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Olly reappeared, and I was disappointed to see he was alone. “He wasn’t home. I knocked several times, and he didn’t answer. I entered the house, and it was empty. He wasn’t there.” Olly looked toward Evan and Lukan with wide eyes. “Where would he be?”

“Maybe he’s just out for a walk. He said he’d had a rough morning. Maybe he’s getting some fresh air,” Lukan said.

My beast growled at that. Our mate should not be out in the cold. It had been snowing, and it was going to snow again later. Lewis needed to be inside where it was warm and safe.

“Uh, Chief Daegal replied,” Evan said, passing my phone back to me. I growled at him, and I never saw it coming. He hit me with a ball of magic, and I was incredibly irritated at the moment that fae magic was invisible. Why couldn’t it have a color like the warlocks’ magic?

I felt myself calming though, and that was a bit of a relief. “I’m sorry,” I said with a bit of a growl. I was still upset, but not nearly as much as my beast was. “Where would Lewis go? He shouldn’t be out in the cold.”

“He’s fae,” Evan said. “Don’t forget that he has magic. He won’t be cold, and if he is, he’ll use his magic to either warm himself or get somewhere that is warm.” Evan looked over at the others. “Lukan, take a few and go toward the falls. Beau mentioned once that Lewis likes to watch them because they are calming to him.”

Lukan nodded, and then they disappeared. I’d worked around fae, hellhounds, and warlocks for some time now, and I’d even gone to, from, and around Italy with warlock magic, but I still hadn’t quite gotten used to them simply vanishing.

“How are you doing?”

I looked down at Evan. “I am not happy. My mate was here, and now he’s not, and nobody seems to know where he is.”

Evan rolled his eyes before he patted my arm. “He’s not lost. He’s here on the mountain somewhere, and he’ll be found. You survived this long without him; you won’t die having to wait a few more hours if you have to.”

I growled at that. I didn’t like the thought of having to wait hours more now that I’d scented him. “What do you know about Lewis? Other than he’s fae.”

Evan’s eyes widened. “Quite a bit, actually. He and my brother were best friends growing up.” His smile faded. “When Lewis’s parents died, he was only sixteen. He came to live with me and Beau until we came here. Lewis stayed behind for a while, but he’s been here for, I’d say, close to a year and a half now.”

My heart broke at the mention of my mate being here that long and me not meeting him. “That long?”

Evan nodded. “Beau was still pregnant with Cooper. Lewis hasn’t been quite the same since coming here. He’s still happy, but there’s been a sadness to him too.” Evan looked up at me. “Maybe you’ll fix that.”

I absolutely would. I did not wish for my mate to be sad about anything. It hurt to hear that his parents were gone. There would be no writing letters to them, or them coming to visit and meeting our children. We had my family though. Wilder was in Washington still, but our parents had moved to Europe. They were old and tired and wanted to live a peaceful life. I guess that was understandable, though it wasn’t as if Wilder or I were overly chaotic.

“What did Chief Daegal have to say? Unless you don’t want to tell me. Which is understandable.”

I shrugged before I lifted my phone. I quickly read the message, shaking my head at the excitement that Evan conveyed through the message. I handed the phone to him and continued to stand there waiting. Would Lewis accept me? I didn’t look old, but I was certainly older than he was. “How old is Lewis?” I asked suddenly.

“Uh…he’s twenty-three. Why?”

I nodded. “No reason. I was curious.” I looked over at Evan. “Is he going to have an issue with my age?”

Evan’s eyes got big again. “Just how old are you?”

“Not quite four centuries. My older brother just celebrated his four hundredth birthday earlier this year.” We were seventeen years apart, and although we weren’t very close when I was younger, we’d grown closer over the centuries. “Is my age going to be an issue, do you think?” Even before we were all given immortality if deemed worthy, gargoyles, like dragons, lived close to a millennium, if not longer. It made for very long bouts of loneliness, and I believed that was in part why we tended to be such a solitary species.

Evan’s mouth dropped open. “Umm…do your parts all work?”

“My parts?”

“Yeah. Your dick. Does it still work? Does it get hard?”

The only reason I wasn’t ripping Evan’s head off was because of the magic he’d used on me.

“Of course my dick still works. What kind of question is that?”

“I don’t know. You’re old!”

“That’s why I asked you if you thought my age was going to be an issue!” I growled back.

“If your dick works, I can’t see Lewis being upset about your age. You’re tall. He’s made it no secret that he wanted a mate that was taller than him. Not as if that was going to be difficult. Everyone is taller than Lewis.” Evan shook his head, and mine started to ache. “If your dick works, he’s going to be fine. He’s fae. We tend to be super horny once we meet our mates. And I cannot emphasize the super part of that enough.”

I didn’t see that as being an issue. I wasn’t going to share that with Beau, but gargoyles certainly had no issues with being intimate with our mates. We were quite possessive of them, and I couldn’t see myself as being any different.