My mates were uncharacteristically quiet, sullen almost, as we
skirted past the remnants of an old school. Vines and ivy crawled up the brick
sides, and the windows had long since been shattered. I spotted a tree
growing from one of the windows, its branches wrapping around the huge
white pillars adorning either side of the entryway.
As T scurried ahead, barely sparing us a glance, I turned towards Dair
who was wheeling himself beside me. His forearms strained as we climbed
the steep hill, blond hair glinting in the waning sunlight. He was so
handsome, so perfect, that my breath caught.
"Don't pity me," he murmured softly. We had somehow found ourselves
in the middle of the group. Bash and Jax walked in front of us, eyes warily
fixed on T as if he was a monster they needed to smite. Devlin, Killian, and
Lupe held up the rear. And Ryland? Who the hell knew where he went.
Probably lurking on a tree branch or something.
"Pity?" I echoed, raising a brow.
Dair's handsome face pinched slightly - a furrow of his brow, a crease
between his eyes, the scrunch of his nose. It was an expression I was
beginning to read easily on my Mermaid Prince, one that hinted at the unease
he wished to remain hidden. But he couldn't hide things from me, whether or
not he liked it. I was his mate, dammit, the other half of his soul.
Releasing a breath, Dair continued to roll himself up the incline, his
powerful muscles bulging with each movement.
"I'm not stupid," he said quietly, succinctly. "Everybody looks at me like
that."
"Like what?"
Like they want to jump his fine ass? Because if that was the case, I might
get a little stabby.
"Like they feel bad for me." His voice was resigned, holding no anger or
resentment. It was as if he was reciting a fact like the color of the sky. My
heart clenched. "And it's funny. I had never considered myself lesser because
of my disability. I never considered myself as anything other than a person."
His tongue snuck out to wet his lips, and my eyes fixated on that seemingly
innocent movement. "I'm used to it, you know. The pitying stares. The
whispers. The disgust. It's rare to see a Nightmare with a disability, let alone
a prince. I never asked to be confined to this damn chair."
As if the universe had a twisted sense of humor - even more so than I
originally thought - his wheel got caught on a particularly sharp rock. He
murmured something unintelligible beneath his breath, desperately
attempting to maneuver his chair over this obstacle.
"Let me-" I took an automatic step forward, arms extended to push him
further, but he leveled me with a glare. It hardened his features. Instead of the
angelic prince I once thought him to be, he looked dangerous. Every inch the
Nightmare Prince I had originally imagined.
"I got it!" he snapped. Though his tone wasn't belligerent, it wasn't kind.
In those three words, I could hear years of pent-up anger and aggression. Not
directed at me - I knew innately that he would never harm me - but at the
world. At the injustice. At the unfairness of being stuck in a chair while the
rest of us were able to run and walk and dance. I could see it all clearly.
Devlin stepped up behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder. He
quirked a brow, glancing from me to Dair. At his unasked question, I nodded
for him to go on ahead. He hesitated, only a moment, before kissing my
cheek and following Killian and Lupe further up the path.
The overprotective fools leaned against a tree, far enough away where
they weren't in hearing distance but close enough to jump to my rescue, if the
need arose.
As if I would need them to rescue me. They were sorely mistaken if they
thought I was the damsel in this story. Hell, in Killian's case, I had saved him
more often than not.
Shaking my head, I focused back on Dair who was still struggling to
move his chair. It might've been the mate bond speaking, but I knew he
needed me. To talk to him. To comfort him. To do whatever the hell it was
mates did.
"I don't think you're lesser, Dair," I said hesitantly. My fingers thrummed
against each other, desperate for something to do. I never knew I would be
the type to twiddle my thumbs, but there I was. Twiddling my damn thumbs.
Feeling ridiculous, I grabbed my dagger out of my waistband and spun it
between my fingers.
Much better.
"What can I do?" Dair murmured bitterly, self-loathing evident in his
voice. "I can't protect you like the others. I'm not as smart as Lupe. I don't
have history with you like Devlin. I'm not awkwardly adorable like Killian."
I snorted, endeared at hearing Dair call my Incubus Prince awkwardly
adorable.
He smiled softly at me before his smile faded. "I just..." With a growl, he
shoved at the wheels once more.
"Dair..." Tentatively, I crouched down beside him. I didn't know quite
what to say nor how to comfort him. In my past relationships, I never focused
on feelings. That wasn't to say that I didn't have that, because I did, but I
never needed to talk about my emotions.
But Dair wasn't Devlin or S, and I cared about him just as much.
Different types of relationships required different efforts.
"Look..."
"Z!" T poked his head out of the doorway, ignoring the growl from Lupe.
And myself, if I was being honest. There I was trying to be all serious and
romantic and shit, and my ex's brother had to go and ruin it.
