6. Declan

6

DECLAN

T he cabin was dim as Max paced back and forth through the small living room. It seemed even more cramped than it usually did, with all of us huddled together.

I could feel her anger, her fear lap against my skin, rough like a cat's tongue.

She hadn't spoken a word since emerging from the pseudo conference room with Evelyn.

It had been a quiet, uncomfortable trek back, all of us lost in our thoughts as we processed what we'd learned.

Eli had the foresight at least to let us know about his talk with her—that she knew about him channeling her fire and that she was pissed that we'd kept it from her. He leaned against the wall now, his gaze hard and focused on a worn patch of carpet with a small stain on it, like that small stain might somehow have the answers to the universe baked into it, waiting to take shape.

Atlas, as he'd been since his return from captivity, was quiet. He sat on the ground, long limbs folded in sharp angles, his eyes tracking her every movement, back leaning against the wall, face otherwise unreadable.

Wade and Darius kept glancing in my direction, the three of us silently trying to figure out what to say. What to do.

I took a deep breath and decided to take one for the team. I rose from the couch and took a step towards her. "Max. Can we talk about this?"

"Have the rest of you channeled my powers too?" There was no anger in her voice, but somehow that made it worse.

Just hurt.

Just fear.

She wasn't mad at us, she was mad at herself. I just didn't understand why. Something had been off the last week, and I'd chalked it up to left over adrenaline from the jailbreak at Headquarters, but now I wondered if there wasn't something else underlying it all.

I shook my head fast, catching the others doing the same from the corner of my eye. "No. None of us. Just Eli, and just the one time." I turned to him, second guessing myself. "Right?"

He nodded.

It was such a strange, new thing for me, for us all—trying to maintain and manage the feelings and experiences of everyone. All five of us were tied to Max now, and it would take work and practice, and probably a few fucking missteps to boot, to keep things as smooth and peaceful as possible.

She paused mid pace, folding her bottom lip against her teeth as she sniffed, then nodded, and resumed her pacing again. "Good, that's good. We need to find a way to control that."

"That would require that we understand why—" Darius turned his angry stare on Eli, "and how—it happened in the first place."

He hadn't been there, hadn't seen what Eli had done. And when Wade and I filled him and Atlas in this morning, he'd been livid. His anger spilling out of him like a leaky faucet, until I was certain the only thing keeping him from tearing Eli's head from his spine was Max—and the small problem that killing Eli would effectively end his life too.

Atlas hadn't really reacted, though I could see something shift behind his eyes, processing, thinking. Usually, I could read him like a book, understand every twitch, every unspoken thought—but since his return, it was like that familiar book had been translated into another language. He was here, the Atlas I'd always known, I just didn't have the same access to him that I used to. His thoughts were closed to me now.

I wished like hell it didn't bother me as much as it did. But he'd been my lifeline when I moved in with my aunt, my family. When my entire life had imploded and I'd moved to a new country, his solid presence, unwavering support, had kept me steady.

My stomach had been tied in knots over the fact that I didn't seem to have the ability to do the same for him now.

We were all finally in the same place—for the first time in what felt like forever—but we'd been through so much, we'd been so transformed by the trauma of it all, that I wasn't sure how to hold us together. It was like, if I breathed too hard in the wrong direction, we'd all fall apart, the history holding us together dissolving until there were no threads left to tie.

Max.

She had become the thing that held us together. I just had to hope her grip was stronger than mine.

"I'm not holding you together," she said, her brows furrowed. "Don't be ridiculous, Dec."

"Oh, I—" I hadn't realized I'd spoken that last part out loud.

"What?" Wade asked.

Darius stiffened, his focus darting from me to Max, eyes narrowed.

Max shook her head. "It's just so much—too much. So many things to do. So many obstacles. We'll be fine, I just need to process, just need to figure out?—"

I wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about. "Is this about your conversation with Evelyn? Or about what we learned before that—that the human governments have drawn a target on our back?"

She grunted. "That, and the fact that the council is making plans to drain my powers and use them for gods know what nefarious purpose."

I blinked a few times, willing myself to focus. Her lips hadn't parted when she'd spoken those words. The sound was clear, her tone laced with the wobble of anxiety, but her lips were pressed tightly together, the line firm, unmoving.

I glanced at Atlas and saw him straighten slightly, his head tilting in question, as he focused on her.

"The council is trying to do what now?" Wade took a step towards her, his gaze drifting between her mouth and eyes, like he was trying to decide whether he'd missed the same thing I had.

"I didn't—" Max stopped pacing, every muscle in her body still, "I didn't say anything about the council."

"Except you did," Wade took a slow, deep breath, confusion and concern mapped out clear on his face, "just now."

"She didn't say that," Darius said, his brow arched as his eyes darted briefly to Eli and then back to her, his body unconsciously leaning towards her, "she thought it."

