Chapter 22
“Mr. Pennington,there’s a Luka no-last-name here to see you.”
I roll my eyes. She was informed twenty minutes ago that Luka was on his way, and I distinctly remember telling her to send him straight in.
Depressing the intercom button, I murmur, “Let him through, Doris.”
“Okay, Mr. Pennington.” Doris, bless her heart, is trying. I know she is. She’s a million times better than Annika, but she doesn’t listen for shit.
The door to my office is thrown open, and Luka waltzes in like he owns the place with a smug grin on his lips. His hair is disheveled like he or some new conquest has been running their fingers through it. With his reputation as a ladies man, I wouldn’t doubt if it was the latter.
Luka waves his hand through the air, and the door closes behind him with a soft thud. He exudes the same swagger as he heads toward the couch Bailey and I have cuddled on the two times she’s been here. If you could even call it cuddling. It was more along the lines of holding her for reassurance.
Nah. I like the idea of cuddling better.
“I’m glad you’re here, Lu. How have things been going at Stonewell?”
A booming chuckle escapes him as he settles back on the couch, manspreading his legs. “You can’t be serious? What you really want to know is how Bailey is, even though you just saw her yesterday.” He wiggles his dark brows as a smirk graces his lips. “And you guys didn’t get back till late.”
What. The. Hell. “Jeez, Luka. You’re starting to sound like a stalker. But if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were jealous that I spent the day with a certain white-haired beauty.”
A darkness overtakes his features as thunder sounds off in the distance, reacting to his emotions. That’s the only tell I get that what I said has some merit.
“Holy shit. You are jealous.” I sit back in my chair with a laugh. “The notorious ‘I can get any girl I want’ demigod has a crush on the curiomancer.”
“It’s more than a crush, bloodsucker,” he growls as a flash of lighting lights up the darkening sky as storm clouds quickly rush in. If I don’t diffuse his temper soon, we’ll have a supercell thunderstorm on our hands. “She’s my fucking mate.”
“Wha…” My mouth drops open, and I’m stuck speechless by his revelation.
Bailey is his…mate.
I swear a deafening crack rents the air as my heart splits in two at the news. She… Fuck. She was my second chance at happiness. Hell. My first chance at true happiness since my soulmate was a psycho bitch.
“Are you—” He cuts me off with a wave of his hand.
“Yes. I’m sure.”
My elbows slam into the top of my desk, and I drop my face in hands, trying to mask all the emotions tumbling around inside of me at this news. Loss is the biggest one. Loss of what could have been. Followed closely by devastation.
“Axe.” I lift my head, and whatever he sees on my face makes him flinch. The impending storm fades away as all traces of darkness leave his blue eyes clear as the day outside. “I… fuck. I saw her kiss you yesterday before you guys left. And, well,” he looks down at his hands and shakes his head, “I wanted to fucking jump out of the window and kill you. But then I saw just how happy she made you, and I couldn’t be mad. Not at you, and not at her.” He pauses, seeming to collect his thoughts. “I won’t give her up. I’ve wanted my soulmate my whole life, but I won’t make you give her up either.”
My mouth opens and closes for something to say to his words, but every fleeting thought escapes me. The only thing that seems to stick in my head is the fact that he won’t make me give her up.
“She’s going to need both of us, Axel. And with the whole Hudson-mate thing, it’s obvious that her powers far exceed what we originally thought. More mates, more power balancing in the long run. And I couldn’t think of a better man, vampire or otherwise, to share a mate with.”
Fuck. The big bastard is going to make me cry if he keeps talking like that. Luka and I have been around the block a time or two, but this is the first time he’s put someone else’s wants before his own.
A reply is thick on my tongue, but my words are halted by the telltale pop of a portal. It barely forms before two flaming pink bodies fall through, hitting the ground hard enough that even I wince at the impact.
Luka is on his feet before my mind can fully process what’s happening. It’s not until a whimper that’s all too familiar hits my ears that I spring into action. By now, the flames have subsided, and two girls cling to each other on the floor of my office, trembling and crying.
“Godde—” Luka’s words aren’t even fully out of his mouth when Bailey releases the girl on the floor and flings herself into his arms. He catches her with an oomph, holding her shaky frame to him like he could protect her from anything.
As much as I’d love to be in his position, there’s someone else here who needs the same comfort—or some level of it.
My knees crack as I crouch down, softly running my hand up and down the back of the sobbing girl on the floor. Fear percolates within that she was burned by Bailey’s flames, but the distinct burnt flesh smell is absent.
