Primal Bonds

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Along-fingered grip wrenched Dylan from Andrea. “Take your hands off my daughter.”

Dylan’s voice was hot with fury. “I don’t care what tales you told her, I still don’t believe you’re her father. She’s my son’s mate, and I’m not letting any Fae have power over her.”

“But having her in your power is better?” Fionn asked. “A Feline Shifter who hates her Fae blood?”

“She is my son’s choice. That means I protect her.”

“But who protects her from you, Shifter? How do I know your son is worthy of my girl?”

Andrea growled, her wolf fury unchecked as she stepped between them. “Could you two stop playing ‘Who’s the Better Dad’ for two seconds? Ronan needs help.”

Ronan lay on the ground like a big bear rug, his eyes closed, his sides rising and falling with labored breathing. Andrea knelt beside him and stroked his broad head and his muscle-filled ruff. Ronan acknowledged her with a little sigh but didn’t open his eyes.

Andrea focused on the fur under her hands, soft as down yet wiry and tough, just like Ronan himself. Beneath the fur she sensed the threads of Ronan’s aura growing black and brittle, much as Jared’s had.

Smooth fabric dropped over Andrea’s shoulders. Andrea looked up in surprise as Fionn draped a cloak of light green silk around her body, its cool folds pooling in her lap.

“You needed to cover yourself, daughter.”

Andrea didn’t miss Dylan’s look of disgust. Shifters didn’t find nakedness shameful or embarrassing, but Fae did.

Fionn knelt next to Andrea and touched Ronan’s side. “He’s quite big. What is he?”

“Brown bear,” Dylan rumbled above them. “One of the biggest kind, from the Kodiak islands. Ursines breed closer to wild species than other Shifters.”

“What Fae was mad enough to make Shifters from these creatures?” Fionn said in wonder. “The Felines are bad enough.”

Dylan growled, and Andrea ground her teeth. “Please? Can we focus?” she said. “Those other Fae might be back any minute.”

Fionn removed a pouch from his cloak. “What other Fae?”

“The ones you shot at. Remember? You hit three in about two seconds.”

“I fired too slowly, I know, but I didn’t have time to adjust for the air currents on your world. Otherwise, I’d have taken the other two as well.”

“Your modesty amazes me. But the others will just come charging back through here, won’t they?”

Fionn looked puzzled a moment before his brow cleared. “Ah, I see your mistake. Have no fear, child. Whatever way they found to your world, it is leagues from here. They would never dare to try to cross into my territory.”

“What do you mean, leagues? It was twenty yards, if that.”

“Yes, along the ley line in your world,” Fionn said. “That gate will not necessarily lead to the same place as the one I use. Their gate will open to the lands of their clans, which is a three days’ journey from here.”

“Oh.” Andrea needed to adjust her thinking, that was certain. “What says they can’t dive in here through your gate?”

Fionn opened the pouch and sprinkled what looked like plain sand into his palm. “Because only I can activate it, just as only their leader can activate theirs.” He traced the sand with one finger. “This will heal your bear, but it will hurt him. Can you ensure that he will not turn and kill me?”

Andrea lifted Ronan’s head into her lap, and Ronan huffed an unhappy sigh. Andrea stroked his fur. “Did you hear that, Ronan? The big Fae warrior is afraid of a little teddy bear like you.”

“You do have your mother’s sense of humor,” Fionn said. “Yes, I am afraid of him. He is large and could decapitate me with one swipe of his paw. Please tell him to stay calm.”

Andrea scratched between Ronan’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Ronan,” she said. “He’ll help you, but I need you to promise to let him live. He’s my dad, and I haven’t had time to get to know him yet.”

Dylan knelt on Ronan’s other side, put his hand on the bear’s shoulder. “Easy, lad. Let the Fae bastard try. I want you back with us, my friend.”

Ronan heaved another sigh, opened his eyes, and gave Andrea a long-suffering look.

“He’ll be all right,” she said to Fionn.

Fionn finished smoothing out the sand until a thin layer coated his hand. Then he slammed the hand, palm down, onto Ronan’s side, right where the arrow had gone in.

Ronan’s eyes popped open and a stifled roar came out of his mouth. Fionn kept his hand solidly against Ronan’s fur, flattening his lips in concentration as Ronan’s body began to heave.

“Hold him steady,” Fionn said.

“What is it doing?” Dylan asked.

