Page 313 of Primal Bonds

For the next quarter hour, the four of them swam back and forth in front of the lighthouse until Rosana had to face facts. Either Adric had been captured, or he’d returned to the B&B to sniff around some more. It was what her brothers would’ve done.

The smart thing, the safe thing, would be to head farther out to sea. No one but another water fada could track her in the ocean, and with the head start she’d had, even a shark would have trouble scenting her.

But fuck being safe. If Adric had been captured, it was three against one, and at least two of the others were fae.

Not just any fae. A night fae.

Damn, damn, damn. She didn’t want to go back. She wanted to get as far away as possible from that scary bitch and her henchmen.

But there really wasn’t a choice. She wished the wild dolphins a polite farewell and whipped around to head back to Lewes.

Chapter 9

Adric raced through the backyards, a shadow in the night.

He had a bad feeling about the second man with Lady Blaer, the one he hadn’t seen. He couldn’t leave without knowing for sure.

Sirens split the night. He gritted his teeth, the high wail excruciating to his shifter ears. At least it meant help was on its way to Mark.

The wood fence ran the length of the B&B’s property. He peered through them into the parking lot. The two fae were just getting into the back of a glossy black limo. But it was their rangy, hard-faced driver who made Adric’s lungs cinch tight.

His hunch had been correct. The second man was Luc, one of his lieutenants. No, make that former lieutenant.

Anger and guilt clogged his chest.

Late last summer, Luc had accepted a geas from Lady Blaer. For the next decade, the wolf fada was Blaer’s man, not his. So Adric had been forced to expel him from the clan.

It didn’t matter that Luc was an old friend, one of the small, close-knit group who’d helped Adric and Marjani take down Leron Savonett, their bastard of an uncle. It didn’t matter that Luc had been imprisoned and tortured simply for being Adric’s friend.

Adric had had no choice. As alpha, he was connected through his quartz to every man, woman and child in the clan. He couldn’t allow a man under the control of a fae to remain part of that network.

“Get us out of here,” the blond female ordered Luc.

Adric’s lips peeled back in a silent snarl. He was sure now that she was Lady Blaer.

His muscles gathered, his whole body shaking with the need to attack.

Kill.

The woman had put his sister in a fucking iron cage. She’d forced Luc to accept her geas. And perhaps worst of all, Blaer had learned the secret of the earth fada’s quartz. With the right words, a fae could control an earth fada through their quartz—and Blaer knew the incantation.

For so many reasons, Blaer needed to die. But attack now, and Luc would be forced to defend her. And while the two of them fought, Blaer would simply teleport herself and the ice fae male out of there.

“Where to?” Luc asked Blaer.

“Virginia—the New Moon Court.”

Luc nodded and shut the limo door. His head swung to where Adric crouched, his eyes the amber of his wolf.

Adric froze, a sick feeling coating his stomach—because he wasn’t one-hundred-percent sure that Luc wouldn’t betray him.

The former lieutenant’s face blanked. He opened the front door and slid behind the limo’s steering wheel.

Adric released a breath.

The car purred to life and headed down the street. At the corner, Luc pulled over to allow two police cars and an ambulance pass by.

Adric waited until the limo was out of sight before racing back to the house where he and Rosana had left their things. There, he changed back to man and pulled on his pants and T-shirt, leaving the rest in the duffel bag for now.

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