Snapping my teeth at him, I shouted, "What?"
"You have a visitor!"
I frowned, sifting through the people I knew in my life who could
possibly be visiting me in the middle of fucking nowhere. Frankly, I wasn't
the most "friendly" person. The list was small.
"I don't have any friends!" I retorted back. Bash, leaning against the fence
of the old school, snorted out a laugh, and I gave him my finger.
"Go ahead," Dair said tiredly to me, nodding towards the house. Warily.
Still, he flashed me a smile, though it did not reach his eyes.
"Dair..." I murmured, hating his attitude. There was probably some
profound saying that could be used to help him, something about changing
his outlook on life, but I couldn't articulate it without sounding like an
imbecile. Instead, I settled for awkwardly patting him on the shoulder.
He blanched, and I internally groaned.
Fucking shit. I sucked at this whole mate thing.
My thought process was interrupted by a willowy man appearing in the
doorway. Lupe snarled, claws extending, and Devlin's eyes burned a brilliant
violet. Even Bash raised his hands, an incantation on his lips.
The man was short, smaller than even me, with a shock of dark hair and
tanned skin. He wore wire-framed glasses that slid down his nose and skin
tight jeans.
His eyes slid over the men without sticking before focusing on me. He
nodded his head once in what I supposed was a nod of solidarity. Even so,
my throat clogged tight with emotion.
"Come," he said briskly. "I made tea."
When no one seemed inclined to move, he grabbed a dagger
out of his
waistband and tossed it in the air. It flew, hitting a tree trunk inches from
Killian's head. The Incubus stared wide-eyed at the protruding dagger before
whipping his head to face the tiny little man and then focusing back on the
dagger once more. He turned his helpless eyes onto me.
I shrugged.
"The man said he made tea."
Ignoring Dair's protest that he didn't need my help, I lifted the chair over
the rock and wheeled him the short distance to the tiny house.
"HH," I murmured, instantly wrapping my arms around the smaller man.
He stiffened imperceptibly, and I immediately pulled back. "Sorry."
"HH?" Killian asked, a red eyebrow raising. "Diego's...?"
He didn't need to finish his sentence.
Diego's mate.
Who no doubt felt the exact moment Diego died. Had felt the life bleed
from his one true love.
Heart tightening and stomach plummeting, I walked inside the sparsely
furnished room. Aside from a sleeping bag in the corner and a pile of canned
fruit, the main room was empty. T was currently sitting on the sleeping bag,
sorting through the collection of food.
"Is this where you're staying?" I asked in disbelief. T barely looked up.
"Yup."
"Why?" Why not at the headquarters? I wanted to ask, but remained tight-
lipped. I trusted my mates to an extent, but they were loyal to the kingdom
first and foremost. I didn't know if that loyalty would exceed their loyalty to
me.
T met my eyes with understanding.
"Mali visited our house," he murmured. And by house, he meant the
compound that housed the resistance. It couldn't be called a building, for it
was located deep beneath the ground in a series of tunnels. A part of me
missed the dripping gray walls and sparse lighting the further you ventured
through the labyrinth.
"Mali?" I whispered hoarsely. I didn't know why saying her name hurt as
badly as it did. But damn, that stung like a bitch. I rubbed at my heart as if
that could somehow soothe the ache her absence caused me. "What
happened?"
"What do you think?" T continued his perusal of the food, voice dry. "B
kicked her out. I didn’t know why at the time. I kind of assumed she had
wanted to stay with you and B hadn’t allowed her to, so they argued, and B
booted her.”
I wasn't surprised, not entirely, but it still hurt to hear. Where would she
go? She was considered a traitor to her own kind.
The Vampires would never accept her back, and the humans would love
nothing more than to hunt her.
"And then what happened?" I asked.
He sighed heavily, but was saved from explaining by HH returning. He
carried a tray with ten teacups and a kettle. Without a word, he placed the
tray on the table and began pouring tea into the cute, ceramic cups.
Bash held it up distastefully, lips curling.
"It's not poisoned, is it?" he asked. HH leveled him with a long,
impossible to read, look. Almost absently, his hand rested on his dagger's hilt.
The meaning was clear: drink the fucking tea.
"Is the big, bad Mage afraid of a little tea?" I sang mockingly. Bash
tossed me an acrimonious glare before downing the drink in one go. HH
watched him impassively.
"The poison should take effect in five minutes," he deadpanned, handing
the next drink on the tray to Lupe.
The expression on Bash's face as he sputtered, brown tea dripping down
his chin? Priceless.
T chortled, and I threw back my own head in laughter. The rest of my
mates were glancing at me as if I had lost my mind.
"He's fucking with you," I assured Bash, though a part of me really
wanted to see what he would do.
Bash wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "That's not very nice,"
he muttered, and his petulant attitude only made me laugh harder. He flicked
a fireball at me, and I let out a screech as it heated my ass.
