Page 40 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part Two

C HRISTOPH

Which of you sick fucks …

Mirth, her eyes blazing violet orbs of power, stands on the raised stage.

Next to a Banksy these privileged assholes have stolen — I saw the installation in New York when it first appeared — and are now auctioning off to the highest bidder.

She holds a young blond girl in cute pajamas, maybe eight or nine, by the hand.

All the immense power that Her Highness carries, usually so tightly that I can barely scent it, wraps around them both, as well as a metal cage that contains an older boy.

The boy is painfully stuck mid-shifter transformation.

And appears too young for that transformation to not have been forced upon him.

I jerk to my feet, knocking the table of the booth tucked in the back corner of the theater enough to slosh posh drinks over a half-dozen nauseatingly expensive cigars. The rest of the table’s occupants— the assholes who invited me to the auction— don’t even notice.

Mirth has them completely enthralled.

Not one of the three fuckers at my table displays even a hint of surprise at the appearance of a child in a fucking cage.

An auction for rarities and magical antiquities, they said when they sidled up to me at the club.

Presuming that I’d be amenable to it all because not only am I a low-born bastard, shipped off to the United States by my duke father, but I’m now also well-known among the asshole toffs — thanks to Eli — for running an exceedingly profitable underground, illegal fight ring.

Apparently, the auctioning of children as one of the ‘rarities’ wasn’t even worth an offhand remark.

At my movement, the awry goddess on the stage snaps her radiant purple gaze to me, narrowing her eyes as if sighting prey.

That mere look slices through me, instantly scarring my soul. I open my mouth to explain my presence … or to declare my utter devotion … or to demand that she get the fuck off the stage, to stop exposing herself to a theater full of stupidly powerful essence-wielders.

She offers me a twist of a smile, reaching for me with all that intense power.

Her energy teases over and along a binding that I can now clearly feel, hooked just under my rib cage, near my heart.

That mutely felt but previously unseen bond — our soul connection.

A soul-deep bond that my seer mother murmured about when I was much, much younger.

The princess that my mother’s long sight, normally tuned to financial prognostication, promised to me … but I didn’t believe, couldn’t believe. Not literally, anyway. I was only the bastard son of a duke, with a line of heirs before me. And how many actual princesses even exist?

But my mother saw true.

I never understood why she stayed with my asshole of a father, tucked away in that cottage and treated like a precious commodity when it suited him, and like a convenient fuck when he couldn’t get it elsewhere.

Mirth and I were forged from the same pocket of the universe. Everything my mother did to protect me, to care for me, steered me toward the destiny unfolding before me. My path tweaked and prodded according to my mother’s sight, enough for me to be standing here and now.

The revelation is overwhelming.

Mirth tugs on the bond between us. Just lightly. But it definitely snaps my attention back where it belongs. Had she been blocking that connection? Shutting it down along with the immense, intense power that now pours from her?

It doesn’t matter. Because now I know for certain it’s there.

Now I know for certain why the burgeoning friendships with my other bond mates are so …

unburdened of expectation. Now I know why other relationships were, are, difficult for me.

Why I never really bothered to look for anything more than the most casual of connections.

Why I held Mirth in the garden at Lake Thun.

Why I gave her the peaches.

I can see all the strands of essence between us now, including the power spilling over the edge of the stage, creeping across the floor toward the nearest audience members.

I’ve always had a sight for essence — a genetic gift from my awry mother — but it’s never been this intense, this exact before.

The why of that twists through my chest. As if Mirth herself is reaching within to grab hold of my heart. And my lungs, because I’m not certain I’m breathing at all.

We strengthen each other, our gifts, just by being in close proximity.

The bond between us thickens, then grows taut.

“Lord Williams,” Mirth says. It’s an outright claim, thrumming with power. “You’re standing on the wrong side of this.”

Centuries of seeking the missing sections of our souls stretch between us, but only seconds have actually passed.

I push away from the table, heading for the stage before I even decide to do so. But I’m not beguiled. No, I’m moving toward my soul-bound mate with pure need, pure protective intent.

The momentary hush that fell over the audience cracks wide open. Toffs start jumping up from their seats, scrambling for their belongings.

