Declan
The next morning, Declan's consciousness came in waves of smellâvanilla and citrusâsoundâsoft breathingâand finally sightâthe top of a dark head snuggled against his chest. Every morning since returning home, he'd questioned whether he was dreaming each time Lux came down the stairs, but now he had the fleeting thought he'd died and gone to heaven. Surely, it was the only way she would be in his arms, her heart beating steadily next to his own.
How many times at the Institute had he believed he would really never see her again? Surely, fate would not be so unkind to him? It was bad enough he'd spent one hundred years sleeping while the world moved on, and while he would never complain because it brought him Lux, he also thought he'd paid his dues as far as bad luck went.
Sliding his hand across her face, he rubbed his thumb along her cheekbone and smiled ruefully. Of course, he couldn't call their current circumstances lucky by any meansânot while they were trying to solve a cold case and keep the Fat Queen from breaking open the Underworld. If Lux was by his side, he didn't care if he was in the trenches of a war or in a cabana on the beachâall was right with the world.
"Good morning," she said sleepily, blinking up at him through sable lashes before snuggling into his chest as if embarrassed to find him watching her. When she spoke again, her lips moved against his shirt, and he screwed his eyelids shut as he concentrated on all the reasons he was a gentleman.
"What was that?" he asked.
"I said I'm surprised you didn't sneak off in the middle of the night." She rolled a bit and folded her arms over his chest, propping her chin on top of her hands. "I'm very happy you didn't."
"I had planned on it." She smirked. "But I fell asleep almost immediately. I don't remember the last time I slept so well."
"Me either." Lux moved her pointer finger in small circles as she thought, the little movements driving him crazy. "I think that's the longest uninterrupted stretch I've had since the Dreams began."
Tension seeped into his body. The best course of action would be to ward against Dreams, but if it was Morgan le Fay sending the Dreams, it would take the entire Circle to create a ward strong enough, and even then, he couldn't be sure it would work.
"Now that I've had some rest, I'm able to think a little more clearly," Lux continued. "Pieces of the Dream are coming back to me. Morgause had a stone around her neck that Morgan gave her, and somehow it was going to give Morgause access to magic."
"Do you think it was a Channeling stone?" It would make little sense unless... "Had she become a Bloodborn?"
Lux shrugged. "I don't think so, though I guess it is an option, but I didn't really get the feeling Morgause wanted to go to that extreme. Sh-she's not like Morgan, not entirely."
She sat up and threw her legs over the side of the bed, her auburn hair touching her hips as she arched her back, lifting her arms above her head in a deep stretch. Looking over her shoulder, she caught him watching and blushed.
"God, you're beautiful," he said. They should keep talking about the Dream, but he needed to say what he was thinking in case he never had the chance again. Instead of standing, she crawled back on the bed and straddled him. He groaned. "Lux."
Her gray eyes crackled with magic and heat, and the stone around his neck grew warm. It wasn't an unusual occurrence. Before he left, whenever they lost themselves in one another, their stones would heat, the connection between them both physical and magical, twining together so it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began.
"Did you know," Lux whispered, sliding his hands up her bare thighs and resting them on her hips. "I did some research about soulmates while you were gone."
"Yeah?" Declan rasped as she rocked her hips against him.
"Apparently, there is a heightened...euphoria between mates when they're intimate."
She bent over her him, pressed her breasts against his chest, and kissed him. It was teasing at first, growing bolder as he responded. He couldn't stop himself from swiping his tongue along the seam of her mouth, sliding in and tangling with hers when she opened for him. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and he wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her against him as he rolled her onto her back.
A shiver went through him as her knees widened, drawing him closer to her heat, and when his rational mind screamed to pull back, the magic tying him to Lux pulsed, and he renewed his assault on her mouth, taking her hands in his and pinning them above her head.
In response, she moaned and arched her back, erasing any distance between themâexcept for the clothes, which were now an unacceptable barrier. Releasing her, he pulled back and pulled his t-shirt over his head and tossed it aside. Lux's eyes darkened and something close to triumph flashed in her eyes.
Then, for the briefest moment, someone else looked up at him through her eyes. It was there and gone so fast he thought he imagined it, and when her hands went to the hem of her shirt, his body shouted for him to forget it and move on. But he couldn't.
"Lux," he said, gripping her chin and peering into her face.
