Page 59 of Hunted By Fear

I feel his eyes roll even though he doesn’t look up from the book he’s currently engrossed in.

“I see you finally caved. I would have loved to see you beg Lucifer to let you in.” He smirks as if the thought actually excites him, and honestly, I’m not surprised.

“Well, jokes on you because Luce came to me. I didn’t even have to say please.”

That gets his attention, and his eyes snap up from the book to look at me before he looks over to Bast, clearly not believing me.

Bast shrugs, making his way to the table that Kai has clearly been spending all his time at, his eyes roaming over the books, unable to help himself.

“Have you found anything useful?” Bast asks, flipping through papers that I assume are notes. I don’t miss the hope that shines in his eyes, but even before Kai answers, I know he’s going to squash it.

Kai might say he doesn’t like Aeri, but if he’d found something, he would have told them; he wouldn’t have them all still suffering at the hands of Rome.

“No.”

Bast's face falls, his gaze moving back to the books before he turns and disappears into the rows as if off to find his own answers.

“I’ve been over almost everything at this point, very little talk of mates.”

“Nothing in Heaven did either,” I say, shaking my head.

Mates have been around since the dawn of time; how is there not more information on them?

“It doesn’t make sense, though. How did she mate with Lucifer?” I ask the question I’d been unable to voice before. I’d been given so much information that it was as if my mind was overloaded, but now I’m slowly sifting through it.

“No idea. She hugged him, and boom.” He snaps the book in his hand shut for emphasis, and I flinch.

“She hugged him?” I say, pulling a face, because that sounds…silly.

“Yeah, sounds crazy, I know. But that’s all it was. She hugged him, and he hugged her back, and then they were mated.”

“Didn’t you…” I trail off, raising a brow at him because I’m almost positive he did, and I know for sure that Talian did.

“Yes, but I’m not her bonded, and Bast is against fucking her,” he shouts the last bit as if Bast can’t hear him.

“I’m not going to have sex with her when at any moment she could forget who I am,” Bast shouts back, making Kai scowl impossibly deeper.

He holds out a hand, gesturing toward where Bast’s voice came from as if to say,see.

I keep my mouth shut because I agree with Bast, but Kai doesn’t need to know that.

“Okay, so have you learned anything at all?” I ask, moving to the table and looking at the same papers that Bast did, and find a list.

Proximity.

Mate = less Rome, not gone.

Drawn to him is painful.

Cries a lot.

Somehow more annoying now.

I glare at Kai, but he’s already got his nose in a new book.

Always an ass.

Bast comes back with two books, and I push to stand, curious about what else he might have found. After all, he is the one I would turn to for information.