13. Ticket to Ride
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TICKET TO RIDE
DEKE
H ow’d this turn into such a clusterfuck?
Back in the early days of my long existence, while I still fought side by side with my siblings, I would envision the moment I found my mate. Across a tavern. In a crowded town square. While strolling a market for spices and cured meats. We would sense each other, and our connection would be something instantaneous and sparking with magicks. The longer the years stretched on—the more I saw evil and greed become commonplace—that naivety gave way to realism. And that eventually hardened to cynicism.
I’d given up that I’d ever find my other half. That I’d ever find happiness. That I’d ever finally feel full .
With Marissa, I’d believed she was my mate. She’d seemed perfect. Created just for me the way I’d thought a mate would be. Because she had been. A carefully orchestrated act of bullshit nearly pulled off by the world’s best actress.
Well, not the world’s …
Even before I discovered that, I’d still kept her at arm’s length. I’d blamed my shitty social skills after so many years alone.
I had every reason to keep my guard up around Aurora. She was a stranger. One who hadn’t spoken until a couple of days prior. One I still barely knew anything about, thanks to evasive answers.
Or outright lies.
I hadn’t known about her colored contacts, but I had known something was off. Masked . The eyes being the window to the soul wasn’t a corny-as-hell phrase. It was the truth, and her lenses were a barrier to that. My soul had been reaching out but not quite able to connect with hers.
Despite all those warning flares shooting up like the damn Fourth of July fireworks, I’d had to work to remind myself to take it slow. To keep that distance. And I’d still failed. I couldn’t fight the connection. It was stronger than anything I’d pictured. The attraction and desire amplified beyond my imagination.
My fantasies .
But that part had jack-shit to do with fate or powers-that-be or anything other than Aurora.
Her small smiles, soft laughs, and companionship would’ve driven me feral, even if we weren’t mates. I’d assumed she felt the same way. She’d not only taken my kiss, she’d gripped my hair like she was just as desperate for it as I was.
For the love of angels, she’d ventured into the damn woods to find me.
But I was wrong.
So fucking wrong.
After Lenuson’s mate had brought me to my siblings two days before, I’d been eager to reunite with them. I’d also known that, unless they appeared with a dire emergency, it would be a few days before I returned with Aurora.
If telling her who I was—who she was to me—had gone smoothly, we would’ve used that time to explore and enjoy our mate bond because I was a selfish fucker. I’d been searching for my siblings for a handful of centuries. I’d been searching for my mate for my entire existence.
If it had gone as expected, it would give her time to push back. Ask a million questions. Hell, laugh in my face. I would’ve understood.
But I hadn’t planned for what to do if things went as fucking bad as they had. After crying, she’d shut down and hadn’t spoken since. She’d retreated emotionally and physically, hiding out in the loft. Other than a few quick trips down to the kitchen to return the dishes of barely touched food I’d fixed her, that was where she’d stayed.
I’d given her that space. The time she needed to adjust.
It’d been a lot to hear. I got that. I wasn’t expecting her to jump for fucking joy—even if that was how I felt. I’d thought she’d have questions about what all this meant for her. Or that she’d have questions about me. Not necessarily as her mate—though I wanted to know every damn detail of her life—but about my history. What I’d seen. What I’d been through. Lived through. A thousand-plus years was a damn long time. I thought she’d at least be curious.
She wasn’t.
Instead, I’d been painfully aware of her grief. Her hollowness. Her absolute fucking devastation. With each passing minute, those emotions only grew stronger until they filled the whole cabin.
Was being mated to me that damn heartbreaking?
I was out of my element. I needed help from people who’d been through it.
Which meant I needed my siblings right then. Not in a few days while shit continued going downhill.
Standing upright from where I’d been leaning in the doorway, I cleared my throat as I moved across the bedroom. Aurora didn’t startle at the noise, confirming what I suspected.
She’d known I was there.
She was just ignoring me.
Something she continued to do. Like it was the most fascinating view in the world, she stared out the window as the afternoon sun streamed in. It made her already golden hair seem to glow.
Christ, she’s beautiful.
I risked her wrath and wrapped an arm around her from behind. She didn’t lean into or return my touch, but she also didn’t insult my stamina or escalate to kicking me in the balls.
Small victories.
“Taking a trip,” I said.
The silence stretched for a few beats, and I wasn’t sure she’d speak. Her voice was soft when she finally did. “You are?”
