Mick (The A'rouk Brothers Book 1) (12 page)

“Jaz mine,” he whispered softly as his hand came out to caress her cheek.

Her eyes flew open catching him by surprise. He fell backward before he propelled himself up and drew her into his arms.

“You’re alive.” His kissed her. “You’re not dead!” He kissed her again.

She laughed. “I’m alive and well, but you can kiss me as much as you want. Mick, you’re you again.”

He cast a reflection, and he was back to being the male he was before The Darkness took hold of him.

“What happened?”

“I think I know.” He turned to look at Jaz and waited for her to go on.

“I don’t know if we were really in your memories or not. It seems weird since it wasn’t from the point of view of the male who died so that you might live. I was paying attention to the female—the Queen as she talked about the words taught to the males from the time of birth. The very last words were;
do you agree to be mine
. Call me crazy but I think the words and the agreement of the female are the difference between life and death.”

“But you died.”

“Did I?”

Jaz allowed a small smile to cling to her lips as she looked around Mick’s room. The walls were gold, but the flooring was white, reminding her of the castle they were just in. The room itself was wide and spacious; there were several doors to explore, she was sure one would hold a beautiful bathroom. What truly caught her attention was the hologram of the ocean.

“That’s beautiful.” She climbed out of bed and walked to it.

“I’m glad you like it. I bought it for you.”

She turned to look at him and the second layer of the protective coating her heart was wrapped in was torn to shreds.

The loud noise drifting down the hallway caught her attention making her turn toward Mick.

“Brothers.”

She looked at him not understanding.

“I have five of them, and I’m willing to give a few away if you want some. Right now they are in my kitchen making enough noise to wake the dead, which we are not. It’s their polite way of saying stop kissing and come eat.”

She started laughing as she looked toward the door that led to the hallway. Mick came behind her giving her a hug and a kiss on the neck.

“Do not encourage them, or they will be popping in unexpectedly all the time.”

Turning around in his arms, she gave him a kiss wishing they had more time. “I need a shower.”

“The bathroom is through the door on the right. I’ll make sure the bag with your clothes is here when you are done.”

She gave him another kiss and walked towards the bathroom.

Mick made sure her bag was in the room before he shimmered out of existence and appeared in the kitchen. Julian was standing in front of the fridge.

“Is it safe to turn around or are you still thinking of biting me? By the way, that’s kinky, but not even close to what I’m into.”

“Ha ha.”

Julian turned around. “Glad to see you're more like your normal self. How did you manage to hang on without sinking those fangs into someone?”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh? Who did you bite and where are they?” Julian tensed and pulled his Symphor to him. He never wanted to hurt his brother, but he wouldn’t let The Darkness have him either.

“I bit my mate, and she’s in the shower.”

“Your mate?” Raphael said. He and the rest of the brothers were sitting at the breakfast bar in Mick’s kitchen.

“You mean the female you want to mate with.” Lucca supplied helpfully.

“I mean my mate. The bite and her agreement sealed us together. There will never again be a Mick without a Jaz or a Jaz without a Mick.” There was a smile of contentment on his face and frowns of confusion on his brother's faces.

“What did you do, Mick?” Damon asked, horror coating every word.

“You mated her to the demon,” Raphael said looking at Mick as if he had never seen him before.

“No, he didn’t.” They looked up to see Jaz standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “The Darkness tried to kill Mick and wanted to take me along for the ride. He fought them and brought us together, making us stronger.”

“If you die,” Julian said walking over to her. “Mick will belong to The Darkness forever. If he dies, you will die with him.”

He stared at her expectantly.

“Julian, there has always been a death sentence hanging over my head. The one thing I’m beginning not to fear is death. It’s hard to be scared of something that travels with you on a daily basis. Dying because Mick died doesn’t scare me; I would want to be with him anyway. My dying and his soul going to The Darkness scares me on too many levels to even speak about. Still, I would not change what happened between us last night.”

