Chapter Six
Mao
“Fuck me with a feather duster.” Mao leaped forward, managing to catch the slender-looking man in his arms before the guy face-planted onto the floor, his body covered in some sort of dust, which Mao would swear had been a person—a small person, but a person nonetheless—just seconds before his brain, body, and soul were hit with so many differing sensations.
It was going to take a minute for him to work through them.
The need to get outside was overwhelming. The bunker stunk of old papers and that musty smell from old libraries, and that was without the scent of decay that lingered in the air.
Hefting the young man into his arms, holding him against his chest, Mao carefully carried him out of the door and into the forest.
Where to go? Where to go? It was tempting to head straight back to his car. Clearly Mao’s plans had changed in some way, and for him, that meant he needed the space to regroup, think, and then work on Plan B—whatever that looked like.
Mao hadn’t moved more than about a hundred feet from the bunker when he felt a change in the air—as though a storm cloud was coming even when there wasn’t a gray cloud in sight above the canopy of trees.
Worse, the young man in his arms whimpered and grimaced, his body twitching as though he was in pain.
Mao stopped and then took a large step backward. The storm cloud feeling left, and the man’s body relaxed.
O-kay. Fluke? Mao took a step forward again. Same grimace, same definite signs of pain.
“Damn. I guess that for whatever reason you’re not going to be able to go too far from the bunker.” Mao looked around. “That’s going to make blowing this place up a bit difficult.” A worry not for now! “I guess we’re camping here for now.”
Reigned, it didn’t take long before Mao had arranged his sleeping bag on some soft soil—difficult to do one armed—before laying the man onto it, making sure he was comfortable.
Checking his vitals, Mao could tell that the young man’s pulse was racing, and his eyelids fluttered madly, as though his brain was working a mile a minute, even though the man himself didn’t move.
“It’s not like I know what type of paranormal you are,” Mao muttered, digging out a small fire pit, far enough away from the sleeping bag so the man wouldn’t accidentally roll in it. “This could be normal for you.”
He didn’t think so, except he couldn’t say with one hundred percent confidence.
Once the fire was going, Mao pulled out his pot from the supplies he’d carried in with him and put some water on to boil. If nothing else, the weird situation he’d suddenly found himself in called for coffee.
Content for the moment that he’d done all he could, Mao sat back on his heels, eyeing the young man and then the still open door of the bunker. It was the door that had attracted Mao’s attention in the first place.
He had only been scouting things out for maybe an hour.
For a job like the bunker—being in a remote location—he preferred to move in from about half a mile out and then move his way toward where he knew the bunker would be, walking in ever decreasing circles.
Mao took note of markers and kept an eye out for signs of human occupation, although he had seen none.
What he did not expect to see, by the time he saw the bunker door, was for it to be open.
The area was strongly warded, he could feel those, although the wards accepted he wasn’t a threat and that was a ton of shit fuckery right there.
The wards should’ve tried to propel him away, and yet… they didn’t.
Mao looked at the very attractive man again and then back at the door. It let us in… both of us. It would appear my strange companion can’t leave. Is there something tying him here?
Unsure, and it really wasn’t something he could even think about while the man was unconscious, Mao simply knew the reason for being there was on hold. At least until he could learn more about what he’d walked into.
Sipping his coffee, Mao thought about the scene that he had walked into. Another weird fuckery I didn’t expect to see today.
At first glance—before the young man realized Mao was there—he’d seemed angry, distressed and confused. He’d said something about someone haunting his dreams… there was some shit about the records…
Mao’s eyes widened as he looked at the man on his sleeping bag again. Is he one of the assassins who were experimented on? Is he another one of the lost boys?
It made Mao sick just to think about it because if that was the case, then the young man currently sprawled on his sleeping bag was making the point that Mao had tried to make to Ben when he first learned about the job.
If someone came looking for their records, then they had the right to find them.
