Page 10 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

“I know what the demon showed me,” I told him, striving for calm. “But I don’t know if it’s real.”

Ethan and Nathaniel exchanged a wordless glance, but I knew they were communicating privately. They were bound to each other not only by vow and by choice but also through a blood bond, which was a supernatural connection that allowed them to share thoughts and emotions with each other clearly and effortlessly.

Nathaniel’s rugged features darkened nearly imperceptibly, but he nodded. He didn’t look especially happy.

“Okay, so you want me to use the mirror, then?” Ethan confirmed, glancing back at me.

I nodded. “I need to know if he’s actually in any danger.” My words sounded much calmer than I felt inside. My emotions were always like that. Placid on the surface, but a riptide beneath, always threatening to drag me down into the dark. “And if he is, I’m going to burn down the entire world if I have to, in order to keep him safe.”

“Indeed,” Nathaniel agreed, nodding at me with what appeared to be grudging approval. He even gave me the barest hint of a smile, though he still looked unhappy about what would need to happen next.

I didn’t know the vampire king very well, but there was a strange understanding between us. Like we were comrades in arms or something. He had recognized Ethan—my best friend—as his mate immediately, the same way I had with Bryan. The big difference was, Bryan had run and Ethan hadn’t.

Then again, Bryan had his reasons, and I couldn’t exactly blame him. Besides, it wasn’t like he was the first person to leave me.

Everyone did, eventually.

Even Poppy and Ethan, who had been constant companions for basically my whole life, were pulling away. Ethan was married to Nathaniel now. Apart from that, he was so busy with his insane schedule of training with Poppy to eventually split coven leadership and working with Nathaniel and other city leaders to plan a truly massive philanthropic undertaking meant to help solve the city’s homelessness crisis that I rarely ever saw him.

And Poppy, apart from the fact that she was now the Witch Queen’s personal student, was also dating a thousand-year-old vampire. I rarely saw her, either. And it would only get worse, the more serious they got. I was happy for my sister, of course—Simone seemed to worship the ground she walked on. But I could see the writing on the wall perfectly well.

They were both pulling away. Everyone who mattered always left me behind.

Ethan sighed, running his fingers through his unruly mop of shockingly white hair. He chewed on his bottom lip for a long moment before exchanging another worried look with Nathaniel. “Fuck it. This qualifies as a life-or-death emergency. I’ll go get the mirror.”

With that, Ethan stood up from the table and left the room so quickly that I got the sense that he was forcing himself to move before he could have second thoughts.

Nathaniel watched him go, his unhappiness visibly deepening.

I suspected he was remembering the same thing that all of us were: the mirror had shown Ethan horrible visions of the future, but it had been extremely cagey on the how and why. Part of that was due to the fact that Giles—the extraordinarily powerful warlock who had been attempting to cause a war between the vampires and witches of the city—had been protected by layers of powerful dark magic. But part of it might have simply been the mirror itself. It had been created by Gregory Ames, the founder of our coven, who had used it to enact his own dark and twisted plans over a hundred years ago. It was almost certain that it didn’t have anyone’s best intentions at heart. It would never lie, because it couldn’t. But it would definitely be more than happy to obscure the details, allowing me to frog-march myself head-first into terrible danger.

Ethan had married Nathaniel in order to stop an all-out war from happening, after learning from the mirror that their marriage was the only way to save everyone. Then he had managed—narrowly—to defeat Giles, but Nathaniel had nearly died in the process. In fact, Ethan, Poppy, and I had all almost died. Even with just recalling it for a moment, I could still almost feel the suffocating darkness of the curse Giles had cast upon us, choking the life from me. The panic I had felt at realizing I would never have the opportunity to get to know Bryan at all. That I had found my soulmate, only to immediately lose any chance I ever had to be happy with him.

Strange, how that seemed to be a running theme for me with my mate.

“I don’t like this,” Poppy whispered, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze. I wasn’t sure if she was comforting herself or me. She added, “That mirror almost got Ethan killed.”

“It also helped Ethan save the city,” I pointed out. “It’s never wrong.”

“It’s also not exactly forthcoming with help,” Ethan put in, returning to the room with a pouch held in his hands. He settled back into his seat beside Nathaniel at the dining room table. He shuddered, then added, “And when it is, it’s at its least trustworthy. It doesn’t care who lives or dies. I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to use it again.”

“You don’t have to,” Poppy told him. When she caught my outraged glare, she grimaced and added, “We could do about a thousand other divination spells. I would help, obviously.”

“None of the spells you guys could do is going to be even half as powerful as the mirror.” Ethan shook his head. “Besides, Tobias is right. It did help us. It will again.”

“If you’re sure,” Nathaniel told him.

Ethan nodded back at him, something going steely and determined in his expression.

Then, with shaking hands, he pulled the mirror out of its pouch. It was a small disc of obsidian, only about four inches across and maybe half an inch thick. His ancestor had cursed it so that it would never show the future again, after learning that Gregory Ames had used it to commit atrocities. But Ethan’s powers allowed him to negate magic, meaning that his touch temporarily neutralized her curse, parting the veil she had cast over it, in order to allow the object to fulfill its original purpose.

It also meant that no one else but him could use it.

“Ask your questions, Ethan Solomon.” The mirror’s monotone voice echoed through the room, a ghastly greenish face swimming into view in the depths of the dark surface.

Ethan shuddered, flashing us a nervous glance, before peering back down into the depths of the mirror. “Is Bryan Peterson, the mate of Tobias Hawthorne, in danger of dying? Was Tobias’s vision tonight an accurate representation of the future still to come?”

The face in the mirror smiled at him, very clearly enjoying itself. It paused for a long time, its black eyes locked with Ethan, as if relishing the drama. Then, at last, it replied. “Yes.” Its alien voice caused my flesh to crawl. “Would you like me to show you what I know?”

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