Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
JARETH
Lying between my mates with two sets of arms wrapped around me and Roman’s steady snoring right next to my ear, I can’t imagine a safer place in the entire universe to be.
But I still can’t stop picturing their faces.
Those vampires, the monsters who attacked me all those years ago.
I didn’t properly see what they looked like before, shrouded in shadow in the forest, but now that I’ve seen them again, my memory is filling in the gaps, making me relive that traumatic night over and over with fresh detail.
Roman snuggles closer to me instinctively in his sleep, but I feel like I can’t breathe. I’m suffocating. I’m too vulnerable, still mortal. Powerful, yes, but I could die so easily, and my mates would be devastated. I would be devastated to leave them.
I almost laugh out loud at that thought.
It was only yesterday that I comforted myself about getting in the middle of their mate bond with the knowledge that I won’t live forever but they will.
It’s different now. I can see how beautiful things could be between the three of us, and I want it.
I want all of it. I want forever with them.
I roll over and nuzzle Loch. He doesn’t stir, and I’m glad. I don’t need to worry either of them with my middle-of-the-night existential crisis.
“You’re mortal, love.” I keep replaying Loch’s words from earlier.
He was right; it wouldn’t have been safe for me to go after two strung-out vampires, even if I hadn’t been actively having a panic attack.
In the end, I know I helped. I gave them the edge to defeat those assholes, but I’m so vulnerable. So fragile.
The thoughts I refused to entertain this morning come roaring back.
Could I ask Loch to turn me? If I were a vampire too, I would be strong, even stronger than most other vampires with my mage blood.
The idea sits in my gut like a boulder, and I don’t think it’s just because of my decades of distaste for vampires.
It doesn’t feel like me. It doesn’t feel right.
With my thoughts still swirling, I climb carefully over Loch to get out of bed.
He twitches in his sleep, but Roman rolls closer to fill the space I just left, pulling his fated mate into his arms, and they both settle back into a deep sleep without realizing that I’m not there.
I just need time to think. I need to be able to breathe.
We didn’t even get to sleep at my house and make love in the garden like we wanted to.
We were stubborn enough to stay and finish dinner, but Roman was nervous that after the fight there might be some way for the fae to track us or find us if we stayed topside, so we came back down to the compound.
I pick a shirt and a pair of pants up off the floor in the dark and pull them on.
The way they hang loosely on me, I’m sure they’re both Roman’s.
Then I slip out of the apartment, into the winding, torchlit hallways.
I don’t have anywhere in particular I want to go, I just feel like walking instead of lying there, tossing and turning all night.
I round the first corner, and I hear the padding of paws and the click of toenails on the stone floor.
The big three-headed dog, Grim, trots towards me and then turns and falls into step with me.
“Oh, hey, buddy. You looking for some company?” I pat the nearest head. One of the other heads whines and the third cranes its neck to lick my fingers. I laugh and use my other hand to give him a scritch behind a different set of ears.
I try to turn down one hallway, but Grim leans his full weight into me and steers me in a different direction.
Okay then, it’s not like I had a destination in mind anyway.
We wander for a few minutes until I reach an ornate set of double doors that are standing wide open.
I peek my head inside and find a massive library.
There must be thousands of books in here.
“Grim’s not allowed in the library.”
Rune’s voice startles me and I jump a little, digging my fingers into the scruff of one of Grim’s necks.
The dog whines, but I don’t think it’s from my grip.
He huffs and plops his butt down right at the threshold of the library, then slides into a lying position with what can only be described as a pout.
Rune’s head appears as he sits up on the couch in the middle of the room.
“That’s not Auri’s rule,” he explains. “He lets that mutt go anywhere it wants. I’m the one who had to set up a spell barrier to keep him out after he drooled on an irreplaceable ancient text.”
“Ah. Yeah, he does seem a bit moist.” I step into the library for a better look.
“I didn’t think you guys would be back tonight. Wasn’t it your big date night?” Rune asks, setting aside the book he was reading and picking up a teacup to sip from. I don’t bother pointing out the irony of the fact that beverages are allowed but not hellhounds.
“Uh, we ended up having some excitement. We thought it would be safer to come back here until we deal with the consortium.”
I come around the couch and sit down next to him, the wheels in my head already turning.