Andrea knew before Fionn answered. In her mind’s eye, she could see the magic of the dust leach into Ronan’s blood, muscles, and bones, searching for the taint of poison and then eating through it like acid burning away rust.

It had to hurt like hell. Ronan writhed under Andrea’s touch even as she laced her healing power down to help him, his moans of pain almost howls. As the counterspell traveled through him, Ronan’s movements grew stronger, until finally he shook off Fionn and Dylan and sprang to his feet. He roared as he rose on his hind legs, all twelve feet of him, and he morphed into his human form in midroar.

“Ow, that fucking hurts! Enough!”

Andrea pulled the silk wrap about her as she stood. The cloth was soft as air but opaque, hiding her completely in its smooth folds. “You all right?” she asked Ronan.

Ronan shuddered, hands coming up to scrub his face. “What the hell was that? It was like being eaten by ants from the inside out.”

“A very powerful magic charm,” Fionn said, dusting off his palms. “Without it, you’d have been dead.”

“Oh.” Ronan rearranged his expression. “Thanks. I mean that.”

“I’d not have bothered, but my daughter spoke well of you. I did it for her.”

“No, really, don’t keep explaining. I’m fine. Thanks, Andrea.”

Andrea squeezed his big body in a hug. “Anytime. You saved my life out there.”

“Plus, the Guardian’s not here, so it’s just as well I didn’t die.” Ronan glanced around, as though Sean would come crawling out from under the nearest fern. “Where is Sean? I thought he never strayed two feet from you.”

“He’s not here,” Dylan said grimly.

“We need to find him.” Andrea chewed on her thumbnail, her anxiousness returning full force.

Ronan looked from Andrea to Dylan. “What the hell happened to Sean?”

“We don’t know,” Dylan said. “We found blood ...”

Fionn was the only one who didn’t look concerned. “You can find him, daughter.”

“How? Someone took him away, who knows where, and we don’t even know whether he’s alive.”

“You have the answer,” Fionn said. He gestured to the sword, which he’d left leaning against a tree.

Andrea glanced at it, waiting so patiently for the Guardian’s return. “What, I point it and say, find Sean?”

“It’s a magic blade, forged by a Shifter and a Fae, and the two of you are connected to those who made it. More importantly, you share the mate bond.”

She heard Ronan’s gasp of delight, but Andrea couldn’t look away from Fionn. Dylan rumbled behind her. “Is that true, Andrea? You and Sean have formed the bond?”

Of course Andrea felt the mate bond; it had been probing at her since the night she’d seen Sean at the bus station. Andrea had taken one look at Sean’s dark blue eyes and lost herself. She understood that now.

She smiled a little. “Yes. We share the bond.”

“Hot damn!” Ronan said. “Congratulations, Andrea.” The mate bond didn’t always happen between a couple, and when it did, Shifters rejoiced for them.

“How did you know?” she asked Fionn. “I don’t remember telling anyone.”

“I felt it when you healed me,” Fionn said. “I saw it in you, fierce and strong. I saw that in your mother too. For me.”

Andrea lost her smile in sadness. She’d known that her mother had loved her Fae, and Fionn had just confirmed it.

Dylan took Andrea’s hands, the tall, blue-eyed man who looked so much like his son. “Because you share the bond, you’d know if Sean wasn’t alive. You would know, Andrea.”

Andrea thought she understood. She didn’t exactly feel a tether to Sean, but she knew she’d feel its absence if the bond between them severed. Her entire body would know the difference. She realized now what Dylan must have gone through when he’d lost Sean’s mother—when the mate bond had been wrenched from him. The loss had scarred him so deeply he’d taken more than fifty years to heal.

“I think he’s alive,” Andrea said slowly. “But I still don’t know where.”

She went to the sword and lifted it, passing her hand over the runes that the long-ago Fae woman had etched with her magic. The sword was as bound to Sean as he was to Andrea, as they were to each other.

Ronan grinned. “So maybe you do just point it and say, find Sean.”

Andrea drew a breath. “What the hell? The worst that can happen is I look like a fool.”

She wrapped both hands around the hilt and lifted the sword. She pointed the blade into the air and said, “Find Sean.”

The sword jerked to the right, nearly impaling Ronan, who jumped out of the way just in time. The blade dragged Andrea’s arms around before the sword sliced through the air with a white-hot light.

“Glory.”

Sean’s whisper sounded loud, even to himself. Glory’s answer was a soft groan. She was dying.

“I need to apologize,” Sean murmured to her. “For what I have to do.”

