“Because she’s no longer mated to him? Doesn’t that release him? Or does he suffer because the break was against his will?”

“It doesn’t matter why the mating ends. Magic makes the ties between mates stronger than humans. Unlike divorce, there’s a magical connection that doesn’t simply disappear because the union is over.”

“Even under all his madness, he misses her?”

“Lucan doesn’t remember who he is but, he knows Anka at a core level. I can only give him energy by tricking him into believing I’m her. I use her soap and shampoo, wear her clothes, whatever is necessary.”

Under all that torment, Lucan waited for his one true love. And she might be gone from him forever. Tears welled.

“But if Anka is free of Mathias and has left Aquarius, why doesn’t she return to Lucan?”

“She doesn’t remember him. Magic’s way of ensuring survival of the species, I suppose. She’s currently mateless and in need of a male with whom she can charge her energy. If she remembered Lucan and suffered as he does, she’d never allow another to mount her and potentially impregnate her. Conceiving is possible, but difficult if unmated, and with Lucan in her memory and heart, she’d likely never mate again.”

“Nor will Lucan.”

“Men who have been well mated usually emerge from their mate mourning with a strong yearning to mate again.”

“Usually? I hear uncertainty in your voice.”

Sabelle winced. “Lucan may be different. . . .”

Sydney dared to glance at Lucan again. His gleaming chest and shoulders rippled with each strain against the ropes. His growl was a threat that sent shivers down her spine. His love must be powerful, indeed. And Sabelle had tricked him into bedding her?

“It’s the only way to keep him alive.”

Caden’s reluctance to mate made sense now. He liked being in control. Lucan’s descent into madness because of magic would be the worst horror to a soldier with such self command.

They were in the midst of a war, and Sydney had put herself straight in the path of danger. Coupled with the fact she’d brought Caden to her side by foul means—even if the book no longer played a role between them—his retreat made a sad sort of sense.

She bit her lip. She needed to talk to him, if only to say that she understood. “Is Caden here?”

“I’m sure he is. He doesn’t know we’re here. Lucan long ago allowed Bram and me to visit without chiming in.” Sabelle handed her a little white rock. “I’m leaving, since Lucan’s energy is holding and I’m not needed. When you’re ready to return, just toss this stone in the air and say my name. I’ll return for you.” Sabelle hugged her, then warned, “Given his worries about Lucan and Mathias’s backlash, Caden may be a bit on edge.”

A shuffle and a quiet knock on the family room door, Caden twisted around in the plush recliner, expecting to see Sabelle. The sight of Sydney punched him with a breathless rush of thrill and need.

He’d been away from her for four hours and missed her with a frightening intensity, like a junkie craving a fix. After settling Lucan back into his home, Caden had done little except pace and sweat and wish to God he could hear or smell or touch Sydney. Or taste her. He had to get his desire under control before he could protect her. Worse, his energy was waning, and he realized that as an unmated male, he could bed anyone. And must do so soon.

But he only wanted her.

Then his brain kicked in. Why was she here? Sabelle, he realized. And the only reason for the witch to visit was Lucan.

Anxiety buzzed his blood, and he fought to rein in the curse on the tip of his tongue. Sydney now knew far more about his objections. That fact softened her normally sharp gaze.

Damn it, she felt sorry for him.

“I know you’re not expecting me.” She took a hesitant step into the room, eyes flicking to the book on the nearby table. “I don’t mean to barge in, but I had to see you. Why didn’t you tell me about Lucan and his mate mourning?”

Caden took a hesitant step closer—but not too close. That would be dangerous. “It doesn’t change anything.”

“But your refusal to share with me does. I only wanted the truth.”

She rushed across the room to stand by his side. Her smell blindsided him with hunger and longing. He dug his fingers into his thigh to keep from reaching out and hauling her into his arms.

