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Vampires having intimate relations with seers, and hiding those relations by lying to the human authorities, was maybe the clearest death sentence for one of Nick’s kind that existed.

If they found out about him and Wynter, much less just howseershe really was, Nick wouldn’t even make it to the back of their armored vehicle.

He’d be rotting into blood and ash like Walker’s girlfriend and friend.

The next time The Leash came for Malek, Tai, Wynter, and him, theywouldfind out, though. For one thing, St. Maarten would likely be arrested, and all of her assets stripped. Once Lara no longer stood in the way, it would only take them a few hours to determine what Wynter was, and what she and Nick had been doing.

It would be a death sentence for him, likely vivisection and/or life imprisonment in a government lab for her, and possibly something even worse for Tai and Malek.

But regardless of the sheer stupidity of the move, Nick knew he was right.

St. Maarten had done this.

She’d done it likely even knowing the risks.

It had probably been sheer desperation on her part.

Once she’d recovered from her own kidnapping by Nick’s doppelgänger, once she’d cleared her head, and no longer had to fear death or torture from the other version of Nick and his venomed human and newborn army, it must have occurred to Lara that she was in danger of losing some of her most prized seer assets.

She’d likely realized she left them sitting in front of an inter-dimensional portal, and that Nick had recently found out he wasn’t actuallyfromthis version of Earth.

St. Maarten then likely realized Nick might just abscond with her favorite toys before she was done with them.

Definitely Wynter.

DefinitelyTai and Mal.

Kit might have been a somewhat less-urgent consideration, as well. Organic machine whisperers at Kit’s level didn’t exactly grow on trees.

But Tai and Mal were irreplaceable.

Wynter herself was irreplaceable.

Nick’s mate was rare in her own right, as a hybrid with the potential sight rank of a gifted full-blooded seer. Tai and Malek, of course, were next-level rare. Not only were they full-blooded seers, they were rare evenamongfull-blooded seers. They were once-in-a-generation seers, each one of them, much less the two of them together.

Moreover, Tai, at least, was deadly.

She was a living weapon.

She was practically a one-person army, even at her young age.

Nick had always known that, sooner or later, he would come face to face with St. Maarten’srealmotives for helping Tai, Malek, Wynter, and even himself. He’d also known that, at some point or another, those reasons would be in direct conflict with his need to protect his family.

That eventuality felt inevitable to him.

It was always only a matter of time.

He’d warned Wynter of the same, more than once.

Each time, Wynter assured Nick it need never come to that, though Nick had never been entirely sure if Wynter believed that, either.

Lara St. Maarten ran the biggest defense tech company in the world.

While she might like “her” seers on a personal level––and might even be fond of some of them, Tai and Malek, especially––at base, Wynter, Tai, Malek, Kit, and Nick himself were little more than company assets.

They were an investment, not only for her, but for Archangel.

St. Maarten had taken them in. She’d helped them in various ways, given them resources, trained and taught them any way she could, protected them, kept them off the radar of the I.S.F. and the Human Racial Authority, and even the N.Y.P.D., but those things had always, from the very beginning, come with very definite yet unspoken strings attached.