Page 17 of Eternal Light (Fated in the Stars #5)

“Hey, you had your chance not an hour ago. Now I can feed you for real. My wolf won’t let this go, so…what do you want? Pancakes?”

It’s Rowan’s go-to ever since Gideon showed him how, but he can also make—

“Tacos?”

Tacos sound okay, but the babies are craving brownies now, and it won’t let up. It seems, too, that Luca can read his mind—or maybe he’s passed his craving along their twin bond.

“Nix wants brownies and ice cream, but we don’t have the stuff.”

“I can go get it across the street, yeah? I still have Lauren’s card.”

He flashes it from his back pocket and gives them both a sly grin. Rowan might love spending his mother-in-law’s money almost more than he enjoys spending Leo’s.

“That’s an idea. Gideon didn’t make him promise to stay here.” Luca taps his red lips with the tip of his finger. A technicality, because Rowan had escaped into the bathroom after Jamie had kissed him goodbye—probably to hide his anxiety.

“That’s true.” Rowan runs a hand through his hair. “Write me a list, and I can get the stuff and be back in twenty minutes.”

“Wait—” Nix’s voice catches in his throat, but Rowan is already slipping on Jamie’s flip-flops. His fingers twitch at his side, resisting the urge to grab Rowan’s wrist and hold him back. “Just…don’t take too long, okay?”

Luca already has a pen out and has written the ingredients they’ll need from memory.

There’s a mollifying kiss to Nix’s cheek, a tweak to Luca’s nose, and Rowan is out the door.

“Ten bucks says he takes an hour,” Luca says, picking up his tea towel off the floor. “Come talk to me while I wash his spunk out of my hair. His aim is still terrible.”

Luca is fast in the shower, though when he gets out, he still smells as much like alpha come as he did when he got in—at least his hair is mostly clean.

By the time he’s pulled on a long t-shirt and a pair of fuzzy socks with rainbows on them, Nix has only managed to talk about one of his ideas for naming the girls.

Fifteen minutes later, there’s a heavy bump against the front door.

“Figures he forgot the key,” Luca chuckles and gets up off the couch to open the door without checking the peephole.

“Luc! Wai—” Nix shouts, but it’s too late as the door is forcefully shoved wide, and two strange men are in their apartment.

The first, who has to be larger than Logan Frost by at least a hundred pounds, has the resisting Luca pulled tight against his chest—one arm firmly around the beta’s neck and the other clamped on his upper arm. He’s Were, and more than a match for Luca.

Nix’s beta is so angry his face is red, his clawed fingers digging into the big guy’s forearm as he bucks and kicks his feet.

Nix’s wolf is incensed in seconds—how dare the interloper stick his bulbous nose into Luca’s neck? He nods and goes back for seconds with a salacious smirk.

Through his rage, Nix locks down his scent so the intruders won’t scent his babies. Just seeing those hands on his mate has him dropping into a crouch, teeth bared, claws out.

“Easy there, Pretty. You don’t want me to have Bas crush his windpipe, do you?” the other—much scarier—man says.

He’s the definition of hideous—a walking corpse, with pale gray flesh sagging around his skull and sunken eyes that glitter with madness. His pale blond hair is lank, and when the air conditioner turns on, stirring the air, he reeks of death.

There is no doubt in Nix’s mind that this is Withers.

It’s only the threat to Luca that has Nix frozen in place. He’s not wasting his time worrying about it, though—he’ll panic later, because if he can stall them long enough, Rowan will show up, and it’ll be three against two.

Withers runs a preening hand through what remains of his greasy hair, pulling the strands over his balding head in an offensive comb-over. He’s wearing a pink polo shirt and matching striped shorts, with leather boat shoes. The zombie-frat-chic aesthetic is jarring.

“Well, well. You’re not who I expected at all. And you’re Were? Will wonders never cease,” Withers drawls, settling onto a stool like he owns the place and has all the time in the world. “Where is your Adept, little Novice?”

Novice? Does this dumbass think Nix is a magic user? Huh. Guess that tracking he’d boasted about to Carnell during Grayson’s traveling isn’t perfect.

The relief that he hadn’t discovered Grayson’s secret is quickly replaced by dark amusement.

No telling what he’s going to do once he figures out Nix’s only magic comes from Grayson using their soul.

If the big guy didn’t have Luca up on his toes by the throat, Nix would have laughed and laughed at the fuck-up.

Instead, Nix remains crouched, shielding his belly for as long as he can, saying nothing.

Arlo had told him once that people feel the need to fill the silence, so he lets Withers talk. The more Nix knows about the plan, the better chance he has of getting them out of this alive.

“Cat got your tongue? Well, no matter. I tracked magic to this apartment, and since he’s not here and you are, well, you will have to do. Not that I am complaining because…you. Are. Delicious. Are you another of Rhodes’s bitches?” He leers, licking his cracked lips with a swollen, black tongue.

“Bitches! I’ll show you, you zombie-faced-motherfucker!” Luca shouts, kicking out and landing a kick to Withers’s thigh. The zombie-faced-motherfucker’s face goes from sly to livid, and Nix’s stomach drops. Fuck. Luca.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” The vicious backhanded blow whips Luca’s head to the side.

The blow is so hard that there’s blood on the corner of his mouth, but Luca just licks it with his tongue and bares his fangs in a feral smile. “You’ll have to do better than that, you fugly asshole.”