Glory’s eye cracked open. “Kick his ass, Sean.”

For a Feline to kill a Lupine pack leader was against all protocol and Shifter law. Shifter species traditionally despised each other, but they’d made it a policy to avoid fighting each other rather than wipe each other out. They’d have all died out long ago if they hadn’t.

Then again, if a Lupine was a clear danger to a Feline pride, then he was fair game. Glory’s words meant she would be witness to this, her offer tantamount to the pack’s acceptance of the kill.

The question might be academic, however. Sean wasn’t in position to kick anyone’s ass, Lupine or otherwise. His entire body was a mass of pain right now, and strength was a vague memory.

But he had to get them out of here and back to Shiftertown. Glory needed medical attention, and the Goddess only knew what Callum’s Felines were doing to Andrea—not to mention Liam, Dylan, Connor, and Kim. If Callum were daft enough to make a pact with the Fae, Shifters were screwed. The Fae were strong, treacherous, and deadly. They’d happily wipe out or enslave all Shifters and not worry too much about it.

Heartless, cold bastards. And stupid, stupid Callum.

Sean closed his eyes and directed all his remaining energy into shifting to his wildcat.

He spent the next ten minutes gasping in blinding pain. Shifting itself shot agony into his body, coupled with the pain of his wounds and the torture from his Collar. This is what I get for being compassionate. I should have let Andrea rip out Callum’s heart when she had the chance.

Andrea. Hell. Sean was supposed to be her great protector, and now here he was, weaponless, weak, and in too much pain to get himself free to help her.

Wade claimed he didn’t have a phone, so Sean needed to find out where Wade had stashed whatever vehicle had gotten them out here and go for help. That is, if Sean could get himself up off the floor.

Wade walked toward him but stayed out of reach. “Don’t try it, Sean. Or you’ll watch Glory die.”

Sean hauled himself to his feet and shook out his mane. It hurt to do it, but mane-shaking always looked intimidating. Sure enough, Wade took a step back.

Roaring was out of the question. Sean could barely draw a breath, could barely even see. He settled for a harsh rumble in his throat that seemed more threatening than it was.

“Seriously, Sean.” Wade put his booted foot on Glory’s bare side. “I’ll kill her.”

Glory, with the last of her strength, grabbed Wade’s foot and shoved upward. She was too weak to do much, but Wade lost his balance, and that gave Sean his opening. He sprang.

Gravity worked to Sean’s advantage. He was able to shove Wade to the ground and land on him, using his weight to hold him down. But Sean grew dizzier as Wade struggled, and he knew he’d pass out if he made much more effort. Glory tried to crawl toward the cave mouth, but she’d moved only a foot or so before she collapsed.

Wade started to shift, wolf claws digging into Sean’s side. Wade’s Collar went off, but even with that, Wade was stronger and more rested than Sean. The wolf would kill Sean and Glory both and claim that they’d died of their wounds.

Andrea. Sean’s consciousness started to drift. Love you.

“Sean?”

He heard her voice, the sweetest music. Sean pictured Andrea’s gray eyes that had looked at him so saucily that first night at the bus station, the black ringlets of hair he liked to catch between his lips. He loved every curve of her body, her red lips, her tender and skilled hands that liked to explore him. Sean liked her wolf too, the noble Lupine with Andrea’s cool gaze.

There was no finer woman than Andrea Gray, and she belonged to Sean.

“Sean!”

A white light blinded him. Damn, wasn’t it enough that Wade had them cowed without the man beaming light in his eyes?

A stench went with it, a cross between smoke and mint. Cold wind blasted through the cave, and suddenly it was filled with people. Sean could scent them: the acrid mint odor he’d come to associate with the Fae, the rather ripe smell of a pissed-off bear, the scent of his own father, and the cool honey tones of his mate.

Andrea.

Sean opened his eyes. At the same moment, Dylan reached down and hauled Wade, half shifted, to his feet.

Dylan’s eyes were white-hot with rage. His Collar sparked, but Dylan, the best trained of them all against the Collars, wouldn’t feel it. Behind Dylan, the tall Fae drew a sword.

Wade gibbered in terror. “I was keeping them safe. I was keeping them safe!”

“Lying shithead,” Glory whispered.

Sean let out his breath and turned his head to inhale the goodness of Andrea. She dropped the Sword of the Guardian and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in Sean’s mane.

“I found you,” she sobbed. “Sean, my mate. I found you.”