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The packs and clans in the Trinity Accord are willing to attempt to blood-bond Psy children into their networks. It may save those children’s lives should the PsyNet collapse—and in that eventuality, the changelings will treat the children as their own.

They are aware of the scale of the potential loss of life, and the resultant lack of Psy adults who will be able to step in—however many children survive, the changelings (as well as the Human Alliance) have agreed to care for them.

All they have requested is that we make an emergency handbook on a Psy child’s non-negotiable needs for healthy psychic and physical development.

Adam’s peregrine called for his mate and for the child of the clan.

They’d be together. Because wherever Eleri had gone, whatever choice she’d made that had led to her abduction, it had to do with Malia.

She’d willingly walked into a trap. Such a stupid choice for a smart J—only she wasn’t smart when it came to things like this, was she?

Eleri cared . That was her Achilles’ heel, and someone not only knew that, they’d utilized it to get her alone.

The tug on his heart that was Malia felt stronger now, as if she was either conscious or physically closer.

He tried to follow it, but that wasn’t how changeling bonds worked, no matter if he wanted it to be different.

He just knew she was alive, was breathing.

That gave his wild heart hope even as another part of him whispered that if this had been about luring Eleri, then his niece was no longer useful.

Opening his beak in a cry of rage, he swept left over the sand and rock beyond Raintree, while keeping Dahlia in sight.

She’d lost Eleri’s scent trail at a certain point, likely after she was contained inside the other vehicle with the windows up, was attempting to pick it up again—but the area was vast, and they were relying on droplets of blood.

Other teams continued to search on the ground and in the air in different directions.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

It was as if both Eleri and Malia had vanished off the face of the earth. How much longer would they both be safe?

The desert sands lifted at that instant, turbulent in winds that howled out of the canyons as the weather began to turn. Fuck. That would play havoc with Dahlia’s scent tracking—and they were losing any physical tracks before they ever had the chance to spot them.

A panicked falcon’s cry almost snatched away by the rising wind, but Adam’s falcon heard it, knew it. Dahlia angled sharply toward a low valley in the desert at the same time that Adam responded to Malia, telling her she’d been heard and urging her to keep on calling to him.

Her call was even weaker the second time around, but he was closer and had no trouble catching it. It was clear that Dahlia had already caught her scent, too.

They wouldn’t lose her, not now.

And this child of the clan was defiant and strong, because though her third cry was all but inaudible, she made it. And Adam heard it.

There she was, all wild hair and vivid turquoise jumpsuit as she looked skyward through the gritty dervish of the sudden sandstorm, one arm raised in a frantic wave.

He landed with speed.

“Uncle Adam!” A sobbing Malia ran toward him before he could shift, and he cradled her in his massive wings, knowing at once why she hadn’t been able to fly out, and why her call had held none of the falcon’s power.

Her left arm was broken.

Her wing would be broken in changeling form.

Though she was sobbing, she was trying to speak, too. “Eleri!” She rose on wobbly, weak legs. “He drugged her like he did me, but worse! I ran and ran like she told me to! But he’s with her!”

Adam shifted, uncaring of his nakedness because they were changeling; their ways weren’t human. Malia wouldn’t even notice. “Hush, little wings.”

He cupped her face in his hands and forced his voice to be calm. “I’ll find her. What can you tell me about where you were held?” Dahlia hovered, on watch, both of them aware that Malia could have a deadly tail—and the killer had already proven he wasn’t against using guns.

“A place under the desert.” Malia wiped at her face with her good hand, leaving behind streaks of blood.

“Where are you bleeding?” he asked sharply, because while his niece’s arm dangled in a viciously wrong way, he saw no blood on her jumpsuit.

“What?” She looked down at her hand when he pulled it up. “It’s Eleri’s. She was bleeding so much, Adam.”

His chest squeezed. “Okay, baby girl,” he said, keeping his tone composed because she would take her cue from him, “tell me where you were. I’ll go get her.”

“It had straw everywhere, open beams, and the floor was dirt, I think. It’s not far and I only got out because Eleri did something to him!

” She shouted to be heard over the winds.

“I was scared to call you straightaway because I thought he’d hear me, but I had to do it.

I couldn’t wait anymore!” She pointed to the east. “I came from that way! There were rocks! Black rocks!”

Dahlia landed and shifted. “Clan incoming. I need a fresh scent—winds have messed up Malia’s backtrail.”

Malia thrust out her bloody hand. “Here, DeeDee. It’s Eleri.”

Shifting, Adam lifted off even as Dahlia inhaled the scent because more wings were coming down, more falcons landing—including Naia. Knowing Malia would be safe under their healer’s protective wings, he headed off in the direction his niece had pointed.

It was a risk not to wait for Dahlia, but Malia couldn’t have run far, even powered by adrenaline. She’d been weak, shivering from her unset broken arm. And Adam was faster than Dahlia, something that might make a critical difference if Eleri was badly injured.

