“I should help.” She frowned.
“They are here for you,” my father pointed out.
“Yes, but they are stupid and don’t understand,” she muttered.
“Let’s attempt a negotiation first,” my father suggested as my eyes narrowed on the screen where that exact thing was occurring.
“Oh, mind if I make some coffee?” she asked, her hand plucking up the sparkly unicorn mug I’d used only yesterday. “My last life, I lived near this adorable bistro in Italy that had the best coffee.”
“Sure.” My manners got the best of me as I watched her pour a cup.
That was before another explosion sounded in the distance and snapped my head towards the screens.
Fuck. How much did we want to bet the negotiations weren’t going to work out?
16
Saint
The humans seemed authentically surprised when we detonated one of their bombs from a distance, my eyes narrowing as they scattered on the other side of the large security gate. I could feel their nervous energy, and it didn’t feel like the anger and volatile nature of someone planning an attack. Even the humans at the other gates seemed nervous, almost jumpy.
My flower was correct—something about this was very much off, and now we just needed to figure out what.
I narrowed my gaze as one of our Class A teams stood at the gates, talking with one of the main guards, the rest of us standing behind them. We may have been the lead team at the institute, but that did not fucking mean we were about to waste time interacting with these pieces of shit. None of us had the patience for that.
My fingers tapped against my leg as I considered Arabella’s words. She had given me permission to slaughter whoever I wanted, and I found myself annoyed that I wasn’t able to enact my desire. Shaking my head, I considered walking back to the institute, but something kept me here.
Probably because I needed to know that Arabella would be safe, for sure, and that I had every piece of information that could assure that. Then I would go back and complete what I had set out to do anyway tonight.
I planned on making it very clear to her exactly how I felt about our little conversation earlier. It was time to put all this bullshit about the possibility of her dying to rest. I had thought I had enough patience, but… no. No, I was over it. Apparently, eternity hadn’t changed my impatience.
Then again, I had arrived a fair amount of time ago and was only reaching my limit now. Maybe I was better than I gave myself credit for. My head tilted as I remembered the first moment I had felt a call to the institute and, more specifically, my flower. For the first time in my life, everything had crystalized, and eons of existence had become nothing but a blink of an eye, because if it wasn’t about the radiant light coming from the Americas, it didn’t really matter to me, frankly.
Blood dripped from my hands. I wiped them off on my jeans before tilting my head, frowning at the ringing in my ear. I closed my eyes as a pulsing in my chest began to tug me towards… somewhere. The sounds of the city around me went silent as I let my magic collapse over me, following the jolt and tug that had been pulling at me more and more throughout the night. It was one of the reasons I hadn’t gotten to focus on my kills as much as normal. I mean, shit, I had almost let one of those fuckers go.
Sometimes, if it was a specifically peaceful soul or non-confrontational human and I got busy, an extra day or two was no big deal. But these motherfuckers? No. Their time had very much reached its expiration date, and not a moment too soon, considering what they’d planned for tonight.
So you can imagine my distracted attitude was completely unacceptable.
I let out a frustrated exhale as I suddenly found myself landing in a warm room, my hand stabilizing myself on a carpeted floor, before snapping my head up to look around. I frowned, instantly surrounded by a soft, sweet and cool scent that had my cock hardening to the point that I found myself authentically fucking concerned. It was a fairly known fact that god terrors didn’t feel any form of desire unless they were around their mate, and after this long? It was truly startling.
A low growl broke through the space as I realized that there was a nightmare in the corner of the room—specifically, a night terror—staring at me with a level of aggression I didn’t fully get. I mean, I hadn’t even tried to kill him yet. This was me being objectively friendly.
Then I realized why he was so worked up, his magic moving to reveal a small, almost Thumbelina-like form wrapped up in the corner of the two-story ceiling like a sleeping fairy. Her head popped up, sleepy gray and silver eyes squinting in confusion as a mess of pink hair surrounded her face, making me wonder what it would feel like against my skin. My pulse picked up, my body hardening as I found myself completely entranced by her.
After all this time. All of these years. I’d found my mate… and she was human.
Except she was so much more than that, and it was something I had realized fairly quickly once getting within a few feet of her. Arabella was human… to an extent, but there was something so much larger and greater to her that I had only been keeping a secret because I wasn’t sure she was ready to hear it. I was almost positive we were at that point, though.
Plus, then all of those other fucking bastards could get off their goddamn soap box about being concerned over snapping her delicate frame in half while fucking her.
Arabella would be absolutely fine. Better than fine, if I had anything to say about it.
I inhaled sharply, closing my eyes as I counted to five in an attempt to calm myself down. Unless you were in my position, it was impossible to imagine what eons of frustration all wanting to be released at once felt like. I was past wanting Arabella, because that described a momentary desire. Sure, I wanted her… but I wanted to consume her. I wanted to brand and take her soul as my own. I knew she wasn’t only mine, but her soul?
That was fucking mine.
“How long have we been out here?” I asked, realizing that the light from before was gone. Sometimes if I zoned out, days could pass, and while that didn’t happen very often with Arabella around, I did have to be careful of it.
“Two hours,” Cy muttered. He was leaning against a tree, Zain floating between the branches. Razar, Damian, and Blackwell seemed far more focused and were standing closer to the fences, attempting to intimidate the humans. It was working, for the record—I could smell their fear from here.
“I should go check on flower,” I noted under my breath.
“She’s probably worried,” Amun agreed.
I narrowed my eyes at the intrusive presence on our team. I honestly wouldn’t have minded him all that much if it wasn’t for him stealing Arabella’s attention from me. I already had to share most of it. On top of that, I preferred to be the only one with death magic on our team, so he was ruining that. I mean, he at least had the decency to be respectful about it, but I also found myself wanting to snap his neck. Just on principle, really.
Just one more reason why I so badly wanted to brand her little soul, sooner rather than later.
Feeling decided on the action, I turned my back on the gates and walked forward, deciding to take my time returning back. It wasn’t like we didn’t clearly have time to waste.