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Malia: I’ll prepare food for the entire team—Dad’s already muttering about dropping meal packages on your heads, by the way.

Tahir’s gonna help because I’m making him and he’s still being a weirdo and treating me super nice.

(Don’t worry, Mom, I won’t stress my arm—Naia did another healing session on me and says the bone is knitting at an “excellent” pace.)

—Team El-Shield (now)

His part of the job done, Bram stepped out to take a breath away from the killer, while Adam stayed behind to say a few quiet words to the two guards who had to remain inside with Hendricks.

Dahlia walked over to him, her body and face shadowy in the faint light that fell from the room into the driving corridor. “You look like you could use a drink.”

“Psy can’t process alcohol. Else all Js would be raging alcoholics.”

“What you did, it messes you up, doesn’t it?” Dark, sharp eyes.

“I barely have my own memories anymore,” Bram admitted. “The spaces are filled up with those of murderers and other violent offenders.”

“You do touch?” A nod at his gloved hands. “Eleri was okay with changelings, though she didn’t go overboard.”

Bram’s skin prickled. “Then likely I’ll be fine. Changeling shields are all but impenetrable.”

“Then instead of a drink, how about you work off your funk in my bed?” She leaned in close so the words were a hot breath against his ear, her height perfect for his own. “I mean, all that sexual tension simmering under your surface can’t be good for you.”

Bram wanted to haul her close, bite down into the curve of her neck. His cock throbbed. He was careening out of control. And he wanted more. “I have to return to Hendricks’s house, meet with the task force.” No one was sleeping this night, not with open questions on the table.

“The invitation doesn’t currently have an expiration date, Mr. Bram.” Her hand on his nape, a burn of heat. “Give me your phone.”

He handed it over after unlocking it on autopilot.

“There,” she said after a few taps. “Call me when you’re done.” She slipped his phone into his pocket, and though she’d barely made contact, he felt as if she’d taken him over.

Adam stepped out of the room. “D,” he said, “lock it up and get Naia to give him a once-over. We want him functional for the rest of Bram’s reads.”

“Got it.” Dahlia was back in full professional mode. “What are we doing with him after?”

“He’s going to die in that hole after Bram’s finished,” Adam said flatly after pulling the door shut behind himself.

“That’s what he did to his victims—he left them alone in that lightless prison, and only came in to torture them.

He’s getting off easy since we won’t torture him, but he doesn’t deserve light or company. ”

Bram hadn’t expected such a pitiless punishment. “Will it haunt you?” he asked Adam once they were in the car—after he’d forced himself to walk away from Dahlia. “You’re not the kind of man who’s built for that.”

Adam shot him a smile that was almost amused.

“My grandmother literally tore off the head of the man who murdered my parents. I would’ve done it if she hadn’t.

Never, ever think that the leader of a clan or pack isn’t capable of darkness when it’s necessary.

We just never allow it to swallow us whole. ”

“How?” Bram asked, desperate for an answer. “How do you keep from being sucked into the abyss?”

“Clan,” Adam said at once. “We’re not in the fight alone. Neither are you.” He stopped the vehicle so he could look at Bram. “You’re Eleri’s family, so you’re mine, too. Which makes you part of WindHaven.”

Bram didn’t know how to take that, how to imagine being part of a family that wasn’t formed on a foundation of pain and fissures of the soul.

“And I don’t care what you and Dahlia get up to in your own time,” Adam said, “but she’s got wounds of her own. Don’t hurt her.”

Bram wondered what the wing leader would say if he told him that Bram wasn’t the one in charge, not by a long shot. He felt winded, as if he’d taken a blow…and he wanted to go back for another one.

···

“I’m pretty sure Dahlia’s about to take Bram’s virginity,” Adam told Eleri late the next night while the hospital lay cloaked in soft evening light around them.

He’d flown in to see her on the wing, after having spent the day being the leader his clan needed him to be—with Dr. Czajka as well as Max and Sophia sending him regular updates.

Those updates had all been the same: No change.

“Though,” he added, “your friend looks like he might be the type to have broken that rule already.”

Eleri’s chest rose and fell in silence.

Picking up the lip balm Malia had given him, he slicked it with tender care over Eleri’s lips so they wouldn’t dry out. As he moved, the material of the scrubs one of Dr. Czajka’s nurses had given him after he arrived in falcon form made a soft rustling noise.

“Malia told me this stuff is ‘magic!’ and gave me stern instructions to put it on you.” Amir and Saoirse’s fledgling was already determinedly bouncing back—and had thrown herself headfirst into Project El-Shield, the name for the project Malia’s brainchild.

“All fledglings have a few falls when they first start learning to fly—we make sure it’s from low heights.

But where most sit in the dirt stunned and confused until a parent comes over to dust them off, I remember watching Malia bounce up, dust off her wings on her own, and run over to Amir on those tiny falcon feet to ask to go again. ”

He’d grinned that day, delighted by her and knowing he’d forever remember her aggravated little face as she dusted off her fluffy wings before she got excited again and ran over. “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t need softness.”

Adam had taken her with him to his aerie this morning, and they’d sat with their legs dangling off the edge of the exit into the canyon, with him cuddling her to his side while she poured out everything in her head and in her heart as he fed her small bites of breakfast.

Tough as she was, Malia needed to be spoiled and coddled until the fright passed, to be the baby bird under her wing leader’s care.

As did Tahir, the younger brother who loved to irritate Malia but who’d die for her.

He was shaken by the thought that he hadn’t been able to protect her from a predator.

Adam had taken the boy flying, and they’d spoken beside Tahir’s favorite grotto.

The changeling sense of hierarchy would help here—Tahir’s falcon understood the weight of responsibility was Adam’s.

