Seth stiffened.Oh, fuck.He shifted so quickly I jumped back, and he yanked on his discarded clothes. “Caden!”

A sound reminiscent of ice scraping against glass had the hairs on my arms standing up. I swept my arm across the altar, sending items tumbling into the totes in my arms before zipping it shut and racing out the door with Seth. He snatched my purse off the kitchen table, and with shoes in hand, the three of us dove out the front door. I turned only long enough to lock the door before I froze in place.

At the end of the driveway, a wavering aura fractured the fragile, pale light of dawn. Before I could blink, it moved toward us like a river over the asphalt. Ice sank straight into my bones and my body felt like it was being ripped in half. My feet lifted off the ground, chilling claws carving into my skin. Memories filled my head of falling through the ice as a child on vacation, when I’d been playing where I shouldn’t have been: all-consuming cold that felt like knives was what I remembered most.

Caden slammed against me, the two of us crashing against the grass before he hooked an arm around my waist to toss me over his shoulder. He hurled me into the back seat in a pile with Seth and leapt into the driver’s side. The impact had me seeing stars, and I didn’t even have time to right myself before the vehicle was racing down the residential streets.

Scrabbling for purchase, I hauled myself upright and stared out the back window. What had been nearly invisible before was now a tangle of light and shadow, twisting and writhing strands rolling around a central pulsing point. I could hardly breathe as it trailed further and further behind.

Every ounce of my energy drained away and I collapsed into Seth.

“Shit. Hey, Lo, are you okay?” I managed to wrangle Logan onto her back, her head in my lap while Caden tackled the roads of Syracuse with reckless abandon. She was still breathing fine, and she shied away when I poked her cheek, so that was a good sign. “Who the fuck designed an evil entity that could travel during the day? That’s just plain fucking rude.”

“How is she?” Caden asked.

“Uh, not great, but definitely alive.”

“Fucking hell. I thought this thing was targeting shifters. Why did it touch her? I couldn’t even fuckingseeit.”

The look my brother leveled on me in the rearview mirror when he saw Logan sprawled over me could have melted steel.

“I don’t know why it went for her when we were both there. I know you didn’t want me to come, but Logan is squishy. She could do with another bodyguard. I don’t want her hurt.”

“Sincewhendo you care about the well-being ofmymate?”

“To be fair, I always cared, just…maybe not in the correct way.”

“If you set so much asone fucking toeout of line on this trip, I’m going to find some ancient forest god and shove you up its ass.”

Well, that was a rather visceral image. “I’ll be good.”

The roll of his eyes told me he didn’t believe that for a second. I’d missed him. His cranky ass was fun to have around. Or at least he had been when he’d used to willingly acknowledge my existence.

“Lo, can you wake up for me?” I cradled her, tapping her cheek.

Her eyelids fluttered open and she stared up at me with the softest smile before glancing around like she’d forgotten what had happened, and maybe she had. Who knew what that thing had done to her?

“How many fingers?” I held up three.

“Three.”

“You okay to sit up?”

“Gimme a minute.” She closed her eyes, her fingers curling around the seatbelt at my hip.

Logan rolled onto her side, face in my lap, and instantly fell asleep.

Alarm bells screamed in my head.

Fuck. I shifted my jeans against my tenting dick and tried to angle her away. What I wouldn’t give for a throw pillow.

Caden growled as we barreled down I-81.

“Slow down. The last thing we need is to get eaten while we’re pulled over for a ticket.”

Tension radiated off Caden, but he did slow down to the speed limit at least. I didn’t blame him for hating me.Orfor not trusting me around his mate—technically Logan wasn’t officially his mate since they hadn’t bonded, but she was pretty close—since I’d fucked up majorly with his last one.

But I’d grown since then. I was older, maybe only a tiny bit wiser, but definitely willing to use this opportunity to try making things up to him. It sucked having your brother hate you. For good reason. But still.