Rubbing his head, Mao tried to think about what else he had seen.
That was more difficult to put into context.
Growing up in the jungles of Paraguay, there were some things that people saw that others might not believe.
The one thing Mao was exceptionally good at was believing the evidence from his own eyes.
And he had distinctly seen a short, ethereal-looking person, someone who looked like he’d been dehydrated and starved he was so thin and wizened and clearly old…
Mao thought he heard the word eternal. But there was definitely nothing eternal about that soul, as proven when that same person suddenly disappeared into a cloud of dust—a cloud of dust that had clearly affected the person lying on Mao’s sleeping bag when it touched his skin.
Did you kill him? And if you did, why? Or had the ethereal person been on the verge of death, anyway?
Sighing, Mao pulled out his satellite phone, his fingers hovered over the call button. “What the fuck have I got myself into?” Shaking his head, Mao shoved the phone back into his pocket again.
There was something else that was nagging at him—and his panther—something that technically meant the unconscious young man was his responsibility and his alone. A responsibility that cautioned Mao from contacting anyone from the council, his brothers, or the Thalassas.
Because the young man covered in a dead man’s dust was… is his mate. And wasn’t that the biggest fucking surprise of all?
Mao had heard stories. He’d seen what Kylo had gone through.
He saw what Ben had experienced. Both of them were mated to assassins.
Mao got the impression that both Kylo’s mate and Ben’s had retired from the killing business when they’d been claimed.
He doubted Kylo or Ben would handle seeing their precious mates killing someone, even if the men were more than capable of it.
Did my mate kill that being? Was he the record keeper Ben had warned Mao about? Mao rocked on his heels, still unsure about that side of things. The man, the wizened being, or whatever he was, had been leaning toward his mate when Mao walked in on the scene.
His mate was saying something about the other man being in his thoughts for months. The wizened being seemed upset by something… by… by…
Mao focused on the background of the scene he’d seen. It was tempting to go and stick his head back through the bunker door just to have a look, but he was loath to leave his mate’s side, and he had a feeling that the wizened being had been pointing at empty shelves.
Shelves left empty by the Thalassas the last time their team was at the bunker. Had that affected the being in some way? Was he some kind of keeper for all the records and got sick or died when some were taken?
Mao was giving himself a headache. Until his mate woke up and actually had a conversation with him—assuming he would, Mao didn’t have a fucking clue what was going on.
His stomach took that moment to rumble loudly, and Mao glanced at his mate again, although he hadn’t moved. Was still covered in the dust of a dead being.
Shit, that doesn’t sound great. Should I wash it off? Clean him up?
Fuck. Mao stared intently, his mind whirring. Could there some sort of transfer power process going on? Because that was something else Mao remembered feeling. An energetic blast of magic that seemed to go… go…
Darnation!
Where did it go? Mao felt it in the bunker, and it had clearly affected his mate. We can worry about the state of his hands and face when he’s awake.
When in doubt, take care of the basics—Mao remembered Mom telling him that from when he was a small boy. He’d make some food, and possibly the smell of that might encourage his mate back into the land of the living.
Will he even know we’re mates?
Mao rubbed his chest as his panther grumbled, and he got a sudden ache in his chest. Mao was also one for facing facts, and if his mate was one of Marvin’s lost boys, then there was no guarantee he would even know what Mao was to him.
Just once, he thought, as he groaned and rubbed his head again. Just once, I’d like for something in life to go easy.
At least he had plenty of supplies. That was positive.
Mao could only hope, something would encourage his mate to wake otherwise his job was going to take a lot longer than planned.
And that didn’t take into consideration whether his mate was tied to the records.
If he was, then there was a good chance the bunker wasn’t going to get blown up at all, and that was going to piss a lot of important people off.
He heaved a frustrated groan, and for now, accepted he had far too many questions and no answers at all, so it was easier to settle on the most basic question of all. Should I heat the mac and cheese, the beef stew, or both?