Page 84 of Fae Farewells

“No.” Valano grabbed a bottle of scotch from his kitchen counter and headed for his door. “I’ll help you. Frank and Novak can do the rest.”

Vaughn went to the kitchen cabinets, pulling a few mugs down before leading me outside. The chill of his hand felt amazing against my heated skin, so I moved it until his fingertips were pressed to my temple.

“This hardly seems like a drinking occasion,” I joked.

“The cups are for us,” Val retorted, grinning as he passed me a bottle. “You’re going to need to drink the rest of this…”

I grimaced. “I’ll be fine.”

He shook his head, but Franklin spoke up. “It’s going to hurt, Lo. You may trust your mates, but you don’t trust us enough to roam freely in your mind, so it’s going to hurt us, too.”

I hung my head. “Drinking won’t make that any easier. It’s not enough to lower my inhibitions. I’ll have to... disable—That’s not right.”

“You’ll have to strip your security completely,” Palmer guessed.

“Yeah.”

“We all have access to your mind, so we could help keep it open,” my mage suggested.

I couldn’t say why, but an image of them holding me down sprung to my mind. Green grass against my bare back as hands grappled with my arms and legs. My mage’s facial hair scraping gently across my thigh.

Palmer groaned. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know it’s not.” I sighed. “But—”

He cut his eyes to me. “Forget it for now. I’ll remember for later. That’s not what you want Franklin and Valano to see when they—”

“What was it?” Novak asked, waggling his brows.

“Nope.” Palmer shook his head. “Later.”

“Okay.” I rolled my shoulders back as I looked at the ancient vampire and the old king. “How are we doing this?”

“You’ll need to take down your security and then sit somewhere comfortable,” Franklin explained. “Somewhere that we can all reach you. And then you need to relax. We’ll do the rest.”

I closed my eyes, envisioning my mental security. It had been picked apart, holes littering the walls as my electric currents short circuited. And I hadn’t even noticed. When was the last time I checked it? I couldn’t recall... But this was both good and bad.

Good, because it took all of ten seconds to rip the rest of my security down.

Good, because I now knew it was more flawed than I thought.

Bad, because I never felt the initial breach... Didn’t know someone was there until it was nearly too late.

“I’m ready.”

“That fast?” York inquired.

“There wasn’t much security left standing,” I acknowledged, not sure if I was impressed or pissed at whoever was fucking with my head.

Novak furrowed his brows. “You have some of the best security I’ve ever come across.”

I nodded. “And it was shredded. My walls looked like swiss cheese, and my security flashed like a broken strobe light. I don’t know when it happened, and I don’t recall feeling a breach. Just a dream I can’t remember.”

“It was fine while you were fighting Rig,” he informed me.

“It doesn’t matter now. I just pulled it down, so let’s get started before whoever this is gets all the secrets I have filed away.”

I leaned back in one of the chairs York had made, relaxing as much as possible. But my shoulders were still stiff. My teeth were clenched. My legs were restless. Until my mage brushed his fingertips over my forehead and everything fell away.