No! You can’t give up. We’re stronger than this. Do you not feel her pain? I do.
Once we’re gone, she can find a human. The bond will be broken.
No! I refuse to let you give up on her. She’s sick. She needs us to get better.
“Kai, can you hear me?” Frey asked. Kai nodded, but he couldn’t answer his boss when he was fighting so hard with the Goyle inside. Kai wasn’t ready to give up.
“Nikolas said we have until the next full moon to get Josie to agree to the mate bond. That’s two days, Kai. You can’t give up yet.”
“Not… fighting…” Kai knew he wasn’t explaining it right to the other male, but he was barely hanging on to the shifter part of himself. He was afraid if he let go of the connection long enough to explain what he was going through to Dante and Frey, he would never get it back.
“You have to fight. There is nothing more important than your mate. You know this. You can’t let her suffer, and she is. Rafael said she’s burning up with fever and delirious. Come on, Kai. Fight!” Frey all but yelled. Kai squeezed his eyes closed. He couldn’t stand the anguish in the other male’s voice. Kai knew he was the cause of it, but he couldn’t worry about Frey now. He had to focus all his energy on his beast.
Just let me go.
Never. We’ve only had four hundred years together. Now we’ve found our mate, and I want at least four hundred more years to spend with her and our children.
His beast didn’t respond. Instead, it let out a deep sigh in Kai’s head.
Don’t do this! Don’t pull away!
Kai reached deep, but there was only the smallest twinge when he searched for his Goyle.
“Josie, Malakai needs you. He’s really sick, like you are. Neither of you will get better if you aren’t together. Please, Josie, wake up.”
Josie couldn’t tell what was real anymore. She’d heard her mother and sister fighting. Words being thrown around like coma and quarantine. She didn’t think she was in a coma because the pain was too intense. If she were in a coma, wouldn’t she feel nothing? Josie heard other voices talking about her and Kai being together, but the one voice she kept holding onto was the one who told her sister off. The same voice talking to her now. At least she thought someone was in the room with her.
A strong yet soft hand held Josie’s, and the feminine voice got closer to her ear. “I know what you saw was hard to believe, but it’s true. I’m Tessa, and I have a feeling you and I could be great friends if you’d wake up. Kaya’s here too. Do you remember trying to search for her on the internet? You wanted to talk to her, and she’s here. Kaya’s as human as you are, and she is a good, honorable woman. You don’t know me, but I’m honorable too. All our family is. My uncle is Joseph Mooneyham, Chief of Staff of this hospital. Sabrina Bailey is here. She’s a doctor, but she’s going to be taking over the chief position soon. Sabrina’s another human mate. I know it sounds far-fetched, but I promise you, Gargoyles are real. Just open your eyes, and I’ll show you.”
Josie wanted to open her eyes. She wanted to believe what this Tessa was saying was true because Josie’s heart was shredding in her chest, and she didn’t know how much more she could withstand.
“Josie, it’s Kaya. I’m here.” Something cool touched Josie’s forehead, and she figured it was Kaya’s hand.
“Kaya…”
“Yes, I’m here. Can you open your eyes?” Kaya asked.
“Too… hot…”
“I know you are. You have an extremely high fever, and it’s because you and Kai aren’t together. It’s the mate bond. I’m going to be honest. Your bond with Kai is special. Unlike any of us have seen before. It’s because Kai himself is special. When the Gargoyles find their fated mate, the need to be with that person is all-consuming. That never really goes away. I’ve been with Rafael over a year, and I still want him as much as I did the first day I saw him. Tessa has been Gregor’s mate for years, and she’d put a bullet in someone who tried to come between them. Her parents have been together over thirty years, and there’s nothing Xavier wouldn’t do for Elizabeth. They’re still as much in love as they were the day they met. But it’s more than that with you and Kai. The connection you have is stronger because of who Kai is.”
“Seven…,” Josie muttered. Josie remembered Malakai talking about being the seventh son.
“That’s right. He’s the seventh son of a seventh son, and because of that, you need each other. Josie, if you don’t accept Kai, he’s going to die. I know this sounds really shitty right now, and it’s a lot of pressure to put on you, but it’s the truth. I’m a straight shooter, and that’s what I’m doing now. I’m telling you the truth. It was hard for me to believe at first, but when Rafael wrapped his wings around me and stopped a bullet from taking my life, I knew the truth.”
“Crazy…”
“Yes, it is crazy, but that doesn’t make it any less true. You saw proof with your own eyes, as scary and crazy as it was. What’s even crazier is my son, Sebastian, came to me in visions. He warned me about the man who was trying to kill me. He warned Rafael in a dream. That was before I was even pregnant. Connor, another child of a Gargoyle, was kidnapped, but he reached out with his mind to his mother’s mate, a male he’d never met, and showed
