Page 14 of Heart's Flame

He’d only just found his mate, and he’d already been taken away.

The camp’s cookfire crackled and sputtered in front of him. Dawn’s gray light was creeping over the hills, but he hadn’t slept at all. At some point, someone had wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and shoved a cup into his hands—whiskey. It burned like fire and he savored it. The wolf, Laiken, was curled up with Sasha on a blanket near the fire—a skinny gray wolf and a tiny red fox. Sasha hadn’t taken it well that Vian didn’t come home.

They’d arrived back at camp and immediately fell into a whirlwind of questions. Zeph and Dem started to plan a rescue, but Coren’s voice had broken through the din,“We won’t have to find him. Believe me, he’ll come to us.”Araminta had said she wanted her best hunter back, afterall.

Someone sat down beside him. Turning his head, he met Zeph’s black eyes. They were so similar to his son’s.

“We’re going to move camp. Without knowing exactly how much of Vian’s memories they’ve taken, it’s not safe to stay here.”

Marcellus nodded. He understood that and still some part of him rebelled against it. This was the last place he was with Vian, and the first place Vian would look to find him. His heart didn’t care that the mage would be searching for his enemy instead of his mate. “How do we get him back?”

Zeph sat quietly for a long time, watching the fire eat away at the chunks of wood. “When Vian was a baby, one of his nannies made him a little stuffed dog. It was the ugliest thing, brown with mismatched thread for eyes, but he loved it and it went everywhere with him.” He chuckled. “Oh, how his mother hated it. When it inevitably got one too many tears to patch, we tried to give him a new one. He screamed for days, so I did a little spell to make the new one look exactly like the old one.” Zeph held Marcellus’s gaze. “It didn’t matter. He knew. I have no doubt that he’ll know again.”

“Araminta seemed certain it wouldn’t matter.”

“She’s always been blind to things she feels are beneath her. I am sorry that she’s dragged your sister into this mess.”

Estienne. Marcellus still didn’t know how to feel about seeing her with Araminta. She’d been completely unbothered at the High Mage’s behavior. Was she acting only to preserve her own survival or had she chosen a side?

“So am I.”

“We’ll find a way to get him back, Marcellus. I promise you.”

He nodded. The chasm that had filled him every day between the duel that almost killed them both and the spell they’d done only days ago spreading like rot in his stomach. After he’d finished his whiskey, he finally walked to his tent. They’d be breaking camp all around him, but he needed a couple hours of sleep. Without undressing, he stretched out on the pallet where he’d lain with Vian. Despair was fighting hard to choke him, but he pushed it down and closed his eyes.

Just before he fell asleep, a single burst of golden light showered across the back of his eyelids and Vian’s voice echoed in his mind,I’ll remember Marcellus, I promise.

9

The stone walls of the Conservatory were cold. Vian had risen early, driven from his bed by dreams that had vanished from recall the moment he’d opened his eyes. He washed and went to the courtyard for morning exercise, paying no mind to the strange looks some of his fellow mages bestowed on him. He felt...out of sorts. An odd ache persisted in his chest. Rubbing at it had no effect, and despite a couple small bruises, there was no visible damage.

He ran his finger tips over the rough skin on the right side of his face and down to the mottled pucker on his chest. Something must have happened, though, because he couldn’t quite remember how he’d gotten those scars.

He’d been summoned to his mother’s office while he was breaking his fast, and sat there now, waiting in the empty room for her to appear.

“Good morning, Vian,” Araminta said as she came sweeping in from a side door. Two women he didn’t recognize walked in behind her—another dark-headed woman and a blonde whose hair was the color of golden sunshine.

He couldn’t pull his eyes away from her—the yellow of her hair, the blue of her eyes. Something scraped against the inside of his skull, making him wince.

“Vian?” His mother asked. “Are you alright?”

He opened his eyes, avoiding looking at the blonde woman and focused on his mother and High Mage instead. “Yes, although I am feeling a little off this morning.”

His mother tsked. “I should say. After your run-in with those witches you’ve been asleep for an entire day.”

He frowned.A whole day lost? What witches?

She walked to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Somewhere in his mind, he knew he should take comfort in her touch, but his instinct was to recoil. Swallowing hard, he carefully kept his face blank.

“We still don’t know exactly what they did to you,” she said, turning from him and going to take a seat behind her desk. “What are your symptoms?”

Three pairs of eyes focused on him. It wasn’t lost on him how the other two women had moved around the room, placing themselves to either side and just behind him—out of sight. He was at the center of their triangle.

Surrounded.

“An ache in my torso and my mind is foggy. I’m sure it’ll clear with some fresh air and work,” he said carefully, full of a nonchalance he didn’t feel. What the hell had happened to him?

“You feeling up for a hunt, then? Because I’ve received word of a Null setting up camp just over the border in the hills near Sabline.”

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