Page 23 of Mate Me

“Don’t touch him,” the woman bellowed, stomping toward us and I stood up so fast it startled her. She faltered as her steps came to an abrupt halt.

“Take another step and you die. Whether or not you survive this night means nothing to me,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her. “The child is safe.”

Her bottom lip trembled, and her eyes flicked back and forth between me and the boy she’d called Jo.

“It’s okay, Mom,” he whispered, and tears fell from her eyes as she pressed her top teeth into her bottom lip.

“You’re all family?” I asked him. The witch amused me, but he was the only one worth speaking to.

“Yes,” he answered, scooting toward my mate, and placing a hand on her face gently. “She’s my cousin.”

“Interesting.”

Kneeling back down, I observed the tattoo on my mate’s back as her lifeforce waned.

I felt closer and closer to my soul as each second passed, almost as though I could reach out and touch it.

As best as I could tell, they were trying to save her. Their efforts would have been wasted. She was dying, and no amount of cutting out the infection would stop it.

For as long as I had waited and for all I had endured, I was only moments away from being complete again.

All I had to do was sit and watch.

I wouldn’t even have to lift a hand.

Except . . . I couldn’t.

Mates protected each other, no matter how it could complicate things—and this certainly complicatedeverything. I would figure the soul situation out later. It was just as Styx said upon our arrival. It had been five thousand years. What was another day?

My mate didn’t have much time left. Potent, poisonous magic had infected her, causing her skin to rot.

I glanced at Jo, inclining my head, telling him I was about to start. He pressed his lips together and did the same in acknowledgment.

Palms flat, I held my hands over her back and reached deep for a magic I hadn’t used in millennia.

Fine, inky black dust misted out of the wounds, forming a small cloud over her back. It fought me, seeking her as its host and refusing to let go.

Her family’s shouts filled the room, but I concentrated only on the darkness seeping out of her. Harder and harder I pulled, and louder and louder she began to scream.

The toxic mist imbedded itself in my skin, burrowing further as I absorbed all of it, and Jo’s lips parted in awe. Clara and Nog had stopped fighting each other as they watched slack-jawed.

Blood poured from my mate’s flesh, red and clean. Angry pink skin marred her back, finally free of what had been killing her.

With a faint cough, a small dribble of blood formed at her lips, then her eyelids fluttered closed.

“Reagan!” Jo yelled, placing his hands on her back and forcing a healing magic to coat her.

I inhaled sharply. So that was my mate’s name.

Reagan. Little Royal. How fitting.

In an instant, her flesh began to knit itself back together. Her labored breathing found a steady rhythm.

As the boy began to shake in exhaustion, I took his hands off her. He struggled against me for a moment, regarding me with unbridled anger.

“So much for one so young. Save your power, Jo. She’ll live. She needs her rest, as do you.”

“Youreyes. . .” he whispered, his skin paling. He glanced at her healing wounds then back to me. “They’re black. The poison . . .”

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