Chapter 8
Chapter eight
“This is a terrible idea.”
“It is the only one we have.”
Yeah, Ruger understood that, but it didn’t mean he had to like it. As Luka had pointed out, however, they really had run out of options.
For the past two days, they had poured over every piece of literature they could find about mystics and magical bonds. They had consulted with people a hell of a lot older and more experienced than them, and they had all pretty much said the same thing.
They were outmatched in every way.
They could either run or find a way to outsmart Castor. Even then, they had only a small probability of success.
Damn it, nothing seemed real anymore. In his world, magic had limits. Witches were powerful but not omnipotent. Curses ranged from petty to inconvenient. Not life-altering and deadly.
For fuck’s sake, he’d met literal gods, and even they had a weakness. Of course, none of them happened to be around when he really needed them. At this point, though, he doubted they would even be able to help.
Since they couldn’t overpower the rockstar, that meant they had to outsmart him. Only, that also seemed impossible. Ruger highly doubted they would be able to trick him into breaking the curse himself.
In a moment of desperation, he had thrown his hands in the air and declared they should just walk up to Castor and politely ask him to release Luka. It had been said with frustration and no small amount of sarcasm, but his mate had latched onto the idea.
Would it work? Probably not. Did they have a better plan? Also no.
He still hated it.
“Perhaps you should wait here,” Luka suggested as they strode into the hotel lobby.
“What?” He jerked around to gape at his mate. “No. Why would you say that?”
Skye had graciously agreed to facilitate a meeting with Castor, and to his surprise the male had actually accepted the invitation. He just hadn’t decided if that was a good thing or not.
He leaned toward not, and he had no intention of letting his mate walk into a room alone with the asshole.
“Your emotions are…unstable.”
Which sounded like a nice way of saying he was freaking the fuck out, which wouldn’t be an unfair assumption. So many things could go wrong, and nothing in his life had prepared him to face something like this.
“I’ve worked with him before,” he argued as if that somehow qualified him to manage the meeting. “I know him.”
“So do I.”
Ruger growled, those pesky emotions getting the better of him. “Just…let me come with you. I need to be there.”
“Then calm yourself, taavi.”
Yeah, okay, he could do that. Probably. He just needed to reframe the situation.
At its core, this was nothing more than a contract, and the key to any successful negotiation was finding a compromise that benefited both parties Ideally, he preferred to have some type of influence, and unfortunately, in this situation, Luka had little to offer.
Still, he’d started with less before.
While desperation could be transformed into opportunity, the problem came from the fact that they had nothing Castor wanted or needed. He had to find a way to shift the balance, even if only slightly, and not let fear dictate their choices.
He continued to strategize as they wound their way through the guests, past the curving staircase, and down the corridor to a row of conference rooms. While he didn’t like the idea of a closed-door meeting—a public venue seemed a hell of a lot safer—he also recognized the necessity since Castor’s fame presented its own set of problems.
And possibly leverage.
Stopping outside of a frosted glass door, he took a deep breath and glanced over at his mate. “Are you ready?”
At Luka’s nod, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“Ruger Raines!” The mystic leaned against the long table in the center of the room, beaming at him like an old friend. “And Luka! It’s so good to see you out and about.”
In response to the greeting, a low, ominous growl echoed through the room.
Ruger sighed inwardly. And Luka had called him unstable.
“Calm down.”
“I am trying.”
“Try harder.”
“So, tell me.” The male pushed upright and rubbed his hands together. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
“You know why we’re here, Castor.”
His smile slipped briefly, a barely noticeable shift, but it was a crack in his well-crafted armor. “I haven’t heard that name in centuries.”
And Ruger wished he had never heard it, but here they were. “We want you to release Luka.”
“Why would I do that?” Oddly, he sounded genuinely curious rather than taunting.
“Because it’s kind of a dick move to own people?” Ruger suggested, playing the game. “Very unfashionable.”
“You make it sound so uncivilized.” Castor straightened the red bowtie and tugged at the lapels of his tuxedo jacket. “I never owned him. We are merely bound.”
“You literally bought him.”
“No money exchanged hands.”
Ruger refused to argue semantics with the conceited prick. “You cursed him for four hundred years, and clearly, you’ve done okay without him.”
“Yes, that was quite unfortunate, but it all worked out in the end.” His sapphire eyes sparkled as he glanced between them. “Tell me, Luka, did you learn your lesson?”
This time, when his mate growled, Ruger didn't issue a reprimand. He growled along with him.
“Oh, come now.” Castor huffed, seemingly put out with the entire ordeal. “You should really be thanking me. If I hadn’t cursed him, you two might never have met.”
There was more truth in that twisted logic than Ruger wanted to admit, but that didn’t make it right. He admitted to a certain degree of selfishness when it came to his mate, but he would have rather Luka had lived a full, happy life, even if that meant they never found each other.
“It was worth it.”
He glanced at Luka from the corner of his eye, careful not to be too obvious about it. “How can you say that?”
“I would suffer a thousand more curses if they led me to you.”
It was a heady feeling to be loved so deeply, so completely. From the outside, it probably sounded extreme, but he understood exactly what Luka meant because he felt the same way.
There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t suffer for his mate.
He sighed and turned back to Castor. “Let him go, or I’ll make sure the entire world knows what you did.”
The asshole smirked. “Who would believe such a fantastical story in this day and age? Where is your proof?”
In answer, he motioned toward Luka.
