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Eleri, I’m two minutes away. Answer Saffy in the interim—she’s blowing up my phone. I think she’s in one of her manic phases.

—Bram Priest to Eleri Dias (now)

Eleri’s phone buzzed on the bedside table two hours after Naia had stabilized her. Frowning, Adam remembered what she’d said about the printouts being collected today and picked up the phone.

It proved fully secured, not allowing him to answer the call.

Putting it back down, he used his own phone to ring the inn. Mi-ja, phone always in her pocket, answered at once. “The Raintree Inn!” she chirped.

“Mi-ja, it’s Adam. Is there someone at Eleri’s door?”

“Why, yes! How did you know?” Her voice becoming breathless as she no doubt quick-walked over. “Dae just mentioned the new car to me. I was going over to say hello.”

A minute later and Adam was talking to a deep-voiced man who confirmed he was there to see Eleri. Wanting to check out the other man’s credentials, Adam told him to wait, that he’d be down soon.

The man’s response was, “Why can’t I reach Eleri on the PsyNet?” and it wasn’t a professional query, for all its coldness.

Adam’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll talk when I arrive.” Hanging up, he made sure Eleri was resting peacefully before he looked in on Jacques.

His friend remained in a coma.

“That’s for the best,” a much more ebullient Naia had said after she was satisfied both her patients were stable. “He has a number of major injuries that didn’t begin to heal until he fully shifted. It’ll go much faster if he’s motionless.”

“Chance he’ll remain comatose?” Because they weren’t out of the woods yet.

“Unknown, but since Sascha can sense him with her empathy, it means the specialist Es can nudge him awake if he doesn’t come through on his own.” Naia had exhaled. “I have a feeling Jacques will choose his own time.”

As for Eleri, Sascha had warned him not to permit any Psy he didn’t trust near her until her shields regenerated.

“PsyNet?” Adam had asked.

“That shield is holding—I asked Sophia to check. Figured she’d be able to find Eleri in the Net.

She also told me that a lot of Js have Net shields like Eleri’s—they’re pretty much independent, they’re so deeply embedded into their psyches.

A protection against accidental exposure during Silence that’s become second nature. ”

Adam thought of that girl with the innocent hazel eyes who’d felt things that had put her in danger.

Now, in the bright morning sunshine, he left her in the care of his clan and drove her vehicle not down to the inn, but to a quiet lay-by a short distance away, where he’d told the courier to meet him.

The last thing they needed was Mi-ja’s avid attention.

The black SUV that waited for him was identical to Eleri’s, but it was a man of about Adam’s height who stood outside it.

Built wide across the shoulders, he wore a dark gray suit with a white shirt, and his prematurely gray hair was buzzed close to his skull, his skin paler than was common in this area, his eyes an icy blue.

He held out his ID the instant Adam walked over.

“Bram Priest,” he said. “J Corps. Where is Eleri?”

Adam wasn’t the kind of wing leader who went about posturing and preening, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have a massive level of dominance.

If the J was attempting to intimidate him, he’d chosen the wrong target.

“I need to verify your ID before I tell you anything,” he said, and messaged an image of the ID as well as Bram’s face to Damon, who he’d alerted ahead of time.

The response came after a tense twenty seconds: Senior J attached to the Sandman Task Force as a consultant on an ad hoc basis.

Also, the computer cross-references automatically and your guy shows up on the files of three other Js, including that of the J you asked about before—Eleri Dias.

The four of them seem to be each other’s next of kin.

Adam’s falcon looked at the man in a whole new light.

After thanking Damon, he put away his phone. “Eleri flamed out after doing an emergency psychic assist. She’s being looked after by my clan’s healer, and by a cardinal empath.”

“You expect me to take your words at face value?” was the grim response.

“I can’t take you into the heart of my clan.” Adam kept his tone nonaggressive; if this man had acted as family to Eleri, then Adam fucking owed him. Bram Priest had been there for Eleri when she needed someone. “But you can contact Sophia Russo for confirmation that she’s in good hands.”

An unblinking gaze. “If you’ve done anything to harm her, I’ll make sure the consequences are deadly.” No anger, no threatening tone. A simple statement.

Adam liked him the better for it. “You can speak to her the instant she wakes up.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “She locked up the evidence in the trunk. Not sure if it’ll maintain chain of evidence, but no one but Eleri can open that case.”

“Pinpointing the Sandman is what matters.”

The serial killer, Adam understood at once, would never see the inside of a courtroom should the Js involved believe he would slither free. In that, they were very changeling in their thinking.

After the J had retrieved the case, Adam said, “You’re Eleri’s family. Clan.”

The man took time putting away the case. When he did speak, he said, “The J Corps looks after its own.” He met Adam’s gaze again. “I’ll crush your brain from the inside out if she has so much as a bruise on her.”

This man, Adam thought, wasn’t numb like Eleri, but rather the opposite. “Come to dinner once she’s better. Bring the other two.” No flicker in Bram’s expression at Adam’s awareness of there being four of them in the family. “I want to meet her family…and I want her to meet mine.”

Bram’s expression shifted at last, some unknown emotion cracking the glacial cold of his eyes. “You don’t know her.”

“I know all about the reconditionings.” Adam folded his arms. “I also know that Psy have defected out of the PsyNet and survived with changeling clans. Far as I’m aware, no J has attempted it. You know any different?”

For the first time, Bram seemed to actually look at him and see him as anything other than a threat. “No,” he said at last. “To my knowledge, the defectors from the PsyNet haven’t been like us. None were Sensitives.”

“And there were no active empaths until Sascha Duncan dropped out of the Net.” Adam was just getting started on this fight. “Someone has to be the first.”

“I think you truly believe you can fight this,” Bram said, an exhaustion on his face that was so deep, Adam couldn’t understand how he’d hidden it until now. “But the damage they did to us? It’s permanent. Our brains will never return to what they once were.”

The other man shook his head. “But, despite that, I’m glad Eleri has someone who’s willing to fight for her.” He held out his gloved hand. “If you can, give her good days, days devoid of evil.”

Adam shook the other man’s hand. “Oh, I will. But not because I’m about to lose her—because it’s going to be the start of a long and happy life.” Adam had the bit between his teeth, and he wasn’t letting go.

Bram gave him a long look. “I can’t decide if you’re delusional or not. But…I wish you luck, Adam Garrett. I’ll keep Saffron and Yúzé—the other two—from breaking down your door, but you should expect calls to the private line you gave me. We’ll want updates.”

“You’ll have them.”

Adam watched Bram leave in silence, the trees stirring around him as the sound of the vehicle quieted into emptiness.

And he knew he would fight for Eleri again and again and again.

As he should’ve fought for her after he’d found her.

Because he hadn’t, because he’d been so angry at her, she’d been hurt over and over and over again.

The reconditionings? A life surrounded by evil?

His fucking fault.

He had abandoned his mate.

His eyes burned, his hands white-knuckled fists as he threw back his head and screamed.