"Mm hmm," she purred and wiggled her hips. Frustration knotted her brows together. "Why are you stopping?"
Their bond tightened uncomfortably, urging him to keep going, but he threw up a shield and scrambled away from her. "Lux, let's talk about this."
"Ugh," she shouted, jumping from the bed and storming to the door leading to her bathroom. "That's all you ever want to do is talk. I'm tired of it. We're grown Declan, and it's not 1912 anymore. I want to do grown things with you."
Declan picked his shirt up from the floor and pulled it back over his head. This wasn't like Lux, and it reminded him of his conversation with Hanish. Was this outburst truly coming from her or from somewhere more sinister? Was the Dream affecting her?
"Lux, last night in the Dream... you said you saw Morgause get beheaded."
"Yeah, what of it?" She flipped the light on in the bathroom and turned on the shower. Without closing the door, she gave him a wicked grin and shed her clothes, laughing when he spun around and muttered something between a prayer and a curse.
"Morgause was beheaded because her son caught her hav...caught her with their enemy. Did you see that part?" His cheeks heated. She'd been moaning when he'd come upstairs.
He didn't need to turn around to know she'd walked up behind him. Her scent washed over him, and then he felt her pressed against him, soft and warm, and so inviting it was all he could do to stay still. "You can say it. They were having sex, Declan. Grow up."
Then the door slammed, and he finally looked over his shoulder, nearly sagging in relief to find himself alone in the room.
Calum and Percy were drinking coffee and eating breakfast in the kitchen when he went downstairs. Percy didn't look up from his bowl of cereal, but Calum gave him a knowing look. "Everything okay?"
"Lux is acting really off," Declan admitted, filling his mug with the fragrant brew and leaving it black. "I'm worried about her."
"What do you mean she's off?" Percy asked, then rolled his eyes when Calum scowled at him. "I'm allowed to ask. I don't know Lux well enough to know what constitutes as off."
Not willing to divulge too many details, Declan contemplated how to best explain what just happened. "Lux and I have a connection because of our soul bond. It allows us to exchange emotions in a way. We were talking about the Dream, and then it was like something changed in her. She tried to use the bond to manipulate me."
The dark headed Guardian nodded in understanding, but he was tactful enough to say nothing. Percy, on the other hand, blurted, "Manipulate you how?"
"Percy, that doesn't matter," Calum snapped. "Sorry, Declan."
Eager to change the subject, Declan asked, "Was Morgause a Bloodborn? Could it be possible that's what they ended up doing to get her magic?"
"I don't know the answer to that," Calum replied, slapping Percy in the back of the head when he opened his mouth to answer.
"I might have had something useful to say, man."
Calum glared. "Did you?"
Percy went back to eating his cereal with a childish grumble. Declan chuckled, the mood lightening a bit.
"Like I said last night, there aren't a lot of records kept about Morgause outside of her role in bearing Mordred and being Morgan's half sister. She wasn't really a major player, but I might know someone I could call. She's not the most pleasant person to be around, but if anyone knows anything about that time period, it'll be her."
The stairs creaked as Lux came down them. "Please do that. Lux said she saw her wearing a stone. She didn't seem to think it was a Channeling stone, but it would be best to cross that off our list."
"Consider it done."
"Hey y'all," Lux called out cheerfully, stopping to plant a chaste peck on Declan's cheek. None of her earlier demeanor remained, and when she made eye contact with him, her gray eyes were bright and warm and completely absent of anything but her. "You okay, Decs?"
Calum and Percy excused themselves as Declan eased toward her. "Are we okay?"
"Why wouldn't be?" She asked. The spoon full of cereal she was bringing to her mouth paused. A panic expression washed over her face. "Did something happen?"
"What's the last thing you remember?"
The spoon went back to the bowl, and her eyes darted back and forth as she walked herself through her morning. "I woke up next to you. We chatted about the Dream for a minute, and then I got in the shower... Butâ"
"But what?" he pressed when she halted, her breathing becoming uneven.
"I was lying on your chest, talking about the Dream, and then I was in the shower. There's nothing in between that. Like, I don't remember getting out of bed, turning the water on, any of it. What does it mean? What's happening, Declan?"
He wrapped her in his arms and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. What if he hadn't come back home? Who would help her or would she already be lost?
"I don't know, Lux, but we'll figure it out. I promise. Together."