“Yes!For the love of the Heavens, do you ever listen?You have been feeling sorry for yourself since the day Fogarty Petersen and his band of merry men sent you Arrhythmia.You have moaned, and bitched, and whined.”
“Oh, hell, no, I have…”
“Oh, hell, yes, you have!And then some!A day has not gone by that you haven’t griped about the fact that we are here and there is nothing either of us could do about it.And the last month has been the worst!”
“It has…”
“Yes!It has!You have been utterly insufferable!You have been a self-centered, pain in the ass.Even your only friend, a Hellhound, I might add, thinks you’re a pain in the ass, and that’s saying something.”
I was speechless– a new condition that was happening way too often, I might add.His words were a slap to the face, not because he’d infused them with Magic, nope, they were just his words, but because they were the truth– and that sucked.I had a lot to make for where my Dragon King, and to be honest, pretty much everyone, starting with Hank, was concerned
“But you could have…”
“…told you?”The Dragon King charged.You think I should have simply blurted out that a Hellmouth that wasn’t supposed to be in Arrhythmia is, in fact, here?That our Mate is also here.That she is the one who walked right through the Wards?”
“She’s what?”
“That the insane mixture of your Magic and Fogarty Petersen’s– the Magic powering the same Wards that you and I were charged with protecting– is also running through her veins?
“She’s…?She’s…?”
“That our Mate, the woman made for us by the Universe, is the one who unknowingly unleashed Hell, because she didn’t know what you were here or that her father’s Magic was in the Wards.”
“WAIT!”I roared.“Wait, one Goddess be damned minute!”Not stopping for even a breath, I kept right on bellowing, “The woman made for me by the Universe, my Mate, is not only a fucking Necromancer, but also Fogarty T.Petersen’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!Is this where you agree that Fate is a fickle bitch who loves to mess with me, and this is her best gag yet?”
“No, I want to say that OUR Mate is a beautiful woman with a pure heart and soul.She is nothing like her father.As a matter of fact, she hates him.”
“Well, we sure as hell have that in common.”
“Shut up and listen.Bernadette Petersen sees her father for what he is, and she despises him with a passion that rivals yours.She is not, nor has she ever been, a party to his nefarious deeds.On the contrary, she has done everything in her power to fight against him.She is….”
“And part of that is coming to Arrhythmia and opening a Hellmouth because letting out the Denizens of Hell seemed like the right thing to do?”
“No, you, Eegit!’Lou was pissed.
I had once again gone too far.He was already in love with the fiery redhead the Universe made for us, and he was sure I was going to fuck it up–which, well, would pretty much be par for the course.Everyone, and I do meev-ery-one, knew my thoughts on Necromancers, especially the one and only Fogarty T.Petersen.
“Would shut your damn mouth and listen for once in your life?Bernadette is in Arrhythmia, and she opened the Hellmouth to get proof that Fogarty killed her mother.She wants to take him down even more than you do!”
“Oh…”
“Yes, Guy, oh,”Lou spat.“She has lost even more at the hands of Fogarty T.Petersen than you.”
Well, that put everything in a whole new light.It had rocked my world in ways I didn’t know it could be rocked, and that was saying something, considering I was a three-hundred-and-sixteen-year-old Guardsman and shared my soul with a two-thousand-year-old Dragon King.
Dammit all to hell, I was scared.Yes, me, Guy Alexander MacAllen, was scared out of my damn mind.My Mate, the woman made for me by the Universe, was a Necromancer.The woman, if I was being completely honest with myself and Lou, I, too, already loved simply because she existed, was not only the type of Supernatural Being I thought I simply hated, but she was the daughter of the man I quite literally despised with every fiber of my being.
“Well, shit, either Fate truly does hate me, or she just loves watching me squirm.”
Lou didn’t answer.Instead, I didn’t even get a warning before he stopped Time and the image of the five redheaded women returned with a clap of Magic that I knew would leave a metaphysical mark on my very real brain.Knowing those ladies were my Mate and her family made it all too real.My fists clenched.My heart pounded.Something bad was about to happen, and there was nothing I could do but sit and watch.
No longer smiling, the five women were fighting for their lives against a horde of unseen adversaries who stayed just out of the frame of my mental vision.The oldest woman faded away, silently evaporating in a wisp of Ether.It was my Mate’s grandmother.She had passed, but was still very important to Bernadette.The next woman’s image became translucent, but she still fought.Moving with the grace and expertise of a true Warrior, my Mate’s mother put herself between the enemy and the other three women, but it wasn’t enough.
Instantly, darkness descended.A spotlight appeared.The three women, Bernadette, her sister, and her aunt, stood dead center while the transparent image of my Mate’s mother tried with all her might to get to them.She had been removed from the picture.She was very close to death, but would fight with everything she had left to keep those she held dear safe.