Rune is powerful and he knows things, he studies things, if anyone can come up with a solution to my mortality problem, it’s him.
But what if he tells me that there is no solution?
I’m afraid to hear those words. I’m afraid to have it confirmed that my only choices are to become a vampire or know that I’ll die one day and leave Roman and Loch.
“What’s up?” He raises his eyebrows, studying me over the rim of his teacup.
“I have a problem,” I confess. “I’m mortal, but Rome and Loch aren’t. Is there a way? Is there a spell or a ritual? Hell, is there a cursed amulet, something that could make me live forever with them?”
Rune snorts a laugh. “I’m sure there’s a cursed amulet or two you could get your hands on to give you eternal life, but that seems kind of extreme. Plus, that shit always comes with the worst side effects, like you live forever but your body keeps aging until you wish you could die.”
I shudder. “What am I supposed to do, then?”
“Easy, just let him bite you.” He shrugs like it’s the simplest answer in the world.
“I guess.” I sigh. “I don’t want to be a vampire though. It feels wrong. It doesn’t feel like it’s meant for me.”
“I didn’t mean Loch. Let Roman bite you.”
I perk up. “What do you mean?”
Rune gives me a patient look like he’s talking to a child. “A wolf bite will make you his mate and your life will be tied to his.”
“But Loch is his mate. He’s going to give Loch his mate bite. That’s the whole problem. Well, not a problem for them, but a problem for me. Roman will bite Loch, which will tie his life to his mate’s, which means they’ll both live forever.”
“Babycakes, Roman is a wolf,” Rune says.
“I know that.” This is the most exasperating conversation I’ve ever had.
Rune chuckles. “Okay, sorry, I thought that Roman would have mentioned this to you, but wolves can take more than one mate. It’s a pack thing, I guess? He can bite Loch and then you, and all three of you will share Loch’s vampire immortality.”
My heart jumps and relieved laughter clogs my throat. “Is that real? Are you sure that’s how it works?”
“Positive,” he says confidently. “Weird that Roman didn’t know that.”
“Holy shit, thank you! I have to go.”
ROMAN
“Rome, wake up.” Jareth’s voice yanks me out of a dreamless sleep.
He sounds frantic, but he smells happy.
“Wass wrong?” I mumble, blinking as I grapple with sudden consciousness.
Loch stirs in my arms, and I lift my head to see Jare, dressed in my clothes, crawling onto the bed from the foot of it with a manic smile stretched across his face.
“Sorry. Don’t be mad at me for waking you, I just couldn’t wait.” He climbs on top of the two of us, and I nuzzle the edge of his jaw instinctively, scenting him, claiming him as mine in the most basic way my wolf knows how.
“Couldn’t wait for what?” Loch yawns, scooting over so Jare can wedge himself between us.
“I just talked to Rune, and he said that wolves can take more than one mate. You can bite me and then I’ll be immortal too.”
That jolts me awake better than a shot of adrenaline straight into my veins.
“What? Is he sure?”
He nods and smiles even wider. “He said he was positive.”
“Will you be a wolf too, then?” Loch still sounds a little drowsy, but more alert now.
“No, it doesn’t work that way for shifters, not like it does for vampires.
Shifters are born, not made.” I shake my head a little, trying to sort out my thoughts, and then I laugh quietly.
“I’m so fucking stupid. I never thought of the bite that way.
A mate bite and a pack bite aren’t any different, only the intent behind them is, but they do the same thing—they tie us together.
And I guess I never knew anyone to give a pack bite to someone who wasn’t a wolf, so I just didn’t connect the dots. ”
“So, we can do it?” Jare asks. “You can bite us both?”
I pull him against my chest and slam my mouth into his for a rough, claiming kiss. “Yeah, baby, I’ll bite you both. You and Loch will be mine forever and ever.”
I reach for Loch and crane my neck to kiss him too, all three of us falling into a messy, beautiful three-way kiss where it’s impossible to tell whose lips or tongue are whose, and it doesn’t really matter.
“When?” Loch asks.
“The full moon is only two weeks away. We could find somewhere to make love under it and I’ll claim you both.”
They both nod and we fall back into another kiss. My wolf makes a contented rumbling sound that vibrates deep in my throat, and I wrap my arms around both my mates. In just a few days they’ll be officially mine in every way.
But first, we need to deal with those damn fae.