Page 27 of Deadly Reckoning (Broken Ashes #7)

Van

“H e’s right,” I agree. Raiden has a habit of putting too much pressure on himself.

“Thanks, guys. Now, I say this with love,” he smirks, “fuck off so I can get back to it.”

I burst out laughing, “You got it, man.” Smirking, I add, “I’m assuming that you don’t want to be interrupted by anyone, so if Neith wants to come and see you, I should stop her.”

His head snaps up, and he glares at me, trying not to look amused, “She’s the exception, always.” He looks back down at his book and then adds, “You need to tell her that sirens have mates. She’s going to be mad as fuck that you lied to her.”

I sigh. Of course, he knows I didn’t tell her the truth. They all probably do.

“I didn’t lie, I just, it’s complicated,” I fumble for an explanation. Knowing full well that I did actually lie and that there is no way of getting around that. They both know that I lied, they were there. I told her that Sirens didn’t have mates, and they do. That’s a lie.

Fuck.

Raiden glances up, “I know why you freaked out and made a snap, stupid decision to lie, but she isn’t going anywhere. She’s ours, and we are all one hundred percent hers. Stop being a coward.”

I open my mouth to curse him out, but quickly close it again. He’s right. I am being a coward.

Doc claps me on the shoulder, “We’re going to tell her now. I’m going first, though.” He smirks at me as he adds, “I have a feeling your conversation isn’t going to be a short one.”

I sigh, “Probably not. Come on, let's get this over with.”

“I think they’re down at your swimming lake,” Raiden says, not looking up from the book he’s now fully engrossed in again.

I smile, I’m reasonably sure that if I tried to carry on the conversation now, he’d throw something at me.

While I’m half tempted to test my theory, I know that it's just another excuse to stall, and they’re both right.

I need to tell Neith before it goes on for too long and becomes a bigger deal than it already is.

I know she’s going to be mad as hell, but I hope she understands and isn’t angry for too long.

I’ve always hated it when she’s been angry with me.

Doc

H e’s trying to think of a way to stall again, I just know he is, so I grab his arm and pull him from the library.

“Thanks, man,” he chuckles.

I shake my head, “I really don’t think that it's going to go the way you think it’s going to go.”

“She’s going to be mad,” he mutters as we head out the back door and into the woods.

I give him a look, “Yes, she is, and that’s entirely your own fault. Neith is big on honesty and rightly fucking so. While I know why you didn’t mean to not tell her the truth, that’s the bit that she’s going to be mad about, and you’re going to have to deal with that.”

Van grimaces, “She’s always been big on honesty. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking to be honest. I know better.”

I shrug. There’s nothing that I can say right now that’s going to make him feel better. He knows that he fucked up, but he’s fixing it before it becomes a bigger thing, and that’s really important.

It’s going to be fine.

He was scared and didn’t want to make her run again. His old fears reared their head and affected his actions before he could remind himself of the Neith that he knows now, the one who won’t be leaving.

Hell, even Raiden said that, and he’s got almost as many abandonment issues, if not more, than the rest of us.

We quickly make our way through the trees, and we share a smile when we hear shouts of excitement and laughter as we get closer to the pool. They’re having great fun, that’s for sure.

As we break through the trees, my eyebrows hit my hairline.

Neith’s fire is dancing around them all, and they are all slightly singed, but look to be unharmed. It seems like they’re playing some kind of game with it, although I can’t quite work out what that game is.

The fire somehow seems to notice us first and comes shooting toward us.

“Careful, they don’t have fire magic!” Neith yells after it, and I’m shocked as hell when the fire stream not only slows down, but seems to dim in its brightness.

When it wraps playfully around us both, its heat is warm, but it’s not burning, it’s not even uncomfortable, it’s pleasant.

“Huh, well that’s cool,” River grins.

“You mean you didn’t know it could do that?” Van asks, looking at Neith with wide eyes.

She grins and shrugs, “Nope.”

“That’s mildly concerning,” Coen says, although he does so with such a big smile that I highly doubt that he’s actually worried about it.

“So, what’s up?” Neith asks as they all move closer, and her fire jumps back to her and then disappears completely.

I don’t think she truly gets just how much of a natural she is at this.

