Page 103 of Malice
“Also cursed. But still not a vampire or a shifter.”
She had a point.
“Well... I’d definitely call them your mates. But how did you know without the... you know, biting and stuff?”
Dahlia laughed. “Bonds occur in all kinds of ways. Just because a bite is the best-known way to solidify a mate bond, it’s far from the only way. Cas and I forged ours during sex.”
“Sex?” I snickered. I supposed if succubi did have mates, that would definitely be the way to seal the deal. As soon as the thought registered, all the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as memories of my time with each of my men hit me.
“Yep. He started getting all glowy and literally levitated. It was pretty fucking amazing.”
Glowing.
Oh. My. God.
Flashes of the dreamwalk with Grim in front of the fireplace ran through my mind. The way we’d been surrounded by tendrils of golden, glowing threads that seemed to pull us closer to one another. And that same golden glow had surrounded Chaos and me when we’d had our stolen moment by the lake.
Did that mean we were . . .
“And there’s, you know, the way we can sometimes feel what the other is feeling, even if we’re far away.”
This time, my mind flooded with images of Malice. I’d always been pretty in tune with people’s emotions, but there were points when I’d been with him where I would have sworn that his thoughts and his emotions were running through my body. Nothing tangible like his voice in my mind, but his influence all the same.
“We’re stronger together, you know,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “Which really came in handy when we faced off against my mother. Come to think of it, the same is true for Sunday and her mates. Rosie and her men too. That can’t be a coincidence.”
“What do you mean, Sunday and Rosie? Who are they?”
Dahlia smiled. “They’re basically our cousins. Well, kind of.”
“Our cousins?”
“My mother is Death. Sunday’s is War. Rosie is mated to the sons of Pestilence.” She reached out and took my hand. “That leaves you.”
“My mother is Famine.”
Dahlia nodded. “Don’t worry. None of us will judge you for having a shitty mom.”
I shook my head as so many different thoughts zoomed around in there, making it hard to focus. “I don’t understand how having mates makes you stronger.”
Dahlia shrugged. “Well, for us, it was part of a spell Kai came up with. Something that would allow one or all of us to sort of lend our power to another if they were in need. It doesn’t work that way for the others. From what Sunday told me, each time she bonded with a new mate, she unlocked a new part of her own power. I have no idea how it works for Rosie.”
I thought back to the fight with the demons and how I’d tapped into my inner horsewoman and taken them all out. Had it been because I was reacting to Sin getting hurt like the others suggested? Or was it because I’d unknowingly mated the four horsemen and, in doing so, unlocked my own horsey powers?
Or was it a combination of both?
Oh fuck.
I dropped my head into my hands and just breathed for a moment. Everything was so complicated. All the fucking time.
“This is a good thing, Merri. You are coming into your full power. You’re going to fight, and you’ll win. But you have to trust them.”
“You want me to trust the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”
I already did, but I just needed her to address the absurdity of the statement.
“If you can’t trust your mates, who can you trust?”
“Women who visit me in my dreams, apparently.”
