Andrea was out of the truck and racing to the man’s side before Dylan switched off the engine. She dropped to her knees and pushed blood-matted hair out of the face of Jared Barnett.
“Jared. What the hell?”
Jared’s flesh bore the deep marks of the fully extended, razor-sharp talons of a Feline Shifter. The cuts went to the bone, Jared’s naked skin blue white where it wasn’t covered with blood. He was still alive, barely, his heart fluttering in faint, rapid beats.
Jared opened his eyes, but they were filmed over, gaze unfocussed. “Andrea?”
“What happened? Did you see Sean? Did he do this?”
Jared swallowed, fighting for air. “Felines. Sean tried to save me.”
“Sean tried to
save
you? Where is he? What happened?”
“Gone. He was taken. The sword.”
Dylan crouched on Jared’s other side. “What about the sword?” he demanded.
“The sword,” Jared whispered. His eyes drifted shut, but breath still rasped in his throat.
Andrea cast her gaze around the parking lot. Much blood had been spilled, red soaking into the crumbling gray asphalt. She smelled more Shifters than just Sean and Jared. Felines, several of them, some of whom had been in the bar with Callum.
The parking lot ended in a field covered with weeds and tall grasses. A creek cut through the bottom of this field, ensuring the place stayed nice and wet. The field had been torn up by the fighting, leaving gouges of mud through the tall weeds, but no bodies lay here.
Neither did the sword. Nowhere did she see a glint of sliver, the hump of its hilt, but as she stood at the edge of the field, she started to hear it. The familiar shimmering sound that the sword made when she neared it rang inside her head, growing louder and louder until Andrea clapped her hands over her ears. An instinctive move—one glance back at Dylan and Jared told her they couldn’t hear it.
The sword was here, calling to her. Gritting her teeth, she followed its song, which grew louder and more joyful as she neared it.
Andrea dropped down and dug in the grass and soggy earth. She had to go down a long way, covering herself in muck before her hand encountered something hard. She pulled it out of the gripping mud, the sword singing with all its might.
So the sword was here, safe and sound. But where the hell was Sean?
The ground around where the sword had lain was saturated with blood. Sean’s blood. The blood was drying, no longer fresh, but the dampness of the grass ensured that her fingers came away red.
Andrea hoisted the sword, ran back to Dylan and Jared, and crouched next to Jared.
“What happed to Sean?” she demanded. “Tell me.”
“They tried to get the sword,” Jared whispered. “Sean fought them so hard. Drove them off.”
“But what about Sean? Who took him away?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t see.”
Andrea put her hand on Jared’s chest, again felt the flutter of his heartbeat, so swift and faint. It was useless to ask him any more questions. “Lie still. We’ll get an ambulance.”
“No. Human hospitals will kill me.”
He was probably right, and Andrea didn’t have the heart to argue with him. But she could try to help him at least. Jared was cruel and nasty and selfish, but he didn’t deserve to die in such pain and alone, so far from home.
Andrea pressed her hand to his chest and closed her eyes, searching inside herself for the healing magic.
Except that she already knew that her magic would not be strong enough. The threads that were Jared’s life force were snarled, too tangled to unravel. He’d been battered, bones broken, muscles and organs tattered by claws and by bullets.
When she’d healed Ely, Andrea had boosted her power with the Fae magic of the sword. Shaking, she wiped as much of the mud and grass from it as she could, laid it across her knees, and wrapped one hand around the blade.
The sword kept singing to her, not as loudly now, and she understood with abrupt clarity that the runes etched on the blade and hilt were forming words in her mind. They must be part of the spells made by the Fae woman long ago, and the words spoke of peace.
The sword’s threads flowed into Andrea’s body then out through her fingers, joining with her own healing magic that she poured into Jared.
But it wasn’t enough. The sword helped a little, but Andrea felt nowhere near the surge of magic she’d experienced when she’d healed Ely.
Come on. Give me more.
Even as she thought it, she knew that there would be no more. The missing factor from this healing was Sean.
When she’d helped Ely, Sean had held the sword’s hilt while Andrea had held the blade. The sword had drawn from Sean’s amazing Goddess-touched aura and combined it with Andrea’s healing gift to make Ely whole again. Sean the Guardian was the second part of the equation. The magic of the sword’s original makers—the Shifter man and the Fae woman—had manifested again in Andrea and Sean. Both of them were needed to make the healing work.