She walked into the room and stopped next to Mick. He hugged her tight and took her over to the breakfast bar to sit while Julian made breakfast.

His kitchen was beautiful; it was large because he had so many brothers and they were large males. The breakfast bar looked like it could easily sit ten maybe twelve people. The kitchen had several long wide counters for prep space. He had two fridges and three stoves.

“Why do you need a space this big?”

“Honestly, I’ve been thinking of expanding the kitchen. You’ve not seen anything until you see all of us in the kitchen cooking at the same time. The ovens are going, the burners are going, the trips to the fridges are enormous, and there’s at least one of us accusing the other of hogging all the available space.”

Mick’s eyes lit up, and there were chuckles around the room.

“Where’s Dante?” Jaz asked.

“From what I heard, Mick threatened to kill him,” Lucca said with a serious look on his face.

“I heard that too,” Raphael chimed in.

“I think he’s lying low, scared of Mick.” Damon gave a shudder of fear and turned away his shoulders still shaking.

Mick, unable to take anymore, started laughing which led to all his brothers laughing.

“Maybe I simply went to collect Ash and Brook. They need to eat also,” Dante said as he appeared in the room with Ash and Brook beside him.

“Dante,” Raphael greeted him with a grin before he got up and wrapped his arms around his brother. “We were so scared you might miss breakfast because of Mick’s death threats.”

Dante gave them all a look that made them stop.

“Seriously,” Lucca said. “No one else comes into contact with the Earth females. They are corrupting us.”

Ash moved over to the bar and helped Brook take a seat. “I’ll make sure to let Aran and Niko know that you called their mate's bad influences.”

Aran and Niko were two of Ash’s brothers and the first two created to get mated. Their mates, Rena and Dee, taught Dante how to roll his eyes.

“I rest my case. You knew who I meant without me even having to say their names!” Lucca sat down with a heavy sigh.

“You’re just upset because after all these centuries you still can’t do a decent eye roll,” Damon said giving him a grin.

“True,” he muttered and let the subject drop.

Jaz walked over to Brook wrapping her arms around her. “How are you?”

“I’m pregnant,” her eyes twinkled when she told Jaz.

Jaz tightened her grip just a little. “I’m so happy for you. I get to be the Godmother, right?”

“You know it.”

“This calls for a special celebration. Ash is about to become a father and Mick is mated.” The brothers got up and rushed to the fridge pulling out ingredients and calling burners on the stoves.

Jaz watched them, not believing her eyes as they shoved and pushed. All done in fun but they were serious about who cooked where.

“Now do you want to expand the kitchen?” Mick asked her.

She nodded her head because Brook was holding her tight screaming congratulations to her.

“I knew Mick was going to be special in your life.”

“Oh, you did?” Jaz smiled at her. “We may have to cash in on that talent while you still have it. Maybe it’s the baby hormones.”

Brook just smiled and looked like she knew everything.

Jaz hugged her again and went to take a seat; everything was perfect. She was mated to Mick and pretty much safe from both the Patron’s men and the Clone Council while she was living up here. The Darkness had made a try for her, but she dodged that bullet twice, so why was she nervous and antsy?

The feeling that this was all temporary haunted her, and she wanted to throw herself into the thick of things to enjoy every moment she could before it all slipped away. Instead, she was going to stay back and wait and watch because that’s the only way she knew to live life.

“Jaz…Jaz?” Her head came up to look at Mick who was frowning at her.

“Sorry I must have been lost in my thoughts I didn’t hear you.”

He walked over and gave her a kiss. His brothers groaned and laughed good-naturedly.

“Pancakes or French Toast, Jaz mine.”

His endearment for her brought a silly little smile to her face and for a moment she stopped worrying and simply enjoyed the moment.

“French toast.”

“I’ve got it,” Lucca called while his brothers groaned.

