Page 6

FAR, FAR too tired to deal with whatever the fuck was going on, Lukas reached his room and dumped his bag in the corner, then sank into his chair to pull his boots off.

He’d been gone over two weeks, which was common enough that he was used to things changing when he returned, but finding a mage in his home was something he deserved a heads-up about.

He glanced up when Caius stopped in his doorway and knocked, bracing his elbows on his thighs and narrowing his eyes at his alpha. “Is the mage what you wanted to talk about?”

“Yes.” Caius glanced down the hall before stepping into Lukas’ room and closing the door. “He’s Savino’s son.”

“The mafia boss?” Oh, things just kept getting better and better. “And you took him why?”

“His father was going to execute him for trying to run away. He Sparked, I bought him, got him healed, and brought him home.”

“And now you’re going to bind him,” Lukas guessed, turning back to his boots.

He could see the logic in that and might have even agreed it was a good idea.

Denver might be a big city, but they were shifters, and they were the first ones to try to claim territory here since the shifter massacre over fifty years ago.

He didn’t care about having a large pack, he was fine with it being the three of them, but he knew Quinn would prefer at least a few more members. And if Caius truly intended to hold territory here, they’d need more than a few. A mage would certainly help, depending on how good Max was in a fight.

“We all are.”

“Come again?” Lukas looked up at Caius, sure he was joking.

“What’s mine is yours,” Caius replied, echoing the words he’d sworn when he first accepted Lukas and Quinn as pack.

He squinted at Caius as his exhausted brain tried to pinpoint why that sounded wrong. “That doesn’t include people.”

Caius sighed and leaned back against Lukas’ dresser, resting his hands on the edge. “We need him. Maybe as much as he needs us. He’s a fire mage, or at least has a strong affinity for fire. You know the Order will want him for his sheer destructive power alone.”

“Fuck the Order,” he muttered. Of all the corrupt organizations, he was convinced they were at the top.

“He didn’t look too keen on sticking around, much less letting you bind him,” he said, finally getting his boots off and slumping in his chair with a yawn.

He’d napped on the plane, but he’d been running on catnaps, fumes, and caffeine for over a week.

He needed a shower, a hot meal that didn’t come out of a tiny pouch, and sleep, and he didn’t care about the order of the last two.

“He’ll come around,” Caius said with the air of someone used to getting his way.

Lukas didn’t even have the energy to roll his eyes.

“How’d the mission go?”

“Other than a new boot nearly getting us all killed, it was a success.” Lukas forced himself to sit up before he fell asleep where he was. He pulled his shirt off and threw it in the general direction of the hamper. “I need a shower and sleep.”

Caius nodded and pushed off the dresser. “I’ll wake you for dinner. Steak?”

“Gods yes. Two. And all the sides.” With a groan, he pushed to his feet. Just a few more minutes and he could pass out.

He locked his gun in the safe and stripped the rest of his clothes off on the way into his en suite, lingering a few minutes longer than he usually would to ensure he got all the grime and sweat off.

Then he pulled on a pair of clean boxers and face-planted into his bed, sinking into sweet oblivion a moment later.

LUKAS WOKE to the scent of food. Not the permeating scent of someone cooking, since that would be hoping for too much in this house, but hot food that wasn’t dehydrated or freeze-dried nonetheless.

Stomach growling, he rolled out of bed and found a clean shirt in the dark before following his nose to the kitchen.

It was nice having familiar walls around him again, even if the scent of a strange mage tickled his nose.

Caius, Quinn, and Max were at the dining table, setting out the last containers of food .

Quinn glanced at him, his gaze dropping with a quirk of his eyebrows. “Too good for pants now?”

“You like the view,” he quipped without thinking, sinking into his seat and popping the lids off his containers. He inhaled deeply, mouth watering as he cut into the rare steak and shoved a large bite into his mouth. Fucking heaven. Two weeks without a decent meal was far too long.

He devoured all of one steak before his hunger was sated enough to notice the awkward silence around the table.

He glanced over each of them, noting Quinn’s disappointed pout and Caius’ pinched expression before focusing on the mage.

Max had barely touched his food and smelled like anxiety and fear.

Still not wanting to stick around or be bound then, not that Lukas could blame him. If he’d recently Sparked, Max likely knew only what most people assumed about mages and shifters, which was generally skewed at best or, more often, horrendously wrong.

Max glanced up, meeting Lukas’ eyes a moment before quickly looking away again, the thread of fear spiking in his scent despite the flush in his cheeks.

Strange. And interesting. The hint of arousal, not the panic.

Lukas focused on Caius and raised an eyebrow, silently asking what he’d missed.

Caius’ tight smile wasn’t much of an answer, but Quinn, never able to sit in silence for long, cleared his throat. “Max agreed to stay for a few weeks to finish his semester, but only if he’s not bound.”

