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R osana waited until breakfast was almost over before making her announcement.

They were in the spacious cavern that served as the Rock Run Clan’s dining hall. It was the second breakfast shift—the fishers and marine workers were already out on the river or at the marina, their children in the creche. Now the warriors took their turn before heading off to their duties.

Dion sat at the table’s head with her brother Tiago on the opposite end. Lucky her—Tiago had stopped by with his dryad mate, so she had not one, but two big brothers to deal with.

Across from Rosana, Dion’s mate Cleia fed strawberries to little Brisa, back to her usual cheerful, high-energy self.

On the bench next to Rosana, Tiago’s mate Alesia dug into a bowl of yogurt and berries.

Perched beside her was Tiago’s otter friend Fausto, greedily downing a heaping plate of raw mussels.

Rosana took a deep breath. “I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m going to the beach.” She spoke in English for Alesia’s benefit. The dryad only knew a smattering of Portuguese.

“I have a couple of days off and…” Rosana trailed off as Dion and Tiago turned identical frowns on her.

The only two of her four brothers still at Rock Run, they could be scarily alike.

Same wavy black hair tied back with a leather string.

Same steel-blue eyes. Same disapproving scowls on their good-looking faces.

Fausto paused in the act of cracking open a mussel to dart a glance at Rosana. He might not understand English, but he could detect the abrupt change in atmosphere.

“Which beach?” Dion asked.

She hitched a shoulder. “I don’t know. Somewhere on the Eastern Shore—Delaware, or maybe one of the Maryland beaches. I’ll be back by tomorrow night.”

“You’re not going alone.” That was Tiago.

She toyed with a piece of bread. She couldn’t lie to them. Fada could scent a lie, and besides, it would make her violently ill. It had something to do with their fae blood, even though it was just a trace.

So instead, she went on the attack. “Look, I just want to get away, all right?”

“Not alone.” Dion’s stern look was spoiled by his tiny daughter wriggling away from her mama and onto the floor.

“Up, Papai .” Brisa patted his thigh, a sprite in a pink-and-yellow striped dress, her fine gold hair caught up in two pigtails, her eyes the same warm amber as Cleia’s.

His hard face softened. “Of course, menina .” He cuddled her to his chest.

“You’ll take a friend.” Tiago again. “Davi would be happy to—”

“ Deus .” Rosana glared at him. “What part of getting away don’t you understand? I’m going. Alone .”

Most of the clan had cleared out by now, but those still in the dining hall glanced her way.

“Dion.” Cleia spoke in her throaty voice. “It’s only one day.”

The sun fae queen was blindingly beautiful, with large tip-tilted eyes, shoulder-length hair in shimmering shades of gold, silver and copper, and a fae’s pointed chin and ears.

Rosana still wasn’t sure how her hardheaded oldest brother had won Cleia’s heart, but without the older woman to smooth things over, she just might’ve left the clan by now like her two middle brothers had.

Dion turned an irritated look on his mate. Their gazes locked, the two of them communing through their bond—not in words, but in some deeper way that only mated pairs could.

Alesia touched Rosana’s back. “Take a breath, sweetheart.”

Rosana sent her a guilty glance. The dryad was a solitary fae, more comfortable with plants than people, and she hated arguments.

“ Desculpe-me ,” she muttered, and took a breath. Tiago’s mate had that effect on people. Half-wild with an elfin face and mass of sun-streaked brown curls, the dryad radiated an earth-mama calm.

“Talk to them,” Alesia added. “Please? Because they’ll listen to you. Right, Tiago?” She reached across Rosana to squeeze his hand.

“ Sim, sim ,” he grumbled.

Rosana took another breath. Alesia was right. If she wanted Dion and Tiago to see her as an adult, then she had to show them she was calm. Mature.

And able to run her own fucking life.

Dion fingered a lock of his mate’s sun-colored hair. “I’m her alpha,” he told Cleia. “If I say she stays, then she stays.”

“Of course,” the queen agreed. “But it’s just one day. And Rosana’s a smart, capable woman. She’s not a child anymore.”

Dion shook his head.

Rosana gritted her teeth and helped herself to a slice of the thick peasant bread. She drizzled olive oil on it and tore off a piece to eat.

Calm. Mature. In control.

“I did you the courtesy of informing you where I’ll be,” she said. “But I’m not asking your permission. I’m an adult now. I don’t need the alpha’s okay to leave the base, as long as I fulfil my duties to the clan.”

“Try it,” Tiago invited, “and you’ll find yourself with two bodyguards on your ass everywhere you go.”

