Page 58 of Zodiac Demons

I couldn’t make him suffer anymore if he was dead.

Ceto had also locked himself in his apartment and had made it very clear he would not be answering any calls or texts tonight.

So it was just me and Lila.

Which was fine. But also a little disappointing. This should have been a chance to celebrate with everyone I cared about, which, as much as it pained me to admit it, did include both of her other mates as well. Maybe I was the only one who was becoming largely okay and even happy with the potential of this arrangement. Maybe my relationship to my brother and my former mate was too complicated to ever have a happy ending.

Maybe I’d have to be content with it being just the two of us when I was with Lila, and she was going to have totally separate relationships with Adrian and Ceto.

Though I had faith that Ceto would come around. Eventually.

But at least for today, I’d enjoy what I had. She was everything I wanted and needed, and if not for her multiple marks, I wouldn’t want anyone else to be here anyway. A completed pact should have made it so I would never want anyone but my mate ever again, but perhaps having her strange physiology as the conduit changed that for those in her circle.

“So you have control now even in your shifted form?” She asked, as we finished up our picnic in the mountains. We’d taken a spirited ride up the most twisty road I knew, and my bike had come alive in every perfect turn. I never got tired of the sound and the feel of Lila’s joy and excitement and adrenaline as she squeezed my waist so tightly from the pillion seat in both trust and security.

“There’s still a level of feral energy and a wild, overwhelming urge aspect to it, but I’m not blacked out and letting magic control my body. Before I was completely incapable of changing the trajectory of the night. I’d shift, and then I’d come back out of it like I was waking up from a dream. I’d recall everything my body did while I was transformed, but I would be completely unconscious while it was happening, and I’d be living in the aftermath without having had a choice in the precursor. Now, I’m just shifted, overflowing with power, and running on a high without all of the regrets.” I chose not to mention the whole ‘unable to shift on the last full moon’ thing, as I still didn’t know what to think about that. I was confident I was safe this month, but I needed to really sit down and ask myself if I was okay with the possibility that she might be robbing me of every other zodiac form I had.

If a Beta could steal the power of an Alpha, that was truly a devil among mere demons.

I hadn’t decided if that was terrifying or hot as fucking hell, but if I was being honest, it was very much both.

“Do you think it’ll be more intense on your birth month?” She asked with a curiosity that did not sound remotely innocent. Again, I loved this woman, and it wasn’t hard to admit that to myself anymore.

“Is that a request?” I raised a brow, and she turned red.

“Maybe.”

Of course it is. “Well, I know the perfect way to find out.”

A took her for a quick ride down to the edge of the forest that surrounded Graves, then I dismounted and removed my helmet. We were nearing dusk, and the summer heat had finally started to fade with the setting sun. It was a perfect day in mid-august, that was about to become a perfect night under the Sturgeon Moon.

I inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly, preparing myself for what was going to have to come next. I’d contemplated this since I’d last talked to my brother, and however much I didn’t want to do it, I knew I finally needed to come clean about some things.

I didn’t know what Adrian was up to, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew he was right that I needed to tell her. It wouldn’t help anyone if she found everything out from someone else, and at some point, she was bound to learn that the ritual for mating required a certain type of fluid swapping before the blood connection could be made. She was sharp, and she’d make the connection sooner than later.

Whether I deserved forgiveness or not, I wanted this to come from me. It wasn’t just a matter of controlling the narrative, so much as I wanted her to trust me, and this had been a potential time bomb for entirely too long. The more serious I felt about her, the more I knew I needed to attempt to disarm that bomb myself.

If at some point everything was going to get blown wide open, I may as well start stitching it together now. I’d have a whole lifetime to fix it and the sooner I started, the better.

Besides, it was my birthday. Who could get mad at me on my literal birthday?

“So, before the sun sets and we get a bit lost in the thrill of the night…” I swallowed down the uncharacteristic doubts she always brought out in me. Just say it. “I think we need to talk about something.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.” Lila’s nerves were always obvious, but having unfettered access to her feelings through our bond at my discretion made this a situation I could much more easily gauge and manipulate in my favor. I was planning to teach her to better shut out both bond noise and projection at some point, but not yet. I needed the upper hand right now.

“I’ve been wanting to tell you this for a while now, and it’s been… difficult to bring up.” How was I going to explain this in a way that didn’t make me sound like a terrible person?

Was I a terrible person? Maybe.

Well, yes. Obviously.

But I didn’t want to be terrible to her. I liked that she had always seen me as someone genuine and good, even if to everyone else, I was anything but. Whatever game I’d been playing, and however I’d attempted to manipulate her into falling for me, at the end of the day, I was the one who was smitten, who fell for my own trap, and I was okay with that. What was supposed to be a carefully curated persona had accidentally become the only way I ever wanted to be around her.

“Should I be worried?” She removed her helmet, leaving her hair a mess of fly-aways, and she scrunched her nose in that adorable way she often did.

I should be worried. Not you.

“You’ve learned a lot about how mate marks work, and how it connects us, right?” I smoothed her helmet hair, brushing the strands neatly behind her ear, before I replaced her glasses for her.