Braxton shook his head, stepping even closer to me, my hand squashed between us. “It wasn’t that you had to catch up, you had to let go of your fears. And since you’re one hell of a brave supernatural, I knew it couldn’t take you long.”

It had been fear holding me back, and I was still afraid. I whispered the terror I held deep in my soul. “What if we lose this? Why the hell do I have a second mate?”

He cupped my chin, gently dragging my gaze back up to meet his. “Never going to happen. This is just another trial for us, but we will slay it as we always do.”

Our cliché romance book moment was ended by the appearance of a bunch of gray haired cloaked fey dudes. Obviously women’s liberation never reached the dragon mystics. They were a penis-heavy bunch.

“Are you ready?” asked Quale, stepping forward, no qualms about interrupting my moment.

From what I could see, below the cowl of his cloak, his expression was serious. “We do not share the secrets of the dragon lightly. Many argued against allowing any who are closely associated with the quads into the inner circle. But I will not permit us to take sides in this war. We are the council to the king, yes, but we are also part of the supernatural community.”

Most of the mystics looked unhappy by his words. But they didn’t voice any objections today. For some reason they seemed to both admire and fear Quale.

He turned to Braxton. “Where are your brothers? We need you to join together so we know what we are dealing with.”

“They’re on their way,” Braxton said.

I was guessing the mystics wanted to determine if they had to eliminate their enemies today, which is why we had the full showing of cloaked grays. I was sure this “forced joining” would have been demanded a lot earlier if not for all the disappearing into Faerie and such. Seems they had decided now was the time.

This thought had my insides turning. I didn’t like that the mystics were so unknown. Quale spoke as if they were just fey who acted as council to the king. But what if the hidden powers they supposedly possessed were enough to take out my boys? I seriously doubted it, but that didn’t completely alleviate my concerns.

Not to mention I could sense other supernaturals inside the building. Quite a few actually. The mystic’s plan wasn’t completely terrible. They knew it was better to try and take the Compasses out before they got too strong. They did not want another set of Four to contend with. My boys were still young in the supernatural world, and had never joined powers before.