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“You’re lying,” he said, eyes narrowing, seeing right through me.

I cupped his jaw, leaned in, and kissed his gorgeous lips. “If something goes wrong,” I said against them, then lifted my head, “there’s no fucking way I’m leaving my mate and running to safety.”

His eyes flared, a rumbling sound coming from his chest. “Say it again.”

“My mate,” I whispered.

His eyes drifted shut for a moment and he breathed deep for several seconds before they opened again. “That’s right.” He took my chin in his fingers. “Mine.” He flashed his teeth. “So how the fuck did I not know how stubborn you are? It’s literally a trait of every female in your family.”

I grinned. “Thank you.”

His gaze went to my mouth, and his eyes darkened. “I will protect you, Jaz, and sometimes you might not like the way I do it, but you’re mine, and you come first always, even if me doing what is necessary fucks you off.” His gaze dropped to my smiling lips. “And even if you’re being cute.”

I planted my hands on my hips. “Are you saying you’ll make me do what you want?”

“I’m saying, if shit goes wrong, even if I’m bleeding out, I will pick you up and throw you back up here whether you like it or not.”

My cousins had shared how possessive mated males could be, and no, he hadn’t marked me yet and made it official, but that didn’t seem to matter. Going by the arrogant line of Ren’s jaw and the steel in his eyes, he wasn’t joking. I also knew arguing would only make him more determined. For now, while he was like this, I needed to tell him what he wanted to hear when it came to this stuff and work around it. That sounded better than lie to his face, but he was out of his mind if he thought I’d hide up here while he bled out. “And I’m the stubborn one?”

He grunted.

Yep, he’d gone full cavemen. “We’ll cross that bridge if we get to it.”

“Jasmine,” he growled.

“Fine,” I lied.

He growled again and shook his head, because yes, he knew exactly when I was feeding him a bunch of crap. “Stay behind me,” he said again and opened the trapdoor.

The snarl of monsters reached us before we saw them, followed by their shrieks and the sounds of them scuttling back as the morning light from the attic flooded the section of hall below us. Ren gripped the lip and swung down, then motioned for me to follow. Snarls echoed around us, the monsters now hiding in the shadows, watching, waiting for an opening, for a chance to get to us.

I did the same as Ren, dropping down, and he caught me, placing me carefully on my feet. I searched for the candles, but they were gone. Shit.

Ren spun suddenly and kicked the door closest to us open, more light flooded in from the room, forcing the monsters to retreat and allowing us to move forward. He kicked open door after door, flooding the hall with more and more light. Until we were almost at the end. Ren kicked the last door open, but there wasn’t enough light to reach the stairs, and definitely enough distance for the monsters to pounce.

I yanked off my sweater. “Stand back.”

“What are you doing?”

“Creating light.” I held my sweater out in front of me and whispered the spell to create fire. My sweater ignited, and spinning it like a lasso over my head, I grabbed Ren’s arm and made a break for the stairwell. The monsters shrieked and swiped at us but dove for the darkness, pressing themselves into the corner.

As soon as we hit the landing, their growls and howls stopped, and I tossed my burning sweater on the floor.

Ren stomped the fire out. “Nice work.” He hooked me around the waist and kissed me. “Now you need to hide, and I’ll deal with Xavier.”

“If you call for him, he’ll have warning. I need to be the one to get his attention.”

“Not fucking using you as bait, Jasmine.”

“Yes, you are.” He shook his head, and I wrapped my arms around his waist and tilted my head back, looking up at him. “You won’t let anything happen to me. It’s our best chance and you know it.” His fox flared in his eyes, he was about to tell me no. “I’m doing it, Ren.” I didn’t have an inner animal, but like he said, I was a Thornheart and stubborn as hell, and I made sure he saw that in my eyes.

He cursed. “You don’t get anywhere near him. You call him and you get the fuck back and leave the rest to me.”

“I can do that.”

He grabbed my hand again, and we crept down the stairs. The closer to the bottom we got, the louder Xavier’s ranting became. There was a crash, and he roared. When we hit the bottom of the stairs, Ren motioned to the living room, and we slipped along the wall and rushed in.

Xavier lay on the floor outside the realm he’d created. He was shirtless, sweating and shaking, obviously struggling badly with his new exposed emotions now that he’d been left to live with them for a full day and night, and desperate for me to heal him.