She’s taken to being a supernatural so easily considering she’s spent the majority of her life thinking she was a human.

Even late bloomers spend their lives knowing that they are supernaturals, so in a way, they prepare for it.

For Neith, it was the opposite, and she actually was tested and told repeatedly that she wasn’t a supernatural, and yet somehow, she’s adapting incredibly well.

My eyebrows rise slightly, “What makes you think that something is up?”

“You’ve both got that look,” she replies like it’s the obvious answer.

“Well, you’re not wrong. Can I talk to you for a moment?” I ask, a shiver of nerves making my stomach flip.

She nods without any hesitation, and I smile as I hold my hand out for her.

We walk until we’re out of earshot of the others, not that it really matters because they’re going to find out pretty much immediately anyway. I just want Neith to be told before I tell everyone else.

When we stop, she asks, slightly hesitantly, “Did I do something?”

I frown, “No. Not at all.”

More nerves rush through me, and I find myself stumbling over my words as I try to tell her and end up just sighing heavily as my mouth snaps closed.

She ducks so that she can look in my eyes. I have no idea when I dropped my gaze to the floor.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me,” she says. She grins, “Do you need me to kill someone? Consider it done.”

I laugh in shock, and what makes it hotter is that I know she isn’t actually joking. If I said that I needed her to take someone out for me, I know that she would do it with absolutely no hesitation.

That probably shouldn’t be hot to me, but it is.

“Do you remember in the woods when we were all talking about mates and bonded, and I told you about Incubus bonds?”

She tenses slightly and nods, “Yes, you get a choice, right?”

“Yes.” I don’t really know how to tell her, so I decide to just blurt it out, “You’re mine. Raiden did the research and then made me a tick list, and I can tick off everything. You're mine. You’re my bonded. If you’ll have me.”

Her eyes widen, “Shut the fuck up. Seriously? You’re mine?”

I nod.

Opening my mouth to explain more, I don’t get the chance to because she launches herself at me. It surprises me so much that I fall back into the tree behind me.

I have never been so grateful for a tree.

My entire being gets consumed by Neith as her lips meet mine. I feel her magic reach for mine, and I don’t even have to wrestle mine to get it to be nice. Our magics dance in much the same way as our tongues do. And her hands thread into my hair as my hands grip her ass.

Eventually, our kiss slows, and I rest my forehead on hers as she smiles beautifully.

I can’t fucking believe that she’s mine. How did someone like me get so fucking lucky?

“I love your eyes when they’re gold, Camden,” she mutters quietly, and my heart literally skips a beat.

My magic is happy and satiated for maybe the first time ever, and it reaches for her, making her smile widen.

“Thank you, beautiful.” I study her closely, “Are you okay with this? You get a choice.”

I am reasonably certain that she gets a choice, under normal circumstances she would, but this is different than anything that I know to be true, so I’m not entirely sure.

She grins, her hands rising to cup my cheeks, “I know, and I choose you.” I smile and open my mouth to reply, but before I can say anything, she bursts out laughing, “Shit, I made it sound like you were a Pokémon,” she puts on a ridiculous voice and says again, “I choose you.”

She carries on giggling, and it’s so infectious that I can’t help but join in.

“Come on, let’s head back to the guys, Van’s got something that he needs to talk to you about,” I tell her, and her expression immediately sparks with curiosity.

We walk back to the guys, all of them grinning, as they watch us, which means they either heard what I said or Van told them.

Studying Coen and River closely, I want to make sure that neither of them has an issue with it.

Shifters are well known for being territorial, and often end up struggling if they share a mate with someone else.

Fortunately, neither of them looks bothered at all, both of them are relaxed and smiling.

“Congratulations,” Coen grins.

“Thanks,” I smile.

Neith is studying all three of them as closely as I was, and when she realizes that they’re happy, genuinely happy, she relaxes.

Looking at Van, she says, “Doc told me that you needed to talk to me?”

Van’s smile drops, “Yeah, I do.”

“Good,” Coen says, immediately guessing what Van wants to talk to Neith about. He looks at me and River, “Come on, let's go and make some dinner.”

River nods and claps Van on his back, a wicked glint in his eye as he says, “Good luck, dude, you’re going to need it.”