Soon there was a meal fit for royalty on the table. There was no way they would eat all of this, then she looked around the table and realized there were seven Created males. They were going to eat all of this, so she joined in, filled a plate, and laughed.

Once breakfast was over, she told Mick she needed to go back to the room and left the kitchen. No matter how she tried, the anxiety she felt wouldn’t go away.

“I’ll go with you.”

“I know it doesn’t make sense, I just need some time alone.”

He nodded and let her walk out the kitchen, a frown on his face.

“Who can hurt her up here?” Julian stood by his side as they watched her walk out together.

“I don’t know, but I’m concerned.”

“Have you bonded on all four levels?” Julian asked.

“How do we know that for sure? We assumed that, took it for granted but since none of us ever planned to bond, how do we know for sure?” Damon countered. They knew nothing about bonding.

His brother was correct. When they were younger they talked about what they thought having a mate would be like and how it would impact their lives. That was before they understood that having a mate was a death sentence. Now he was mated, and there was no doubt they bonded on the physical and emotional level.

There was no way he could have experienced the joy he had with his mate without those bonds. Although they were the easiest bonds to achieve they were also the easiest to break. For his mating to truly work, he would have to bond on the mental level as well the spiritual level. When that happened, there could be no separation for either of them.

He looked around the kitchen not wanting to leave the cleanup to his brothers but the need to find Jaz was clawing at him.

“Go find your mate; we have this.”

Mick gave Julian a smile, and a one handed hug that he promptly struggled in while hugging him back before Mick headed out the kitchen.

He took the most direct route to their bedroom and simply materialized in the room. She wasn’t there. A moment of panic gripped him before he relaxed and took himself outside.

He materialized by her side, and she jumped clutching her heart and growling at him.

“That little trick of yours is going to frighten me to death.”

“Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I simply feel…” She ran out of words, how could she explain to him she felt empty inside?

He took her hand and led her to a lounge area in the back yard. He sat down and pulled her down next to him. Together they leaned back. The chair was comfortable and shifted to mold against their bodies giving them support.

She loved his back yard. It was well kept, and it must be where he liked to entertain. The furniture out there was all done in a striking gold pattern with accents of white so bright at times she had to close her eyes when looking at it. The grass was so soft; she was sure it was from a different planet. He had a large outside kitchen with plenty of space for both him and his brothers to cook, but the thing that pulled it all together was the mountain in the background. The waterfall that slid over it joyfully was amazing. If she listened close enough, she almost felt she could hear the water singing as it poured over the side.

He pulled her even closer and kissed her. His arms went around her as she let her doubts and confusion go and got lost in the pleasure of his kiss.

She laughed and looked at him, feeling a little better.

“I could do that all day.”

“Mmm, I would love to take you up on that offer, but first I was hoping you would tell me what’s wrong.”

She ducked her head so he wouldn’t be able to see her and placed it on his chest. She breathed in his subtle scent that was calming her. Everything should be okay; this was the dream come true so why wasn’t she happy.

“Tell me, Jaz mine.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” her voice came out rough like she was trying to hold her emotions back. “We’re mated. Something I’ve dreamed about for years in the midst of what I was going through. It was a forbidden dream, but I still carried it around, and now we’re together, but I feel like something is missing. I think of you, and I’m so happy, but then I’m sad like you’re not really mine. It feels temporary, like at any moment you’ll be gone and I’ll be alone again.”

She was calling to him on a different level making him think beyond the females in his past that satisfied a need but were never meant to be permanent in his life. His mate was demanding more from him whether she realized it or not. She wanted more than he shared with the others. She wanted a true commitment something he wouldn’t be able just to get up and walk away from.

“When the Created mate, we mate on four levels. The first two are the physical and emotional level. That’s easy, it just requires us to come together physically, and we are the type that if we lay with you, then we have an emotional attachment. They are easy come easy go in a sense. I care about the person, but I know it will never last. Most humans bond on this level.