“Oh, thank God.” Turning to the northeast, she pointed with a shaky hand. “He’s that way.”
As she dropped her arm, Rhage exhaled into the subzero chill. “Okay, let me get a group together to scout out the location in case it’s a trap or—”
She dematerialized without being aware that was her intention, her scatter of molecules starting off in the direction she’d indicated. Zeroing in on the echo of her own blood, she was confident of where she was going in a way that she couldn’t be about what she was going to find. At least he was alive.
For the moment.
It was on that thought that she re-formed, and she had to blink in a glare so bright, she could swear her pupils were never going to recover. Putting her arm up over her face, she had to let her eyes adjust before she could even attempt to assess the—
Another fucking aristocrat’s house. She should have known.
And this time, he was all alone, no Brotherhood to protect him.
As anger bloomed, she knew she had to get a grip. She might be royally pissed off, but she wasn’t about to get the both of them killed, and there was no backup coming.
Rhage had no idea where she’d been going, and she didn’t have her damn phone.
Blowing out a curse, she focused on her surroundings. She was standing at the base of a plowed driveway that led up to a stark, modern mansion that was low, sprawling, and the same sharp white of the snowdrifts blanketing the rolling lawn. Given how polished everything looked, it was hard to imagine there was danger inside. But you never knew.
Which was the fucking point.
“Goddamn it, Wrath,” she muttered, her breath drifting off in puffs like she was smoking.
As a cold wind blew in from behind her, her hair whipped into her face, and she twisted around on her hips to let the gust do the work of clearing things out of her eyes. No surprise, therewasn’t a rest-of-the-neighborhood anywhere close. This was a proper estate, with plenty of buffering acreage to spare at the end of a long lane.
Privacy for nefarious things.
And in coming here, Wrath had chosen to go right into the heart of danger, hadn’t he.
“Fuck it.”
Even though there wereallkinds of reasons why she needed to go get help first, she started marching the driveway, and the next thing she knew, she wasn’t even knocking. She was trying the front door, and when it turned out to be unlocked, opening things and stepping into a very elegant black and white foyer that was hung with bright, blocky paintings—
And that was when she lost track of Wrath’s presence.
One second, it was there. The next, he was gone.
Oh, so now he was running from her? “You’ve got to befuckingkidding me—”
“Mahmen? What the hell are you doing here?”
Cranking her head to the left, she recoiled. Her son was standing on the far side of some kind of parlor, a pair of scrubs riding low on his hips, his tattooed chest rising up into his big shoulders, his long, black hair braided down the center, shaved on the sides. None of his appearance had changed, but she felt like it had been a year since she’d seen him.
And then there was the obvious injury, unless he’d decided that bandages used as an epaulet were a fashion statement.
“You’re hurt.” Wasn’t he banned from the field? “Has Doc Jane seen that?”
“No,” he said in a low voice. “She was busy.”
“Never too busy to see you—and wait, what are you doing here?” Wherever this particularherewas. “What is—”
That was when she noticed there was another person with them. Even though she instantly recognized the male, she had to blink a couple of times.
“Shuli? Is this…your house?”
No, shit, Sherlock, she thought. Shuli and L.W. lived together, which was how theahstrux nohtrumthing worked.
She’d just never been here before. No reason to before the appointment of that station to the other male…and no invitation afterward.
