Page 107 of Devoted

My world tilted to the side. “Do you think she knows about Sam?”

The heavy silence that followed told me I wasn’t the only one considering this question.

“The timing does seem odd,” Micah admitted eventually. “But even if shedoesknow about your mate, it shouldn’t matter.Sam is human. There’s no reason, morally or constitutionally, why you can’t mate him.”

What he was saying made sense, but it wasn’t enough reassurance for me. I turned to Benji, silently begging him to make it better.

He frowned at me, clearly struggling to read me. “What?”

“He wants to know if Heaven can come between him and his mate,” Noah said gently. “Is there anything in the laws that prohibits his bonding with Sam?”

“No.” Benji’s brows furrowed, his eyes darting from side to side as though racing over lines of text. Knowing him, that was probably exactly what he was doing in his brain. “All the lawsprotectthe mates of archs. Sam is human, so there’s no reason at all for them to interfere.”

I sank down in my seat in relief. “Okay, that makes me feel better.”

“Wouldn’t count your chickens yet,” Nox said. “Micah and I have seen firsthand how Gloria can twist the laws to suit her own agenda.”

“True, but the laws won out in the end,” Micah said. “We have to have faith that it’ll happen again.”

I frowned back down at the paper. “Why only us, though? And what does she want?”

Micah glanced at Nox. His demon mate looked about thirty seconds away from committing mass murder. He knew, just as I did, what Micah was going to say next. “Guess we’ll have to go there and find out.”

24

Ezekiel

It had taken thirty more minutes of discussion to get everything else in place. After what had happened last time one of us had been summoned upstairs by Gloria, we weren’t walking into this situation unprepared. No, we were putting every possible safeguard in place.

I’djusthad my first taste of true happiness. There was no fucking way I was letting that harpy do anything that might jeopardise that.

With at least three failsafes in place, Micah agreeing to let Nox and Breann accompany us as far as the portal, and Benji promising to look after Sam, we were finally ready to set off.

Casting a compulsion net just in case Sam happened to look out of the window, we unfurled our wings and took to the skies. Micah took point, with Nox and myself flying on either side of him. Breann took the rear, watching our backs.

All our theorising about what to expect ceased the moment we crossed the wards surrounding our property. The likelihood of anyone being close enough to hear us was slim, but we wouldn’t risk giving Gloria any further ammunition.

Not that we knew what she already had on us, if anything.

We could be making a mountain out of a molehill,I told myself as we reached the portal.This could just be a special mission or something.

I wished I could believe that. I really did.

We reached the portal and Nox, predictably, made another pitch for why he should come with us. Just as predictably, Micah deflected, insisting he stayed behind.

Breann took to the sky, monitoring our position from there. In truth, I thought she wanted to just avoid being around the furious argument. There was a tightness in her face as she watched Nox admit defeat. Was she imagining having to let Grace go without her?

I swallowed as Nox’s shoulders slumped. Micah tried to hide his despair as his mate turned from him.

They would be okay. They always were. In a way, it was reassuring to see that you didn’t always have to be on the same page as your mate. So long as you were in the same book, your happy ending would happen regardless.

Even if there were some bumps along the way.

Micah transported first, his lightning cracking through the clearing. I lingered, my eyes locked on the sad fury on Nox’s face.

“What?” he snapped, noticing my attention.

“I’ll look after him,” I found myself saying. “I’ve got his back. I won’t let anything happen to him.”

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