"I," she frowned, "what?"

"It's the bonds," he clarified, shaking his head like he couldn't quite believe it, "I thought I was imagining it earlier, when we left the meeting, I could've sworn—but now, it's undeniable."

"What?" Max repeated, a small tremor in her voice this time, her skin a shade paler as her gaze darted between each of us. "Are you saying you can hear my thoughts?" She took a step back from us all, panic pulling her breaths in harsh, uneven rasps. "They're just being broadcasted to you? All of them? Can you hear what I'm thinking about right now?"

It was clear from her reaction that she wasn't exactly elated by this development, and I could tell there was something she was trying to keep locked down—but I knew how that went, the moment you tried not to think about something, it was all you could think of.

She deserved that privacy. We all did.

"No," I said, desperate to ease her reaction. "I think Darius is right—but it's only in clips. When you're feeling particularly strongly about something, maybe? Or maybe it comes in the form of what you're feeling. I'll occasionally feel anxious or excited and not entirely understand where it's coming from—maybe it's the same thing that caused Eli to channel your flames. Like during heightened moments, we become more connected, almost like a distress signal or something."

Darius nodded, his jaw tight. "The bonds are solidifying, but at a speed that outpaces our control of them. I've heard stories of this happening, in the old days—but I never believed they were true."

"So how do we control it?" There was a nervous tremor in her voice.

Darius didn't respond, and neither did any of the others. Which meant we didn't have a fucking clue.

Maybe we controlled it the same way all supernatural powers were controlled.

Practice.

Intention.

I closed my eyes, tried to calm the excited thrum of anxiety drumming through my body. I focused on that feeling I had, deep in my chest, that never-ceasing awareness of her, the desire to be close to her, to twine ourselves together. I breathed in, focusing on her scent, on the visual of her I conjured in my mind.

When she healed us, she often spoke of the bonds between us as if they were physical—tethers to tug on in her mind.

I conjured that feeling of her, braided it with the image of a long rope that extended out from me and reached for her.

I breathed into it, feeling it expand and contract and vibrate with my breath.

We'll figure it out.

I thought the sentence as hard as I could, enunciating every syllable in my head as best as I could, so that it was more than just my vague emotions that traveled along the wobbly thought-rope.

She gasped and I opened my eyes. Her lips were parted in awe, her focus on me.

"Did it work?"

She licked her bottom lip and nodded, too stunned for words.

My eyes latched onto the smooth column of her throat as she swallowed. I couldn't help but feel like there was something heavy there, something she was trying desperately to bury deep inside of herself. Shoved so far down that none of us could reach it—that even the mate bonds were unable to pluck it from her thoughts.

"Did what work?" Eli asked, stepping between us like he was missing something.

"I think the connection becomes stronger when we focus on it, when we try to filter our thoughts with intention," I started, shoving him back so that I could see Max again. "And maybe sometimes, when we run away with our thoughts or lose that control over them, they shake loose and slip through the connection on their own."

Max took a deep breath, relaxing, and that ease slowly settled over me too, over us all .

I wasn't sure she was even aware of that—how in tune we all were with her heightened emotions. It was like I'd developed a seventh sense. One that was reserved entirely for her.

"Okay," she whispered, nodding, "I can work with that."

"If we work on controlling it—" Wade started, that studious expression of his—that I'd seen only rare glimpses of since his descent into hell—making an appearance, softening his features until he looked more like the gangly younger kid who followed me and Atlas around like a lost puppy. The memory squeezed at my chest, knowing how much trauma he'd endured to sharpen those edges. "Maybe we can eventually use that to our advantage."

"You mean not just block the connection or learn to tune it out, but use it?" I asked.

Darius shrugged. "Could be useful. We get separated from each other often enough that having a built-in cellphone line would certainly make things easier."

"Can you hear each other's thoughts or just mine?" Max swallowed, her eyes darting around the room, but hesitating to linger on any of ours for too long.

I turned to Darius, closed my eyes, and tried to focus my thoughts in his direction. I had no fucking clue what I was doing, but I shot the words out anyway.

You're a fucking twat.

Max snorted, but Darius just studied me, eyes wide and confused.

"What?" he asked, nostrils flaring slightly at my smirk. He turned to Max, some of the darker shadows that had clouded his temper these last few days clearing just slightly. "What did she say?"

"That she's very fond of your friendship," she responded, face split into a shit-eating grin that instantly seemed to lighten the tension in the room, briefly, as those moments often were these days, before it melted back into concern. "Clearly just me then." She took a deep breath, studying the vampire. "Unless reaching each other will just take more practice, more effort. Like if you speak to each other through me somehow?"