“ We are.”
She turned in my hold to look up at me. “Where? Why?”
“To see my siblings.”
Finally .
When she didn’t respond, I studied her darting eyes and the panic she was working—and failing—to hide. “It’ll be fine.”
Her gaze dropped to my shoulder. “Okay.”
Going against my better judgment, I let her off the hook—as much as I could, at least. “You need a few days, baby, we’ll wait. Can’t put it off forever. A lot is going on that you don’t know about. Hell, that I don’t know about. But I can give you a little more time.”
“No, that’s okay. Where are we going?” she asked again.
Mentally, I gently tugged at the thread in my chest. At the connection that’d been severed for centuries. One I’d thought was permanently lost.
“Don’t know,” I answered honestly.
Her brows lowered. “Then how will we get there?”
“Grab Victoria and a small bag of her stuff, then meet me by the front door,” I said instead of answering.
I could’ve asked Mabel to take the dog, but I got the feeling Aurora would prefer having her close.
Like the world’s most hostile emotional support animal.
My sullen mate happily dislodged herself from my hold like she’d been looking for any excuse to. Making my way through the cabin, I made sure everything was secure in case of delays. I paused in the kitchen to pocket one of the small notebooks and pens I’d spread around the house.
When I reached the entryway, Aurora already waited with Victoria in her arms and a packed bag hanging from her shoulder. She remained silent and didn’t so much as glance at me as she jostled her load to open the door.
I closed and locked it. She made a confused noise, but I wrapped an arm around them both. “Hold tight.”
I didn’t give her more warning than that. No chance for her to ask questions or freak out. I closed my eyes and followed that thread. Less than a second later, we weren’t in the cabin.
We were in the house where I’d seen my siblings.
I opened my lids and saw even more of one of them.
Too much.
“For the love of angels,” I bit out, closing my eyes again while I hurriedly covered Aurora’s.
Victoria’s, too.
No one else needed to be cursed with the image of Thanatos’ naked ass.
Ignoring the ruckus coming from the bay window, I kept my hands in place and shuffled us out onto the porch. Once we were safe, I lowered my palm from across Aurora’s face but kept my arm around her.
She blinked a few times, adjusting to the brightness. Her voice was barely above a whisper when she asked, “Is it always like that when you disappear?”
I’d never brought anyone on the journey with me, but it had to be physically straining and emotionally unsettling for a human to have their entire being materialize somewhere new. I’d already been unsure how she’d handle the additional chaos to our already uneasy situation, and that was before transporting into a sex scene.
I scanned her for any signs she was about to melt down or get sick.
Or both.
But she wasn’t green or pale. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were bright as she looked up at me expectantly.
It reminded me of when she’d been on my lap, and I could practically taste the memory of her heated kiss. My cock hardened instantly. It took me a few beats to remember what she’d asked. “What do you mean?”
“That was… exhilarating . I’ve never been on a roller coaster, but I bet that’s what it’s like. Worrying I’ll crash or plummet but still wanting to ride it again and again.”
She wasn’t wrong.
And her words, breathless excitement, and thoughts of what else I wanted her to ride again and again did nothing to help my hard-on.
Her focus moved to the door behind me. “I take it you didn’t call to let them know we were coming.”
“No.” At her questioning gaze, I gave an evasive answer. “It’s complicated.”
Belatedly realizing she’d let her guard down for a minute, she tensed and pressed her lips together before trying to shift from my hold.
I hooked a finger in her belt loop and tugged her back hard enough that her body slammed into mine with only Victoria separating us. I tuned out the dog as she alternated between barking at me and sniffing at Aurora like she was checking on her. “Get that this is a lot, baby. I do. But I won’t let you freeze me out forever. I can’t . It’s not you against all this shit. It’s us. We’re in it together.”
The hint of tenderness that had softened her face was gone in an instant. “That’s exactly the problem.”
Before I could ask what the hell that meant, the despair that’d clung to her at the cabin returned tenfold to hit me like a pallet of bricks. My arm loosened so I could reach out to prop myself up on a porch column before the heaviness of it took me down.
Aurora didn’t have that problem. Her head held high, she took the opening and pulled free to put distance between us. Walking down the steps, she set Victoria on the grass and stood watch.
Unfazed by the dark emotions that filled her.
How the hell is she still standing under the weight of that desolation?
And why does being mated to me make her feel it?