Beneath Andrea’s hand, Jared’s body weakened. She saw in her mind the faint threads of his aura suddenly fade and wink out.
Andrea gasped. She plunged her healing magic again into Jared, but she found the threads brittle and black, snapping under her touch.
Andrea,
Jared’s voice came to her, sounding happy, and then he was gone.
Andrea opened her eyes and jerked her hands from Jared’s body. Dylan leaned down and gently closed Jared’s blind eyes.
“You tried, lass,” he said softly.
“But it didn’t work. I wasn’t strong enough.”
“He was already gone. You eased him into his death, let his end be painless.”
Andrea stroked the silver blade on her lap, the runes still whispering to her, trying to comfort her. She and Dylan sat silent a moment, as was traditional when a Shifter died, each sending a prayer to the Goddess.
“If Callum or his Felines took Sean, they wouldn’t have left the sword,” Andrea said as Dylan helped her to her feet. “So that leaves who? If it was someone trying to help him, then why did they leave Jared?”
“I don’t know, lass. Maybe whoever it was thought Jared was already dead. Or maybe they just didn’t give a damn. But we’ll find him.” Dylan’s voice held determination.
Andrea’s breath hurt, but with her fear came rage, a killing anger. They’d taken her
mate
. A female defending her mate was the most fearsome of Shifters, and whoever had done this to Sean didn’t yet know the meaning of terror.
A
ndrea and Dylan couldn’t leave Jared’s body behind for the humans to find. Though Jared had been an asshole who’d made Andrea’s life hell, every Shifter deserved to be sent to the afterlife by the Guardian. Andrea helped Dylan wrap Jared’s body in a tarp and ease it gently into the bed of Dylan’s pickup. Dylan laid another tarp on top and secured the tailgate.
They followed Sean’s blood trail through the grass onto the pavement behind the closed bar, and there the trail vanished. By the scent, someone had backed a vehicle there and must have then driven away with Sean’s body. There were no tire tracks on the solid asphalt, nothing to indicate what kind of vehicle it had been or in which direction it had gone.
Andrea didn’t want to give up and drive away, but there was nothing they could do. Dylan started the truck, and Andrea held the sword in her lap, her hands around both hilt and blade, as though the sword would give her some clue. It didn’t; the damn thing only kept whispering musical words that she couldn’t understand.
When they pulled into traffic, Dylan’s cell phone rang. Andrea jumped, and Dylan’s hand shook as he pulled the phone from his pocket. He handed the phone to Andrea and went back to dodging traffic at its densest.
“Andrea?” Liam yelled into the phone when she answered. “Where’s Dad?”
“Driving. Did you find Sean?”
“What?” Liam stopped. “What do you mean, find Sean? I thought Dad would be meeting up with him after he found you.”
Andrea’s chest tightened. “Where are you?”
“Fighting. We need Dad. And Sean and the sword. Damn it.”
“I have the sword. I don’t have Sean.”
Liam’s voice trailed off into a snarl. “Tell dad to get here. We’re at home. Callum’s Felines are all over the place.”
“What about Sean?”
In the silence she sensed Liam’s terrible fear for his brother fighting with his duty as a leader. “Dad needs to take you to safety and get here. We’ll have to look for Sean later.”
The phone went silent. Andrea looked over at Dylan as she clicked it off. “He wants you to help him fight Callum.”
Dylan’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Then that’s what I’ll do.”
“We can’t stop searching for Sean.”
“I know that, lass, but I have to go to Liam. Or I’ll lose another son, and who knows how many others.”
“Then let
me
look for Sean.”
Dylan’s lips were white. “Like hell I’ll let you run around the city by yourself. Besides, there are Shifters following us, and I can’t risk taking you to Kim’s in case they aren’t on our side.”
Andrea looked back past the billowing tarp to see another pickup, this one dusty black, with two male Shifters she didn’t recognize in the cab. They didn’t do anything but follow, but they stayed on Dylan no matter how much he dodged through traffic.
“The Morrisseys’ safe house is Kim’s place?” Andrea asked, turning back. She’d been there once, a large, richly appointed human house with a terrific view.