The call of a gyrfalcon on the air, confirmation from Dahlia that he was on the right trajectory.

A tumble of black rocks.

He halted, his falcon’s gaze spearing through the desert sands that swirled around the fall of stone.

There.

The hatch was small and colored to blend in with the desert.

Dahlia called to him as he landed.

She’d picked up some kind of scent, wanted to follow it.

He called back to tell her to go—on the slim chance the Sandman had carried Eleri out, he wanted Dahlia on their trail while he searched for his mate under the desert.

Others of the clan were now also close enough that both of them would have backup.

His people were trained, good at their jobs—they wouldn’t need his order to split up, with half heading toward Dahlia, the others to him.

Shifting as she shot off, he hauled open the hatch, his skin so tight over his body that it hurt. “Be alive, Eleri. Just be alive.” Logic told him her abductor had to have panicked when he realized Malia was gone, had perhaps even heard her call to clan.

If he was smart, he’d have run straightaway. No time to waste. No time to hurt Eleri even more than he already had. No time to take her with him.

The smell of blood, thick and rich and fresh , hit his nose the instant he threw open the hatch, the scent contained in the small space bursting out into the desert.

Rage bubbling inside him, and conscious that the noise of the winds when he’d opened the hatch had blown any chance of stealth, he called Eleri’s name as he jumped down into darkness now lit by the daylight from above, sand swirling inside with him as the winds continued to howl.

No reply from Eleri, but he didn’t need it.

His mate lay slumped against a beam that held up the roof of this place designed for confinement. The prison was otherwise empty of life.

Falling on his knees beside her, he took her into his arms.

Dark red stained the front of her shirt, and when her head tipped back over his arm, he saw that her tears were blood. Darker than when she’d worked with Jacques. And it wasn’t just her eyes.

Blood everywhere.

Eleri was bleeding out from her pores, as if her body was pumping the life-giving fluid outward as her brain misfired.

“No, you don’t get to do this,” he snarled and laid her flat on the straw-dusted dirt floor so he could better check her vitals.

Her skin was warm, but he could barely feel her breath even when he put his face only an inch away from her mouth. As for her pulse, to call it thready was an exaggeration. She was so close to death that she was standing on the precipice of the cliff into nothingness.

Then she stepped over.

Her heart stopped beating. Her chest fell and didn’t rise again.

“ No. ” Adam didn’t think about it; he semi-shifted to slice his palm with his talon, then did the same to her palm and clamped them together. “You fucking stay .” They weren’t done by a long shot.

He didn’t know if the attempt at a blood bond would work, but it was all he had. She wasn’t falcon, but she was his , and if he could blood-bond Psy children to keep them safe in the event of a PsyNet collapse, why not his J?

The girl who’d wanted to give him a bandage, her eyes soft and vibrant with life.

The fellow adventurer who, hand in hand with him, had run out of a cave with annoyed bats winging around them.

The determined J who’d fought for the life of his best friend.

The mate with wonder in her who’d held out an arm so a tired fledgling could land on it.

“Don’t you do this to me.” It came out a harsh repudiation because Adam wasn’t going to feel grief, refused to feel grief. “You don’t get to just leave !”

He knew the lack of a heartbeat meant she’d have lost her connection to the PsyNet. He also knew Psy could be pulled into changeling networks. So he pulled , using all the strength that made him wing leader, all the power that made him her mate.

“We haven’t finished this fight,” he snarled, and pressed his lips to hers, giving her his breath before he used his hands to pump at her chest, try to get her heart going.

Their blood mingled again, her shirt drenched with it.

He breathed for her again. “I won’t let you do this,” he said, so angry with her that it wasn’t anything rational. “You fucking breathe .”

Another hard pump of her heart.

A kick… inside him. A jolt as another mind appeared in the network his wing leader heart knew without ever seeing it. She was there, with WindHaven, but barely. A flickering light about to go out all over again.

The sandstorm halted at the same instant, as if wary of snuffing her out.

The sounds of wings closing outside, the silence of the shift, then two clanmates jumping inside.

Naia was the second.

“Malia wouldn’t let me stay with her,” the healer said.

“She was panicked, says the man who held her gave Eleri narcotics—he managed to give her a second shot right before she helped Malia escape. From what I know of Psy physiology and drug reactions, her blood is now toxic and will be affecting her mind.”

Adam’s eyes fell on Eleri’s bare hands. If the murderer had touched her, she might be in even worse trouble—but he would not go down that path. She could call him deluded and too hopeful for it when she woke, could even laugh at him. He didn’t care.

“She died. For less than a minute.” It was hard to speak, hard to not just hold her tight. “I’ve got her, but barely.”

His eye caught on blood on the ground. Shapes. Letters.

Hen—

Movement, a bag being dropped inside. Naia’s gear. Adam reached to pull it closer with his free hand while locking his sliced-open palm to Eleri’s once more. You stay. Don’t you dare leave me. Not again, Eleri. Please, my wild bird. Stay.