Page 97 of Damien’s Mate

She was quiet for a little bit, thinking, but he’d learned from Titan how to live with silence in a conversation, so he just waited her out.

Finally she said, “When the Lord High Commander had me thrown in that cell, I was so…” She shook her head. “It was like I’d been thrown in this black pit, where my whole life had turned into nothing. And that meant I was nothing.”

He squeezed her hand. He’d had some hard fucking losses in his life, but he couldn’t even imagine what that must have felt like. Or how strong was, to have pulled herself out of it—alone—and summoned the willpower to escape.

She went on, “But then I realized, they didn’t matter. The Lion Guard—the real ones—were true to their honor code. They sacrificed themselves for what they believed in. And just because traitors took advantage of my father’s belief in them and fooled him into working for the wrong side, didn’t mean that he failed. That I failed. We still recovered the artifacts, and I can still return them to the Royal House.”

Then she gave him that mischievous smile he loved. “If I want. Because if they’re massive dicks like that Prince Herrick, I might just keep the artifacts. After all, they were made for the Makek-Dur Lion Guard—the real Guard—and you could say that I’m the last one. So technically they would be mine.”

Damien put his arm around her and hugged her to him, laughing. “There’s those flexible ethics I love so much.”

Lila went on, “What I want to know is, how did you open the case to get the artifacts out? And how did you know the armband was a weapon?”

Damien said, “When Remy did his research, one of the things he found out was what the artifacts did. I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but I remembered it after you left. As far as opening the case, I knew the spell because I heard you say it so many times. But whether it would work or not—that was a gamble.”

“A crazy one. The case is keyed to my DNA.”

“Actually, it’s not,” Damien said. “Remy’s dragon contact said it was probably keyed to your family’s shared electromagnetic signature, which includes DNA, but also the… imprint of your animals, I guess you’d call it. You put my lion in me, and so we figured… hoped… he had a similar enough magical signature to pass as a relative.”

“What would you have done if he didn’t?”

He shrugged. “Gone down fighting. If I lost you, I wouldn’t have wanted to come back.”

Lila wrapped her arms around his waist, and he held her close for a minute. They’d been so damn lucky, so many times.

Maybe there really was something to this ‘fate’ thing.

Brunch at the house was chaos. Brandon and Flynn worked tandem in the kitchen, tossing utensils and ingredients back and forth like the bartenders in that old movie Cocktail. Damien and Lila retreated to a corner pretty early on, both of them overwhelmed by the sheer force of personality of three dozen shifters eating, pounding down beer, mimosas, and Bloody Marys, and burning off the adrenaline of a fight that hadn’t happened.

“This is so going to turn into a brawl,” Lila murmured. “Several of them, probably.”

Damien was fascinated, watching them all. Besides Jaeda’s and Brandon’s families, he picked out Flynn’s mate, a lean Draken woman in black leather who looked like either an assassin, or Xena the Warrior Princess. Their daughter, who appeared to be about sixteen, sulked in a corner with her phone, ignoring everyone.

Kitty was in the dining room with her parents—a slender, badass-looking woman with a waterfall of long black hair, and a big, easygoing blond man with a scar on his face, who looked at Kitty and her mother like they’d collectively raised a ladder and hung the moon.

Colt and Remy’s dad was an older version of the twins, but quieter. Their mom, who had the round amber eyes of her owl, had had two mimosas and now thought everything was hilarious.

Jaeda was on the living-room couch, chattering with two women her own age—one blond and lively who had ‘hellion’ written all over her, and the other tall and dark-haired, with mysterious eyes. Childhood friends, he gathered.

Most of the Al-Maddeiri clan were on the porch or out in the yard, having a contest involving spitting booze into the air and lighting it on fire with their breath.

Emon Al-Maddeiri was out there, arm around his mate, laughing as hard as the others. Apparently he wasn’t as much of an evil dictator as he pretended to be.

Interestingly, Dragon Boy was nowhere to be seen.

Damien soon found out that Lila had called it right about the brawls. When the first one broke out in the yard, the two of them exchanged glances and headed for the stairs.

“Is it rude to leave our own thank-you party?” she whispered as they made their escape.

“They’ll never notice we’re gone.”

Upstairs in their suite, Damien shut the door behind them and leaned against it. Lila turned, smiling at him.

He looked at her, so strong, so beautiful. Ours, his lion said with satisfaction.

Fuck yeah, buddy, he answered.

Lila was watching him in a way that made the heat rise in his body. “What are you thinking?” he asked her.