Page 30 of Eternal Light (Fated in the Stars #5)

“If you don’t cooperate, I’ll convince Luca to jump from that window or drown himself in the bathtub,” he says it lightly, as if violating Nix is no more significant than ordering a cup of coffee at the drive-thru.

“Luca, go and wait in the bathroom, please.”

His mate’s voice is flat, dead.

“What?! No. Nix. You can’t…” Luca begs, his stomach dropping to his toes, and for the first time, he really is terrified.

“Luca!” Nix looks at him, and there’s nothing behind his eyes except determination. “Go. There’s nothing he can do to me that I can’t handle. Please. Just be safe, and I can handle everything else. I won’t let him hurt you.”

Nix might be prepared to endure, but he isn’t the only one who gets to protect his mates.

“No. I won’t step out of the way so you can sacrifice yourself for me. I would rather die than have you go through that.” Again. “How can you expect me to do any less for you than you would for me?”

It seems to get through to Nix because, in the next moment, he’s being squeezed within an inch of his life.

“Oof, baby, you gotta let me breathe.”

Luca spots Withers over Nix’s shoulder, and the magic user is sitting with legs crossed and his hands under his chin like he’s observing an experiment or an exhibit in the zoo.

“What is that?” He waves his hand at them.

Not that Luca owes the slimy git anything—and certainly not commentary about his twin soul—but he still feels compelled to answer.

“Love? Not that you’d know.”

“Huh. Okay, enough of that. I’m bored already. Shirt off, or Luca bleeds.”

Nix doesn’t waste any time negotiating or pleading; in the blink of an eye, he has Withers’s throat in his hand.

The bastard’s eyes bug out as Nix presses his claws in, while he growls low in his throat.

Suddenly, Withers’s eyes roll back in his head and he’s a dead weight.

Nix drops him in surprise. “What the fuck? I didn’t even get to the good part.”

The bedroom door opens, and Connall is there with a plate of sandwiches and two glasses of milk.

“Fucking finally. Oops…did you do that?” he asks, nodding his head at Withers’s blood seeping from the shallow claw marks onto the bed cover.

“If he’s dead, we are going to have a world of trouble on our hands in about thirty seconds.

He’s got so many fingers in Carnell’s pies, and I don’t think you’re ready for that. ”

“No! Well, I would have made it more—maybe I just scared him?” Nix kicks him with his bare foot.

Luca gives in to the urge to do the same. Twice.

Nix looks at Withers again like he’s considering ending the bastard and the magical consequences be damned, but after a few seconds, he shakes his head.

Turning to the butler, Luca points an accusing finger at him. “No, thanks to you. What a shitty thing to do! He was going to—”

Connall raises both hands in surrender. “I am so sorry. The drug in the sandwich took longer than I expected. Now hurry and eat, and then you should go. He’s going to be pissed when he wakes up.”

“You did that? Why?” Nix asks suspiciously.

Connall shuts the door and shakes his head.

“Look, I have my reasons, which are none of your business. But I am not leaving a pregnant omega to the likes of Patrick Carnell. The dumb fuck couldn’t even tell…

what a fucking idiot.” He thrusts the tray toward them.

“Please, take the sandwiches and get back to Gideon. Stay gone and leave Carnell and Withers to me.”

Nix must see some truth in Connall’s eyes because he throws back the milk and then stuffs a sandwich into his mouth in three big bites.

“Now you, baby.” He offers Luca a glass of milk, already breaking the sandwich into pieces, while Connall watches with a small, indulgent smile.

“You really should get going.”

“Luca eats first,” Nix insists, and he stuffs pieces into Luca’s mouth until his cheeks are puffed up like a chipmunk’s.

“Here, put these on. I don’t have shoes to fit. I’m sorry, but I did find these flip-flops in the pool house earlier.”

He lays a stack of clothing on the bed, stepping over the prone magic user.

