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Myles

“ P remeditated murder should be applauded, not punished,” my deluded brother adamantly declares.

The lawyer’s eye twitches, giving Arson his full attention now. “Are you insane? In what world does that make sense? They planned the crime in advance. That’s multiple decisions to actively commit a crime; not one of passion or self defense.”

“Exactly,” Arson says, keeping the lawyer trapped in conversation he’s been futilely trying to escape for the last fifteen minutes.

“Why are we punished harder for thinking things through and being committed? Heat of the moment crimes are worse; those people can’t control their emotions and are a bigger threat to society.

” He dramatically gestures at his leg cast. “See?! Some people are just out here snapping bones willy-nilly and not thinking through how fucking annoying dealing with a cast is. At least when I planned to kill someone, I didn’t leave them to suffer for weeks.

Days, maybe, but they deserved it. Which I knew because I took the time to research and plan. ”

Ledger scrubs a hand down his face. “Clearly not on how to get away with it if you’re out here confessing your crimes to strangers. ”

Arson cocks his head in confusion. “He’s our lawyer, everything we say to him is confidential.”

“He’s Ever’s lawyer, not yours,” Ledger says, the corner of his eye twitching.

“And my brother’s,” he replies without missing a beat. “That makes him my family’s lawyer. You should really get on board with this so we can get the group discount.”

Daydreaming of ways to slip sleeping pills into my brother’s lunch, I glance at my watch, unease quickly making my stomach churn.

Ever and Bell may have needed a break, but it’s been nearly twenty minutes and they still aren’t back.

Bellamy is more than capable of taking care of her; logically I know that.

He broke Arson’s leg, for fucks’ sake. If it wasn’t for Ever insisting she didn’t want to leave the city, he could have stolen her from us on day one.

And if we want any hope of this bond group working out long term, we need to trust him.

But at the end of the day, he came to Mercy Ridge terrified of other supernaturals. And we promised we’d protect him, too.

My chair scrapes against the cheap carpeting as I shove away from the table. “Be right back.”

Ignoring Arson and Ledger’s gazes burning a hole in my back, I stride out of the room and into the hallway, that sense of dread spiking until I’m afraid I’m going to throw up.

They aren’t here.

Making quick work of checking the bathrooms, I shove open the emergency door at the end of the hallway, scanning the people out on the street for their faces. And that’s when I see it.

Bellamy’s shoe on the curb, and skid marks on the street from a car peeling out.

I think I’m going to be sick.

I’m the one who convinced Ledger and Arson that they’d be fine.

I’m the one that encouraged her to take a step away and regroup because of how overwhelmed she was.

I’m the one that tried to treat Bellamy like he was Ever’s bodyguard instead of in just as much need of protecting.

It’s a blur as I rush back into the office, door slamming against the wall. The arguing cuts off abruptly, everyone turning to stare at me like I’ve lost my ever-loving mind. Which isn’t that far from the truth.

“Myles?” Ledger asks, brow furrowed in concern. “What’s wrong?” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he stiffens. “Where are they?”

My voice is little more than gravel. “Gone.”

Arson’s snarl sends a chill down my spine, shadows seeping out of his pores and angrily lashing as they spread out from his body into a haze of oppressive darkness. The others in the room stare wide-eyed as he snarls, “Over their dead fucking bodies. Where. Is. She?”

“How the hell should I know, I was in here with you!” I snap, running a trembling hand through my hair.

I swallow back a yelp as I’m suddenly yanked forward, Ledger fisting my shirt and lifting me off the ground. His eyes practically glow as his wolf rises to the surface. “Tracker.”

My heart skips a beat. In all of the chaos, I’d forgotten that I slipped one in her necklace after Ever’s last disappearing act.

Quickly bringing up the app on my phone, I watch the blinking dot fly across the screen at an alarmingly fast rate. Pivoting it around, I show them both.

Arson wastes no time, a shadowy tendril wrapping around both me and Ledger before he yanks us into the shadow realm with him, the lawyer’s and Mr. Nocturne’s shocked faces disappearing in a blink.

It’s all a grey blur, the world speeding past us as Arson uses his abilities to transport us far faster than anything I could have imagined.

Suddenly, we come to an abrupt halt, thrown from the shadow realm and dropped in the real world again.

Right in the middle of the highway.

