AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Fifteen
Skylar
“Spill,” I said.
“We go with a version of your plan but I need to report in first. I need to get them to give me your name as my mark,” Madison said.
“Are you sure?” In our previous discussions, we’d been set on not having Madison return until we were ready so we could pull her out. There was a good chance the queen would know she’d broken the compulsion. It was possible the queen would end up killing Madison. Or worse, compelling her again.
Madison had made it very clear that she’d rather die than return to having her free will removed. I didn’t blame her. It sounded like a terrible way to live.
“What if you don’t get those orders?” I asked.
“What if she doesn’t let you leave?” Elias asked.
We’d been through this so many times that we already knew the answers. But in our past conversations, the solution had always been to skip this kind of plan. Now, she was bringing it up again.
“We have to try. I want to ask the mages if there’s anything they can do to protect my brain, you know?” Madison said.
“Can they do that?” Jasper asked.
A wave of sympathy washed over me. He’d just experienced a milder version of what Madison had lived through. I used to think dying on the job was the worst fate I could face. Scratch that, I thought being turned into a vampire was the worst. Now, I know there are things I couldn’t even imagine that could go wrong.
“It’s worth asking,” I said. “If they can, then what? You go in and tell her you were on vacation? How do you explain your time away?”
“A version of the truth. I tell her you spared me and I befriended you,” Madison said.
A chill ran down my spine. I could see where she was going with this. “You want to pretend to be a double agent?”
“It’s the best option we have,” she said.
“We can do it.”
I turned to see Shelly with the other mages on the stairs. “It’s insane.”
“We can protect her mind. We’ve been studying compulsion for years. When the demons never returned, we started studying our next biggest threat,” Becca said.
“What do you have on demon magic?” I asked. “That might help too.”
“The things we could do to you and your friends…” Sam let the words hang in the air.
“That better not be a threat,” David said.
“It’s not. We just saved their lives. They owe us their help,” Elias said. “Don’t they?”
Sam rolled her eyes. I guess she wasn’t taking the fact that Xander was off the market as well as I thought.
“Listen, I think we got off on the wrong foot, but we have to be on the same team here. We’re all fucked if the queen gets what she wants.” I took a step closer to the mages. “I know you don’t like me, but we can work together on this and then go our separate ways.”
“She just doesn’t like that you’re fucking the one who got away,” Kate said.
“I’m not going to apologize for finding my mate. You’re going to have to let that go. You know just as well as I do that there are no choices in mating bonds. It’s not personal.”
Sam’s upper lip twitched and for a moment, I thought she might growl at me or something. Instead, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Once upon a time, I thought maybe Xander and I would bond. But we didn’t. And you’re right. I deserve to not settle.”
“That’s true,” I said. “You deserve to find your mate. You shouldn’t settle.”
“I think that maybe I should feel offended by this conversation,” Xander said.
