Page 115 of Starting a New Life

Heath gave me another scathing look before his eyes darted back to Angelo. “And that’s what I meant about this being a bad idea.” He walked through the now open front door, waiting for me and Angelo to follow. We found ourselves in a big entry hall. Heath immediately turned to the right, where marble stairs covered by deep red carpets went up to the second floor. He started jogging up the stairs, huffing out his breath in annoyance, then suddenly stopped and turned to me. “Look. It’s not that I dislike you. It’s not even that I don’t think that guy up there deserves to be free. But you and Gray are looking at it through rose-tinted glasses. You think he’s just gonna follow along and be grateful. But you don’t know if that’s going to happen. That’s what I tried explaining. And we don’t have time for being all patient and cuddly, so you need to be ready to subdue the mage.”

“Callum,” I said automatically, my mind reeling.

Heath shrugged, then started climbing the stairs again. “Whatever. The important part is that you don’t know who you’ll meet. He might be so traumatized that he won’t want to leave. He might fight tooth and nail to stay. He might want to leave, but not with us. Don’t expect him to be happy or grateful. He doesn’t know you. When Gray first found you, what did you think?”

I swallowed, spit going down the wrong way, and I had to stop to cough. “I thought he’d…”

“Enslave you, right?”

I nodded.

Heath gave me a grim look from two stairs above me. “And Gray’s your mate. We are strangers to that guy. It doesn’t matter that you’re a mage. He might not come willingly. So, if push comes to shove, can you subdue him?”

My throat closed, stomach churning as I thought about actually having to subdue him. To hurt him in order to eventually help him.

Could I do that?

I wasn’t sure. But what other choice did we have?

“It’s gonna be okay,” Angelo whispered, his hand heavy on my shoulder as we climbed the stairs behind Heath. “But he’s right. Brace yourself. We’ll be at your side, but it’ll be easier if you can overwhelm him.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice to be stable enough to get the words out.

I might have to hurt Callum.

We continued up the stairs, Heath charging ahead, leaving me and Angelo to follow. On the third floor, he stopped for a second, head raised, nostrils flaring, his blond brows knitting together in confusion before his eyes widened, and he started running again.

“Wait, you’re out of…” He didn’t stop. I scrambled, extending the shield to get him back inside. If there were security cameras here, he’d just popped up out of thin air only to disappear a second later.

What the fuck was going on with him?

Angelo let out a loud, frustrated growl and chased after Heath, his own eyes frantic.

“Wait, you idiot, you’re going to scare him!”

Heath stopped dead in his tracks, turning to the last door on the left, eyes flashing. He grabbed the handle and rattled it.

There was a squeak coming from the inside. The muted aura brightened for a moment, and I got a hint of swirls.

“You’re scaring…”

The door splintered. I blinked, staring at Heath, who was holding the fucking door in his hands. Again.

Was this some kind of weird hobby of his?

Someone yelped. Chains rattled. The mage’s aura spiked, even though it still felt muted and far away. Footsteps on carpet, more rattling chains.

I turned my head towards the doorway and bit my lip. If there were cameras here and I dropped our shields now, we’d be visible on the tapes. But if we entered the mage’s room while still hidden, we’d scare him even more by just appearing out of thin air.

What to do?

I looked at Heath and the door he was still holding in his hand. Okay. The door had just disappeared from view, so… fine. I closed my eyes and dropped the shields, letting the invisible bubble around us pop like a balloon pierced by a needle.

“Please,” a voice whispered from within the room. “Please don’t.”

I gave Heath a scathing look as he threw the door away and stepped past him to enter the room.

“Hi,” I said, raising my hand, my eyes scanning the sparsely furnished room until I found the mage in question. My eyes zeroed in on Callum, pressed against the wall as far away from the door as he could get. My stomach dropped, anger flaring as I noticed why he couldn’t get farther than about six feet away from the bed. The collar. They really had him chained to the bed by an iron collar. The skin beneath the metal was an angry red, rubbed raw with blisters and sores.