“I understand now what you fear,” she murmured. “Why you’ve avoided mating with me. Your brother has lost all control, and that’s something you strive to retain. I’m sorry for him, but you don’t know that Lucan’s condition would become yours—”

“Given the way you’ve thrown yourself into a war, I do. Your bravery is commendable, but it’s placed you in grave danger. You don’t take precautions, and I know you’ll try to refuse my protection, even if I insist you follow my rules—”

“Your rules? I’m hardly a child in need of guidance.”

He stepped closer, toe to toe, towering over her. That spicy-sweet scent of hers infiltrated and intoxicated his senses, tightening his gut. The inevitable erection sprang to life moments later. He had to get rid of her quickly. His resistance to her kiss was weakening.

“You met Mathias face-to-face and duped him. Angered him. He won’t forget that. Or the fact you revealed him to magickind. He will hunt you down and torture you. Why didn’t you use caution? Bow out?” he growled, ready to tear his hair out. “Now it’s too late. In less than two weeks my desire for you has grown far beyond rational. If we mated, there’s no question I would become like my brother.”

“I’m clever, and you’ll protect me. Bram and the others will, too.”

“No. I’m no longer involved.”

“You should be. Don’t you see? Strength in numbers. If you stayed with the others, we’d be safer and making a difference. If we mated, we’d have each other. I don’t need more.” She paused, bit her lip. “I should tell you something—”

“I feel the same and more, but if I mated with you, I could probably count our time together in days on the fist of one hand. This is war. Mathias is like . . . magickind’s ultimate sociopath. Determined, smart, charismatic, powerful and willing to kill. And he won’t die by a simple bullet, as you saw in his warehouse.”

“We’ve weakened his army,” she argued. “Taking the fight to him was the right thing to do, and using the book as bait was perfect. Maybe peace will come shortly, and we will have wasted precious time together.”

Caden raked a frustrated hand through his hair. They were talking in circles, and still she wouldn’t understand. “Peace? Last time Mathias was vanquished, it took decades and an army of experienced wizards. Many died. Too many were sacrificed.”

“The same is true in human wars. And like those, we don’t have any control over who lives or who dies. We only have control over what we do with our time together.” She squeezed his hand. “If Lucan and Anka’s separation has shown anything, it should be that, while lovers can suffer, love itself endures. Even without remembering Lucan, Anka knew she was missing someone dear.”

“And Lucan has been reduced to an animal.”

“Who still pines for his mate. You fear becoming like Lucan so much you would rather skip whatever time we might have together? If that’s so, you don’t love me as I love you.” She sniffed. “And maybe I’ve no one to blame but myself.”

“I love you.” Caden couldn’t stand it anymore, and he grabbed her shoulders. “But I won’t be able to endure the pain of losing you!”

“People live, they love . . . and they die. That’s unavoidable.”

“But I lose over and over again.” A well of memories and fears rose inside him, drowning out logic and caution. Opening his past to her would change everything. But continuing to hide the truth was hurting her, and he couldn’t bear that anymore.

“I can’t find Anka, and Lucan is likely going to die. Just today, I had to kill one of my old Marine buddies in Mathias’s warehouse. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. And still not as terrible as the day I lost my younger brother, Westin.”

Sydney paused, then wrapped warm hands around his biceps, offering silent support.

Caden swallowed. “I was twelve. After Lucan, my parents had tried for over two hundred years to have another child. They were elderly when I was born, but Westin surprised them ten years later.

“He wasn’t quite two when we went out one summer morning to play. Westin was my shadow. He looked up to me. And I loved him . . . God.”

Tears hacked at the back of his eyes, stinging. He hadn’t let himself think about that day or cry since Westin’s burial. Remembering his chapped little cheeks and happy giggles now was like opening a chasm in his soul.

“It’s okay if you can’t say more now.”

But he couldn’t stop. “I was chasing him, pretending I was going to scoop him up and tickle him until he cried uncle. He ran, as always. But that day, he tripped.”

He could see it in his mind, those little feet stumbling, chubby hands flying. Why didn’t closing his eyes make the vision go away?

“And he fell?” Sydney promoted softly.

