Page 10 of All Saints Day (Lucifer and the Saints #2)

“It isn’t easy, knowing that every second we’ve left her to the devices of the Windmill is filled with new horror, that’s for sure,” Dennis sighs, pulling off his hat and running a hand through his strawberry blond hair.

Now that I can see him in the light, Dennis looks awful. His cheeks have hollowed since the last time we saw him—puffy dark spaces below his eyes, their usual vibrant sea-glass green dulled with resignation.

“Fucked up as it is to say, I can’t wait until we get this over with—so I don’t have to keep walking on eggshells around Compton and the other guys in my unit.

” Dennis shakes his head, sitting down beside Q, allowing Sébastien to serve him a cup of hotel coffee zhuzhed up with a few cardamom pods and some sweetened condensed milk.

Sébastien continues to watch Dennis warily out of the corner of his eye, ever distrustful of law enforcement after a life largely spent as a criminal.

“I used to have a few places I could go where I didn’t feel like I had to be constantly looking over my shoulder.” Dennis takes the coffee with a deferential nod to Sébastien, blowing carefully across the steaming surface before gingerly taking a sip.

“Well, you won’t have to suffer for much longer,” Seb sniffs, doing his best to keep the outright disdain from his voice, but I still kick his shin underneath the table. He’s going to have to learn to play nice. Dennis is one of us, after all.

“Indeed,” Quentin jumps in, eager to steer us away from any potential friction between Seb and Dennis and back toward the important business of planning Louise’s rescue mission. “We will have a very narrow window to get Compton from DC to the Windmill compound in rural West Virginia.”

Dennis nods solemnly.

“I make the grab after Caz disables all of Compton’s devices. Once the big dog goes dark, that’s bound to tip off the Windmill, but as long as we get him out of the office in a timely manner, we should be on the road before they can give us any real trouble.”

“Yeah, as long as everything goes off without a hitch, we should actually be able to give the Windmill a solid false signal that will make it look as if Compton’s devices have only flickered in and out.

That way, it will look like Compton is still safely on FBI premises until we’ve gotten a good lead on our escape,” I interject.

“Best-case scenario, we’re able to use Compton as a meat shield all the way to wherever they’re keeping Louise locked up,” Seb adds with no small amount of sarcasm.

“Worst-case scenario, we end up dropped into the lion’s den with no way out—and we get ripped to shreds as soon as we clear the threshold,” Quentin chimes the dire pronouncement cheerfully for effect.

Dennis’ eyes cast anxiously around the room.

“You’re all totally out of your minds,” he whispers incredulously under his breath.

“So says the guy who’s going to have the head of Behavioral Sciences at gunpoint for most of this exercise.” Seb crosses his arms, laughing dryly.

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Dennis drags a hand over his mouth. “Louise may have had no problem breaking the rules all the time, but for me this is like pulling teeth.”

“You can really see why she called you ‘Apple Polisher’ McBride,” Seb sniffs haughtily.

Dennis, who had already been winding up to make another statement, fell silent, a bewildered expression opening his features slightly too wide, as if he had the wind knocked out of him.

I give Sébastien a warning glare. I know he doesn’t like Dennis much on principle, but he’s one of our fated mates—and using the private insult Louise had reserved for him seemed unusually cruel.

“Did she really call me that?” he asks softly, his lips curving into a tremulous smile.

Suddenly chastened, Seb blushed deeply, his eyes cast down as he clarifies.

“It was said playfully—‘Dennis Apple-Polisher McBride’ like it was your full title.” He shrugs, lifting his maroon eyes to meet Dennis’ blue-green ones.

Dennis nods solemnly, blinking away tears as stoically as he can.

I watch Seb squirm, immediately regretful of his petty jab.

“I only teased you because it was clearly a sign of affection,” Seb snorts, crossing his massive arms over his broad chest. “I may or may not have been slightly jealous.” He shrugs dismissively.

Dennis’ lips quirk upward in a genuine smile as he sniffles back more tears.

“She’s called me worse to my face, mind you.” He shakes his head, and all of us laugh.

A momentary silence falls over the room before Quentin pierces the quiet with his soft words.

“Look at all of us, positively unraveling without our little Lucifer to keep us sinners knit together.” He wrings his hands, and I am once again forced to imagine the possible future where Quentin falls prey to heat sickness because our lopsided pack can’t meet his needs.

