Page 23 of Keeper of All

Ekon’s eyes went wide, and he quickly brushed the tears off his face. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s simple. If this all-powerful eternal fae thing is inside of you, then shift. Step back mentally, or however you do it to shift and allow him to come forward. In fact, allow him to manifest because I can tell you I’ve got some fucking things to say to him.

“I want to know why he chose you, out of all these others.” Mao waved his hand at the files. “I want to know why you were dragged here even before you knew all this shit was going on. Why you? Why now? We’ve both got questions, my beloved mate. So, if he’s inside you, let him out. Let him stand where you are now. So we can both get some answers.”

“But… but then, I won’t be here,” Ekon murmured.

“Not exactly in body, but I will be, and you’d better believe, I’m on your side.” Now he’d said it, Mao knew it was the right thing to do. “If you’re so damn determined that this weird feeling you have inside of you is him, who kept all these records for goodness knows how many years and for who knows what bloody reason, then let’s find out what it is. You want answers, my beloved mate, and so do I. Let’s do this.”

“If he comes out… what if I can’t come back?”

Mao knew it wasn’t possible, although he could understand Ekon’s concern. He also knew that if the eternal fae was living under Ekon’s ribcage, then he should be able to manifest without changing Ekon’s body at all.

“Just try,” he murmured softly. “This is driving you nuts. And the answers are clearly not in all this mass of fucking paper. So just try. Whatever it is inside of you, if you believe it’s another being, something you can shift into, then shift, my beloved mate, and know that I will take care of you no matter what form you take.”

The only things Mao could hear for a long moment were the sound of his own heart beating and Ekon’s breathing, but eventually Ekon nodded. “I do need to know what’s inside me, and the only thing stopping me at all is the fear I won’t come back. We might be here, except you’ve given me a taste of what our lives together could be like, and I don’t want to lose that. At the same time, I’m terrified about leaving this bunker without understanding something about this thing inside of me. I know when we leave here, we’re not coming back.”

Mao believed Ekon was carrying magic, not a person. But Ekon’s concerns were genuine… and the bunker was going to be blown up, anyway. It’s not like whatever Ekon was, or what he did was going to cause any harm. He’d come to regret that assumption.

“I’ll be here for you no matter what happens,” he reiterated calmly. “Shift into the being you believe resides inside you.”

Still Ekon hesitated. “What if it doesn’t work?”

“You won’t know until you try.” Mao folded his arms across his chest and took a couple of deep breaths of his own, watching as Ekon centered himself.

Ekon turned and faced the files, and for a moment, his entire body shimmered as though he was going to shift into one of his animal sides.

Then just as Mao was waiting to see what form the animal would take, or if it was the eternal fae after all, Ekon’s flung his arms wide, and his mouth dropped open.

A sound emerged—not a yell, or a word, or anything Mao had heard before. It was pure noise, and for a worried moment Mao thought Ekon was literally trying to vomit a being out from his insides.

It was painful to hear, and yet there was a note of triumph in there as well. Ekon’s physical form stayed exactly the same, except there was something…

Papers started flying, then the cardboard files. The shelves shook and then banged together. Even the walls and ceilings trembled.

Nothing touched Ekon, and Mao realized none of the chaos was coming near him either. When the ceiling shakes got worse, Mao tensed, ready to grab his mate and yank him out of there if there was any sign the bunker walls were about to collapse.

Even as he thought it, the hurricane—because Mao couldn’t think of any other way to describe it—became a highly focused tornado, a whirl of air and magic with a very sharp point that struck the wall directly across from where Ekon was standing. The wall gave way…

Well shit. That was unexpected. Mao watched his mate, wondering just how much Ekon was seeing.

Chapter Thirteen

Ekon

Never one for indecision, or for letting out his fears, Ekon found himself doing both, and that was all because he felt his mate’s desire to support him. Encouraging him to take control. Had anyone ever done that before? Not that he could ever remember. Fuck, it was shockingly liberating. He couldn’t quite catch his breath.

Mao wasn’t talkative. Or that was Ekon’s experience in the bunker, yet he’d expressed his frustration better than Ekon could when devastation at not finding his file swept the legs from under him. Ekon’s ability to hold himself steady in a world of chaos he rarely understood with his obscured view of things.

Then his mate goes and puts his support there to catch him in a way that didn’t emasculate him. It was pure strength offered for no reason other than Mao wanted to ease his pain. The tears that came weren’t about the lack of finding his file. No, they were about the conviction that Mao was there for him no matter what. Those he had lived with had to a degree been “supportive,” just not like this. Then he’d never been in this type of situation before and had no way of voicing how it made him feel inside—all tangled up.

He used that feeling and let it erupt—much like his animals when he shifted—out of the center of him. What was inside didn’t struggle like some of his animals, it wanted to escape the confines of his skeleton. His courage came from Mao who didn’t move from his side when all hell broke loose around them.

With the essence inside freed, Ekon could only watch as an observer as it created a vortex of power. Only it wasn’t a being as he’d feared. It was pure light magic. It pulsed much the same way a human’s pulse worked. It beat in time with his heart as it moved around the bunker… seeking.

Ekon closed his eyes, and his mouth dropped open as the magic used him as a vessel. A magical vibration came up through his chest and out his mouth as his body arched as if in the throes of an orgasm. His eyes flicked open at the whipping power caressing his skin like his mate had done just hours before. Its touch electric. A whisper urging him on. The release of pure energy when it came was just as orgasmic as the real thing.

He shuddered in violent pleasure, then his eyes focused once more, and where there had once been a wall was now a gap—a doorway to where the shadowy figure had lived.