CHAPTER 1
APOLLO
My chest hurts so much either Cassandra truly is my mate, or I'm having a heart attack. From the despair and utter shock on the Pup's face, I'm guessing it's the former.
"What?" he mumbles, whipping his head from one side to the other, long hair stirring to the wind. "Who were those people? Where is she?" His questions are sharp claws to my chest, ripping down, shredding me to pieces. Pain makes my knees wobble. My dragon throws his head back and releases a painful cry, a shattering sound that sinks into my bones.
I lost her. I had her, I did not mark her, and then I lost her. From all the people after her, did it have to be the Collector? The human police would have been easy to run from, to dissuade, to fucking fight. I would have destroyed cells with my fists, broken into a prison for her.
The New Council would have been harder to escape from, but I've already ruined my name for her. She's my mate, and I would have gone to hell and back for her. Even if she's a Shadow Mage.
My knees tremble, my entire body in pain at her loss, but I don't let myself fall. Ren whirls around himself, his eyes widening as he stares at me, waits for an answer. "Apollo," he insists, eyes glittering, hands quivering. "Where is she?"
She. Our mate. Both mine and his. Maybe because she's a Shadow Mage, a being not of this realm, a woman unlike any other, or maybe because Cassandra is so much more than I expected... It makes sense now. Her powers, her behavior, the fact she has more than one true mate.
I swallow hard. The Pup is breaking apart, so I have to toughen up to deal with it. That's always been me. Swallowing the pain and dealing with whatever life throws my way. First, we solve shit, then we cry over it.
"That was the Collector,” I say, my voice rasping. Ren's brows furrow as if he's already heard the name, but can't quite place where. "He likes rare creatures, and what he likes, he owns."
Ren's lips part, then he presses them into a thin line. His face pales a shade, and I know he connected the person to the myth. "I've heard about him." The voice that escapes his lips is merely a whisper, his eyes unfocusing with some memory. "My mother used to say we shouldn't go far from the pack lands alone or the Great Thief would take us."
The Great Thief. That's one of the names shifters have come to use to describe him, and a fitting one at that. I nod at him. "He has her. A Shadow Mage? We haven't had one in centuries. More than centuries, maybe."
Ren shoves a hand through his hair. "What the hell is a Shadow Mage? I know of the elemental ones. Fire, water. That sort of thing."
I nod him on. "Shadow and Light are also elements. The Chosen One fucker Cassandra killed was the first Light Mage in centuries. She's the first Shadow Mage. At least the first we’ve heard of." I press the heels of my hands to my eyes. This has to be a nightmare. This shit keeps getting worse and worse, not a moment of rest.
"So this Collector took her?" Ren waves a hand to the place we last saw Cassandra. "Through a hole in the air?"
"It's a portal. Don’t ask me how they work." I shake my head. "This is a fucking mess." I pace around the scene, going over all the clues I've ever gathered on the Collector. How he chases the ones he wants, how he keeps them. The auctions, how he reaches out to potential buyers.
Will he sell Cassandra? People will definitely be interested. That creepy vampire from earlier, for example. I shoot a glance up at the hill rising above the river, but there's no sign of Donatello or his friends. Ren steps in front of me, making me pause.
"What happened to Donatello? I thought he was on our side." The Pup flares his nostrils, sniffing the air. "I can find him. Should we chase him? Maybe he knows something about Cass."
I would chase the Ninja Turtle down just to hear the sound of his jaw breaking under my fist. He had me going for a moment, with his dedication to Cassandra and how loyal and caring he pretended to be. A charade, one I should have seen coming. I told Cassandra he was a weapon, and yet I let myself be fooled. I let myself trust him with her safety.
"He won't know of her location, but he'll definitely hunt her too. His boss wants her." I cup my jaw in a hand, returning to my pacing. "I've been looking for the Collector my entire professional life, and I never got as close as today. He lives somewhere extremely safe. Somewhere only people with an invitation can reach."
"How do we get an invitation?"
I scoff. "That will never happen. He knows we'd attack him, and his invitations won't go out in the public, or I'd already have my hands on them. No, they must be sent to specific people. Maybe only the rich or the very powerful."
Ren cocks his head. "That... doesn't sound like something we can do." And his face goes back to half-pain, half-despair as he struggles to pull air in. "You don't think we can get her back? Ever?"
I stop and face him. "We will. I promise you we will. I will reach out to every person I've ever met, on my clan and on the duty, and I'll see if anyone catches a whiff of it. Not that I'm part of the Shifter Division anymore."
Ren arches an eyebrow. "Why not?"
"After what I've done? Escaping with Cassandra? Turning my phone off so no one could follow us? I'd be thrown into a cell the second I showed back up." I lift a shoulder in a dismissive. Cassandra being a Shadow Mage is shocking, and she might be even more dangerous than I anticipated. Worse, whatever is coming for us will be much bigger than what we left behind. Even so, she's captured my heart in the days we've spent together, and I don't think there's anything she could do to push me away.
"So you're going to look into it," Ren says, forcing my attention back to him. He shifts his weight between his feet, anxious, and I can almost feel the heat of his body coming off in waves, his animal ready to shift. "What do I do?"
I stop and face him. Fuck. He's so young. Ren must be Cassandra’s age, and Cassandra is so much younger than me. He's already been through shit in life, losing his pack and then his sister, when wolves don't deal well with solitude. Is he strong enough, both physically and mentally, to go through with this? To keep our mate safe?
Because, at the end of the day, I may care about him but this is about Cassandra.
"Listen, Pup," I say, keeping my voice steady, the voice I use to give bad news. "What Cassandra is... She's rare. Extremely rare. We've already been on the run because of the Chosen One thing, but it's going to get so much worse now. If the fact she's a Shadow Mage gets out, everyone is coming after her."