“Somehow it’s worse than the last time—when Compton tried to tell us Louise had died.” He pauses meaningfully, his eyes traveling around the room—meeting the gaze of the remaining Saints one by one before he speaks again. “When they said you’d all killed her…”

I struggle to swallow as Dennis’ stare pins me with a lingering accusation.

“I can’t explain it, but even though I had every reason to hate you three—I can’t seem to find it in my heart to condemn you—even if I hate some of the things you’ve done…

” Dennis trails off, and I’m not sure whether he’s talking about us kidnapping Louise and keeping her captive, or about all of us fucking her.

Quentin shoots me a warning glance as he feels my thoughts humming along the mating bond.

We should tell him. We should bring him into the bond!

Sébastien’s head whips around, his maroon eyes widening as he too feels my thoughts.

Searching his face, I can’t tell if his lips are tightened in anticipation of my confession or in condemnation of it; if his eyes glitter with zealous refusal or to urge me on.

Before I can hear Seb down the bond, Quentin’s strong resonant refusal brings me up short.

“And I’m not a fucking idiot, I have eyes,” he rankles, his lip curling back from his pearly canines as his eyes flit to the tiny bite mark scars on Seb’s earlobe, that searing sea-glass gaze landing on the orbit of silver-lavender half moons that circle my thumb like a ring.

“I can see that she trusted you enough to make you pack.” His voice nearly breaks on the word ‘pack,’ forcing Dennis to clear his throat and regain his composure.

I give Quentin a pleading look. I can tell by the way he and Seb give a slight shudder that they’ve seen the momentary glimpse of my catastrophizing down the mating bond; Quentin in heat—desperate for a sigma or alpha our pack currently lacks.

It isn’t just my fears for Quentin’s well-being.

Even though the bond hasn’t been open as wide between Dennis and the rest of the pack as it has been between us remaining Saints and Louise, I still feel the missing spaces where the others should be, I do my best to not let my mind dwell too long on the phantom limbs of Frank and Mike in our bonded chain; the desire to pull Dennis in nearly overwhelming.

Don’t do it, Cazzy . I hear Quentin down the bond, his final futile attempt to stop me from doing what I’ve already decided I must.

“Dennis,” I begin, both my palms lying flat on the table.

Before I can say anything, Dennis is up and out of his chair—spine straight as an arrow, his hands closed into tense fists—knuckles bloodless white.

“Don’t say it,” he gasps—tears suddenly welling in his eyes. “If you say it, there’s no taking it back—and I don’t know if I—” he hiccups down a sob.

Quentin lets out a defeated sigh and folds his face into his hands, curling in on himself.

“Of course, he already knows,” Sébastien groans and slumps down in his chair—head lolled back as if someone gave him a good sock to the jaw.

“I don’t know shit—and no one’s ever been able to prove shit off of ‘a gut feeling.’” Dennis protests as his eyes press closed, shaking his head as if it will actually help him outrun the truth.

“Don’t say what, Dennis?” I press. Before I know what my body is doing, I’m out of my seat and closing in on him, unwilling to relent.

He screws his eyes shut, one hand clamping down on his chest over his heart—tears streaming from behind his closed eyes.

“It’s not real; it can’t be real,” he blubbers under his breath through ragged sobs.

My hands find the muscular rounds of Dennis’ shoulders—shaking him gently.

“It’s very real, Dennis. You already know it in your heart to be true.”

For a split second, it’s as if Frank is in the room—a sudden surge of wild violence tearing through Dennis as he windmills his arms—slapping my grip away as he stumbles backward.

“Fuck!” he screams—fingers knit behind the crown of his head as he lurches forward—face nearly purple, apoplectic with rage.

He stays bent double for several long moments—his chest rapidly heaving with gasping breaths before he snaps upright—eyes fixed on me with an accusatory glare.

“You knew—back in Boston,” Dennis stammers dumbly, his eyes swinging to Quentin and Sébastien hatefully before returning to meet mine.

“Dennis,” I hold up my hands, trying to calm him down before he blows his top.

“You knew long before Boston—didn’t you?” he snipes angrily, beginning to close the distance between us; drawing Seb and Quentin from their seats—both of them ready to lunge for Dennis before he can put hands on me.

“We found out during Q and Lou’s last heat!” I finally manage to blurt out, bringing Dennis up short less than an arm’s length away—close enough that his hyssop, thyme, and sea-salt scent fills my nose.

