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A dric raced through the backyards, a shadow in the night.

He had a bad feeling about the second man with Lady Blaer, the one he hadn’t seen. He couldn’t leave without knowing for sure.

Sirens split the night. He gritted his teeth, the high wail excruciating to his shifter ears. At least it meant help was on its way to Mark.

The wood fence ran the length of the B&B’s property. He peered through them into the parking lot. The two fae were just getting into the back of a glossy black limo. But it was their rangy, hard-faced driver who made Adric’s lungs cinch tight.

His hunch had been correct. The second man was Luc, one of his lieutenants. No, make that former lieutenant.

Anger and guilt clogged his chest.

Late last summer, Luc had accepted a geas from Lady Blaer. For the next decade, the wolf fada was Blaer’s man, not his. So Adric had been forced to expel him from the clan.

It didn’t matter that Luc was an old friend, one of the small, close-knit group who’d helped Adric and Marjani take down Leron Savonett, their bastard of an uncle. It didn’t matter that Luc had been imprisoned and tortured simply for being Adric’s friend.

Adric had had no choice. As alpha, he was connected through his quartz to every man, woman and child in the clan. He couldn’t allow a man under the control of a fae to remain part of that network.

“Get us out of here,” the blond female ordered Luc.

Adric’s lips peeled back in a silent snarl. He was sure now that she was Lady Blaer.

His muscles gathered, his whole body shaking with the need to attack.

Kill.

The woman had put his sister in a fucking iron cage. She’d forced Luc to accept her geas . And perhaps worst of all, Blaer had learned the secret of the earth fada’s quartz. With the right words, a fae could control an earth fada through their quartz—and Blaer knew the incantation.

For so many reasons, Blaer needed to die. But attack now, and Luc would be forced to defend her. And while the two of them fought, Blaer would simply teleport herself and the ice fae male out of there.

“Where to?” Luc asked Blaer.

“Virginia—the New Moon Court.”

Luc nodded and shut the limo door. His head swung to where Adric crouched, his eyes the amber of his wolf.

Adric froze, a sick feeling coating his stomach—because he wasn’t one-hundred-percent sure that Luc wouldn’t betray him.

The former lieutenant’s face blanked. He opened the front door and slid behind the limo’s steering wheel.

Adric released a breath.

The car purred to life and headed down the street. At the corner, Luc pulled over to allow two police cars and an ambulance pass by.

Adric waited until the limo was out of sight before racing back to the house where he and Rosana had left their things. There, he changed back to man and pulled on his pants and T-shirt, leaving the rest in the duffel bag for now.

Luc’s face had been hard as stone, closed up tight. The man had always been grim, but now he looked like he’d been scrubbed clean of emotion.

Gods, it sliced at Adric, to leave a friend with the fae, especially Luc. During the Darktime, Adric had risked his own life to rescue Luc from Leron. If it would do any good, he’d do the same thing in a heartbeat.

But Luc had accepted Lady Blaer’s geas of his own free will to save Marjani in Iceland.

Now Luc was bound to her for the next decade, and Adric couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Only Luc could break the geas , and his former lieutenant would never do that.

The man would die before breaking his word.

Adric tightened his jaw. If only he hadn’t sent Luc to Iceland after Marjani.

The clan needed you in Baltimore. And Luc insisted on going. You probably couldn’t have stopped him if you tried.

But Adric was alpha. The final decision had been his—and because of it, he’d lost Luc to that fae bitch.

That’s when it hit him. Luc was Blaer’s man. He must have led the fae to Lewes—and Adric.

His lungs contracted. He pressed the heel of his hand to his chest, telling himself that it wasn’t Luc’s fault. He was under Blaer’s control.

But it felt like Luc had shoved a knife into his heart.

He grimly set his hurt aside. Rosana was waiting for him. Rolling up his jeans, he jogged barefoot into the bay until it reached his calves before setting out for the Breakwater Light. If Luc did return, the water would erase Adric’s tracks.

He hadn’t gone far when he saw the river dolphin slipping through the waves, a sleek smudge against the lighter gray of the night sky. He should’ve known she’d come back for him.

He dropped the bags on the sand and signaled her with his quartz. She immediately headed in, shifting a few yards offshore. She rose from the bay, water streaming down her naked body, and everything in him stopped.

Breath, heart, even his mind.

All he could do was stare in helpless longing.

She strode through the waves toward him, all long legs and curves, wet hair snaking like seaweed over high, firm breasts. Water droplets shimmered on her skin, the charm a silver glint on her wrist.

She was a siren with ocean-colored eyes, come to land for one short night.

Sorrow squeezed his insides. She was so beautiful, so at home at the water.

So different from him.

They could never have more than these snatches of time.

But his feet were already moving, taking him to her.