Which wasn’t a good sign.
Yes, Amiah had given him an infusion, but it hadn’t pushed back the infection only added to the magic inside him, and I didn’t know if that meant he’d be strong enough for Rin to remove the infection or not.
Except now he was going to have to cast more spells to get her back and we’d be back where we started with him on the verge of dying — and it was now up in the air if Rin was actually going to help him.
Sure, Deaglan had tortured the demon-vampire hybrid, but that didn’t mean Rin wouldn’t take Amiah back if he thought the Shadow King was going to get Faerie’s Heart. He might think handing her over was the only way to protect himself.
I reached for my shorts on the chair where I’d tossed them when I’d stripped to join Amiah and Bane in bed, missed, and stumbled forward.
Shit. Bane was right. I couldn’t save her like this, and as much as I wanted to keep every little last bit of her energy and essence inside me, it was just going to get in my way.
I shoved the excess out of my body, not bothering to focus it, and made Bane groan, and his cock rise.
“Fuck, really?” he asked, pulling on his robe.
“You said get rid of it.” I grabbed my shorts, the room more in focus, if still a little fuzzy at the edges, yanked them on, and didn’t bother with my T-shirt. “I’m not wasting time by being careful.” The need to save her squeezed my chest and I fought to breathe.
“We’ll get her back.” Bane’s expression hardened, sending a chill racing down my spine as he strode from the room.
This was the man I’d met during the war — even if he only possessed a fraction of the power he’d had back then. This was the man who did whatever it took to save lives… and in the case of those children, ease their suffering.
God, he’d been terrifying. Cold, hard, determined, and powerful. Completely unlike who he was now. I hadn’t known what true power was until the first time he’d let down his shields and I’d looked at him with all of my magic sensitivity. He wasn’t just a faekin with a deep personal well of magic. He was magic itself. A direct conduit to the Realm of Faerie with the strength of will to harness so much power that it had to be like holding the sun when he did.
“I promised I’d free her from the Winter Court and I swear I will if it’s the last thing I do.”
Which was exactly how I felt. Amiah connected with something inside me that I hadn’t known existed. I didn’t want to go back to the way I’d been before. I couldn’t. I wasn’t supposed to be able to make a connection with someone. It was against my nature. And yet it was like I’d always been craving that connection, needed that connection, and just hadn’t realized it.
I didn’t know what she gave Bane, how he, like the rest of us had fallen in love with her, but if he even felt a fraction for her of what I did, he couldn’t do anything but save her.
And from the way he’d looked at her when she was captured between the two of us, he was all in with her.
He might think he was angry about desiring to have a soul bond with her, might think that because whatever he believed she was — which he still hadn’t figured out — was influencing him, but I knew he wanted her brand because she gave him something he hadn’t known he’d needed, just like me.
I followed him into the hall, past a white bulging plastic bag sitting by the door. That had to be Rin’s change of clothes. He’d still been wearing his bloody wrap tunic, black leather pants, and boots when he’d leaped into the portal with Amiah. He must have come up stairs to change and been drawn to her, like all of us were drawn to her.
Except his compulsion was stronger than ours. I’d felt it in his sexual energy, a gnawing, desperate need that he had barely any control over. He wanted her, burned for her, but his desire was filled with pain and anger. He wanted to resist the pull of their bond as much as she did, but it was overwhelming.
I was actually shocked he’d managed to stay in the hall while we were having sex. Of course, if he’d come into the room, I didn’t know if he would have begged to join us or fought to take her from us. And I prayed I’d never have to find out if he was open to group sex or not.
I didn’t want Amiah to have to seal her bond with him. Even if she had asked me to help her get through having sex with someone who was pretty much a stranger, I didn’t want her to do it. In part because being force to have sex was horrible, and, as selfish as it was, because I feared sealing her bond would mean it would be the end for us.
I raked a hand through my jaw-length hair and hurried down the stairs after Bane. Titus sat at the large island in the center of the kitchen with a room service tray in front of him and three empty plates.
He jerked to his feet the minute he saw us, a ghostly dragon head forming over his own head in his red-gold aura, a sign his ferocious, primal nature was rising to the surface. “Where is she?”
“The Winter Court took her,” Bane said, his tone sharp. “Are those my clothes?” He pointed to a white plastic bag sitting on the kitchen counter behind Titus.
“The court took her?” Titus growled. “How did the court take her?”
“It formed a portal and yanked her through,” I said, my insides churning. We had to go. Now.
“But the court can’t form a portal,” Titus replied.
“No shit. Which means it’s gained a new power or someone else made the portal.” Bane reached for the clothes, but Titus grabbed the bag and stormed toward the patio.
“You can get changed when we get there.” He shoved open the door with so much force it swung all the way open, snapped off its hinges, and hit the floor-to-ceiling glass window beside it, shattering the glass in both the door and the window.
“Fuck. Titus!” Bane hissed as Titus stepped through the broken glass, not seeming to care that his feet were bare. “Voth is going to kill me for that.”
Cassius, who’d been standing at the far end of the patio, staring at the Quarter’s skyline, wrenched around at the noise, his fire billowing around him, sending smoke and a flurry of sparks rushing into the night sky.
“Control your fire,” Titus snarled at Cassius as he grabbed a plastic bag from one of the patio couches and tossed it at the angel.
Cassius caught the bag. It caught on fire and with an effort that made his blazing red aura snap and seethe, he wrenched his flames under his skin. “What the hell?”
“The Winter Court took Amiah. We’re getting her back,” Titus said.
The angel glow in Cassius’s eyes flared. “We need a portal.”
“We have one. Hawk can contact Karthick and he can pull us back into Faerie.” Titus drew close to Cassius and glared at us, his message clear: join the group and contact Karthick. And I couldn’t agree more.
I marched across the broken glass, my body healing the cuts in my bare feet as fast as they formed, while Bane followed, carefully picking his way through the mess.
“I’m going to pretend that made sense,” Cassius said, as I took up position beside him.
Guess no one had filled Cassius in on what had happened while he’d been on death’s door frozen in Bane’s hibernation spell.
I open my mouth to explain, but fuck it. Cassius was smart, he’d catch up and it would be better if I just used the spell Karthick had put in my head. Except—