Getting in my way.

Mirth’s blazing gaze runs over all of them a second time.

They literally freeze in place, mouths agape.

Hands clutching at clothing or chairs or each other.

All that power at their fingertips, all the privilege in the world, and Mirth’s mere presence has them too fearful to even flee. Let alone fight back.

And Mirth isn’t compelling anyone to do anything. Not yet.

A form of empathy, she called it.

I chuckle to myself, elbowing the assholes who’ve stumbled into the aisle out of my way. Empathy. That was the fucking understatement of the fucking century.

“Hold the phone a little higher,” a voice says from the stage. “Scan to the right …”

The young girl raises her phone obligingly, arm shaking.

The realization that they’re being filmed breaks the hold Mirth has on the audience.

Essence begins to spark all around me. Most of the spells the mages are conjuring are defensive in nature, protection wards and the like.

But some asshole mage in a three-piece suit and a flashy gold watch raises a hand toward Mirth.

I punch him in the back of the head. Hopefully not hard enough to kill him.

He goes down.

Then the screaming and the scrambling start.

Not unusual, honestly— at least not after I start throwing punches in the ring. Though the tenor here is more terror-filled than titillated.

A few more mages start flinging their essence all over the place, most of it hitting me as I shove my way toward Mirth on the stage.

Being a giant of a shifter comes with pros and cons, but at least I partially block Mirth and the kids.

My stupid suit gets singed. I’m fairly essence-proof, though, and well adapted to functioning under intense pain, so it doesn’t much register.

Mostly because I can’t really take my gaze off the awry goddess awaiting me.

Mirth’s nostrils flare in indignation — a response to me taking hits. The power that’s been protectively undulating around her, spilling over the edge of the stage but not reaching for any of the nearby idiots, now snaps out in multiple directions.

The screaming and scrambling shifts … into laughter.

Ignoring whatever the fuck is happening behind me, I vault onto the stage, easily passing through the energy churning between us. I hesitate, but only for a moment, before meeting Mirth’s gaze.

She smiles up at me sweetly, the expression a disconcerting contrast to the immense power still twined all around her. And the kids.

“Christoph,” a voice purrs over the girl’s phone speaker, “I haven’t seen you since our last raid in New York. You could have called.”

I recognize the voice now. Coda. How the awry hacker and Mirth know each other is something I don’t take the time to worry about, and I don’t break my gaze from Mirth when I respond to the not-so-veiled accusation.

“It was a last-minute invitation. And I didn’t know for certain it was them. Not until I saw the kids.”

“Tommy needs your help,” Mirth says, seemingly not at all concerned about my presence at what appears to be a gathering, perhaps even a full branch, of an underground trafficking faction. The Mobius Group. “Please, my lord.”

The gentle request, threaded through with the weight of all the power at Mirth’s command, shudders through me. Still ignoring the stifled laughter and the chaos behind me, I instantly bend a knee and wrap my hand around the bar at the center of the cage door.

Essence protections sear across my palm, over my hand. Pain blazes in its wake, aching through my bones. I ignore it, steadily meeting the boy’s terrified blue eyes through the bars.

Tommy.

I know he is mine to protect the moment our gazes lock. Just like the others in my bond group are mine. I can see the thread-thin bond shimmering between us. It looks … fragile.

Tommy’s jaw is distended. Fingers clawed.

He’s partly transformed into some beast, the nature of which I cannot discern.

Maybe the protective coating on the cage is fucking with my senses?

His left shoulder is dislocated. Scarring from half-healed burns marks his hands and forearms. His ribs are darkly bruised.

I tear the steel cage door off its fucking hinges, ripping a hole through the protections sealing it at the same time.

Tommy valiantly tries to get to his feet.

The cage is high enough that he should be able to stand, but I’m fairly certain there’s something wrong with at least one of his knees.

So I reach into the cage, the protections I’ve ripped through still active enough to sear through my suit and blaze across my upper arms and shoulders.

Yes, I’m too big to fit through the cage door without twisting sideways.

Tommy reaches for me with one arm, cradling the other to his chest. I awkwardly pull him closer. My heart wrenches at the sharp cry of pain and distress he valiantly tries to swallow.