Ronan’s limbs itched with the need to run and find his brother, although at least an hour had gone by since the crash. Maybe two. While he and Quade were biological brothers, Adare had become a brother to them both during the ritual of the Seven and was as desperate to find Quade as Ronan.
The third member of their helicopter disaster ran toward them, blood still spurting from his shoulder. “Just scouted over the ridge. The Kurjan chopper went down, and I can see three survivors. They’re in same shape we are. Want to fight?” Logan Kyllwood, the youngest member of the Seven, was always up for a fight. Even with an obvious broken arm and what looked like a compound fracture of his femur.
“Jesus. Heal your leg and stop running on it,” Adare said, always grumpy. “While you’re at it, you look ridiculous with that unicorn tattoo on your face.”
Ronan snorted. “More like macabre.” Blood and grit slid in rivulets over the sparkly animal.
Logan rolled his eyes and dropped to the ground, trying to extend his leg. “My sister painted that, and for a five-year-old, I think it’s amazing. In fact, her sitting still for ten minutes was a miracle.”
What was amazing was that the three Kyllwood brothers, some of the most dangerous demons in the world, had a little sister named Clarissa because their mama had re-mated a deadly witch enforcer. Since their mama was slightly nuts and robbed banks for fun, the little sprite was probably going to wreak havoc her entire life. This was just the beginning.
Logan’s bone snapped into place, and he let out a growl. “We going to fight, or what?”
Ronan grimaced at the sound and tried to send healing cells to his ruptured liver. “Let’s call this one a draw and all live to fight another day. We radioed for backup, and I’m sure the Kurjans did as well. I’m more interested in catching up with Quade. If that was Quade.” He hadn’t gotten a good look through the storm.
“Has to be,” Adare argued. “You saw the marking on the television set. It’s Kayrs.”
“Yeah, it was a Kayrs marking. Doesn’t mean it was Quade.” Ronan hated to get his hopes up. Snow piled down from the disturbed trees, landing on his head. He shook it off and winced as his broken clavicle protested. There were just so many healing cells he could use at one time.
The snow finally quenched the fire in what was left of the helicopter, leaving black smoke continuing to rise from it.
Logan grimaced and another bone cracked audibly in his leg. “What I don’t understand is why Quade, if it is Quade, is with the female. We’ve been chasing Haven Daly for months. How is he with her?”
“I don’t know,” Ronan said, his ribs rattling as one sliced through a lung. “But we know from her paintings that she has drawn or painted him through the years, so they have a connection. If the marking appeared, she’s his mate.”
“Think they’ve mated?” Adare asked, wiping blood off his lip.
Ronan shrugged. “Hell if I know.” He’d give anything to have his brother back and whole. “Last time Ivar saw him in his hell world, which was months for us and centuries for Quade, my brother was mostly insane.” There was a possibility that if the male they’d seen running was Quade, he had kidnapped the female and she’d need saving. The woman had had a hard enough life as it was. “We need to find them before the Kurjans do, either way.”
Logan knocked his head back on the tree. “Is it just me, or do you two smell shifter? Cougar?”
Ronan lifted his head. “My sinus cavity is still cracked. Can’t smell a thing.” If an animal was around and wanted to remain hidden, it definitely wasn’t an ally. “The shifter nations don’t know about the Seven or the bubbles or Quade.” All they needed was another wildcard in this disaster.
A cut along Logan’s jaw slowly mended. “I’m telling you. I smell shifter.”
Another helicopter hovered low, and Benjamin Reese dropped from it to land next to Ronan, spraying snow and pieces of metal in every direction. The male was large, even for a hybrid. He smiled and clapped Ronan on the back. “You wrecked our best helicopter. Dumbass.”
Ronan coughed and shut his eyes against the pain. “Benny. For God’s sake.”
“Sorry.” Benny surveyed the group. “Holy shit. This is worse than you said. No wonder you couldn’t chase after your quarry. I’ve called in backup to pick up the wreckage and try to track the male and Haven Daly. In addition, I haven’t alerted the Realm. Yet.”
The Realm was a coalition of immortal allies.
“They won’t like this,” Logan muttered.
“Then let’s not tell them,” Benny said, his fathomless eyes sparkling. “You can keep secrets from family, right?”
“Yeah,” Logan sighed. “I agree. Let’s keep this fuck-up among the Seven, only. The Realm is already uneasy about us.”