“Well that’s stupid,” he said, cutting into his second steak. “You know you can be bound by force, right?”

“Lukas,” Quinn hissed.

“What?” he snapped. “You expect him to trust you if you don’t tell him the truth?”

“You’re lying.” Max glared at him, his hand clenched around his fork like he would use it to stab someone.

“Why do you think the Order is so adamant about getting their hands on a mage as soon as they Spark? They want the first binding. All that’s needed is a bit of your blood and they own you.”

“Bonds can be broken,” Max said, but Lukas could hear the doubt in his voice .

“Sure,” he agreed. That was technically true enough. “If you know how to break them. Or by another mage. How many of those do you think would be willing to break a binding held by the Order?”

Max turned his glare on Quinn and Caius before eyeing Lukas again. “If that’s true, then the Order could break your binding on me anyway.”

Lukas nodded, glad to see Max was quick on the uptake. “Except consensual bonds can’t be broken by force.” Not if the bound mage wanted to keep them, at least. Enough pain or torment could change anyone’s mind eventually, but there was no sense in scaring Max further.

Max’s expression remained dubious, but he fell silent and looked like he was considering Lukas’ words.

Taking that as a good sign, Lukas focused on eating. He could eat cold food when he had to, but he much preferred when a hot meal was still hot when it hit his stomach.

Eventually, Max stabbed his fork into his salmon and sat back with his arms crossed. “I’m not stupid enough to think you wouldn’t bind me by force if the Order couldn’t break it,” he said, though he sounded more resigned than angry. “What’s in this for me?”

“Other than being pack?” Quinn asked, because of course he did. He thought pack was everything.

Lukas knew better.

Caius ignored that. “What do you want?”

Max straightened, looking like he hadn’t expected a negotiation. He glanced around the open floor space, at the house that was big enough for a much larger pack than the three of them.

Lukas expected Max to ask for something expensive or for money outright. He didn’t really expect an actual answer.

“Freedom.”

“I meant it when I said you weren’t a prisoner,” Caius said.

Max scoffed, flexing his fingers against his arms as he chewed on his bottom lip. His scent was a mess of emotions ranging from fear to hope to despair and resignation. “And I’m not going to be a sex slave.”

Lukas choked as he inhaled a chunk of steak. What the hell?

“Who the fuck said anything about being a sex slave?” Quinn demanded, staring at Max in shock .

Lukas drained his glass of tea and finally got the steak down properly. He eyed Max when he caught the subtle change in his scent; beneath the muddle of negative emotions, he almost smelled like mischief.

Max tilted his head, hesitating before flicking his fingers at Caius. “That’s not what he bought me for?”

“Fenrir help me,” Caius muttered under his breath, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“Cap? The fuck?” Quinn demanded.

Caius leveled a glare at each of them, Lukas included, which was completely uncalled for. “Of course you’re not a slave. Sexual or otherwise,” he said tightly.

Lukas gave him props for managing that with a straight face. Especially since the mirth coming off Max was strong enough to make his nose itch.

Max crossed his arms again and stared Caius down, which was quite a feat; Lukas had seen his alpha stand unflinching in the face of irate generals and entitled suburban housewives.

After a moment, Caius’ shoulders released some of their tension, his expression turned sympathetic, and his scent shifted to protective alpha.

Lukas mentally rearranged their pack hierarchy, with Max firmly in the category of Do Not Fuck With .

“Max, I promise you, you will be protected here. And far happier than you ever were with your family.”

Max’s breaths hitched, but his expression didn’t change. His fingers turned white where he gripped his arms, and he swallowed hard before letting his head dip forward. “Fine,” he said quietly. “Bind me.”

Lukas shared a quick look with Quinn, seeing his own surprise mirrored on his face. Apparently, even overly optimistic Quinn expected more of a fight than that.

He finished eating and dumped his containers in the trash. He personally didn’t care much about expanding their pack, but he knew Caius needed more than his bottomless bank account if they were going to successfully hold territory here.

“Do we have everything we need?” Lukas asked. Better to get this taken care of before Max changed his mind.

“Yes.” Caius pushed his barely touched plate of food aside and stood .

Lukas snagged a beer from the fridge and propped against the counter to sip it as Caius disappeared upstairs. He focused on Quinn and Max now that the need for sleep and sustenance was taken care of.

Even though Quinn was short for a shifter, Max was a few inches shorter, and thin enough to look frail, though Lukas couldn’t decide if that was more genetics or lack of proper nutrition. The few mages he’d worked with always looked like they would break in a strong breeze.

Max poked at his salmon, glancing at Lukas from beneath his messy tawny brown fringe.

Yeah, binding this mage to them was going to go so well. He could already taste the chaos it was sure to cause.