Sean leaned close and grabbed something off of Shane’s nightstand. It was only when he pressed a button that she realized it was Shane’s cell phone. Sean’s eyes never left hers as he called the one person she should have thought of. “Is this the Seer?”

Akane bit her lip, hoping her mother had the answer they were seeking.

Apparently she did. Sean didn’t even get to asking his question before her mother’s quiet voice began speaking. Sean paled, but his gaze was glued to his son’s body.

The thing Shane had been injected with was moving under his skin, not just in his arm but in his abdomen, his thighs, even his face. They could all see it writhing like worms under his skin. Akane grew worried as his skin began to take on an unusual pallor. His bright hair darkened, turned copper. “He’s changing.”

Sean hung up the phone and turned to Jaden. “Take him into the yard. Please.”

Jaden nodded, silent for once. He picked up Shane and followed Sean out of the house, Akane and Moira hot on their heels.

“Why is Jaden carrying him?” Moira was watching her mate with a worried expression.

Sean grimaced. “The Seer said that whatever is inside Shane can’t hurt Jaden because his blood would destroy the invader. It’s part of Jaden’s nature.”

“Oh.”

“But it can still gross me the fuck out.” Jaden shuddered.

Aileen gasped at the sight of Shane in Jaden’s arms. The tea she’d been pouring for Duncan splattered on the tile floor. “What are you doing?”

Sean shook his head, unable or unwilling to speak. Jaden’s mouth was grim, his eyes glittering with green fire. Duncan stood and started to approach his mates, stopping when Jaden shook his head.

He obeyed when Moira gestured him closer. “Don’t touch Shane.”

“Why not?” Aileen tried to block their exit from the house. “What are you doing? Why is he out of bed?”

“He’s got a parasite inside him, a Dark Court one. We have to burn it out.” Sean gently set his mate aside and opened the back door. “The Seer says if we don’t…” He shuddered, and for a moment grief dimmed the vibrancy she was so used to seeing in the leprechaun. “I want them dead.” He looked at Akane and Jaden. “If I don’t get them, you will.”

Jaden nodded. “Damn skippy.”

Akane bared her teeth and snarled.

Aileen covered her face with her hands, but followed them out onto the back porch.

Jaden took Shane to a spot where grass had once been. Sean, using his powers, had cleared away all grass and undergrowth, even digging a shallow, round pit in the ground. There would be no chance of Akane’s flame damaging the house or accidentally setting off a grass fire.

Jaden set Shane’s body down in the fire pit. Her mate’s arms and legs were twitching, the thing under his skin controlling his movements. She prayed with all her might it hadn’t wound itself through his brain.

Akane took a deep breath and prepared to burn the affliction from the man who’d claimed her heart.

“Wait!” Aileen rushed forward. “What if he needs to be Bonded before he’s immune to your fire?”

Akane blinked. “We test it.” She stepped around Aileen, grateful her partner trusted her enough to let her do what she was about to do. He lifted Shane’s shirt out of the way and moved before Akane blew. Flames danced across Shane’s stomach. She dared not flame his hands. Those beautiful hands had to remain unscarred. A barely audible shriek made her flinch, but it didn’t come from Shane. Where her flame touched his flesh it turned pink once more, the pallor that had taken over the rest of his body disappearing under fire. She nodded, satisfied and curiously aroused at the thought of bathing her mate in her flame. “Strip him, Jade, then stand back.”

Jaden made quick work of Shane’s clothes, those lethal vampire claws tearing the cloth in a frenzy almost too quick to see. Everyone else obeyed, moving away from the circle of earth Sean had created to cradle his son. Akane crooned to her mate, her song hopefully soothing him. When Jaden stepped back and nodded, she spread her wings and let her inner flame fly.

He ran, trying to outrace the darkness that chased him, but everywhere he turned, every door he opened only led to more darkness. Soon he would have nowhere left to turn, no place to hide. The darkness wanted to devour him, use him for its own ends, make him like…like… He flinched, the thoughts whispering to him from the darkness too evil to contemplate.

It wanted him to bow down, to succumb. To become one with it.

Shane would rather die than do what the darkness wanted.

Flame licked across his senses and the darkness retreated, screeching in rage.

Shane grinned. She’d figured it out, his clever mate, and Shane would get to live another day. “Akane.” He followed that glow to its source, the warmth lulling him. He centered himself in that flame, allowed it to protect him. Shane marched in step with it, pointing out all the places the darkness had tried to hide. The flames obeyed his wishes, destroying the invader, eliminating every trace of the darkness within him.

Shane was finally warm again, oh so warm. He basked in it like a cat in the sun, stretching beneath a heat that smelled strongly of his fiancée. He moaned as the heat licked across his inner thigh, danced across his cock with light, teasing touches. The only bad spot was a constant itch across his arm, the last bit of the darkness trying to escape the purifying fire. Shane opened his eyes to see Akane standing over him in all her glory, fire dancing across her skin, licking at her breasts. Her hair danced in the breeze stirred by the heat of the flames. Her wings were spread wide, the delicate tracery of veins glowing with her inner fire.

She was so beautiful his heart stopped. He must have been a very good boy in a previous life to have earned her love.

Shane stood and immediately grabbed his arm. The pain there was intense, the fire he’d been basking in missing. The cold was a burning pain. From a shallow cut on his arm black ooze gushed forth, the last of the darkness trying to escape its fate.

The darkness gathered itself and leapt for Akane, landing on her stomach and began trying to claw its way in. Akane hissed and batted at it, but it clung to her fingers. She breathed at it, but it dodged her flames, no longer shackled by skin and bone.

When it leapt for her beautiful, vulnerable eyes, Shane lost it. No one, nothing would take his mate from him.

No one.

A strange roaring sound filled the air as Akane tried to bat away the black goo reaching for her eyes. The ground beneath her feet began to tremble. There was a faint, feminine gasp, Jaden’s throaty laughter, and Akane looked up, hoping to see what had surprised everyone.

Multicolored strands of light whipped around Shane’s body in a strangely erotic, lethal dance that entranced her. Within those lights she could see Shane’s visions appearing and disappearing like smoke. His Seeming had dropped, and a snarl was on his face as he glared at the black ooze.

“Oh fuck.” Akane had heard of this. If anyone attempted to touch Shane in that moment they would die a grisly death, whipped to shreds by the fury of Shane’s Sidhe half.

This was either going to hurt like hell or be the most sensual experiences of her existence.

Shane stalked out of the fire pit, the flames of her fire still glowing on his skin and hair. The others stepped away from her at his possessive display, all of them intimately aware of what was coming next. She resisted the urge to back up. It wouldn’t do her any good if she did.

Her mate was pissed as hell, and he had decided to Bind her.

“I vow that from this day forward you shall not walk alone.”

One of the whips of light darted out, decimating the darkness trying to wend its way inside her. Akane gasped at the touch of that light, her whole body on fire for her mate.