My head is screaming from the crack against the asphalt, the rumbling vibrations and honking horns coaxing me upright. Seeing double, I watch the cars fly past, pebbles pelting my skin and wind plastering my shirt to my body.

Groaning, I get to my feet, the muscles in my back screaming in protest. A blaring horn has my face jerking to the side, watching the semi barreling right for Arson, and my body moves before my brain can catch up.

The air is knocked from my lungs as I tackle him, gravel biting into my skin as we roll out of the way just in time to see one of his crutches reduced to splinters under the eighteen-wheeler.

The wind as it sails by inches from us has my auburn hair flying into my face, and a rock flying up to pelt my glasses, cracking the lens.

I barely know which way is up when Ledger hauls us both off the pavement and sprints to the short, cement barrier dividing the center of the highway a split-second before we become roadkill, pinning us against it and shielding us with his body.

As soon as the wave of traffic passes, he tosses us on top of the median, the cement digging into my thighs as I awkwardly straddle it.

But even though the wind from passing cars barreling past threatens to knock me off and back into the road, I’m alive, which is nothing short of a miracle.

Arson gives me a funny look. “You saved me.”

Uncomfortable, I offer a half-hearted shrug. “You’re my brother.”

His throat bobs, and he gives me a sharp nod. “You need someone killed, you let me know. I owe you one.”

“Arson isn’t a threat to either of us… you know that right?” The memory of Ever’s voice whispers through my mind, making me feel like a complete asshole.

He killed my birth parents. Our parents. He literally grew up in an assassin’s guild killing people for profit.

Arson’s a monster.

But… he also left the family that raised him behind to find me once he found out I existed.

He puts all of that deadly energy into protecting our mate.

Instead of slitting my throat to keep her to himself, he watched over us both and stepped into the older brother role like he’s been waiting to play it his entire life.

He’s trying, as much as a socially-stunted shadow demon is capable of. And isn’t that really all I can ask?

“How about you get our girl back and we call it even?”

Arson’s eyes darken, shadows enveloping his irises until he looks like something straight out of my nightmares. “That one’s on the house.”

Ledger’s hand is partially shifted as he grabs Arson’s arm. “What happened? Are we close? Did she steal your abilities?”

Knocking that theory out of the water, Arson uses one of his shadow tendrils to smack Ledger’s hand off of him with a warning glare.

“It felt more like the neutral zone outside of Mercy Ridge; where I couldn’t access my abilities until crossing the town line.

There, but inaccessible, instead of gone completely. ”

I mull it over, recalling the way Arson didn’t just duck into the shadow realm to save himself when the semi nearly crushed him, but can use his abilities now just fine.

“A neutralizer, maybe? When we got close enough, your abilities were canceled out, but since they’re traveling on the highway, as soon as they got out of range, you were fine again. ”

Testing that theory, Arson snatches both of us again, following the median this time.

And low and behold, five minutes later, we’re crashing back to reality, leaving Ledger cursing in pain as he racks his balls on the cement.

By the tiny smirk Arson quickly hides, I’m betting it was intentional; payback for manhandling him earlier.

Ledger punches the barrier hard enough to knock a chunk off, shouting his frustrations into the wind. “So what the fuck do we do then? Keep this up until they stop for more than five minutes so we can run the rest of the way if I can’t shift?”

Guilt twists my stomach, but I shove it down, trying to think about the situation from an outside perspective instead of a man panicking that his mate and bond-brother were kidnapped and making reckless decisions.

“We go home.” When they both turn to glare at me, I rush out, “Think about it. We can keep this up all day, getting jerked out of the shadow realm every five minutes, or we can go back to Mercy Ridge, stock up on any weapons and supplies we may need, and watch the tracker until it stops for the night. Arson shadow walks us as close as he can get, then we hike the rest of the way on foot. But if we storm in without a plan, they’re just going to use Ever and Bellamy as hostages to get us to stand down.

Maybe even hurt them to make a point if we piss them off enough. ”

Ledger scrubs a hand over the scruff of his beard.

“The only weapons we have are whatever we can shake the demon down for. And he’s always carrying a small armory.

Don’t need supplies if we aren’t staying.

So what could we possibly need that isn’t just a huge waste of time hiking back into the city? ”

Exhaling heavily, I let it take my fear with it, emotionally removing myself from the situation as much as I can manage to think about things tactically. “I have a prototype that should protect them during the fight and give us the upperhand… if you’re willing to be bait.”