Her eyes widened like she was surprised he actually agreed, but she didn’t miss a second in snatching it from his grasp.
For several long moments, she merely held the phone in her hands, her eyes locked on the call screen, almost like she expected him to snatch it away if she dared to move. Little rectangles of light reflected in the tears that gathered in her lashes.
Dom clenched his hands against his jean clad thighs and resisted the urge to reach out to her. All around the room, shadows rippled. They wanted to be near her, too. Everything in him, everything he was and all that he could be, yearned for this strange little woman — to comfort, to keep safe, to know.
He wasn’t a demon who dreamed of matehood. As a teenager he fought in the final battles of the last Great War. Not even old enough to have his full antlers in, to have even gone through his first rut, and he participated in some of the single bloodiest, most pointless engagements of a grinding, devastating war.
He didn’t come out of it dreaming of a family. He didn’t come out of it dreaming at all.
When the dust cleared and the Peace Charter was signed, all he wanted was peace, quiet, and solitude. Taking up a post as a junior ranger for the Iron Chain forestry service was the perfect thing for him. Moving up through the ranks until he could have his own swath of wild territory to look after was the only thing he was truly proud of.
And then he got kicked in the face by a little fey woman in a silver jumpsuit.
As Dom watched her type a number onto the digital keypad with shaking fingers, he finally understood why so many left the war and went hunting for their mates — or whatever their race’s equivalent was.
He didn’t know her and she seemed to know instinctively which buttons to press, but when he looked at his little fey mate, Dom felt right. The world didn’t seem so overwhelming or nefarious. It didn’t threaten to move out from under him when he wasn’t looking. Everything was stable. Centered. Focused on her.
And he sure as fuck didn’t like it when the new center of his universe cried.
Dom watched helplessly as she raised the phone to her ear and held her breath. He knew that he should leave her to her call in peace, but he couldn’t seem to move from his spot on the floor. Even if he knew it wasn’t true, the idea that his mate might need him rooted him to the spot.
He did his best to tune out most of the phone call. Not that he wasn’t interested, but it was the only privacy he was capable of giving her under the circumstances.
His mate curled her free arm around her knees and buried her face against her thighs, the phone pressed tight to her ear as she explained where she’d been, that she was alright, that she missed her parents and needed to know they were okay. He tried not to listen to the words, but he felt every hitch of her breath, every watery syllable, every shaky exhale like hard fists in his gut — over and over.
It wasn’t until he picked up the words “go home” and “flight” that Dom tuned back in, his velvety ears twitching. “You’re in the New Zone,” he told her when she paused to look at him.
“I’m in the damn New Zone? No, no. If that’s right, there’s no point in trying to— Mom, it’s the New Zone. No one calls the authorities here!”His mate shook her head, the short strands of her black hair sticking out even more. Disbelief pinched the skin between her brows. “Mom, can you get me a flight— What do you mean there are no flights in or out of the EVP right now?”
Dom winced. “There’s an embargo on travel to the EVP for the next six weeks.”
She stared at him like he was a madman. “Why in the world— Mom, no, slow down. Just explain it. No, don’t hand the phone to Dad!”
Her mother’s tinny voice rose and fell on the other side of the line. With each word, his mate’s expression grew more and more incredulous. He couldn’t blame her. The news of Delilah Solbourne’s abdication in favor of her much younger brother, Theodore Solbourne, shocked the hell out of everyone.
Every territory was on edge, wondering what the new Sovereign would do, what the reaction of the Five Families that ruled the Elvish Protectorate would be. The elves were a bloodthirsty lot — power hungry, insular, and hierarchy-focused to a fault. If ever there was a perfect time for someone to challenge the Solbournes for the Sovereignty, it would be now, when the power was settling into the hands of an untried boy.
The fear of civil war in one of the wealthiest territories of the UTA sent a wave of panicked immigrants out into the New Zone, seeking sanctuary before the bloodshed began. Those were the people who remembered the reign of Mad Thaddeus, who helped plunge the world into the Great War all those decades ago and who, rumor had it, was finally struck down by his own cold-blooded daughter.
But the ensuing panic meant that the New Zone couldn’t handle so many new residents at once. To stem the flow, the government put a temporary freeze on all flights to and from the EVP. As it stood, there was no violence yet, but the news was only a week old. There was plenty of time for those people now stranded in the territory to fall victim to an elvish power play.
“You’re not going back there.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, but he didn’t care if he sounded overbearing. He knew what elvish violence looked like. He knew what kind of bloodshed his mate could waltz into, what it would look like when she was turned into nothing but ribbons of fey flesh and shattered bone. “I’ll drive you anywhere you want to go, little one, but until I know for sure that the elves aren’t going to start burning each other in their beds again, or tearing each other and anyone who gets in their way limb from limb, I’m not letting you step foot in the EVP.”
“Mom, I’m going to figure it out. Let me call you back in a little while, okay?” His mate slowly lowered the phone, her thumb pressed against the end call button despite the way her mother continued to speak on the other end of the line. His mate kept her eyes locked with his.
In a surprisingly civil tone, she said, “Thank you for letting me call my parents.”
Dom shifted uncomfortably. “Of course. I would never keep you from—”
“But you are going to take me back to the EVP,” she continued, her stare unblinking, her expression hardening. “You will, or I’ll find some other way to see my parents.”
The skin around the base of his antlers tightened. Memories of fighting for his life against elves who just wouldn’t stay down made his hackles rise. Old scars, long healed and gone, itched below the surface of his skin. There was no way he’d let his mate walk into elvish territory when they could start tearing out each other’s throats at any moment.
Planting his palms on the floor, he leaned forward to growl, “Like fuck you will.”
She nodded once, precisely, before reaching down to pick up the glass of water. His mate drained it in one long swallow. Swiping her palm across her mouth, she sent him a mulish look. “I will. Are you going to try and stop me, Mr. I-Am-Not-The-Bad-Guy?”
Dom reached forward to pluck the phone out of her hand. She made an indignant noise and grabbed at it, but he had a significant height — and therefore reach — advantage over her. Holding it out of her reach, he huffed a hard breath out of his nose. “I’m not holding you prisoner. I’m your mate. You really think I’m going to take you into danger? We’ll find some other way for you to see your parents.” He eyed her flushed cheeks and bared fangs thoughtfully. “They’re fey. They’ve got a covey, right? I’m sure your parents—”