Page 30 of All the Devils are Here

At the moment? I was almost there.

I wanted to be so fucking blackout drunk I didn’t have to think.

The water beneath me lit up and Trin surfaced, scaling the rock quickly before assuming a more human form. He could, for short periods of time. But he needed water nearby. Too long meant death.

“Any of that to spare?”

I passed him the bottle. He knew there was plenty, conjured as it was.

“I don’t think it wentthatbadly,” he said.

“You weren’t there,” I said, pain crackling through my chest once more. “He made me hold her while he shoved his magic into her body and shebegged meto stop. Obviously, I couldn’t. And now—”

“That part I know,” he said. “You’re not the only one.”

As soon as the magic entered her, it was like the world shifted. The air rippled, and suddenly Meg was the center of it. When I touched her skin again, it was only confirmed.

A pure, feral craving for her that went beyond all reason. She wasmine. Mine to claim, mine to touch, mine to love.

My mate.

“I didn’t think it was possible,” I admitted. “For us.”

“Neither did I,” Trin said with a chuckle. “But I can’t say I don’t love the feeling. It’s… incredible.”

I wasn’t bothered by the fact that it was Trin, too. It felt entirely natural. For all we knew, it wasn’t us alone. The man currently in my thoughts appeared out of the darkness as a cat, completely silent, before shifting.

Trin handed him the bottle, and Ban took a drink.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” I said quietly. “Did he hurt you?”

“No more than usual.”

For whatever reason, Ban took more of Prospero’s anger than me and Trin. He was straightforward and blunt—a part of his nature—and generally didn’t give a fuck. Still bound, just like we were, but Prospero picked on him. Probably because his transformation had been more animalistic than the rest of us.

“Have you seen her since?”

“No. I was waiting until he slept. But I will go to her tonight and keep her warm.”

“Ban, be ready,” Trin said. “She has the magic in her now, and it changes things.”

“How?”

I took the bottle back and drank until my throat burned. “We’re her mates,” I said when I took a breath. “Both Trin and I. There’s no reason it wouldn’t be you too.”

“A mate?”

In all the time we’d been on this island, I’d never heard him sound so hopeful.

“But you can’t tell her,” Trin said. “She’s not ready for that.”

Ban nodded. “It makes sense. Kitten doesn’t want to be here, and having mates could make her never want to stay.”

I raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything about the nickname. The rest of his statement was busy hitting me in the gut. How would this ever work? Even though it would be easy enough to see her now that Prospero was so limited—dumping your magic into another person would do that—everything was still a mess.

She was everything that mattered now. In less than a second, every priority I had was rewritten, and she was at the top of the list. Breaking free from Prospero was a close second.

And still, she wanted to leave.

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