Page 31 of Beyond the Veil (Endangered Fae #4)

So many interesting things I have to tell.

Once the sun had set, he scuttled back to the round door on scorpion legs, changed quickly to stinkbug and squeezed back inside through the seam in the door.

An unexpected feeling in the flows stopped him halfway through.

Stinkbug-Finn held still, feelers testing the nearby flows. Oh, yes, so many things to tell.

“Brandon, good to see you, kid.” Zack stood just outside the magical doorway that had opened between the Heersford Institute and the consulate’s garden.

The only one of the coven who overtopped Zack by a couple of inches, Brandon took Zack’s offered hand and they did the manly awkward handshake while one-armed hugging thing.

“Hey, Sarge. You look tired.”

Zack snorted as he let Brandon step aside. “Gosh, thanks. Any problems?”

Brandon shook his head. “Mink’s got this. We don’t even have to be touching anymore to do the coven thing.”

“I thought she couldn’t do the doorway thing? Her pooka bloodline and all that?”

“Ha! She found a way around it. Does it her own way. Let the dragon lord chew on that the next time we see him.”

The next young man through couldn’t have been less like Brandon if they were different species.

By some accounts, they were. Slender and on the short side, frost pale and auburn haired, Jasper’s smaller frame hid a vampire’s strength and a huge heart.

Even with the wide-brimmed hat pulled down and sunglasses on, the twinkle in those eyes was apparent.

He broke into a huge grin when he stepped through and nearly took Zack down with the force of his greeting.

“Sarge!” He thrust a plastic container into Zack’s hands. “I brought you beignets.”

“You made them?”

“Yep. Think I finally got them right this time.”

“I thought you had it right the first six times, but I’ll play guinea pig for your baking any day.” Zack shifted the container to his left hand so he could catch Kara in a one-armed bear hug when she came through. “Hey, feisty, how’re things?”

“Just coming to pull your bits out of the fire again, Sarge. Same old, same old.”

It felt damn good to laugh. The situation wasn’t funny, but somehow, having the coven there in person made everything less grim. William came next, always quiet, but more confident with each passing year, then Nate, who seized Zack in a back-thumping embrace.

“Dr. Cooper, I presume?” Zack matched Nate’s mad grin with one of his own. “You behaving for Jasper?”

“Never. Jazz wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Finally, Minky stepped through and let the magical door snap shut behind her. She shook her raven-dark hair out of her eyes and tilted her head back to meet Zack’s gaze head on. “Ready to get them home, Sarge?”

While she wouldn’t touch him—and wasn’t comfortable with touch in general—the difference between this self-assured young woman and the painfully awkward girl he had met three years ago was astounding. “More than ready. You don’t know how glad I am that you’re all here.”

“Any new information?”

Zack shook his head. “Not a whisper. Let’s go inside and get Jasper out of the sun.”

They all piled into the kitchen, the Silver Adepts coven plus Jasper the vampire, and took seats around the table. Zack had to turn away and busy himself pulling drinks out of the fridge. All his kids had grown up while he wasn’t looking and damn if it didn’t make his heart ache.

“So, here’s the little bit we do know.” Zack cleared his throat as he plunked sodas and water bottles on the table then pulled up an extra chair.

“Diego and Finn went to negotiate the release of the three Canadian students. They went to Prince Faisal’s palace near the capital to see if he’d help.

The parliament made nasty changes to their laws on magical beings and someone, for whatever reason, tipped off the police. ”

“Lots of disagreements within the royal family there, from what I’ve read,” Nate said as he leaned back in his chair.

“Yeah. We’ve seen it firsthand. The official government line is that they have no idea what happened to our guys.

But our security confirms the arrests and Prince Faisal has apologized, unofficially, for their imprisonment.

He’s furious. Sure that his dad engineered the whole thing as a lesson to him. ”

“Good that it wasn’t a deliberate trap,” Will offered, staring at his hands on the table. “But he can’t help, I’m guessing.”

“Right. So we’ve been able to confirm that the prison is out in the desert somewhere and that prisoners are taken there by helicopter. We also know that Theo went to find them. He may have taken a young selkie named Limpet with him or, more likely, Limpet followed Theo.”

“What’re the odds of Theo finding Diego?” Brandon asked.

“I don’t really know. There are a couple of things that Lugh pointed out. One, that Theo’s an amazing hunter. And two, he seems to have some locating sense for people he’s connected to that most magical beings don’t have. What kind of range he has on that is anyone’s guess.”

Jasper laced his fingers with Nate’s, a frown creasing his forehead. “Why would he take a selkie into the desert?”

“He wouldn’t. Theo’s the most responsible person I know.

That’s why I’m sure Limpet followed him.

He tagged along with Theo on his patrols for three nights running and I think he stowed away on their plane because Theo was part of the security force.

It’s either a curiosity fascination or a major crush, but he just had to be where Theo was. ”

“Anyone try the easy route and call Theo?” Kara asked.

Zack nodded. “Yeah. We keep trying. He either has his phone off or he ditched it, not wanting the signal tracked.”

Minky was drawing meandering shapes on the table with her index finger, the gesture so like her many-times great-grandfather Finn that Zack had to smile.

She looked up and everyone fell silent, waiting for whatever idea had struck her to find its way into words.

“We can’t find the prison because it’s lead-shielded and we’re so far away.

Theo may be able to find it because he’s following a local magical trail.

So we don’t need to find the prison. We need to find Theo. ”

“Well, Mink does it again,” Kara said drily. “Remind me why I listen to any of the rest of you?”

“Because you love us,” Nate said with a grin. “We have anything personal of Theo’s we can focus on, Sarge?”

Zack got up from the table. “I don’t like invading his space without permission. But this is an emergency. Let me see what he has in his room.”

God, I hope this works. They’re both too nice for prison and who the hell knows what’s happening in there.