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“That you won’t harm my parents and that you’ll take my nieces and me someplace safe.”
“No, Shiri!” my father bellowed.
“Yes,” the younger mage called out. “We’ll do it.”
There was no mistaking the dark look the alpha gave his younger brother. I could tell by the rage simmering in his eyes, he wanted nothing more than to kill my parents. Too bad. They might have been monsters, but they were still my parents, my nieces’ grandparents. Even if I wanted them killed, the girls would be devastated.
“You won’t take us to Malvolia?” I asked them.
They shook their heads. “We won’t.”
“Shiri,” my father pleaded, his voice cracking. “Listen to me!”
I turned on him with a snarl. “Quiet! You will not follow us.”
He flinched as if I’d smacked him, and then his eyes glossed over. I made the mistake of looking at my mother, who had tears streaming down her face.
“Don’t give me that look,” I snapped, angry with myself for making them cry, and furious with them for putting me in this position. “Not when you’ve been lying to me for two years. Not when you deliberately broke our hearts and separated children from their mother. Not another word from either of you until we’re long gone, and you willnotfollow us.” My voice constricted with emotion, making it hard to push the words out, but I squeezed my nieces’ hands again, pulling them with me as we moved closer to my mates.
My mates.Huh. I still didn’t know how I felt about that.
“You may rise,” I said to them, nearly losing my nerve when they stood and towered over me. They were even taller than my father, their dark, wide wings making them look like angels of death. “You will not hurt my parents,” I repeated. “You will take us from here to a safe place of hiding.”
Before I knew what was happening, the alpha swept me into his arms and shot into the sky like a backward bolt of lightning, sending the contents of my stomach racing into my throat. I barely kept from vomiting while searching the night sky for the girls, relieved when two winged figures closed in on us, their dark wings shining a deep blue beneath the moonlight. They each carried a laughing child in their arms.
“Higher, faster!” the girls cried.
I admired my nieces’ fearlessness, but mostly, I envied their naivety. To them, they were just going for another night ride like they’d done many times before with their pappo. What they didn’t know was we could’ve been flying from one dangerous situation into another.
Chapter Four
The world passed beneathus in a blur. My mates flew faster than my father had ever flown, so fast, the frigid air stung my cheeks and burned my lips. I kept trying to look over at my nieces, but my mate’s wings were blocking my view. We’d been flying for several minutes. The girls had to have been cold by now. In our haste to leave, I hadn’t thought to get their cloaks. I thought about asking our winged chariots to stop for the night, but I feared the spell I’d put on my parents would wear off soon, and my father would come after us.
So I held my tongue while the displaced wind from my mate’s heavy flapping wings blew back my hair. As I clung to his thick neck, I was painfully aware of his fingers digging into my thighs. The only other man I’d ever let hold me like this had been my father. Not that I had a lack of suitors. Despite the fact that we lived in the heart of a dark and deadly forest, suitors still found me. Tari had said my siren powers drew them in. It had gotten so bad, that Tari had put double and triple wards around the house. Still, a few of them had managed to find me. None of those men had ever appealed to me, though. Women didn’t, either. I’d started to think that perhaps I wasn’t meant to have a lover.
Now I was painfully aware of my mate’s hard, tattooed chest and thick arms and his special scent, a blend of sage and sulfur that made me want to straddle him and lick every inch of his glistening skin. Perhaps I’d never been attracted to another because my heart knew to wait for my three fire mages.
