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“I can’t explain it, but my wolf was getting nervous. My fur stood up on my skin, like there was a high amount of electricity or static in the air. I have a feeling that even as a pair, it wouldn’t be safe enough. We need to all go investigate together.”

Nolan carefully measured the grounds into coffee filters. “I agree. I don’t know how to describe it, but my wolf was extremely interested in that direction. I had to force him to turn back before it got too late. We can drive out to as far as we got today and then start from there tomorrow.”

Elias nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. “Did you learn anything new while we were out?”

I rubbed my hand down my face and shook my head. “No. I’m still operating off the theory that Ezra and the fae were able to find another doorway to this world close by, but there aren’t many records of those kinds of vortexes around here. The other battle sites, the places we found that correlated with earliest human myths about shifters, are all well-known locations of strange, mystical energies. The closest to here that I can find is down in the Dells, but it could just be another tourist trap.”

Nolan handed me my cup next. “Well, it is south of here, isn’t it?”

“Southeast,” I corrected. “As wolves, it would take us days to get down there.”

I took a sip and closed my eyes. It felt wrong to enjoy anything while Marlowe was gone, but sometimes I appreciated Nolan’s fastidiousness when it came to coffee. The male certainly knew what he was doing.

Elias drained his mug quickly, apparently not as appreciative of Nolan’s skills as I, and then stretched. “I’m going to head outside and see if I can produce anything.”

“Get angry,” I called out to him.

He raised his hand casually without turning around, walking back out the door.

There was no evidence I could find that indicated shifters had magic like Ezra and Marlowe, aside from our ancestral ability to transform into wolves. But we’d gained our Luminis from bonding with Marlowe and ingesting her blood. With Elias being the first tohave bitten her, and the first to have shifted, it made sense that he’d also be the first among us to wield anything if the Luminis was the cause.

“Incoming,” Elias called as Camden and Julian charged inside. The youngest pack mate had regressed into puppy-mode in his wolf-form, and was having way too much fun bounding around the house and nipping at everyone’s heels.

Our wolves were a part of us and yet separate creatures, with their own thoughts and agendas. Julian’s wolf knew someone was missing, but since he hadn’t met Marlowe or her wolf yet, the gravity of the situation hadn’t hit him quite as hard as it had the rest of us. Even Camden, who normally treated Julian like his perfect little brother, was getting irritated by the pup’s playfulness. He growled, lunging forward to snap his teeth around Julian’s neck. Julian whimpered in submission, then Camden finally let him go to shift back to human form.

Julian followed suit, his eyes cast downward and expression contrite. “Sorry,” he apologized.

Camden huffed and washed off his face in the kitchen sink. I knew better by now than to ask questions on what, or ratherwhose, blood was covering his mouth.

“We didn’t find shit,” he said before I could ask. “No footprints, no scents, nothing.”

I felt the bite to his tone more acutely than I ever had before, and it almost made me wince.

Nolan repeated what Elias had told me about the strange feeling in the air. “So tomorrow we’ll head south. All of us.”

Camden grunted and then headed towards the bathroom. “Whatever.”

We were all despondent over Marlowe’s capture, but he was taking it the hardest. As pack leader, he’d put way too much responsibility on his shoulders for everything that happened to us, and I’d never seen him so utterly devastated as he had been when we all came to at the temple hall and discovered our omega gone.

But how could we have even defended ourselves against such an attack? Ezra’s strength alone was unmatched—he’d ripped Roland Thorne’s head off with his bare hands like he was twisting the lid off a pickle jar.

As a pack working together, maybe we could have protected Marlowe against that kind of brawn.

But his magic…

With barely a blink, her brother had knocked out an entire temple full of shifters.

We knew absolutely nothing about those sorts of powers—how they worked or what was even possible. Marlowe had demonstrated some potential, but she was still untrained. Would she be able to fight back against her brother and this mysterious fae king who wanted her? From the prophecy, it sounded like she could be used as a weapon.

But how? Not that I doubted Marlowe’s strength of character, or even her burgeoning magical abilities, but she was no soldier. For one, she abhorred violence in all cases aside from self-defense, and for another, she was mysteriously missing the shifter proclivity towards obedience. She followed us when we barked, but only because we were mostly playing. If any of us ever tried to order her to do something she truly didn’t want to do, she’d laugh in our faces and ignore us. I imagine some sort of hand gesture would also be involved.

I missed her so much.

I took my coffee and headed back to the office, staring at the map I had made. All the known doorways to the fae world were circled, and I cross-checked them for the hundredth time with my research when a loud boom shook the house and rattled the windows.

In my shock I’d spilled my drink on my shirt, then cursed as I followed Nolan and Julian as they ran down the hall towards the back door.

Elias stood in the middle of the yard, steam rising off his heaving, bare chest, his arms extended. His green eyes were wild, and a mixture of pure glee and awe covered his features.