Page 22 of Magic Betrayed (The Shifter of Sheridan Avenue #2)

Even after Talia and her people left The Portal, it took several more hours to wrap everything up.

Faris sent Isaac to Guthrie to collect Seamus, and they eventually called to report that the area was now swarming with fire trucks and police. Local authorities were scrambling in an attempt to determine what exactly had happened, but thankfully the only evidence left was the van and the bounty hunters, none of whom had survived Ethan’s deadly tornado. Restitution was now up to Talia, and I trusted that she would be generous in her efforts to ensure the humans’ good will.

The medic finally arrived, promised that Logan would be fine once he’d slept off the effect of the sedative, and shot me a look of utter disgust once I admitted to walking around on a broken ankle. He gave me a painkiller and a stern recommendation to shift and then sleep for at least twelve hours, then turned to Kes, who ended up having bruises and a concussion.

Kira offered to keep Ari for another day or two while Kes recovered, and Faris insisted that he and Morghaine would be happy to keep Logan until things settled down. Considering the way Logan hero-worshipped my boss, I doubted he was likely to protest.

When I voiced my worry that Kes would be left alone in our apartment while I slept off my injuries, Shane quietly interrupted to offer his own house as an alternative. And before I could politely decline, Kes shocked me by accepting—though she looked almost as surprised by her answer as I was.

I knew he would never hurt her, and she needed someone nearby while she was recovering from her concussion. Also, it was likely a good idea for all of us to stay away from our apartment for now—at least until we dealt with the issue of the bounty on Kes. So I was happy to know she would be safe, but her level of comfort around Shane continued to perplex me and probably would until we had a chance to talk about it.

Ethan, too, should be safe enough for the immediate future. Kira returned with her bracelet and managed to alter the closure until it fit around his slightly larger wrist. She could make no promises whether it would work for an elemental, but we had time, as Kes informed us his magic would not return for at least another twelve hours.

So that meant I was finally free, but also alone. And for some reason, alone was the last thing I wanted to be.

“Come home with me?”

Callum’s quiet request sent a rush of heat to my cheeks, and I turned to look at him hesitantly.

“It’s quiet, and you’d be safe there,” he promised. “Safe to shift and heal, and then sleep off the effects.”

Something about his expression struck me as oddly intense, so I couldn’t help asking. “Is this about the… the mate bond?” I somehow managed to stumble only slightly over the words.

He paused for a moment before admitting the truth. “Partially.”

My raised eyebrows encouraged him to explain.

“I don’t like thinking about you being unprotected.” He shot me a wry look. “I promise it’s not going to turn me into more of a control freak, and I’m not going to force you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. Not ever. But… I wanted to at least make the offer. Especially since we still have…”

“A lot to talk about?” I finished.

He nodded.

Could I really just… go home with him? What would everyone think? And did I actually care enough about the answer to let it change my decision?

Kira already knew there was something between us, which meant Faris did too, and Kes had suspected since the very beginning.

Besides, we really did need to talk.

“Okay,” I agreed, and felt an almost immediate surge of relief.

I wasn’t ready to go back to my apartment yet. Wasn’t ready to pretend that life was back to normal. I needed a space—even if just for a day—in which I didn’t have to have everything together. A place to be just Raine, and not the person who always had to have the answers.

Ever since our escape from the fae prison, I’d been the one to figure out where we would sleep, what we would eat, how we were going to stay safe, even how to parent . And some days it felt like too much—like it just might break me.

Now, for whatever inexplicable reason, it was Callum—the perfectly-in-control-at-all-times king of the shapeshifters—who made me feel safe enough to let go.

Safe enough to shift into my tiny fox form and follow him out the door and across the street, where he insisted on carrying me up the stairs to his sixth-floor apartment.

Safe enough to curl up on his couch while he made coffee, and safe enough not to run away when he collapsed onto the couch next to me with a sigh, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the cushions.

“Medic said sleep,” he reminded me, turning his head to regard me with a gaze that was both warm and utterly spent. “You can shift back anytime. Your clothes from last time are clean and in the closet. Bedroom is yours. We can talk when you wake up.”