HH handed me my own cup before sitting down beside T on the small
bedroll.
"Anyway," T murmured, getting back on track. I remained standing, my
mates surrounding me. If HH was shocked to see the seven princes with me,
he didn't show it. I would not be surprised, however, if Diego had found a
way to communicate with him ahead of time about my predicament. "We
were attacked. About a week ago."
"Attacked?" I asked, gasping. "What happened?"
"Nightmares. Dozens of them." T's eyes flickered warily to the men
behind me, but he continued talking doggedly. "Slaughtered everyone.
Women. Children."
I could see the anguish in his eyes, the agony, and I knew my own eyes
were a mirror image. I could also see the guilt brewing just below the surface.
His next words confirmed as much.
"I was on a mission when I got the message," he said softly. His eyes
latched onto something over my shoulder. I could tell he didn't want to meet
my eyes, didn't want to see the pity in my gaze. The anger. The pain. "By the
time I arrived..."
HH nodded stoutly. He didn't have to say anything for me to know his
story would be somewhat similar. In all actuality, he was probably on his way
to the Capital to find Diego. Or, at the very least, his body.
"The survivors got separated," T said. "With the numerous safe houses
throughout the area, I was lucky I was able to come into contact with HH.
We've been visiting each house in the hopes of finding more survivors. He
hadn’t told me about Mali and..."
And Diego.
me. The house S and I had lived at, the house we had made our own, was
now a safe house for the resistance. An unused one, by the look of it.
"Are we going to talk about what happened back there?" Devlin cut in
crisply. Even after the fight, he was as impeccably dressed as always in an
ironed black suit and white collared shirt. His dark curls were brushed away
from his face.
"About this supposed Fae attacking us?" T murmured bitterly.
"Not attacking us," Dair countered. "Attacking Z."
At this turn of conversation, HH dropped his teacup, eyes sparking with
interest. It was the first genuine emotion I had seen on his face since I
arrived.
"Are you sure that was a Fae?" Bash drawled, and Lupe nodded.
"I would have to do more research, but yes, I'm sure. Nearly positive."
I wasn't surprised. Despite looking like a lumbering giant, Lupe was
nothing more than a giant teddy bear. Literally. As in, he was a big ass bear
when he shifted.
He also preferred hiding away in his library instead of facing the world
head on. It was a shock to see him kill that creature in the first place, to put it
mildly. Lupe was a lover, not a fighter.
I knew that a Shifter's protective instincts went into overdrive when their
mate was involved, but to see it in person was overwhelming. I hoped he
would grow out of it and fast. I didn't need some man to protect me, someone
I barely knew, but who thought they knew what was right for me. I still hadn't
decided what I was going to do about these mating bonds,
but you could bet
your ass I wouldn't put up with being kept locked away like some dainty
princess.
If he wanted a princess, he could have one. That would never be me.
Realizing my thoughts had drifted from the conversation, I focused on the
matter at hand.
Lupe was arguing with Bash over the logistics of an extinct supernatural
creature coming back from the dead. I heard words like "colonies" and
"possibilities" as well as curse words from Bash stemming from "anal plug"
to "ass wiping vagina".
And then I heard a soft murmuring, directly behind me.
"They live in trees. They live in trees. They live in trees."
"Jax?" I whispered, taking a step closer to the Vampire. His wild eyes
rapidly moved around the room in a calculating manner. He continued to
mutter nonsense beneath his breath.
"Not nonsense," Ryland whispered in my ear, and I shivered. The Shadow
moved with grace until he was directly beside me, his fingers interlocked
with my own. Until that moment, I hadn't even realized I was thinking out
loud.
"Then what the hell is he saying?" I asked him, eyes locked on Jax. He
began to pace, running a hand through his short brown hair in agitation. With
each word, his voice grew louder and louder until he was almost screaming,
garnering the attention of the rest of the men in the room. "Jax," I whispered,
taking a step closer. Ryland moved with me until we were face to face with
the erratic Vampire. His wide eyes pleaded with me, but for what, I couldn't
discern.
"They live in trees," he said earnestly.
"The Fae?"
"That's true," Lupe murmured from behind me. "I remember reading
about that in one of my books. I would have to look at it in more detail..." He
trailed off, mind already wandering to what new discovery he could make.
"Not nonsense," Ryland repeated. He gave my fingers a quick squeeze.
"Jaxie here knows more than he lets on. We just need to figure out a way to
get the information out of him."
SEVEN
LUPE
The library was my favorite room in the entire Capital.
It was a good combination of old and modern, elegant and
simple. Three-tiered chandeliers created an aperture towards the
mahogany shelves. Row after row of dusty, centuries old books sat on the
distressed wood, their spines creased and faded with age. It carried the