Crucible of Fate

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Chapter 12

     
    I HEARD my mate. He sounded hysterical.
    “He has to shift.”
    “If I drag him through it, he could die.”
    “He’ll die if he doesn’t!” Logan yelled.
    “Yuri.” I heard Jin’s gentle, patient tone. “What do you want me to do? It’s up to you.”
    “Try,” Yuri heaved out the word, and I could hear the tears in his voice.
    “Move,” Jin ordered, and I heard scrambling. “Domin Thorne, you will shift for me.”
    But I wouldn’t, because Jin had no power over me anymore, and more than that, he wasn’t my mate. I’d never had anyone who wanted just me before Yuri Kosa. Everyone else let me go. Yuri was holding on.
    I felt Jin’s power run over me, wash hot and scalding over my skin, and then sink into my bones, chasing away the chill. I took it in, absorbed it, and tried to pull more.
    “Oh shit.” Jin sounded surprised.
    “Love,” Logan sounded scared.
    “I need—you.”
    “Here, I’m yours.”
    I wanted to see the big, strong semel holding his mate, but more than that, I wanted to see Yuri’s beautiful blue eyes.
    “I can’t make him shift anymore—he’s like Crane now. My power recognizes him. It runs through my beset, but Domin just absorbs it.” His voice sounded shaky. “Oh, Yuri, I’m so sorry, I can’t make Domin do anything. He’s too strong.”
    Yuri moaned softly, and his voice was thick with tears when he spoke. “I need him.”
    Jin was crying, and I wanted to tell him it would be okay, but I was so tired. I’d tell him later.
     
     
    I T WAS quiet, but there was something tickling my nose. A smell I knew, a smell I liked. The breath on my ear made me shiver, and I felt goose bumps on my skin.
    “Domin.” My mate’s voice was a rumbling purr. “You need to shift so you can heal, because I have things I want to tell you and more you should see.”
    I felt like I was underwater and needed to swim up to the surface so I could talk to him. And I desperately wanted to talk to him.
    “We’re back home, and everyone’s here.”
    I was home .
    “I have to tell you what Logan did,” he said, like it was a secret. The conspiratorial tone rolled right through me. “You’ll like it.”
    I burned with curiosity.
    “I’ve brought everyone in here, I even had Koren come to talk to you, and it did nothing,” he said, his voice husky and low.
    I wanted to touch him so badly.
    “And then Jin pointed out that I haven’t once been in here all alone,” he said, and I felt him slide the palm of his hand over my stomach. “I have to wonder at my own lack of self-confidence. Jin simply knows he’s what Logan needs, but it’s not just them. Every mated couple, just like regular married couples, assumes that the husband or the wife, or the mate, is the one the other craves. So I thought, what if I am simply missing the obvious?”
    He slid his hand up to my chest as he pressed his lips down into my abdomen. It felt so good, and I made a noise in the back of my throat.
    “Oh, I like that sound,” he growled, and it was low and dark and full of decadent ache.
    My cock twitched and my breath caught.
    “I had no idea,” he said, his voice thick with hunger. “I mean, I knew you enjoyed being in bed with me—you can’t fake what we’ve been doing—but I didn’t know that the sex was wrapped up in so much more. Forgive me for doubting. I knew you loved me, knew you almost died getting to me, but I didn’t know when you were saying the word ‘mate’ that it was truly what I was. I’m an idiot, and I can only say in my own defense that you’re all I ever wanted, so it’s been Christmas for me for the past six months already. I keep thinkin’ I’m gonna wake up.”
    The hot hand closing around my cock made me gasp.
    “Doc says that your brain isn’t making a connection to your body, and if it did, you could wake up.”
    Instinctively, I bucked up into his hand.
    “Do you want me?” he whispered, and it was sultry and hot and he stroked me until I was throbbing and hard. “Do you love me?”
    I wanted to answer.
    “I’m leaving if you don’t open your eyes and tell me.”
    It was like rising through layers of thick, heavy fog.
    “Okay,” he said, and his hand was gone. “I’ll be back.”
    “No.” My voice was raspy and full of gravel, and when my eyes fluttered open, I closed them again quickly because it was so bright.
    “Oh baby.” His hands were back, on my face, and he kissed everywhere he could reach, small, light,