You mean when we wake up, I thought as loudly as I could in his direction and was shocked when he rewarded me with a sleepy smile.

“Yes. We.”

His eyes drifted shut, so I silently slipped off the couch and into the bedroom, where I resumed my human shape. It was much easier to shift back this time, though my eyes were already trying to close as I shamelessly ignored my own clothes, stole his comfiest pair of sweats, and burrowed under the covers. My ankle ached, but was clearly much better, and all my other aches and pains seemed muted and distant, along with my worries about the future.

For now, there was nothing I needed to think about. I could just sleep. Because Callum was here, and I knew that he would always keep me safe.

* * *

I woke slowly, moving in and out of consciousness several times before I recognized the smell of coffee and… was that bacon ?

Suddenly, my stomach decided it was ravenous—as if I hadn’t eaten for days. I cracked my eyelids and found that the room was dark. No light peeked through the shuttered windows, which meant I’d somehow slept the rest of the day away.

The doctor had suggested twelve hours, but I was happy knowing it had been at least eight, with no waking from nightmares. No checking to make sure Ari hadn’t teleported out of the apartment during the night. No worries about missing my alarm, or realizing I’d forgotten to wash my work clothes…

Actually, I had forgotten to wash my work clothes.

But even that problem seemed far away as I rolled over, snuggled deeper into the covers, and then remembered I was in Callum’s bed .

That opened my eyes in a hurry, and also made me aware of voices coming from the other side of the door.

One was clearly Callum’s, and the other was a female voice that I recognized but couldn’t seem to place right away.

“I know you’re pissed, and you have every right to be,” the woman said. “But this is an emergency.”

The words acted like a shot of caffeine to my flaccid limbs. What kind of emergency, and where?

“I’ve been gone five days .” Callum sounded much more growly than usual. “And when I left, they couldn’t wait to see the last of me. They said I was playing favorites and perverting the rule of law. Using my power for my own benefit and refusing to own up to my failures. So explain to me why my presence is suddenly so necessary, just because the Fae Court is in shambles?”

A jolt of rage shot through me as I realized there was more to his “leave of absence” than he’d admitted. I’d known there would be backlash after the events of the Symposium—known they would blame Callum for things that were never his fault—but hadn’t expected it would be quite this bad.

“You know why.” The answer was icy and stern and suddenly I knew exactly who had shown up on Callum’s doorstep.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping on a conversation between the shapeshifter king and his executive assistant, but I didn’t really feel all that bad about it. Callum was aware of my presence—probably even knew I was awake—and if I was going to agree to consider this whole mate bond thing…

I needed to know what I was letting myself in for.

“Actually, I think I’d like you to say it out loud,” Callum responded in a hard, uncompromising tone. “Because none of the rest of the court seems convinced.”

“We. Need. You.” Angelica bit the words off like they tasted bad. “For all the same reasons we did before. You’re the only one strong enough to hold everyone together. To prepare us to face a potentially hostile Fae Court. If Dathair is truly dead and the majority refuses to follow Vinrath, we have to assume the next sovereign could be from among Elayara’s sympathizers.”

Faris had mentioned the attempted overthrow of the Fae Court as the reason Rath and Draven hadn’t shown up to help rescue Kes. But this sounded considerably more serious than simply an attempt . Were the two of them even safe?

Kira had to be out of her mind with worry right now.

“I’m not interested in being the court’s attack dog,” Callum returned bluntly. “If all they want me for is to be big and scary and roar at their enemies, I’m done. I won’t agree to stand by in the face of injustice just to keep my position, and I won’t be their puppet.”

“How is it injustice to ask you to uphold the laws?” Angelica snapped. “Believe it or not, I don’t like it either. I know you think I’m nothing but a bitchy ice princess, but even I know that the laws need to be changed. Raine doesn’t deserve their hatred. But as things stand right now, you don’t have reasonable grounds to refuse their request, and you know it.”

A wave of ice rolled from my core to my fingertips, leaving me trembling with fury and… yep, there was the guilt raising its head once more.

It was my fault Callum was in trouble with his court. My fault they’d falsely accused and rejected him.

