Page 31 of Primal Bonds

With her gone, Jace took a nap while Adric went out to a diner to pick up some food. Yogurt wasn’t his usual fare, but it was about all he could handle right now. At least it was strawberry. He sipped the smoothie and watched enviously as Adric wolfed down his own two ham-and-egg sandwiches in rapid succession.

Jace’s den mates returned. They wandered in and out of the room to see how he was doing. Sam, a burly redhead whose animal was a Bengal tiger, was first. He was followed by Beau, a slow-moving, slow-talking bear, and Horace, a cougar who was one of the clan’s best trackers. They stood over Jace, shaking their heads and needling him about being caught off-guard by a fae until Adric told them to get the hell out and let him rest.

The last to arrive was Zuri, who’d been directing the cleanup in Grace Harbor. A fellow lieutenant, Zuri was a tall, dark and charismatic wolf who pretty much had to beat women off with a stick. Along with Adric, he was Jace’s closest friend.

Zuri got a second chair from the kitchen and set it next to the bed. “Everything’s calm.” He propped his long legs on the foot of the mattress. “I followed Jace’s trail myself from the bar to the human’s house, and I couldn’t scent a thing.”

“And the woman and her brother?” asked Adric.

“I have Kara watching the house.” Zuri named a young female who had recently arrived from their sister clan in Jamaica. “She’s good at blending in with humans. Even if they see her, they won’t know she’s one of us.”

“Excellent,” Adric replied.

Jace nodded, relieved. He’d been going to ask that Adric see to Evie’s protection. “The woman—Evie—she’s good people. I’d hate to see her and her brother get hurt because they stuck their necks out for me.”

Adric and Zuri exchanged a look.

“You don’t usually go for human women,” said Zuri.

He growled. “Who the fuck says I’m going for her?”

His friend raised his hands, palm out. “Nobody.”

Adric snorted and got to his feet. “Look, I have to go. I could use a shower—bad—and I told Marjani I’d bring her some breakfast.” He lifted the takeout bag. “She doesn’t remember to eat sometimes. Feel better, okay?”

He squeezed Jace’s shoulder and with a nod to Zuri, left.

Zuri stayed another few minutes and then started yawning until Jace told him to go to bed, he’d be fine. The other men were either in bed or in the living room watching TV.

Jace looked at Tigger, who had stretched out between his open legs. “Looks like it’s just the two of us.”

Tigger yawned and kneaded the sheet, narrowly missing Jace’s balls with his claws, and then settled his head on his paws. A minute later he was snoring.

Chapter 9

“And don’t come back.” Evie slammed the deadbolt shut behind the two fada.

Kyler was studying her as if she had two heads.

“Damn it,” she snapped, “I am not fae.”

“Part fae.” He leaned in to sniff her. “You smell human to me.”

“Very funny.” She shoved him away, but he just chuckled. “Of course, I do. If I were fae, wouldn’t I know it?”

“Maybe. But one thing we do know—if you have fae blood and I don’t, then it’s not Mom.”

She scraped both hands through her hair. “Drop it, Kyler.”

“So it’s Fane.”

She heaved a sigh. “And God knows where he is.”

Her dad wasn’t the type to leave a forwarding address—if he even had an address to leave. Fane Morningstar came and went as the spirit moved him, and Lord knew, that wasn’t often; she could count on her fingers the number of times she’d seen him in the past ten years.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like her dad. Everyone liked him. He was tall and blond, with a laidback way of moving and talking as if time moved slower for him somehow. He always had a smile for you, and she’d never once heard him raise his voice.

If her mom asked difficult questions, like how long he was staying this time, the man just…disappeared. Evie had learned early not to count on Fane. You just enjoyed him while he was around, and then did your best to forget him when he left.

---