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I nodded and muttered, “That’s so creepy.”
Elias got up and reached for his clothes. “Let’s go talk to Carter and see if he knows anything about this.”
Once we were dressed, we left the bedroom hand-in-hand and headed down the hallway. After a moment, I detected a change in air pressure and asked, “Did you feel that?”
“Yeah. We just passed through some kind of spell.”
When we reached the living room moments later, Desiree looked up from her laptop and said, “I put a sound-proof dome around you two, so we all didn’t have to listen to you fucking. Did you forget most of us have exceptional hearing? I don’t know what Elias was doing to you, but damn. Daddy got some skills.” She ran her gaze up and down my mate, and he fidgeted self-consciously.
“Thanks for sound-proofing us,” I mumbled.
“You’re welcome. Your friends are here, by the way. They arrived about fifteen minutes ago, but I figured you were still recovering from all that D, so I told them to let you rest. Everyone’s out on the patio, pretending like it’s not fucking freezing. I’m the only one with sense, so I’m staying in here.” She picked up a wine glass, toasted us, and took a drink before returning her attention to the laptop.
We went outside through a sliding glass door, and Griffin looked up from a tablet and called, “Hey, Matty!” His beautiful husband Ari was sitting on his lap, and he smiled at me and waved before turning a curious gaze to Elias.
Griffin turned back to the screen and spewed baby talk for a few moments before saying, “Bye for now, Newty-Newt. We love you!”
Elias whispered, “Newty-Newt?”
“A nickname for Newton, his puppy.”
Griffin was saying, “Thanks again for dog-sitting for us, Aunt Lil. We’ll talk to you soon.”
Meanwhile, Elias asked, “Does he really call you Matty?”
“Yes, but I’m trying to break him of the habit. At least he finally stopped calling me Fig.”
“Why did he call you a piece of fruit?”
“It was my name when I was—”
“His bulldog?”
Elias looked amused, and I sighed and said, “Yes. That.”
“But why Fig?”
“It was taken from my last name, Figueroa. Fig was his mom’s nickname for me. We were friends. I can’t remember if I already told you that.”
Elias grinned and asked, “Did Griffin use baby talk with you, like he just did with the puppy?”
I chuckled and poked his ribs as my friends got up and crossed the patio to us. Ari reached us first and gave me a big hug. Then Griffin put his arm around my shoulders, led me away from Elias, and pressed a hand to my forehead. When I asked what he was doing, he said, “Checking to see if you’re bespelled.”
“Why would I be?”
“Because all of a sudden, you’re very cozy with the man you hated for a century,” he said. “Carter swears you aren’t, but maybe Reyes got someone else to do it.”
I hugged my friend and said, “I’m fine, and I was wrong about Elias. He’s absolutely wonderful, and I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself for missing out on the last century with him.”
Griffin brushed his dark hair from his eyes as he told me, “This is a total one-eighty from where you were the last time we saw each other. You know that, right?”
“I know.” I took my friend’s hand and smiled at him. “Come and meet him. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
He let me guide him back across the patio, and I said, “Griffin Vale and Ari Bloom, I’d like you to meet my mate, Elias Reyes.”
Elias stuck his hand out and said, “Mateo speaks very highly of you.”
Griffin gripped his hand firmly as he narrowed his dark eyes and studied him closely. Next, sweet, lovely Ari, the former angel, gave Elias a hug and said, “Welcome to the family.”
His husband sighed and asked, “Isn’t that a bit premature, babe?”
“I can feel the current between them,” Ari said, as he tucked a blond curl behind his ear. “That’s not just their mate bond. They genuinely care about each other.”
I wrapped my hands around Elias’s arm and said, “I could have told you that.” Then I turned my attention to Carter, who’d been deep in conversation with August and Tinder on the edge of the patio. As he got up to refill his wine glass, I asked him, “On Friday night, did you send a scout to my house before you found me?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
I told him about the imposter who’d showed up for my date, and how I’d been bespelled into thinking it was someone else. Then I asked, “Do you think the brothers could have been behind that?”
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” he said.
“Why didn’t they take me prisoner?”
“Because they didn’t want you, they wanted Elias. They must have found out I was searching for his mate and tracked you down before I did. Then they made sure I’d find you, with a trail leading directly from those fireworks.” Carter shook his head and muttered, “They really weren’t subtle, were they? And I played right into their hands by bringing you to the island. No wonder they found him in Maine.”