There was silence from the other side of the door and then…

“She’s here, isn’t she?”

“We’re on Shadow Court territory,” Callum replied in a dangerously soft tone. “No one gets to tell me who I’m allowed to spend my time with.”

Whatever the blonde gryphon said next, I missed, because the time for eavesdropping was over. I threw back the blankets, leaped out of bed and was through the door before I could think better of charging into what was probably supposed to be a private conversation.

Angelica shifted her gaze to me, and while her expression didn’t change, there was something troubled in her icy blue eyes.

“If you’re going to be talking about me, you might as well do it to my face,” I said coolly. “What’s going on?”

I honestly wasn’t sure whether either of them would answer me, but Callum didn’t even hesitate.

“About a month ago, the court asked me to summon you for questioning. They wanted to investigate your potential collusion with Blake and Heather and decide on an appropriate response to your claim of possessing stolen magic. I refused.”

“Oh, is that what you’re calling it?” Angelica arched one brow in undisguised sarcasm. “More like came unhinged.” She glanced at me a bit wryly. “He went on a rant even his mother would have been proud of. I think three of the councilors wet themselves, and the others didn’t come out from under the table for an hour.”

I looked at Callum.

He shrugged, a little uncomfortably. “I might have taken exception to their request.”

Maybe I should have been scandalized, but instead my cheeks went hot, and I felt an absurd temptation to grin like an idiot.

Never mind flowers. Apparently, all it took to make me feel special was a dragon-sized temper tantrum.

“So you refused, and then they made all those ridiculous claims and told you to take a time out?”

“Yes, but that’s over now,” Angelica said briskly. “With the violence and unrest at the Fae Court, they’ve realized that they may have been too hasty, and that all of the reasons they originally asked Callum to take the throne still apply.”

Because he was the only one for the job. Powerful, and yet also flexible. Able to hold a diverse court together and convince them to play nice with each other. Talented and wise enough in politics to hold his own with the other courts, and yet strong enough to command the respect of his own people.

And all of this was now in jeopardy because…

It was all of my worst fears, bottled up and served cold. All of the reasons I’d told myself I shouldn’t allow myself to like Callum-ro-Deverin.

He was needed.

And his people would never accept me.

“Callum, you know what you need to do.” To her credit, Angelica had the decency to sound sorry.

“Do I?” he responded harshly.

“The reasons you took the job haven’t changed.”

No, because Callum hadn’t changed. He was still deeply stubborn and deeply caring—a black dragon who took protecting those under his care as the most sacred of his responsibilities. He’d chosen to become king because he could do it well. Because it gave him the power to see justice done. To provide safety for those who needed it. And the need for those things hadn’t changed either—if anything, it was greater.

And if he chose me—if he chose to ignore the laws he’d helped to write—it might mean the end of his ability to protect his people.

“Laws or no laws,” he said flatly. “What they’re asking me to do would be unjust, and I won’t have any part in it.”

Angelica threw up her hands and turned to me, wearing a complex expression that I interpreted far too easily.

She was too proud to ask for my help to persuade him, but I knew what she expected. Knew exactly what she wanted me to do.

She wanted me to make the sacrifice that Callum couldn’t or wouldn’t make. Wanted me to say that I was willing to give him up for the greater good. That the naysayers were right, and that I wasn’t good enough for him. That it would never work between us, and he should find a proper shapeshifter to be his mate.

There was just one problem.

I wasn’t going to do that.

Somewhere in the past twenty-four hours, I’d decided what I wanted.

I wanted kindness, respect, safety, and caring. I wanted to feel seen. Trusted. Needed. And most of all, loved. I wanted everything Callum offered me, and I was not going to give it up just because the Shapeshifter Court sat on an Elayara-sized tack and was looking for someone to blame.

Everything I had now, I had for two reasons—because I’d been willing to fight for it, and because others had chosen to share that fight. And my relationship with Callum would be no different.

I was going to have to fight for it, and he would have to choose to fight alongside me.

I turned to face him.

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

My gorgeous dragon looked back at me, his eyes softening as they held mine. “I want to protect shapeshifters and prevent a war,” he said. “I want to see true justice done, and I want to show mercy to those who are innocent. But most of all… I don’t want to do those things alone. I want you to do them with me. I want to hold on to this mate bond with everything I have and swear to never let go.”