“A deranged fan, bent on destroying my reputation for his own gain,” he responded without missing a beat. “I can practically taste the PR spin.”
Sadly, he had a point. They had no evidence of the things that Castor had done. It would be their word against his.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
Fuck, he had been afraid of that, but he pushed forward anyway. “There must be something.”
Castor dragged his fingers through his fiery hair and sighed heavily. “I don’t remember you being this boring, Ruger. Are we finished here?”
“Let him go,” Luka said. “This was pointless from the beginning.”
But Ruger wasn’t ready to give up just yet. “Tell me what I can—”
“If you want to break the binding spell,” Castor cut him off, “do it yourself.”
Wait, they could do that? “How?”
“Honestly, I’m disappointed you haven’t figured it out already. I told you. I don’t own him. I never did anything he didn’t allow.”
“You’re blaming Luka?”
“So boring,” he muttered with another deep sigh.
Then he swept past them and out the door without another word.
“Do you have any idea what he’s talking about? Or is he just talking out of his ass?”
“I will assume that is one of your strange expressions because what you suggest is a physical impossibility.”
Given their current situation, he wouldn’t have thought it possible that he could laugh. “Is he just making stuff up to confuse us?”
“Ah, I understand, and I don’t think so. Castor is many things, but he is not a liar.”
That seemed like a matter of perspective, but from his dealings with the male, he had to agree. The guy was a master manipulator who twisted words and truths, but he always stopped short of outright lying.
But what the hell had he meant when he’d said Luka had allowed it? Sounded a lot like victim blaming to him.
Ruger stopped and took a deep breath. Magic didn’t care about his feelings. Even the most powerful spells had rules. Logic. From a purely rational standpoint, to allow something simply meant the absence of refusal.
If Luka had been conditioned to think he had no choice, of course he wouldn’t refuse. Belief was a powerful thing.
“You believe you are bound to him.”
“I am bound to him.” Luka held his wrists out and shook them. “You see the shackles.”
“When he cursed you, did you try to stop him?”
“What could I have done?” Luka demanded, frustration saturating his tone.
“Exactly.” Could it really be that simple? “You believed you had no power. You still believe it.”
“Taavi, I—”
“Stop. Just stop believing it.” Easier said than done, he knew, but they had to try. “It’s your choice, Luka. You can choose to be free.”
“Do you think I want this?”
Fuck, okay, bad move. He had to find another way in, past centuries of preconceived notions.
“If you won’t choose yourself, choose me.” Stepping in front of his mate, Ruger took his hand, gripping them tightly until he met his gaze. “Choose me, Luka.”
“I do choose you.”
Ruger shook his head. “Choose me over him. Bind yourself to me.”
“We are already bound.”
The guy really wasn’t going to make it easy on him. “Fine. Then I’ll go tell Castor I want to trade places with you.”
“No!” Luka growled, his voice ricochetting through the room like a gunshot.
“And if I do?”
“I will kill him.”
Intense, but okay. “What if he told you to kill me?”
This time Luka hesitated, only for a moment, but enough to make him worry that might not ever get there.
“No.”
“No? But you’re bound to him.”
“No,” he repeated. “I would never harm you, taavi. You are the most important thing to me, more important than my own life.”
The cuffs on his wrists flickered, faded, then flared back to life, but they looked a little dimmer than before.
“What if he wanted you to go with him?”
“I would not leave you,” he answered, his tone stronger and filled with more conviction this time.
The bonds shuddered and flickered again.
“If he ordered it?”
“No.” Luka shook his head firmly. “I cannot be apart from you. I will not.”
The web of lines and intricate knots began to unravel and dissolve, fading one by one. Almost there. They were so close Ruger could practically taste it. Just one more little push.
“What if he wanted to sleep with me?”
Luka’s eyes flashed red, and a dark, ominous growl ripped from his throat. “If he touched you, I would eviscerate him and hang his entrails from the castle turrets as a warning to others.”
That was way hotter than it should have been, and Ruger had to struggle to maintain focus. “Because?”
“You belong to me. As I belong to you.” Gripping the front of Ruger’s sweater, he jerked him close and sealed their mouths together in a kiss full of fire and possession. “No one else. You are mine. Only mine.”
“And you are mine. Not Castor’s. Not anyone else’s. Mine.”
He saw the moment the idea finally sank in and took root. The crimson light faded from his mate’s eyes, and the tension in his body melted away, making him sway on his feet.
“Luka,” he whispered, his voice thick as his heart lodged in his throat. “Look.”
The golden bands that had been his constant companions for centuries were gone, leaving only smooth, bare skin around his wrists.
“I am free?” Luka asked, his entire being radiating with awe.
He knew the traumas of Luka’s past hadn’t vanished with the shackles. It would take time and love for him to heal. Luckily, he had an abundance of both.
“I still hate that he’s going to get away with this.” Castor needed to pay for what he’d done, and the rest of the world deserved to know what kind of person he was.
“Do not trouble yourself with him,” Luka answered sagely. “No one can outrun their karma forever.”
“Is that so?” It sounded good in theory, but life rarely worked that way. “And where did you hear that?”
“On the television.”
Of course, he had.
Chuckling, Ruger arched forward and brushed their lips together. “I love you, Luka. Thank you for choosing to believe in us.”
“I love you, too, taavi.” He palmed the back of Ruger’s head and brought their mouths together again. “And I will always choose us.”