There are two t-shirts and two pairs of sweat shorts. It pains him, but Luca doesn’t waste any time pulling them on and exchanging his dirty t-shirt for a clean one. He still smells a little like motor oil and wine, but the shirt is clean, and it helps.

“You should come with us,” he hears himself say—and while it surprises both him and Connall, the butler just shakes his head.

“I have unfinished business, but I appreciate the ask. Consider us even, yeah? Now, let’s go. Here’s some money for a cab.”

When their purloined phone drops to the floor, it’s deader than its owner. Connall just raises an eyebrow.

Nix cracks it in two with his bare hands and offers it to Connall, who looks surprised and then laughs.

“I think people underestimate you all the time.” The bigger man smiles at that, and it looks a bit rusty.

Luca nods vehemently as Nix shrugs.

He opens the door, and they creep back the way they’d come.

“Where is Carnell?” Nix asks, claws at the ready, regardless of Carnell’s threats about a protection spell.

“He has company.”

“Ew,” Luca says.

“Preach,” Connall agrees. “But they’re eager and well paid.”

Well, that’s something, at least.

They get to the kitchen door again, and this time, Connall tells him the code to the gate is Gideon’s birthday.

“Hey, don’t come back, yeah?” he says and waves before shutting the door to do whatever he’s going to do to Withers—and to somehow explain their absence without losing his own life.

Luca can’t think too hard about their ally, though, because the pain in his belly is getting persistent.

When this is all over, he’ll tell Gideon how nice Connall was, and maybe they can figure out what made Carnell so happy that the big man caters to his every whim.

Maybe help him be happy and keep that very nice smile on his very handsome face.

They get to the gate, and the security code works perfectly.

In minutes, they’re running down the drive toward the street.

Nix is letting Luca set the pace, and since his idea of cardio is riding Finn, it’s not long before they’re walking instead.

“Nix?”

“Mmm?”

“Would you really have done what Withers wanted?”

He’s quiet for a minute before taking Luca’s hand and stopping them in the middle of the sidewalk, the late-night traffic passing them by.

“There is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe. Nothing. Since I woke up to you telling me about Jensen Ackles, I knew then that I would protect you from every hurt. Especially from the likes of Hayes or anyone else.”

“But?”

Nix smiles, and it’s both sinister and sweet.

“But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have ripped his heart out for touching what’s not his. I am your omega. Jamie’s. Gideon’s. Grayson’s. Rowan’s. Finn’s. Leo’s. Understand? I decide who I belong to. Me. ”

“Good. Now, let’s find my soulmate because I think I’m going to puke.”

“Alright, baby. Up you go. Just try to not get it in my hair this time.”

A piggyback is much preferable to his own two feet, as Nix breaks into a run. He refrains from telling Nix he feels like a better-looking Bella from Twilight because his baby hates that movie with a passion.

It’s another ten minutes to get to a main road, and instead of a cab—because where could they go—they find a forgotten public phone outside a gas station with a quarter just sitting in the coin return slot.

This time, it’s Luca’s turn to call the number he had memorized at his mother-in-law’s earlier insistence.

“Speak,” Gideon says tersely.

Luca can hear the tears in his own voice when he finally says, “Sugar, it’s me. Can you come get us?”

Gideon catches his breath, his voice quivering with relief. “On our way, baby. Are you okay?”

“We’re okay, but I need you.”

There’s the sound of running, car doors closing, and an engine starting on the other end.

“Is Jay…okay, too?”

Gideon hesitates, the ache in Luca’s chest piercing before it fades away as quickly as it had come. “He’s being his usual clingy self.”

His alpha’s weak Hey! Don’t kick a man when he’s down is so overwhelming that he begins to cry.

It’s one thing to know Jay is alive and another entirely to hear him alive.

Nix hugs him tight, wiping his cheeks with soft fingertips. “We’re okay. We’re okay,” he whispers, like he’s convincing himself as well as Luca.

“We will see you in twenty minutes, kittens.”

“Will you stay with me, Sugar?”

“Always. So… how do you feel about another dog in the family…?”