The only heat in his body came from her soft stroke of his arm. Everything else inside him was dead cold. He swallowed.

“Yes. And hit his head on a stone wall.”

As he said the words, he could see Westin collide with the wall, then crumble to the ground, blood spewing from a cut on a ragged rock, bruise bursting across his forehead.

Sydney gasped.

He stabbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. Choke out the rest. Get it over with. He owed her a reason for breaking her heart. “I screamed, and my mother came running. She was rattled but promised that simple magic would make him ‘right as rain’ again. She squeezed my hand, and I remember feeling utter relief as she hovered her wand over Westin’s wound. Instead of healing, he choked, sputtered, suffocated.”

Beside him, Sydney frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Her magic, meant to heal him, went awry and killed him. She was rattled, perhaps applied the wrong spell. After my mother stopped screaming, I remember the song of the same fucking birds that had been singing ten minutes ago, before my life changed.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Caden.” Sydney wrapped her arms around him tightly.

How easy it would be to lean against her, let the balm of her love fill the festering wound inside him.

Easy but dangerous.

“After that, my mother and I barely spoke. She retired to her bed and never left. I wouldn’t blame her for hating me. I ran him into a wall and—”

Tears. Scalding drops made a path down his face and he wiped them away angrily, then drew in a rattling breath. “I can’t be with you. I shouldn’t even love you. Because I’ll lose you like I’ve lost Westin and my mother, all my friends. And now Lucan. They all hurt like hell. But losing you too.” He shook his head. “I’d lose me. I’d collapse inside myself and never come out. No reason left to live without you.”

“You have every reason to live. Lucan isn’t gone, and you’re not going to lose me. We’re going to fight this bastard and win.”

He shook his head. There was too much at risk. “My freedom, life, and heart are gone. I’d like to keep my sanity.”

Resignation stiffened her expression, and she stepped out of his embrace. “I’ve lost those things as well—and I embraced those losses. I think they could lead to something wonderful.”

Caden opened his mouth—to say what, he had no idea. But just then a shrill female scream ripped through the house. Adrenaline surged through his bloodstream, and he pushed past Sydney and charged out of the room and down the hall. “Sabelle!”

Sydney was on his heels. “Perhaps she didn’t leave. Is Lucan hurting her?”

Likely so, but if he confessed that, then Sydney would insist on helping. The woman truly didn’t understand the peril she put herself in. Since he refused to assume the risk of mating with her, he had no right to dictate to her, but be damned, he couldn’t hold his tongue.

As he reached Lucan and Anka’s bedroom, he grabbed the knob and barked, “Stay here!”

He threw the door open and tried to slam it in her face, but Sydney resisted. As Caden saw the unfolding drama within, he stopped fighting her and stared in mute horror.

Lucan had been released from his bonds and scrambled to the end of the bed where he’d captured a female underneath him, her blond hair twisting in ringlets across the bed and down to the floor. His face contorted with menace as his hands encircled her neck and squeezed.

Instead of struggling beneath him, the woman embraced him, holding as tight as possible, her whole body shaking. Something gentle and magical poured off her, flowing into Lucan. But Lucan and the witch weren’t intimately entwined.

They were locked in a death struggle.

This witch didn’t have Sabelle’s magical signature, but a different one entirely.

She struggled to free her neck and turned her head, revealing a red, distressed face.

“Anka!” Sydney gasped.

Caden didn’t have time for surprise, not when Lucan was about to kill his own mate. Why didn’t he recognize her? Somehow, someway, Caden had to stop Lucan from choking the life out of his beloved.

Shoving aside his dismay, Caden jumped into action, body slamming Lucan to drive him away from Anka.

“No!” the witch choked out, the sound barely discernible above the din.

But primal instinct gave Lucan ferocity. He lifted one hand away from Anka’s slender neck and backhanded Caden away with a roar. Caden hurtled across the room until his head hit one of the bedposts with a thump.

Pain exploded through the back of his skull. Cursing, he reached up to the sore spot. His hand came away sticky and wet with blood. Bloody hell!