Page 422 of Primal Bonds

“The night of the new moon,” Langdon said. “In our time, that’s tonight at midnight. Tomorrow at dusk in the outside world.”

“To Hades with your charges,” Adric bit out. “Everything I did was in response to acts of war—on myself, my clan, or my…woman.” He barely stopped himself from saying mate. It would just give Langdon another weapon to use against them. “You might be able to kill me, but my clan won’t rest until you’re dead.”

“That’s their prerogative, of course. However, they’ll find I’m not an easy man to kill.” Langdon receded deeper into the shadows. “As for Rosana, New Moon could use a Seer of her power.”

Fury flooded Adric, hot and red. His fangs pricked his gums, his cat quivering with the urge to tear Langdon into bloody pieces.

The three warriors surrounded Adric. Fae balls burned in the men’s palms.

“You’re insane,” he growled. “She’ll never agree to that.”

“No? When you’ve lived as long as I have, you find that everyone has their breaking point.” The prince smiled. “Don’t they, Lord Adric?” And he was gone.

Adric snarled and spat on the marble floor. “Stand and fight like a man, you thrice-damned prick.”

The guards raised the fae balls threateningly. Neoma fingered her dagger.

From the archway, Olivier spoke. “If you’ll follow me, my lord.”

Rosana swam.

For a time, there was nothing but her and the dark, life-giving water. She glided through it, instinctively mapping the pond’s dimensions with echolocation so that within a few passes, she knew it and its aquatic inhabitants intimately. The school of minnows that scattered at her approach. The fat, whiskered catfish and the bluegills and carp. The snails, crayfish and leeches. The turtles hibernating in the soft black mud, and the frog slowly swimming in the deep water at the center.

She understood she’d almost died. Her body needed time to heal.

But her heart was singing—no, shouting—with joy, its every beat an ecstatic cacophony.

Adric had mate-bonded with her.

He loves me. He loves me. He loves me.

His amethyst hung around her neck, the cord a little too tight with her dolphin’s thicker proportions—she’d have to fix that—but there, warm, comforting.

An hour passed, maybe more. She swam and healed, healed and swam.

As her energy returned, she became aware that Adric wasn’t on the bank waiting. She surged out of the water in a long arc, scanning for him.

It was a murky, moonless night. Her eyes went night-glow as she anxiously searched the bank. He was gone, replaced by two night fae warriors, their eyes shining in the dark. She raced for the shore—and shifted without thinking of the cost. Her body could barely handle it. As depleted as she’d been, she shouldn’t have tried to shift for another twenty-four hours.

For an awful, stomach-churning moment, she wavered between forms. She grit her teeth and powered through it. The next thing she knew, she was on all fours in the shallow water. She came up on her knees and bent forward, hands on her thighs, lungs working.

The night fae moved closer—one man, one woman, neither of whom she’d seen before. The female had Rosana’s clothes.

Rosana pushed herself to standing and walked out of the pond, wobbly-kneed but determined. “Where’s Lord Adric?” she demanded as she got dressed. “What have you done with him?”

“Jessica will explain.”

“Who?”

They herded Rosana forward without speaking, and she allowed it, because it was clear she wouldn’t learn anything from them.

It was the first time she’d been outside since arriving with Blaer. The compound was exactly as she’d Seen it: the large pond, the pebbled paths, the vine-covered lairs. The dark forest towering over cryptlike buildings.

The night fae drag Adric to a clearing in the woods and stake him, spread-eagled, to the ground.

A black-haired priestess in a silver dress steps forward, a gleaming knife in her hand…

She inhaled sharply, gave herself a shake.

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