He’d spent time with Polly, too, the sweet girl who was still distraught over her friend’s abduction from only meters away.

“All the affected fledglings are talking about what happened,” he told Eleri.

“That’s a good sign. It means it won’t turn into a slow-acting poison within.

I also reached out to the families of their dates and arranged for the boys to come on up to the Canyon to see Malia and Polly. ”

Naia was monitoring the entire situation and would arrange for empathic counseling because she was adamant that now they had access to the Es again, the clan should make such counseling part of their medical arsenal—per WindHaven’s own ancient records, which Naia had dug up, Es had performed that function for the clan before the Psy immured themselves in Silence.

He exhaled. “And yeah, I’m pissed with myself for not seeing the snake in our midst, but I’ll deal with it.”

Picking up Eleri’s hand, he clasped his own around it.

“As for Bram and Dahlia and his impending debauchment, Wild Woman magazine is a staple in the Canyon, and word is that there are a lot of very dangerous Psy walking around who are in fact novices in the sheets. I wonder if Dahlia realizes that.”

He wondered if Eleri would’ve laughed at the idea of Dahlia seducing Bram, or if she’d have felt protective of her chosen brother.

He wished he could ask her, wished she was awake to tell him, wished the two of them could lie tangled in bed as the sun rose and discuss the unexpected attraction between his wing-second and her friend.

“I want to nuzzle my face into your neck,” he told his mate, “just breathe you in. Stroke my hand down the lean lines of your body while I feed you tidbits that delight you. Kiss you in the softest, most secret places of your body. Hold you. Play with you.”

…but don’t mourn me, Adam. I’m free now. Your wild bird in flight, my mind whole and my spirit no longer locked in a cage of reconditioning.

At last, I’m Eleri again.

His chest compressed, his tears caught deep within. He’d lost so many people, had so many markers of grief on his heart. “I don’t want you to go. I want to hold you so tight that no one can part us…but I’ll never clip your wings. So if you want to fly, Eleri, fly.”

The tears broke free, streamed down his face as he pressed his lips gently to hers, for even a wing leader’s huge heart could break. “I’ll watch for you in the skies, mate of mine.”

···

Eleri felt her lungs expand, felt air inflate then deflate them as she exhaled. She sensed her own breath against her skin, and she sensed the brush of cloth against her limbs. It felt soft, much softer than the usual fabric of her suits and shirts.

Warmth, heat, roughness.

Salt on her lips.

A jolt of sensation through her nerve endings.

A harder heat pressing into her knuckles…and then came the avalanche of noise . Voices and voices and voices! Screams and shouts and quiet dream murmurs, all tangled together in a chaotic overload that was a crushing blow.

She didn’t know if she made a sound, but her back bowed off the bed.

“Eleri!” Hands cupping her face, eyes ringed by falcon yellow looking into hers. “Hold on, hold on, baby. I’ve got you.”

Wings wrapping around her, shoving the voices away with sheer brute strength. Feathers so soft against her skin, a barrier so fine and so strong. And already bending. She opened her eyes and was astonished she was herself.

Battered and damaged, with gaps in her memory…but the gaps were where she’d stored the memories of monsters. Her brain had known to discard those before it came for her own. “Adam.”

Her throat ached but she spoke all the same, even as she lifted her fingers to brush his jaw. “What are you doing?”

“Giving you us,” he said, his voice rough. “I shoved clan energy down the blood bond toward you when I heard you wake.” He turned to kiss her fingertips. “It’s working, Eleri.”

The hope in his voice broke her in ways she didn’t know she could be broken; she’d thought she’d already lost herself long ago.

“It can’t last,” she whispered, astonished at how delightfully prickly his shadowed jaw felt against her fingertips, how the heat and strength of him beat like a pulse against her.

Sensation, bright as a scalpel, dazzling and multihued.

“Your wings are already under enormous strain.”

He stroked back her hair, his big body blotting out the ceiling and becoming her world. She wanted no other.

“I can feel you, Adam,” she whispered even as anger and despair darkened those beautiful eyes. “With all of me. No wall of numbness, nothing muted.”

A hunger dark and rich tore through her. “Kiss me.” In this stolen time between life and death, this unexpected and beautiful intermezzo, she wanted to experience all the lush layers of sensation of being with her mate.

“ Eleri. ” A rebuke, but he lowered his head, his lips just brushing hers.

She shuddered, her breasts aching and her nipples going tight and hard in a way that made her want to press up against his chest. She knew it felt good, the slide of his skin on her taut flesh, had experienced it…but now, oh now, how much better would it feel?

Eleri didn’t know if she’d be able to bear it, but she wanted to try.

Her feet curled inward, her thighs clenching as Adam closed one hand gently about her throat, his other in her hair, and kissed her with an open mouth.

The wetness, the heat, the way his body felt leaning over hers.

His hair was so soft in her fist, his bristled jaw abrading parts of her face until she wanted him to rub his roughness across her…

kiss her between her legs as he’d done in the cave.

Her entire body quivered as the erotic memory melded with the sensations of today to give her a glimpse of ecstasy. It was too much and it wasn’t enough and it was all she’d been craving. She licked him back, one of her legs bending at the knee as she fought to get closer to him.

!!#*!

One shielding wing collapsed, even the power of an entire clan not enough to create a shield out of nothing and air. Eleri had two choices—fight a losing battle and cause more damage to herself, or put herself back under using a technique all Psy were taught as part of their studies.

Because it turned out that she wasn’t done. If all she could have from Adam were kisses stolen in a breath, then she would take every single kiss he’d give her. “I’m not ready to go yet, Adam.”

She took herself back under before the voices could rip her apart.