"Possibly. And if we can share each other's powers and strengths," a small grin tugged at Wade's lips, and I could tell that he was excited by this untapped knowledge, the need to puzzle out the rules and understand it, "that wouldn't be the worst thing either. Would take some of the pressure off of you, Max. Give us a better chance of helping you, keep us from getting in the way."

"What if I hurt one of you though? I hardly have control over my powers as it is—we don't know what will happen if I just start blasting them through to you."

"Lucifer has said that you're a catalyst," Darius studied her, his chin balanced on his fist as he paused for a long beat, not unlike Wade in his curiosity, "which means you're literally made for siphoning magic, for the push and pull of it. And we're?—"

"Made for you," Wade finished, indigo eyes sparkling with affection. "Your powers have never hurt us, Max—only healed."

Max considered him for a long moment.

"Okay," she said finally, a soft smile relaxing some of the tension wrinkling her forehead. "We can try."

Especially if channeling my powers can help keep you all safe.

The last sentence came not from her lips, but her mind.

I met the others' eyes, all of us trying to stifle a grin.

"I said that in your heads, didn't I?" she asked with a sheepish slump. "Shutting the connection down is going to take as much work as opening it, I think."

"Probably," Wade said, "but I'm okay with you sifting through my thoughts in the meantime." The salacious wink he punctuated that sentence with made it abundantly clear what kind of content those thoughts would be broadcasting. And the blush coloring Max's cheeks meant that he'd either successfully spoken to her through their link or she'd conjured some of those thoughts on her own.

I stifled a groan, hoping like hell none of his dirty thoughts filtered down to me. The last thing I needed was these dickheads broadcasting their horny 24/7 directly into my brain. When I turned to Eli, I shivered at the thought, having unintentionally walked in on more than enough of his encounters to know I wanted nothing to do with them.

"Now that I know it's there, that we can use the connection, it doesn't feel that dissimilar to the kind of control we can wield in dream-walks," Wade continued, thankfully oblivious to the cringey turn my thoughts had taken. "I think you'll be able to use it at will in no time."

She took a deep breath, and sat down next to Eli where he'd settled on the couch.

My own tension eased with hers, and when I glanced at the others, I knew they felt it too.

Everyone except for Atlas. If anything, he seemed only more uncomfortable.

When his dark eyes met mine, the threads of gold nearly invisible from this angle, I understood. His thoughts were darker than most these days, he seemed half with us, half trapped in the nightmares the drude had locked him in.

Max had freed him from the worst of it, but the wounds left from those memories were as strong as they were invisible.

He wouldn't want Max anywhere near there. Wouldn't want her to know or feel the true depths of the pain he was in.

It was, perhaps, the most sure I'd been about any of his thoughts since his return. The first time the connection between us felt clear—not quite as pristine as it had always been, but an echo of it. My best friend was still there. Buried and burdened, perhaps, but he wouldn't be forever.

I walked over to him, slid down the wall until I was sitting just a few inches away, careful not to accidentally touch him .

He flinched anytime one of us got too near.

I was honestly just excited that he'd spent this much time in the same room as the rest of us.

He tensed at first, uncomfortable with my proximity, but that tension relaxed slightly—not entirely gone, but melting.

It was a start.

I didn't know how to voice the words, didn't want to call attention to his fear, but I knew Atlas would find it easier than the rest of us to shut the connection down, to block his thoughts from Max. He had a lifetime of repressing his emotions, his wolf, his desires down as far as they would go. Something told me this would be no different.

Of the six of us, Max was the one who wore her emotions most vividly on her sleeve—it was one of the things that had drawn me to her instantly. The vulnerability, the complete ease with which she could be herself—free of judgment, of concern for what others might think of her.

I settled on a vague, "we're all pretty good at suppressing ourselves, it's one of the first things The Guild trains us to do, so I don't think that temporarily closing the connection will be the difficult part. Opening it will probably require more muscle flexing."

As if he knew that was just for him, Atlas's fingers twitched, his head nodding slightly. He turned to Max, the temporary reprieve making way for something sharper.

"What did you mean before," he rasped, his voice quiet from disuse, "that the council wanted your powers."

Max took a deep breath, leaned up against Eli, her head resting on his shoulder as his fingers drew circles on her thigh.

It was strange, all of us being in love with the same girl, but I didn't feel even a spark of jealousy as I watched them together. It made me oddly happy to see Eli—a man who'd spent his life using and being used by women to suit sexual whims and quell boredom—out of his mind in love with this girl .

"Evelyn and Levi," she started, locking her fingers through Eli's as he froze. Any negativity coursing through him visibly and instantly withered away at her touch, her effect on him tangible and evident in every line of his body. "They found a file on me. Apparently after I disappeared—" she cleared her throat and stood up, walked over to the kitchen table to grab the file she'd anxiously creased in several places on our walk home, and dropped it soundlessly in Eli's lap. "The night of the ambush, they started to puzzle out who I was. And now that they've found ways to infuse themselves with shadow magic, Evelyn is concerned that they might have a way to either use—or steal—mine."

