One
Jay
After Nic removed the spell from Aly and Jeremy revealed his new mating mark, Aly was completely unconscious. I grabbed and settled her into my lap, feeling the urge to get her away from Nic and Jeremy. We’ve been sitting here in a stare off for what feels like a while.
“How could you mate her without her permission?” Kiran finally breaks the silence by asking. It’s the question I think we all have for Nic and Jeremy.
By combining Jeremy and Aly’s blood, they completed their mating bond. They are forever bound together and Aly had no choice in it.
“We had to, she was going to die without Jeremy’s blood. We didn’t have a choice and I think she would rather be alive than have had a choice,” Nic responds calmly.
I know he’s telling the truth, that he’s being reasonable but I can’t help being furious for Aly.
“There was no other way?” Jax asks softly.
Nic shakes his head no, “do you really think I would have suggested it if there was? I care about her just as much as you guys do.”
And he’s right, which takes the wind out of my sails. I know how hard a decision that had to be for him and for Jeremy. We all calm down and my anger is replaced with jealousy. More than anything I am grateful Aly is okay, grateful Jeremy and Nic saved her but I’m jealous Jeremy is mated to her when I’m not. Aly and I actually have a relationship, Jeremy has only been a dick to her.
There’s nothing I can do about it now, I’ll just have to work hard to be the mate Aly deserves so she wants to mate with me too.
An hour later and Aly is still unconscious in my arms, the five of us huddled around her. We have barely moved since Nic finished the spell.
“Why isn’t she waking up?” I ask, rubbing at the nape of my neck.
“She should wake up soon, it’s not an exact science and her body went through a lot,” Nic answers for the tenth time, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose. We all keep asking him every few minutes, like the answer will have changed. Everyone except Jeremy, who now has a direct line to her.
Jeremy can probably feel what’s going on, can feel that she’s still alive and breathing. That nothing else has gone wrong while we just sit here. He knows all the things we can only tell from examining her on the outside.
He keeps reaching up and touching his chest, where the new mark is. I think he’s doing it subconsciously but each time he does it, he momentarily strengthens their connection. It’s probably reassuring him each time.
I gaze back down at her, laying in my arms. It appears like she’s just sleeping but without any twitching or movement, it feels more like she’s dead. The only reason I am calm at all is because I can see her chest moving and hear her heart beating.
I know none of us expected things to go this way. Who could have guessed Aly would have had an incredibly strong memory spell on her, programmed to make her forget anything supernatural. And that the spell would be too strong for Nic to break alone. It’s clear there is more to her story than we know, probably more than she knows. She must be something supernatural, like we expected and perhaps it’s hidden under more spells. But why would someone need to put these spells on her in the first place? It almost killed her when Nic tried to remove it, why would someone risk that?
I look up at Jeremy, the moody fucker, who has spent the whole time we’ve known her, denying any interest in her. And he is the first one to be fully mated to her. I have no idea how we are going to explain all this to her now, it just got ten times more complicated. At least if it had been one of the four of us, it would have been slightly easier.
“Is there any way to wake her up quicker?” Kiran asks, his voice shaking as he looks at Nic.
He thinks about it for a minute but shakes his head no, “we should let her wake up naturally, there’s too many variables we don’t know about. If she had a spell that big on her, there’s a chance she has others.”
I guess we followed the same thought process about the possibility of more spells.
“Can’t you check that?” Jax asks.
But again, Nic shakes his head, “whoever put that first spell on her was clearly stronger than me, until I have more supplies and do some research I won’t be able to check.”
We all look back down at Aly. I drop a quick kiss on her forehead and whisper, “wake up Aly Kat, we are all worried about you out here.”
We sit in silence again for another few minutes, each of us lost to our thoughts.
“How are we going to tell her about everythingnow?” Jax asks, breaking my thought process.
Jeremy appears like he’s about to speak up for the first time but Nic cuts him off with a sharp glare, “we have to tell her everything, no holding anything back. She’s going to look down and see the mark and have a million questions if we don’t.”
“You could hide it with magic, Nic,” Jeremy mumbles, bowing his head and looking away.
“No, we aren’t lying to our mate anymore. She would still feel the effects of the mate bond, even if she didn’t see the mark, Jer,” Kiran says firmly and I agree completely.