Watery, golden eyes peer up at me, and her bottom lip trembles as she asks me, “Is Bailey okay?”
“Can you tell me what happened…” I trail off, not knowing who this is. Hell, I don’t even know where they came from. A quick peek at Bailey confirms her glamour is still intact, so they could have been anywhere.
“Marion,” she murmurs with a sigh, sitting up and scooting across the floor until her back meets the couch. She rubs her hands across her body, seeming to deflate as she realizes she’s unharmed from their flaming entry. “It’s…hard to explain. We were at the city mall and stopped to get smoothies. Bailey said she was running to the bathroom, but she was gone forever.”
“You’re doing really good, Marion.” I give her what I hope is a reassuring smile to continue.
“After I finished in the line and realized she wasn’t back yet, I went to the bathroom to get her. You know, thinking maybe she fell in or something.” She chokes out a humorless chuckle. “But when I opened the door,” her whole body shudders, “some troll was trying to ki–kill her.”
I have to swallow hard to keep the feral hiss in my throat from emerging. A fucking troll. But why target cor meum? They don’t have the ability to see through glamours.
“Okay. Good, Marion. Thank you. What happened after that?”
Her dark brows pinch together as she gazes over to Bailey still in Luka’s arms. He’s whispering words against her forehead that don’t make any sense, but the relief that she’s here is more than apparent.
“I…I don’t really know. Bailey mouthed the words I’m sorry, and then flames took over her body, and we ended up here.”
“And the troll?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “Hopefully dead.” Her words earn a loud whimper from Bailey.
“Thank you, Marion. Is there someone I can call to pick you up?”
Marion fumbles with the purse I now see dangling from her shoulder. “I can call my brother.”
“Okay, I can talk to him when he gets here if you’d like.”
“That’s fine. But… where exactly are we?”
After rattling off the address, I leave Marion to call her brother and finally get to my feet and make my way toward Luka and Bailey, needing her in my arms like I need blood to survive. Luka is reluctant to let her go, so I press myself into her back, relishing in the way she seems to deflate now that the two of us are touching her.
My red eyes meet his blues ones over her head, and some unspoken pact is born between us from just that one look.
The three of us are in this together, and we’ll give our lives to keep her safe.
Needing a little more reassurance that she’s here and she’s safe, I bury my nose in her hair, hoping her scent will comfort me. But on my first whiff, I’m knocked almost breathless by the scent of her blood.
The last time I’d smelled it was when the professor hurt her almost a week ago.
And now, once again, I’m faced with the temptation of her life force staring me in the face. Literally. But I swallow back my need, determined to give cor meum my full attention.
Marion still isn’t off the phone by the time we finally get Bailey calmed down enough to tell us what happened. Her voice is a scratchy rasp, almost making it too hard to understand what she’s saying. Bruises marr her beautiful face, and in a near perfect ring around her neck is an almost blackened handprint.
To say both of us are pissed is a dramatic understatement. The glint in Luka’s eyes mirrors my own, with the need for retribution against this piece of shit who thought he could take our girl away from us.
“Why haven’t you healed yourself, cor meum?” I trace my fingers over the delicate flesh of her throat, watching as she winces under my touch.
Her eyes dart over my shoulder to where Marion paces back and forth, her hand waving wildly in the air as she continues speaking on the phone.
“As soon as she leaves, I want you to heal yourself, and if you can’t, I’ll call Olga.” She nods her head at my words and snuggles back into his arms. “Luka?—”
Luka looks up from our girl, and the moment our eyes connect once more, I see it. The vow of revenge. It simmers hotly in his blue eyes, and I just know that if the troll isn’t dead already, he will be. But not before we find out if this was random or if it was because he knew what lies beneath her glamour.
“I’m on it. Be a good girl, goddess.” He places a tender kiss on her forehead before he pops out of the room without so much as a goodbye.
Bailey startles at his disappearance, looking lost for a mere moment. She then shifts, leaning into my embrace. Seeking comfort. The same comfort she received while in his arms. And she’ll get it ten times over.
If I had it my way, cor meum would never leave my sights again.
And now that Luka has gone to find the fuck that dared to put his hands on our girl, I realize just how important his words were earlier. How it’s going to take more than just him or I to protect her. I remember the old saying, “It takes a village to raise a baby.” I guess the same could almost be said for this.
It’s going to take all of us—whoever she chooses to be with—to keep her safe.
Especially if her true origins come to light.