Chapter 13

CATALINA

The four of us came to a halt, surprised by Lucien’s words. Lucifer, on the other hand, grinned.

“Just because you have control of something doesn’t mean you know how to use it.” Crossing his arms, he gave Lucien a smug look.

Overhead, Nick released a roar, as if he too sensed the tension down below. Lucien took a step forward, which got my legs into motion again.

I couldn’t let them fight! Everyone just needed to calm down so we could figure—

“Oof!” I hit the ground, tackled by one of my mates. The culprit in question grinned at me when I looked over my shoulder.

“Now now, kitten Cat, let’s not interrupt such a beautiful thing.” Kol smirked, shifting his weight on top of me.

“There’s nothing ~beautiful~ about my mates fighting to the death,” I grunted out, trying to dislodge him from atop me. Usually, I wouldn’t mind such a position, but I had a fight to break up.

Suddenly, the weight was lifted from me. I rolled over, expecting to see Kol standing above me. Instead, Mateo was holding him up by his shirt.

I grinned.

“If you value your hand, dragon, you’ll remove it from me,” Kol said with such calmness you wouldn’t think he was threatening you. But make no mistake, Kol always followed through with his threats.

I climbed to my feet as Mateo responded, letting him go.

“Did you forget she’s carrying? You can’t just throw her around like that.”

Kol opened his mouth to respond, but I ignored them both, heading toward my destination.

While I was distracted, Lucien and Lucifer had started engaging in battle. Red balls of magic flew toward Lucifer from the palm of Lucien’s hands.

Lucifer blocked them easily, returning his own attacks with green balls of magic. No doubt that was Fae magic; I’d only witnessed Nick use it once or twice.

I growled in annoyance. Why must my lycan be such a hothead?

“Lucien!” I shouted, gaining his attention. “Stop this right now.”

I expected him to ignore me and continue, but he shocked me by stepping down.

“Oh.”

Lucifer watched him suspiciously, no doubt wondering the same thing I was. Why did he give in so easily? Moments ago, he was riled up and ready for a fight.

I eyed him as he walked toward me, a huge grin on his face.

“As powerful as I feel, I can’t say this isn’t weird,” he started, stopping in front of me. “I’m not me without my lycan. And I’d much rather kick his ass as myself.”

I released a breath I didn’t know I was holding. One crisis averted—now we needed to figure out this power switch.

“The lycan is right,” Lucifer said, fixing his suit. As if he wasn’t just in a full power battle and more so just went on a stroll.

“If my enemies were to find out I’m no longer the King of Hell at the moment, let’s just say things would get ugly.” He eyed Lucien. “You’ll never be able to kick my ass, mutt.”

Mateo moved up behind me, placing a hand on my shoulder.

“We need to find out who did this to us, but until then we must make sure Catalina is somewhere safe.”

Kol scoffed.

“She’s been perfectly safe here—we’re the ones that got attacked.” His face scrunched up, as if the words left a nasty taste in his mouth. It’s hard to picture anyone attacking Kol and walking away to tell the tale.

It must be eating him up inside to know that whoever had done this to them was still walking around.

“That may be true, but who knows what else they could’ve done to us? Plant a tracking device, for example? Are you willing to put Catalina at risk if so?”

The ground shook as Nick the dragon landed. It seemed he’d calmed down but still didn’t know how to shift back.

Mateo seemed to realize that the same moment I did and walked over to him.

“He’s right,” Sebastian agreed, dragging a hand down his face. Tendrils of shadow outlined his body while he stood there—something I’d never seen them do with Kol.

“She’s not safe with some of us.”

“Some?” I questioned.

“Lucien, Nick, Sebastian, and Mateo. The ones originally captured. We can’t say what happened to them while they were kidnapped.” A look I couldn’t decipher crossed Lucifer’s face. In the next minute, it was gone.

What was that?

“Jayden too.”

“What?” the man in question demanded.

Kol growled, the sound so much like Lucien that I blinked in surprise.

“You’re the only one not affected.” ~And potentially the only one without a tattoo.~ His thought filtered out to the rest of us, though I didn’t think I was meant to hear that.

He suspected Jayden didn’t have a mate tattoo? Did they all suspect that? And why didn’t they say anything to me?

I was so shocked by his thoughts that it took me a moment to realize we could hear each other’s thoughts again.

~Kol?~ I tested. His eyes snapped to me—a slow smirk pulling at his lips.

~Well hello, kitten, nice to have you giving me head again.~ He winked, making my cheeks burn.

~We’re all here, dipshit,~ Lucien snarled.

~Came to join the head party? I always knew you wanted to suck me off, wolf. Or should I say ex-wolf?~ Kol taunted.

Lucien narrowed his eyes at him, his left hand starting to glow red.

“And that means what?” Jayden demanded out loud, pulling us from our thoughts.

Lucien took a step toward him, hand still glowing.

“Means you could be in on this. You ~did~ show up here with a god, after all.”

“I agree with the ex-wolf.” My eyes widened when Kol pulled a blue lollipop from his pocket. Any time he pulled one out, someone died.

Quickly, I slid up next to him, snatching it from his hand before he could remove the paper. He smirked, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and pulling me closer.

“You know you could’ve just asked me for one. I don’t mind sharing with you.”

Jayden glared at us.

“You guys don’t trust me? Is that what this is?”

Sebastian rolled his eyes.

“No, we don’t,” Kol deadpanned.

“What reasons do we have to trust you? You don’t even like us.” Nick walked up, joining the conversation. Mateo followed close behind him, looking thoughtful.

I slipped from under Kol’s arm, wrapping my arms around Nick’s waist.

“Nice to see you not all dragooned out.”

He groaned.

“I didn’t know the dragon was that large.”

Kol giggled, and Nick shot him a look. I tried to hide my smile in his chest. Indeed, my dragon was large.

“Let’s all calm down and discuss this inside.”

With everything going on, I had forgotten we were standing in the middle of the courtyard. Anyone could have been watching us or listening to our conversation.

We all followed Lucifer back into the house, using the back door instead of the gaping hole in the wall.

I noticed he avoided looking in that direction. No doubt he was thinking of ways to punish my mates for destroying his home when this was over.