we have found it to be safer if one of us isn’t. I was the king before Sebastien, so as much as it grates to be on the outer, it is simply the way things fell this time. Next time…” Kaine shrugged. “Who knows?”

“What about me?” Since Kaine had mentioned looking through his past for mind readers, did that mean there was a chance of other lives and futures? “Do we find each other again?”

“It seems as though it’s possible, but it’s stuff we’re only just figuring out or figuring out again. Who knows how much has been lost to time? We lost one brother, but have we lost others who we’ve forgotten about? I have so many questions, but I can’t ask you to dive into records that date back thousands of years because it will impact my brothers, and I need their permission. And I don’t know if that’s something you even want to do.”

Quentin stared and blinked. “That’s literally what I’m studying to do and so much better than working in the back room of some museum. A secret library for me? I never need another birthday present again.”

“So you’re not mad at me anymore because I can give you a secret library? I don’t know how many times I’m going to be able to pull that off.”

Quentin lifted his eyebrow. “Are you planning on ignoring me so I get mad at you lots of times?” Though now he understood more, none of the anger remained. It still felt a little like a weird dream that was going to be snatched away. Like it couldn’t be happening to him because nothing this good ever happened to him.

“You are hard to ignore. Do you know how tempted I was to go to where you were training and interrupt? I don’t need my staff gossiping about me.”

“But they will when you can talk about me, right?” He watched Kaine’s eyes, searching for shadows where half-truths hid. “I’m your mate, but I don’t know where I stand in your world.”

“My world?”

“You’re a freaking duke.” Sure, they were both paranormals, but that’s where everything ended.

“Oh.”

“Oh? That’s all you’ve got?” How did he make Kaine realize how out of his depth he was? It wasn’t only magic. It was suddenly secretly dating someone very important, with money and power.

“Well, nobody is going to say anything when I say we’re engaged. It’s not as if it needs to be managed like Dalmon.”

“Prince Dalmon?” From what he’d read about the man, it seemed as though he spent all his time traveling or going to parties. Since he was also a phoenix shifter, how much of that was also a lie?

“He’s engaged, but it hasn’t been announced because anything like that needs to be managed.”

“Why does it need to be managed?”

“Because his fiancé is also his PA, and that’s the easy part. They are waiting until the Shadow Board issue is resolved.”

“It seems as though everybody is putting their life on hold.”

Kaine gave a small nod. “Maybe it’s the wrong thing to do, but if we fuck this up, shifters take the blame, and the bad guys seize control of the world. And I don’t think any of us want to live in a world run by power-hungry witches.”

“Will that be any different to a world run by power hungry-humans?”

“Yes, because shifters who step out of line will be bound and drained. For most shifters, it will only be for that one life. But dragon shifters live a very long time…and phoenixes live forever.”