“Since when did you become my dad?” she snarled back. She’d expected better of him. Just five years older than her, they’d once been partners-in-crime, united against Isa and their three much older brothers when it came to childish pranks.

Dion raised a staying hand. “I just don’t understand why you have to go alone.”

“I’m twenty-two turns of the sun. When Tiago was my age, did you make him take a babysitter every time he left the base?”

“Of course not. He’s a man.”

Across the table, Cleia winced.

Rosana flung up her hands. “So this is because I’m a female? I made warrior with the rest of my cohort. You trained me yourself.”

“No. Yes.” Dion shook his head. “It’s just…” He cursed under his breath, then shot a contrite look at a wide-eyed Brisa. “If something happened to you, I’d never forgive myself.”

“For Deus ’s sake, I’m going to the beach, not a war zone.”

“There are people out there who would love to get at me through you.”

“Like Adric,” Tiago murmured.

Rosana stopped tearing her bread into pieces and reached for her orange juice.

Calm, controlled .

She itched to defend Adric, but her brothers weren’t stupid. It wouldn’t take much for them to connect her conversation with him last night with this sudden desire to go away on her own.

Cleia set a hand on Dion’s arm. “I can give her a protection charm. One that will deflect both physical and magical attacks.”

A muscle jumped in his cheek. When he’d mated with the powerful fae queen, he’d made it clear she wasn’t to interfere in his governing of Rock Run, however well-meaning. He hated asking her for anything. But to Dion, family was everything.

“ Bom ,” he agreed. “But only if you wear the charm all the time. And one day only, understand? I want you back here by tomorrow night.”

Rosana shot Cleia a grateful look. “Sure,” she said calmly, while inside, she was doing a full-out happy dance. “I’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

“You’d better be,” he returned, but his lips curved in a reluctant smile.

Cleia rose to her feet. “I’ll be right back with that charm.”

The air around her brightened and contorted so that it hurt your eyes to look straight at her. When Rosana glanced back, she’d ’ported out of the hall.

Brisa removed the chunk of bread she was gnawing on from her mouth and waved it at the spot where Cleia had just been. “Mama?” Her small brow knit uncertainly.

“She’ll be right back.” Dion set a cup of apple juice to her lips. “Here, drink.”

Brisa took a sip and then wriggled off his lap to make her way around the table to Alesia and Rosana, one hand on the bench for balance. When she reached Alesia, she handed her the half-eaten piece of bread.

“Here, Tia Yesa.”

“Thank you.” The dryad gravely accepted it and set it on her plate. “I’ll just keep it for you in case you want it back.”

“Okay.” Brisa continued to Rosana. “Up, Tia Wosa.” She lifted her arms.

Rosa swung her up. “Well, hello, there.”

Children were the one group she wasn’t afraid to touch. She might get a glimpse of a possible future, but their lives had so many possibilities that it was like looking down a hall with a thousand doors.

“What’s under here? A belly button?” She lifted her niece’s striped skirt to blow on her stomach.

Brisa chortled with glee. Then Alesia tickled one of her tiny pointed ears, and she giggled even harder.

Cleia ‘ported back with the charm, a silver Celtic knot inscribed on a plump heart. “It’s not one-hundred-percent foolproof,” she warned as she clasped the delicate chain around Rosana’s left wrist. “But it should at least buy you time to get away.”

“I love it.” Rosana turned her wrist from side to side, admiring the shiny charm. She beamed at Cleia. “It’s beautiful—thank you.”

“What if she has to shift?” asked Dion.

His mate’s smile was smug. “I’ve had my people working on that. This is a new design that will magically adjust and attach itself to her tail fluke.”

“No kidding? We may have to buy some of those from you.”

“You know I’d give them to you for free.”

“But we’ll pay the same price as anyone else,” Dion returned.

Cleia sighed. “Pigheaded, that’s you.” But her eyes laughed at him as she reached for Brisa and set her on her hip.

“Come here, you.” Dion pulled the two of them down on his lap and gave her a hard kiss, while Brisa flung pudgy arms around both their necks.

Cleia nuzzled Dion’s cheek contentedly. She wore a yellow top and a short pleated pink skirt the same colors as Brisa’s stripes.

The two of them could have posed for a mother-daughter photo in a fancy human catalog.

Once, Rosana might’ve rolled her eyes at their matching outfits.

But Cleia had waited a long time to have Brisa, and the look she turned on her daughter was so loving that instead, Rosana’s heart constricted.

She dimly recalled her Irish mom looking at her like that. Before that summer when her parents had left—and never returned.

They’re alive. That’s something.