Considering the male was talking about his blood family, it was a surprising comment, but he was right. Ronan nodded. “Let’s get up to the main road so the helicopter can pick us up. We need to return to headquarters and now.”
Benny, who’d been with the Seven since the beginning, placed a much gentler hand on Ronan’s shoulder. “Why do I smell shifter?”
“Told you,” Logan muttered.
Benny switched topics again. “Was the male with Haven Daly our Quade?” Hope glimmered in his powerful eyes.
“I think so,” Ronan said, not wanting to give Ben false hope. Every time they thought they had tracked down Quade and failed, the massive hybrid sank into a furious darkness even Ronan couldn’t penetrate.
“It makes sense,” Benny said. “There’s no other explanation for the Kayrs marking plus Haven Daly, who has painted Quade somehow. Since she’s a fairy-demon mix, something she might not even know, she probably can move through dimensions with her mind like we did during the Seven ritual. It’s him, Ronan.”
“My money?” Adare limped toward Logan. “The air is different and something is in the wind. We all sense it. The world has changed, and it’s time for the Seven to act, my brothers. Ready or not.”
Ronan grimaced as Benny tugged him up the hill toward the road. “True words,” he muttered.
* * * *
After a short helicopter ride and taking some of Ben’s blood, Ronan felt his head finally stop pounding as they stepped off the craft right outside headquarters. “Ben, you tasted like bourbon.”
Benny released him and shook snow out of his long brown hair. “Whatever. It’s the good stuff, so don’t complain.”
They were running out of mountains because their headquarters kept getting blown up, but Ronan liked this one. Set in Utah, it was a hundred acres of forest land nobody could reach by car. They’d been building for months, and the interior was finally ready. Logan jumped from the copter and tapped his ear communicator, his arm still at an odd angle. “We have a serious problem.”
“Don’t we always?” Benny asked, turning and leading the way through the thick snow to the hidden doorway.
Ronan followed, still trying to heal his liver. He stepped inside a cave, surrounded by rock full of copper ore. If the humans even suspected what was there, they’d arrive instantly. For Ronan, the sparkly rock lent comfort and a healing energy.
The outside door closed, leaving them in darkness, with only the copper lighting the space.
Five seconds later, the opposite wall smoothly opened into a sheer rock hallway. Logan gave the commands, and the booby traps disengaged.
Hopefully. They hadn’t completely gotten those under control yet.
Ronan held his breath and walked down the hallway past the trigger points, finally expelling his breath as he reached relative safety and the first communication room, which held three wide screens and a multitude of computers, laptops, and consoles. Most weren’t functioning yet. “Where’s my mate?”
As if on cue, she hustled out of a far doorway, bandages in her hands. “Who’s injured the worst? This time?” she asked, her intelligent gaze already running over him, top to bottom.
He hardened instantly. “I might require assistance,” he allowed.
She rolled her eyes. “Does anybody need stitching up?” As a neurosurgeon, she often came in handy after fights.
“I think we’re all healing on our own,” Ronan admitted, his body settling as she reached him. Her scent filled him, soothing the beast inside that needed to find his brother. “We think it was Quade.”
Mercy O’Malley Kyllwood ran out of a second doorway, her dual-colored eyes wild and her red hair up in a spunky ponytail. “This is a disaster. A complete and utter shit show of a disaster.” The petite fairy reached her mate, and Logan instantly settled an arm around her shoulders to stabilize her.
A rock dropped into Ronan’s gut. “What’s happened now?”
Mercy turned toward him, her blue eye sharpening and her green eye darkening. “We can’t get off this world. Fairies. All of us are stuck here. There’s no path to other worlds anymore.” Panic painted pink across her delicate features.
Ronan blinked. Fairies were the only species, usually, who could teleport to other worlds. The ritual that had taken him, Quade, and Ulric to other worlds had bent the physics of this one in a way that could’ve been catastrophic. “You’ve checked with all your people?”
“Yes.” Now she paled. “We have seven people off world now, and we can’t reach them. They might never get back.” Her voice rose.
The Fae nation was small in number; only somewhere between fifty and seventy fairies were alive today. They couldn’t afford to lose any.
“What does this mean?” Ronan asked, looking around the wide room. “Where is Promise?” Ivar, another member of the Seven, had mated a brilliant woman named Promise, who was an expert in physics and their resident genius. As a human, she’d been one of the best physicists in the world; now that she was a mated immortal, she was the best.