Dennis must be having a similar experience, because I can actually see his pupils dilate slightly—his breathing slowing and evening out as he catches wind of my soothing theta scent; dragon’s blood incense, sweet poppy, and smoked vanilla pods taking the edge off of his hot rage.

“None of us knew you were at the cottage until you’d already left the island—and Louise didn’t even know about the fated mates herself until after you were gone.” The words leave me in a deflating gust.

“We didn’t know for certain at first either,” Seb chimes in, looming large over Dennis’ shoulder—a reminder to make sure cooler heads prevail.

I can’t help but flinch in my seat as Dennis reaches out unexpectedly, his right index finger touching the scarred ring around my thumb.

“When did you know?” Dennis does his best to keep his voice steady, pinning me with his singular gaze.

“We saw the markers for fated mates when we—” I begin, but Dennis cuts in, his ire rising as his patience thins.

“I said, when did you know ?” Dennis pushes.

“I don’t know if you want me to answer that question.” I do my best for bravado—flashing Dennis a wicked grin, giving him the opportunity to reverse direction.

His alpha aura pours off him—the jealousy palpable against the iron grip of his self-control. For a moment, I wonder if he’ll back down—put on the placid face of the professional field agent.

“When did you know? I won’t ask again,” Dennis growls, his hands curling over the edge of the small table, his aura flexing with delicious power. If I wasn’t sure before about bringing him into the bond—I’m certain now. We need him.

“I knew the very first time I came inside her at the safehouse—even before we both realized she had escaped from her handcuffs but hadn’t wanted to stop fucking me.”

The words are barely out of my mouth when Dennis’ hands fly from the edge of the pressure board table to the collar of my hoodie, his fingers twisting easily in the grey cotton as he lifts me up and out of my chair with surprising strength and speed.

We’re nearly nose to nose—one of Seb’s beefy hands already clapped over Dennis’ shoulder—ready to peel him off of me at any second when I find my voice again.

“When did you know? That night in the field, in the tall grass—under the moon?” I allow my eyes to drift closed, the images painted on my mind’s eye; a shared memory from Louise.

I feel his grip on me soften. When I open my eyes—Dennis’ features have slackened, incredulity drawing his pained eyes.

“How do you…?” he trails off, releasing me completely.

“The bond of fated mates runs incredibly deep,” Sébastien cuts in, giving Dennis a less than gentle yank backward into the seat he’d vacated moments ago.

“We have seen a great deal of Louise’s important memories—of one another’s, through a sort of telepathic link,” Quentin explains calmly, one of his spidery hands crawling up and over my shoulder to caress my upper back; a gesture of comfort for himself just as much as me, after Dennis’ unexpected outburst.

Dennis buries his face in his hands as Seb looms large over him, but Dennis seems not to notice—overwhelmed by the recent flood of information.

“Why are you telling me this now?” he groans, sniffling back tears of grief and frustration.

“Having access to the mating bond for the operation will be an advantage we can’t afford to overlook,” Quentin is quick to answer. While this is true, I know he’s been quick to offer this explanation rather than the next due to his own pride.

Dennis’ hands drag up his face until he gets to his strawberry gold hairline—his fingers raking back through his hair, making it stand on end like a cockscomb.

“That would be quite the advantage,” he allows grudgingly.

“There’s also the matter of Quentin’s approaching heat,” I add, Quentin’s dismay written in his sour mouth and severely pinched brows. Dennis, on the other hand, has turned a shade of bright pink—the blush giving his handsome face a surprisingly boyish charm.

“Now, t-that’s making an awful lot of assumptions, isn’t it,” he stammers, looking away, a hand pulling at the collar of his t-shirt anxiously.

“Considering what we’ve seen in Tin-tin’s memories?” Seb booms with laughter—slapping an open hand across Dennis’ back playfully, nearly sending him face first into the table. “We’re not assuming much,” Seb adds with a knowing wink of finality.

Understanding blossoms in Dennis, his eyes widening as he realizes just how much we have him at a disadvantage.

“So, you’re saying—when I bond with all of you, I’ll see…” Dennis struggles to find the polite words. “Some of your memories?”

A wicked smile crosses Quentin’s lips.

“Greedy boy,” Q chuckles low, sitting back in his seat. “Yes, I’d imagine you’d probably see a good deal of Louise and I’s dual heat—along with the bonding session.”

Dennis’ blush only deepens, his Adam’s apple bobbing furiously as he struggles to swallow.

I glare at Sébastien, warning him not to let out a cruel laugh as Dennis bites out, “I’ll have to think about it.”