Page 31 of All the Devils are Here

Not that I blamed her.

But if we could tell her, and if she accepted us, would that change? If we managed to break free of the bastard holding us—something we hadn’t been able to do for centuries—would we be able to leave and go with her?

“You don’t think…” Trin stole the bottle and tilted it back into his mouth. “You don’t think it’s Prospero too, right? And—”

“No.” I cut him off. “No.”

There wasn’t a tangible way to describe how I knew the man wasn’t also Meg’s mate, but I knew.

“That’s what I felt, but we’ve been wrong before.”

“Not about this,” I whispered. It was half a statement and half a prayer. “She’s ours.”

“I need to know,” Ban said, standing. “I don’t like not knowing.”

He shifted and melted into the darkness with the disturbing silence only he could manage. I was a fucking spirit and my movement still made more noise than him when he was in his feline form.

“What the fuck are we going to do, Ariel? Everything in me isscreamingto do the same thing. To go to her and do… absolutely everything. It was torture swimming away from her earlier. I had to, otherwise I wasn’t going to be able to hold myself back.”

I understood. Even sitting here and knowing she was close by was nearly too much. The most I’d felt of her body was when I’d held her against that wall, and that wasnotthe memory I wanted to be thinking about. I wanted to press myself against her in every different way possible. To have her writhing and moaning my name instead of shoving me away.

At the same time, I wanted to dive into her mind and find out everything about her. What she liked and what sheloved. Her history and past, what she wanted for the future. How she ended up connected to Khalas, and why she’d claimed he rejected her. The man in Prospero’s visions wasn’t a man who’d rejected anything to do with Meg.

Was he also her mate? If the three of us were, and we were born of the island, it would make sense. We would find out when he arrived.

No matter what Meg thought, I knew the truth. The gargoyle was singular once he’d made up his mind. Even after escaping and knowing he should never come back, Khalas was on his way here. For her. And he wasn’t going to let anything stand in his way.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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CALIBAN

Iprowled through the darkness toward the mountain and the room where he’d locked Meghan. My kitten. What the others said made sense. Even before she’d had the island’s magic, I felt something for her that I’d never felt before.

If I wasn’t her mate…

No.

I would not think about that until I knew.

The mountain rose up in front of me, and I found her window. A soft blue glow came from inside, where the floor was open to the magical water.

Leaping, I landed in the window and made my way in. My kitten was asleep and in chains.

Rage burned through me. He’d put her in chains after torturing her and forcing the magic to inhabit her? If I was able to destroy the chains with my fangs and claws, I would do so. As it was, it was only the magic inside me that kept me from turning around and ripping out Prospero’s throat while he slept.

Her scent hit me, and I froze.

Mine.

Connection so deep and so pure it was obvious what it was. This little kitten was my mate, just like Trin and Ariel.Yes.

I approached the bed and let my purr rise up. The last thing I wanted was to scare her.

Putting one paw on the bed, she stirred, and I purred louder. She smelled so good, my kitten. Like flowers, but nothing we had on the island, and a sharpness I didn’t recognize but that tingled my nose pleasantly.

She rolled over, eyes opening briefly. “Ban?”

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