The other side of the door went silent for a moment. He was enjoying this far too much. The strange feeling in his chest had grown; he couldn’t tell where the monster or the bond began, and she ended. He could feel her on the other side of their golden tether, mulling over ideas like one takes a sip of wine to taste the flavors—something he always thought was pretentious; wine all tasted the same. Clamping down on the connection, he triedto sever it from his own feelings. He hated how foreign it felt, how, even on the other side of the door, he could feel her every expression, every crease on her forehead as she thought of a solution to their predicament. And what a predicament it was.
“Pleasepretend to be my familiar,” she pleaded.
Something about the way she saidpleasemade his cock jump. He loved it when a woman begged for him.
“After all that thinking, that’s what you came up with? Begging?” He was curious where she was taking this.
Her voice sounded strained as she spoke. “It’s the best idea I have. It’s going to take time to figure out how to break the bond.”
He thought for a moment. “Then we get off the island and go back to my den. They will figure it out there.”
It wasn’t the worst idea. He was influential enough to convince the den not to kill her in the name of figuring out how to unbind them. But something else still gnawed at him, too. How was it possible that she had found a ritual to bind a shifter to her like a familiar? Itshouldn’tbe possible. Although now that he thought about it, if he did play her familiar, he could gain access to places no shifter had ever gone. There could be useful information hiding within the depths of this school, and more especially about how she had found a book that could summon a shifter. A cold feeling drenched over him. If a witch with no familiar could summon a shifter as powerful as him…what if they all did? What if they already were?
“Are you insane?” she said, responding to his plan.
“Quite.”
“The wards will incinerate you,” she pointed out.
A smirk formed on his lips. He wouldn’t be incinerated. There was an art to crossing through wards, one that he had perfected. However, because they were on a fucking island in the middle of the Celtic Sea, that would be a problem. Shiversran down his spine as he thought about that much water in one place.
“Lucky?” she said, a pleading tone in her voice. He bristled at the sound of his pet name.
“It’sFelix,” he corrected.
“Fine. Felix.” She sighed. “Please, just give me some time to figure out how to break the bond and get us off the island. But I need you to pretend to be my familiar.”
He shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the door—a sensitive lump was on his head.Did she drop him when she pulled him in here?As far as plans went, well, it was the only option. He might as well see if he could get off this island alive, even if it meant dragging her back to his den and hoping they didn’t kill her first.
He knew their history, and so did she. Shifters and witches had never gotten along. Tolerating each other was a bullshit way to put it. They often just stayed out of each other’s way, apart from his bounty hunting. Because when they didn’t, someone ended up dead. There had been many wars, some with no clear cause, and many reasons for them to hate each other, but really, it just came from instinct. A natural-born desire to eradicate one another.
After the last war, humans decided they didn’t love all the death and destruction, which was fair, so when they had the technology to do so, they banded together to try to take us out to have some peace. As they outnumbered shifters and witches ten to one, they almost succeeded in killing both species. Shifters made a deal with the humans, and now, we were at their beck and call. Witches, being witches, did not—hence why they were restricted to their little enclaves until they got a deal of their own to hire out their magical powers. They always put their pride before survival.
Humans trusted shifters far more; they needed them, and have since deployed shifters as a special military, filling in gaps where humans couldn’t. There was also the sideline in bounty hunting like he specialized in. Otherwise, shifters kept to themselves and to their own land, slipping in and out between the territories.
Unfortunately, the human world realized it still needed witches. They possessed powers such as healing and certain types of magic that were just not available to shifters. It was a delicate game they all played; the peace among all three hung by a thread.
That thread was looking pretty fucking frayed right now.
“How long?” he asked her.
“A few weeks, maybe more.”
It was an awful idea, but it was the only one they had, and as much as he hated playing pet, he had to get off this island. Alive.
“Fine.”
His sensitive hearing picked up the skip in her chest as he said it.
“Really?!”
“Yes, now open this fucking door before I change my mind.”
In the split second before he could react and readjust his body, the door opened, and his back hit the floor with a thud. A bright blue-eyed witch stared him down, trying not to laugh at his splayed posture on the floor.
She went to help him up.
“Do not. Touch me.”
