~Zaire~

The next day, Zaire was getting impatient as he sat at his usual table, struggling to read. He couldn't focus, because he was sure that the little doll should have shown up for work an hour ago. He was tired of waiting, and he was getting antsy - as were his shadows.

That's it!

Zaire decided that he was going to drive by her house. He didn't bother to put the book back before he exited the parlor room. But he stopped in his tracks when he saw Talon and Eon in the foyer. Talon's hand was wrapped around the Fae's throat in front of the podium, and the hostess was nowhere in sight. 

"Talon, I - " Eon's voice was barely able to scrape out from his constricted vocal cords.

"What's going on?" Zaire snapped, his hands clenching into fists.

Eon was unable to move his head, but his bulging eyes shot toward Zaire as Talon's glare sliced back and forth at both of them, before he hurled his crewman down the hallway.

"My office! NOW!"  Talon bellowed as Eon's body thudded to the floor.

Zaire could taste Talon's unbridled rage and Eon's terror as the three of them moved toward Talon's office. Eon was crawling feebly on his hands and knees, and Talon grabbed a fistful of the Fae's suit and dragged him the rest of the way. His other hand flicked at the air in front of his door, and it swung open. Once the two of them were over the threshold, Talon sent Eon flying at his marble desk, and it fractured under the weight of his body from the force with which he was thrown. Eon's glamour faded as he howled in agony. Zaire entered and slammed the door shut behind him. He had never seen his friend like this.

Talon was vibrating with fury, and his own glamour disintegrated as he glowered down at Eon. The male's writhing stopped abruptly and his body went limp when he lost consciousness. Talon's breaths raked in and out of his lips unevenly, as he tried to calm himself down enough to explain.

"I thought that there would be enough time," Talon panted raggedly, his cerulean eyes looking wild as he turned to face Zaire. Without Talon's glamour, his unmasked gaze emanated with their inhuman glow. "I needed you to figure it out for yourself."

Talon pulled his pocket watch out, hucked it at the floor, and stomped on it - shattering it to pieces. "Time has run out," Talon growled, his emotions becoming a jumbled mess that Zaire couldn't hope to discern. "I did it for your own good, Zaire. Please understand that." The desperation in Talon's plea shook Zaire to the core. 

"What the hell are you talking about?" Zaire shouted vehemently. "Is this about that fucking mortal?!"

"She is not just any  mortal!" Talon yelled, his hand held out in front of him with the palm facing up, like he was beseeching Zaire to take something indefinite that he was offering him. "Must you ignore the truth when it is staring you right in the face?"

"What is she, Talon? A halfling? A fucking shade? She's as mortal as your goddamn tap!" Zaire bit out in exasperation, referencing his bloodletting hostess - inches away from tossing Talon into his own desk, like he had with Eon a minute before.

Talon shook his head at him with utter disbelief written on his face.

"She is your mate." Talon's words stabbed through Zaire's chest like a sword. 

"You son of a bitch!" 

Zaire's glamour shattered instantly, and he lunged at Talon, fully intending to rip his throat out, but as soon as his claws sank into Talon's flesh and his blood leaked around them, Zaire was flung backward by an invisible force. As Zaire's body seized and convulsed on the floor, Talon clamped his hand over the wound.

"I apologize, Zaire. You know that my enchantment retaliates when my blood is spilled. I did not want it to go this way," Talon told him, his voice gravelly and strained.

"You went behind my back," Zaire spat through clenched teeth as his body jerked violently. "How did you find her!?"

Talon staggered to his cocktail table and used one shaking hand to pour himself a glass.

"I knew that you would not seek out your mate, even if binding with her would make you an unstoppable force," Talon explained, before he took a greedy drink. "I spoke to the Oracle and they led me to her. It is why I built The Den here. Your mate had just been reborn in this city." He sighed heavily and continued, "I have waited for you and her both to mature. I held out hope that you would feel her near, that you would look for her this time. But she was dying, Zaire. She was days away from her death, and I could not let that happen. So I brought her here. I did all of this for you to finally be whole."

Talon wasn't alluding to having connections in the Dark Court at all, that day that Zaire had burned him back with the ward. Talon had spoken to the Oracle - the all-knowing being who had created the Veil. Which could only mean that Talon had sacrificed something of great importance to do so. If Zaire was anyone else, he would be touched that Talon had done something so dangerous to his own well-being, just to find his  mate. 

"My whole fucking life," Zaire snarled, using all of his strength just to lift himself up onto his elbows as his body still twitched turbulently. "I did everything  I could to avoid the Mark! And you tried to force it on me?!"

Talon dropped his hand from his throat, since the wound had finally healed, and reached out as if to help Zaire to his feet, now that the retaliation from the protection spell had worn off. Zaire knocked Talon's outstretched hand away - every muscle in his body still aching from the convulsions - and struggled to stand on his own.

"You cannot go on like this," Talon grimaced, his empty hand closing into a fist and falling to his side. "Your mate can only be reborn so many times before the other half of your soul is lost for good. And when that happens, you will never know your true power."

"I. Don't. Need. More. Power!" Zaire hissed as he finally straightened to his full height. "I want to be free!  I want my mate  to be free! If I bind with her, she will die when I die, and I will die when she does! I don't fucking want that, and I never have!"

"I have never known you to be a coward, boy," Talon scowled at him with distaste for Zaire's excuses. "I know that if you were bound to her, you would not let any harm befall her. It pains me that you might never know for yourself  what you are capable of."

"I have made my peace with it!" Zaire shouted, throwing his hands in the air. "Why can't you do the same??"

"Because I have made the same foolish mistake!" Talon blew up, and his heartbreak stung in Zaire's mouth. "I never sought my mate! And they hunted her down each time that she was born and slaughtered her as an infant, Zaire. I wanted better for you! I will always be half a man for that negligence."

Talon's confession knocked the wind out of Zaire's chest. Zaire's feelings of anger and betrayal faltered. Talon's pain was too hard to take, and Zaire had to use every last ounce of energy he had to vault himself against the strong emotion. Once Zaire had closed himself off, he was drenched in sweat and swaying on his feet. He had never been able to vault himself unless the emotions around him were mild, and it nearly sucked the light out of his eyes to do it. 

"Now do you understand why I have interfered?" Talon was doing his best to compose himself as he straightened his spine and adjusted his bloody tie. "I only want what is best for you, my friend. And it tears me apart to know that I have failed."

Zaire's dazed eyes snapped to meet Talon's guilt-ridden gaze at that moment.

"What do you mean you've failed?" Zaire asked evenly as his eyes trailed down to Eon's limp body with horror, while he slowly pieced everything together. He could only numbly listen to Talon's next words.

"I'm afraid that we might be too late. They have taken your mate to the other side of the Veil, to keep her away from you."