“That doesn’t change the fact that parts of our past almost destroyed us,” I said, mulling it over again. “What if embracing this bond is the catalyst to end it all—maybe we’re not meant to be anything more than best friends?”
Liar.
My inner energy called bullshit on my denial, but I couldn’t afford to just run with that notion. Braxton paused then, his eyes unfocused; I recognized the signs of his mental communication with Jessa. “What is it?” I bit out, each word thundering. My power was definitely stronger, darkness part of it now.
He met my gaze. “Lizzie is gone,” he said. “Jessa just told me…”
He didn’t get a chance to finish. I opened a step-through into my house, appearing right before Jessa.
“Where the hell is she?” I demanded, my hands clenched at my sides. “Where did she go?”
Jessa crossed her arms, not at all intimidated by the power I was throwing around. Which was good, because I would never hurt her. Not now, and I would like to think not even in the throes of being evil Louis. I’d had the power to kill them all with ease, and I hadn’t, so that had to mean something.
“I’m sorry, Louis,” Jessa said, her expression sympathetic. “She said she needed some time. That both of you needed to think about what you want and need in your life, and you couldn’t do that while the bond was pushing you toward each other.”
It all made perfect sense. So much logic in what she said, and still it didn’t stop the thud of pain in my chest. “What if she’s in danger?” I said, sounding dangerous myself. “She needs to be protected at all costs. She’s the light keeping my darkness at bay. She could get hurt!”
Jessa narrowed her eyes on me. “Did you tell her you didn’t want another mate?”
I opened my mouth to deny it before realizing I’d kind of said that. “It’s safer if I don’t let myself care too much. Tee already has so much power over me. I have to make sure that my emotions don’t get out of control.”
“The darkness?” Jessa guessed.
I nodded, just as the door slammed open and a pissed-off dragon shifter stormed in. He didn’t say anything to me, just raced to his mate’s side and hauled her into his arms. “Keep fucking acting like a crazy sorcerer and I will kill you, Louis,” he said over Jessa’s head. She was tucked tightly into his chest. “I trust you with my mate and my pack … you’re family. Don’t make me regret that decision.”
I didn’t bite back, because he had a right to be worried. I was a little out of control at the moment. Jessa twisted in his arms and met my gaze. “A bonded mate is a dangerous creature,” I told her softly. “The deeper the bond is, the worse the danger to others. I’m already too powerful. I have darkness in my energy now, no matter what I do. I can’t risk any stronger emotions than I already have.”
“I don’t think it matters,” Jessa said quietly. “You already care too much. I think fear is the only thing holding you back, and you deserve the happiness you might find with her. Don’t let fear steal that from you again.”
Swallowing hard, I let the truth I’d been hiding from finally free. “She’s the one I can’t ever recover from losing. It was always her. She’s my best friend.”
Jessa’s face softened. “Then don’t lose her. Take this second chance.”
I started to pace, my senses searching desperately for Tee’s energy. Trying to figure out where she’d gone. She wasn’t in her Alaskan home, and I figured she wouldn’t go straight there because it was the obvious place I’d look.
“I can’t feel her anywhere?” I said slowly. There was no step-through here, no residue of her magic, only the lingering dragon energy and a few traces of where Tee had been in the house and … near the back door.
I followed that energy, a nervous-looking Jessa and emotionless Braxton close behind.
Out the back of my home, there were the strongest tendrils of gold. Of original magic.
“Josephina left from here,” I murmured, and then I put it together. “And Tee left with her.”
Fuck. That meant she was in Faerie, and with the way time shifted, it would be days before she made her way back to Earth. There was no point in following her to Faerie either, because by the time I got there, she could be anywhere. And the energy of Faerie would help her hide from me.
She’d arranged it so I’d have no choice but to spend some time considering what I wanted. My genius of a mate.
My blood boiled at the knowledge that right now she was completely untraceable. Our bond hummed in my chest, as if to remind me that she was okay and that I could check on her through it.
“Use this time to think about what you really want,” Jessa said.
“And sort out the problem with the humans,” Braxton added. “Our borders need securing. An army of humans is moving toward all supe villages now that the elders have revealed our existence to the world.”
Thanks to the television program that was airing night and day on their cable networks, humans had started to surround the supernatural villages. At first it was only the humans who lived their lives half in a fantasy world already: gamers, authors, actors, all of them seeking out the magic they’d dreamed of being true. They’d been camping outside Stratford for the last day and half, and they were mostly calm. But things were starting to ramp up now.
The human government must have done their own investigation into what they were seeing on their televisions, and apparently the threat was now real enough for them to bring out their armies. The US president, who had not been aware of us before this, was declaring us a threat of the highest level.
“Have you spoken to our contact in the government?” I asked Braxton. A lot of humans already knew about us. We had guild members in every government sector.