I try not to laugh as Neith’s eyes immediately narrow, and Van looks away nervously.

“Evander?” Neith asks, full naming him and raising her eyebrows.

“Oh, you’re in trouble,” Coen grins. He steps in front of Neith, and she looks up at him, smiling softly as he bends down to kiss her. “Go easy on him, Love.”

She shrugs, “It depends on what he’s done.”

Coen chuckles and moves away so that River can take his place.

He kisses her first, and then smirks, “Don’t go too easy on him.”

“River!” Van exclaims, and I burst out laughing.

“Come on, let's go,” I say as I nudge River out of the way and kiss Neith. “I’ll see you back at the house.”

She nods, “Bye, guys. Can someone check on Raiden and Ransom?”

“We just came from Raiden, but we’ll check in on Ransom and make sure that he takes a break,” I reply.

She nods, and we head back into the woods.

Neith

I wait until they’re gone before I say anything to a very nervous-looking Van. That’s never usually a good thing, and tends to mean that he’s done something that he knows is going to piss me off.

“So, what’s up?”

“Can we sit?” he asks me, holding a hand out to me.

Taking his hand and squeezing, I nod, “Yeah. Of course.”

We take seats on big flat rocks overlooking the deep pool, and I wait for him to speak.

“I need to tell you something, and it’s going to piss you off,” he starts.

I smirk, “I kind of figured that out from everyone’s reactions.” I add seriously, “You know you can tell me anything, and that I’m not capable of being mad at you for very long.”

His lips twitch slightly, but he doesn’t fully smile like he normally would, and that worries me.

Taking a deep breath, he says, “You know when I told you that sirens don’t have mates?”

A knot forms in my stomach, and I nod, “Yeah.”

“I lied,” he says and winces.

I tense, “You have a mate.”

“No, yes,” he says, and seeing my expression, stops. “Shit, I’m fucking this up so fucking badly.”

“Van, I’m really close to freaking out, and or crying, so if you could explain, that would be great,” I tell him honestly, trying not to do the aforementioned freaking out.

“Sirens do have mates, the bond is similar to kitsunes and shifters, rather than the way that incubi have bonded, and you’re mine. My mate,” he says in a rush of words that takes me a moment to sort through.

My eyes widen, and my heart beats double time. That’s not what I expected him to say.

He clearly mistakes my expression for something else, because he rushes on, speaking really quickly, and the only way that I can understand him is because it’s what I do when I’m panicking or nervous, or excited, or angry. Okay, I pretty much just do it all the time.

“I’ve known since just before I went to the academy, only a couple of days before. I had this whole elaborate thing planned to tell you when I came back at the weekend, but by then . . .” he trails off.

“I’d gone,” I finish for him.

He nods, “I should have just told you immediately, maybe you would have stayed then.”

I shrug, “I honestly can’t answer how I would have reacted back then. I wasn’t in a good place.”

He nods.

“I should have told you the truth when we were in the woods on the pack grounds,” Van adds quietly as he stares across the water.

“Why didn’t you?” I ask.

There was once a time when we were younger, when I would have exploded at him for lying to me, but I know that there has to be a reason why he didn’t tell me.

I’m not saying I’m definitely not going to explode at him, I still might if he’s got a stupid reason, but I’m going to listen first.

He glances at me out of the corner of his eye, bending his leg and wrapping his arms around it as he rests his head on them and refocuses on the water.

“Because there was a part of me that thought it would all be too much for you. You had just found out that River was your mate, and if I told you that I have known that you’ve been my mate for over a decade, then you’d run.”

My heart hits the floor.

Shit.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry, Van,” I say.

His head snaps in my direction, and he asks incredulously, “You’re sorry?”

I smile slightly at his surprise and nod, “Yeah. If I hadn’t fucked off when I did, all of this could have been different, and you wouldn’t have thought that you telling something so fucking amazing would make me run.”

“Amazing?” he asks, hope lights his expression, making my heart hurt a little.

Turning to him more, I say, “Duh, it’s what I’ve wanted since we were kids. I finally get to say that you are mine, no one else’s, no one can take you from me. Mine.”

“Damn right they can’t. For the record, they can’t take any of us away from you. We’re all so fucking gone for you, Neith. You own us.”