Page 21 of Primal Bonds

For answer, he nudged her hand in the direction of the doorknob.

“Okay, then. If you’re sure…” Sliding the bolt to the left, she cracked open the door.

A lean, good-looking man stared back at her. The tips of his spiked black hair were bleached blond, and he had a gold stud in one earlobe. She couldn’t see a chunk of quartz, but he had a telltale lump beneath his T-shirt.

A warning chill tightened the back of her neck as he looked her over with cool bronze eyes. But his words were polite enough.

“Peace to you and yours,” he said in the traditional fae/fada greeting. “Sorry to bother you this early, but I believe you have one of my men here.” His gaze flicked to Jace, who had edged the door wider so he was standing beside her.

Evie kept a firm grip on the doorknob, her every instinct screaming not to let this stranger inside. “Peace,” she returned. “And you are?”

“Adric. Jace’s alpha.”

“Lord Adric.” Her fingers clenched on the doorknob. Even in the human world, the Baltimore alpha’s reputation was known. People said he’d killed his own uncle and driven his cousins out of the clan. In Baltimore, he had as much power as the mayor, and even the gangs left him alone.

The alpha inclined his head.

Jace leaned into her. Not pressuring her, just reminding her he was there.

She glanced down and he rumbled in reassurance. It was clear he wanted her to let his alpha inside. And the longer she left Adric standing there, the more likely one of her neighbors was to see him, which would only complicate things.

Besides, the alpha could’ve easily pushed his way in. The fact that he hadn’t was a good sign.

She forced her fingers to release the doorknob. “Why don’t you come in?”

“Thank you.” He didn’t seem to hurry, but he was past her almost before she knew it.

She shut the door behind him, but didn’t bother bolting it—because what was the point?

Adric crouched next to Jace, a hand on his shoulder. “You okay, bro?”

Jace nuzzled the alpha’s hand.

“You’re hurt?”

While Jace rumbled what Evie took to be a yes, she eyed Adric. Like Jace, he was all muscle in jeans and a camo-print T-shirt that strained over his shoulders. Average height, but with a powerful build that reminded her of the ex-Army ranger in her biology class.

But damn, the guy was young. From what she’d heard, she’d have expected the Baltimore alpha to be older, in his mid-forties at least. Sure, the fada lived way longer than humans, and so aged more slowly, but this man didn’t look much older than Evie herself.

Adric glanced up at her with those odd metallic eyes. World-weary eyes. Eyes that had seen too much, too soon.

And suddenly Evie didn’t have trouble believing the stories. This was a man who’d killed, more than once.

But his concern for his injured friend was clear. He rose to his feet. “Can you shift?” he asked Jace.

Evie raised a brow. So the fada couldn’t always change forms? Last night, Jace had made it look easy, but then she’d never seen anyone shift before.

Jace-the-panther twitched a soft black ear.

Adric bent to examine Jace’s quartz. “Better not,” he agreed.

Evie would’ve loved to know what the man could learn from the quartz, but whatever it was, he wasn’t sharing.

Adric turned to her. “I know he’s hurt. I followed the trail to your house. I have a man cleaning it away, so no one else can follow it.”

“There was a storm, and we hosed down what we could.”

The Baltimore alpha nodded. “I know. But he dripped blood all the way down the block. Thank the gods the storm came when it did. If whoever was tracking him had picked up his trail—” He shook his head. “What happened, anyway?”

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