It was everything I needed to hear.

“Okay.” I turned back to Angelica. “There’s your answer.”

She scowled at me. “That wasn’t an answer.”

Callum gripped my shoulders and turned me back to face him. He was wearing a stunned expression that inexplicably made me feel like laughing.

“What do you mean, okay ?”

“I mean,” I said firmly, “that I want those things too.”

He still looked stunned, but as I gazed up into his amber eyes, I saw a fierce glow flare to life in their depths, and his grip on my shoulders tightened.

“Raine, are you sure? This all happened so fast. I never wanted to pressure you and I understand if you want to take more time to think…”

I reached up and put my hand over his mouth.

Yup, I shushed the king of the shapeshifters, and as I smiled up at him, I heard a tiny, shocked squeak from Angelica.

Deal with it, sweetheart.

“I don’t need to think about it, Callum. I know what I want. Even if I have to fight the entire Shapeshifter Court and a legion of fae mercenaries in order to keep it.”

“Are you sure?” he murmured behind my fingers, suddenly sounding self-conscious, but also painfully hopeful. “Have you somehow managed to forget that I’m bullheaded, impossible to reason with, and often a total pain in the ass? Not to mention paranoid, inflexible, and utterly obsessed with rules?”

“How could I forget?” I said, laughter lurking just behind my words. “Those are my very favorite things about you.”

Angelica made a disgusted sound and stalked off. I thought I heard the front door close, but I ignored it.

“I don’t want to lose you, Callum. I want to fight this fight beside you. I want to protect other people like me, people that the law doesn’t always see. I want to have your back and know that you have mine. And I want…”

The words stuck in my throat. Held back by fear. By the voices that told me I wasn’t good enough. Would never be good enough. Was too broken, too strange, too much of a liability.

But Callum took my face between his hands and gazed down at me without a trace of judgement or doubt. “What do you want?” he asked softly.

The words came out shredded and broken. Wavering, but fighting to be heard. “I want to love you,” I said simply.

The glow in his eyes brightened to a burning flame, and then his lips were on mine.

Softly, so softly, as if he couldn’t believe it was real. I could feel him trembling as my hands came to rest on his chest. Could feel the intensity of his need and desperation, so I slid my hands up to curl around the back of his neck and kissed him back.

It was like sunshine and dragon fire. Like flying and like falling. Adrenaline pounding through my veins while I remained utterly safe. Held. Seen.

His lips were perfect, and I wanted more. More of them, more of him. More of this feeling of rightness, completeness, of knowing.

But the kiss did eventually have to end, and it ended with us smiling at each other with a sort of stunned disbelief. And then with Callum wrapping his arms around me and holding me blissfully close. And just like the kiss, I didn’t want it to end, but…

“You know you need to go back.” I mumbled the words into his shirt.

He sighed and pressed his cheek against the top of my head as he combed the ends of my hair with his fingers. “I know.”

“And you’ll have to go on your own for now. We can’t just choose to ignore the laws. We’re going to have to change them instead, if we’re going to make this work.”

A dragonish growl rumbled through his chest. “Yes.”

“And we’ll have to make sure Rath survives long enough to be king.”

“Probably.”

“And find Blake, before he decides he wants to rule the world. Or kidnaps anyone else.”

I felt him shake with laughter beneath my ear. “Anything else on your to-do list?” Suddenly, I wished desperately that I could wrap that sound around myself and just stay right there.

“Well,” I answered instead, “there’s also explaining this to your family.”

“They love you.”

Two of them, maybe. “Most of them haven’t even met me. And what about your mom?” I couldn’t imagine the former queen of the dragons being thrilled by her son’s choice of a mate.

Callum just shrugged. “She’ll love you, too. Eventually.”

I winced.

But I wouldn’t run away. For better or for worse, I’d chosen to fight for my stubborn, pain in the ass dragon.

And whether it was fae mutinies, stuck up shapeshifters, or Blake’s quest to start a war… I was letting nothing and no one stand in my way.