Nix prepares to leap on Withers’s back, sink his hands through his chest, and remove his heart when Withers spins abruptly. “If you move a single finger or draw on a thread of The Plain, I will have Bas here rip his mouthy head off his shoulders.”

Nix is sure he means it. There is madness in that gaze, and while Luca sits at the center of Nix’s life with the rest of his mates, he is surely acceptable collateral damage to Withers.

Nix is glad for that short moment that Withers doesn’t know Luca is Gideon’s heart and soul. Goddess knows what he’d do then.

“Kick his ass, baby. Do it!” Luca yells, kicking Withers in the shin this time.

Growling something under his breath, Withers points at Luca until his eyes roll back and he collapses in BigAndStupid’s arms.

“That’s quite enough out of you.” He dusts his hands off like the villain in a B-grade movie. “Well, that just leaves you and me, lovely.”

Nix’s wolf howls at the sight of his unconscious mate. “What did you do to him?” Nix growls through a mouth full of fangs.

“Just a little request to sleep for a few hours. Nothing compared to a very bruised shin and thigh. Perhaps you’d like to kiss it better?” At Nix’s silence, Withers continues. “Not now, maybe. But you’ll change your tune. I don’t mind them a little pudgy around the middle.”

BigAndStupid chuckles and picks Luca up in a bridal hold. “More cushion for the pushin’, eh?”

What a fucking asshole. Who does he think he is to comment on how someone looks, especially since Withers looks like he crawled out of a Ralph Lauren–designed crypt this morning?

Then again, Nix’s wolf is irate that he can’t recognize a pregnant person when he sees one.

Well, at least that’s one good thing. There is no telling what Carnell will do when they realize Nix is carrying two pack babies.

Withers laughs. “Exactly! Well, time to go.” He holds out his hand to Nix and makes a come-hither gesture with his fingers.

Nix shakes his head. “No. Just tell me what you want with us.”

“Oh, my dear, you are what I want. I came to see if your Adept would like to join me in my cause, or at the very least, battle to the death; but since it’s just you and your omega, you’ll do as some very sweet leverage to get your alphas to come to heel.”

He thinks Luca is an Omega?

“They’ll kill you.” I’ll kill you , he wants to say, but doesn’t want to tip his hand just yet.

Withers laughs at the mere mention of it. “I don’t think Allistair Carnell will do anything of the sort. I’m very useful, you know? So talented in many, many ways,” he says and makes the hand gesture again. “Come along. I want to avoid the big guy who left here earlier. This shirt is new.”

Nix takes a step back, out of Withers’s reach.

Withers raises an eyebrow and turns his full attention to Nix. His gaze is heavy and invasive, sending a tingle deep into the center of Nix’s brain. It feels similar to when Jamie used his Alpha Voice, and it only works to piss his wolf off even further.

“No,” Nix says with a growl, baring his teeth in warning.

He can see when it occurs to Withers that there is an easier way to gain Nix’s cooperation. Turning his attention to Luca, he speaks low words, and suddenly, Luca’s nose is bleeding.

“Stop! Okay. Okay…just stop. I’ll go with you, just leave him here.”

“I don’t think so. I’m sure Rhodes is extra fond of your omega, plus the things Carnell has planned for him…I can’t possibly pass up the opportunity. You know the saying, A bird in the hand? Well, now I have two little birds in hand. Come along. Tweet-tweet, lovebirds.”

BigAndStupid throws the unconscious Luca over his shoulder with little care and fanfare, and it’s all Nix can do to follow them out with his wolf riding shotgun—snarling for Withers’s blood.

But it’s only Luca’s blood smearing on the back of BigAndStupid’s shirt that keeps Nix from taking his chances.

Withers leads them out of the apartment and down the stairs to a waiting white van. Clichéd or not, it does the job. BigAndStupid drops Luca on a pile of cardboard in the back before pushing Nix in as well.

Nix pulls Luca’s head gently onto his lap before tearing a piece of his t-shirt off so he can wipe his mate’s nose and lip. Withers watches, amused—like he’s studying a specimen pinned to a board.

“Fascinating,” he observes, head tilted as if he’s witnessing one of life’s biggest mysteries, before sliding the door closed.

Right before it latches, Nix throws the piece of fabric out the small slit in the door, hoping the others will find it.

They’re microchipped, sure (there’s an I told you so coming from Gideon), but who knows if Withers’s magic can mess with that?

It’s not the first time Nix has been blocked from his mates’ detection with magic—and isn’t that the most frightening thing he’s thought since Withers showed up?

They’re on the road for about thirty minutes before Nix can smell the ocean more clearly, and still, Luca is asleep.

At least his nose has stopped bleeding, and his bond is as strong as his heartbeat under Nix’s hand.

There’s no doubt in his mind that they’re going to Carnell’s hideout, and while this isn’t the plan Nix would have chosen, he isn’t going to pass up the opportunity for a little one-on-one face time with his father-in-law for ruining his Happily Ever After with his stupid world domination delusions.

He’s willing to deal with Gideon’s disappointment about delivering the final blows, as Nix has very recently come to terms with his role as the executioner of threats to his family—and this time, he’s looking forward to it.

Nix allows himself a small smile at the thought before closing his eyes to check on the bonds of his mates and calling to Finn along the glowing blue bond.

He thinks something gets through on the third try, but the feeling is followed almost immediately by a blindingly sharp pain in his chest as Jamie’s red bond blinks out.

In a wave of horror and grief, and with Withers’s surprised, hoarse cry echoing in his ears, Nix blinks out, too.