“She has a state-of-the-art security system, a basement we can lock down like a vault, and if any strange Shifters go poking around her house, her human neighbors will call the cops.” His look turned wry. “Besides, she has cable, which we figured could bribe Connor to stay put.”
But with fighting like this, the cub must be chafing. Even the sword seemed to be anticipating battle, its singing excited.
“When we get to Shiftertown,” Dylan said, “you go to ground in the safest place you can find. I’ll keep them away from you and the sword. Callum’s obsessed with Felines only, Shifters only, and you’re both Lupine and Fae. He’ll kill you and bathe in your blood.”
Andrea was past caring about Callum. “I’d like to see him try.”
“Well, I wouldn’t. I’m aging, child. If you carry Sean’s cub, I want you alive to bring it into the world. I want to see Sean’s and Liam’s cubs grow up. If that means hiding you in the basement while we fight, I’ll do it.”
What he didn’t say was,
If we’ve lost Sean, I don’t want to lose his offspring too.
Andrea fell silent as streets whipped by. Traffic was thick but Dylan navigated with the ease of long practice. As he drove, he directed Andrea to dial the cell phone and hand it back to him. Mostly Dylan got no answers, which meant the Shifters he tried to call were already fighting, on whichever side. Others simply hung up on him.
Dylan finally threw down the phone. “I don’t know who I can trust. Gobshites.”
He drove straight into Shiftertown, screeching the pickup to a halt in front of Ellison’s. As they got out, Andrea heard shouting, snarling, and enraged growls, the sounds of battle. The Shifters who’d been following them nearly slammed into them before they stopped, leapt out of their truck, and sure enough, tried to go for the sword.
Dylan tore out of his clothes and shifted as he attacked the other two. He might claim to be feeling his age, but his wildcat was still fast and ferocious as the three rolled and tumbled in fierce Shifter combat.
Andrea hurried across the street to look for Liam. The heart of the battle converged around the Morrissey house, about fifty or so Shifters battling it out in knots of fights that spread down the green behind the houses. The beasts were so entangled Andrea couldn’t distinguish one from the other, though she saw Eric shift to wildcat to fight near Liam. There were only a few Lupines—Ellison was one, Annie from the bar another.
Andrea still held the sword. Dylan had told her to go to ground, but there was nothing to say one of these Shifters wouldn’t peel off and follow her into Glory’s or the Morrisseys’ or Ellison’s place and kill her there. But if she stayed to fight, she’d have to shift and drop the sword. If she simply stood here, clinging to the sword in her human form, she’d be a sitting duck to the Felines who wanted it. She couldn’t hold on to the sword in her Lupine form, but she couldn’t fight as well in her human form. Sean had to make this kind of decision in every fight. No wonder being Guardian drove him crazy.
One thing was for certain, she couldn’t stand here and wait for one of Callum’s Felines to attack her. An idea came into her head, one that made her smile. She headed for Glory’s house, not bothering to keep out of sight.
Three Felines broke ranks and charged Andrea, and she started to run. Not into the house but down the green and under the trees behind it.
The Felines attacked her. Andrea swung the sword, feeling Shifter glee when bright blood coated one wildcat’s striped shoulder. The sword at this moment was not so much sacred relic as handy weapon.
“Come on!” Andrea shouted at them. “What are you afraid of?”
They snarled and circled her.
Good, Andrea.
She might be the daughter of the greatest warrior in Faerie, but that didn’t mean she was practiced at sword fighting.
First thing I do after I find Sean—hook up with my new dad and have him give me a few sword lessons.
“Father!” Andrea shouted as she swiped the sword at the Felines. She thought she was in the right place, on top of the ley line, but she didn’t have time to be certain. “Fionn Cillian! I need you!”
The Felines attacked her, all three at once, intent on slaughter. Their Collars were sparking like crazy but that didn’t seem to slow them down.
Andrea swung the sword again, slicing through fur, but the Felines were dexterous enough to avoid her more deadly thrusts. They jumped and circled like domestic cats around a snake, avoiding the sword’s strike.
“Any day now, Father!”
White light broke the shadows under the trees. The fabric of reality rent about six feet away from her, and Fionn appeared in the opening to Faerie, his chain mail glittering. He had a bow in his hands, arrow knocked, the fury in his black eyes matching that in Dylan’s.