"Well, great," Eli muttered, as he flipped through the documents, his brows furrowing and his expression growing darker with every line that he read. When he was through, he passed it to Wade, each of us scanning in turn. "I was hoping things wouldn't start getting simple and easy for us."

"How did they get this?" Darius asked, when it was his turn to peruse the pages. "Was her clearance really this high?"

The breath caught in my chest as I stiffened.

Fuck. We hadn't told him.

How the hell had we forgotten? Had things really become so chaotic that this had slipped my mind for days?

"Erm," I started, suddenly upset that Rowan wasn't here to help with the delivery of this less-than-super news. "I think Levi is more than just a protector."

The ruffling of papers silenced and I felt everyone's eyes fall to me.

I didn't look at them though, focusing only on Eli.

He was still, expression giving nothing away, the hand not holding Max's now in a white-knuckled grip. Honestly, it was sort of surprising. He wasn't known for exercising restraint, not when it came to his family. And he'd already been pushed to the edge as it was today .

"What do you mean?" Max asked, her entire side pressing into Eli, soothing the turmoil that I knew she probably experienced as strongly as if it was her own. Another element of the bonds we'd need to understand.

I picked at the carpet lining the floor between me and Atlas, searching for words. I should have told Eli immediately, but in all of the chaos, I honestly hadn't thought about it. And he had a short fuse when it came to his family—a fuse that was always threatening to spark between Seamus struggling and Levi and Evelyn always being around. The last thing we needed was him spiraling because of this and accidentally lighting the cabin on fire.

Atlas's foot slid slightly until the side of his boot pressed gently against mine. It was a small gesture, but my chest squeezed at his small encouragement, his solidarity.

"We've been on a few missions with Levi," I started, trying to fully remember the details. He never confirmed anything, of course," I shot Eli a weak smile, "I mean, you know how he is. Loves being all mysterious and probing and shit. But it was clear that he was something… more . All I know for sure is that he seems to have the ability to blur or compel human thoughts, but he also suggested that he could do the same with protectors, with supernaturals as well. I think—" I cleared my throat, the sound uncharacteristically loud in a room where I could suddenly hear a pin drop, "I think that's why they've allowed us near this place in the first place, why Levi was always able to slip in and out of Guild life whenever he wanted, without anyone ever calling him on it—because he could erase whatever interactions he didn't want sticking. He's always existed as a sort of phantom in The Guild—no team, no friends, no clear role, slipping through the seams like a shadow. I think this is why—" I shrugged, "or, at least, how."

"He can do what?" Eli's voice was hollow, his dark eyes vacant .

"Seriously?" Wade leaned his head back, letting out a long exhale. "Is everyone a demon now? I can't fucking keep up."

Max's face scrunched up in confusion as she turned to Darius. "Vampires can do that, right? Light compulsion, I mean. With humans at least?"

"I'm pretty sure Lucifer, and other higher demons can as well," Wade added.

"Vampire compulsion is rare, and difficult to master," Darius started. "It also can't be employed at the level Declan is suggesting. At least not on protectors to the extent it would allow us to get past Guild security protocols, and definitely not on demons. Memories are very complicated, they are tied to our identities and once you pluck or change one, there is a ripple effect. No single memory exists in a vacuum. It's why vampires rarely bother with it outside of blurring the thoughts of humans they feed from. More trouble than it's worth and it can lead to Guild capture when done poorly." Darius arched his brow as he turned to Eli. "You know who his father is?"

Eli swallowed then shook his head. "They never told me." His voice was hoarse, shaken. "And, honestly, I never swallowed my pride long enough to ask."

Darius turned to me, his hair disheveled, eyes feral. "And I'm guessing he didn't give you any clear answers, or outline his family tree during this big reveal?"

I snorted. "Have you met Levi? Getting a straight answer out of him is about as common as spotting a unicorn on the side of the road."

"Hellhounds exist," Wade said with a shrug, "who's to say unicorns don't as well?"

"I've never seen one." Darius paused for a moment, not bothering to hide his curiosity as he considered the possibility, "but I suppose after everything, we can't exactly rule them out, can we?"

"Not the point." Max shook her head, a reluctant grin tugging at her lips. "Levi's part mystery demon. That explains how they've been able to get as much intel as they have here, why they've been willing to give us a chance—to trust us as much as they have." She frowned, "but that also means?—"

"That we don't know the limits of Levi's strengths—or how much we can trust him not to use them against us if we become a threat," Eli added, his face growing paler with each passing minute.

I shuddered at the thought of Levi erasing or muddling my memories.

But I didn't miss the way that Atlas's face softened, just a touch, like the idea of forgetting was laced with equal parts fear and hope.