Primal Bonds

  Sean roared and shook his head. Sean’s sides were already bloody from Jared’s claws, Jared’s dark fur dripping scarlet from Sean’s. For seconds they stood back to catch their breaths, and then they were fighting again. Grappling, clawing, ears back, each trying to close jaws over the others’ throat.

  Savage snarling filled the air, but it didn’t come from Sean or Jared. Before Sean’s enraged brain could reason out what was going on, a half-dozen Felines sprinted across the parking lot and leapt on them both.

  Sean rolled from Jared and fought this new attack. His nose told him who they were—Callum’s followers he’d seen in the bar. Of Callum or Sean’s clansmate Ben, there was no sign.

  The Felines had one thing on their minds: to rip Sean and Jared to pieces. Their Collars sparked too, but they fought right through the pain.

  Sean turned on them. He roared a mane-shaking roar, proclaiming to all who heard that he was in command here. One Feline started to back away, but the other four didn’t give a damn who was in charge and renewed their attack.

  Jared, the idiot, didn’t run off, go for help, or even join the others to kill Sean. This wasn’t his fight, and yet he turned and started battling the Felines alongside Sean.

  Sean roared and plunged, snapped teeth and raked claws, fighting furiously. He saw and sensed the Feline who’d dropped back make for the sword.

  The sword. Damn it.

  But if Sean broke away and made a dash for the sword, the Felines would tear Jared to pieces. If Sean didn’t, the shite slinking toward the Sword of the Guardian would snatch it and run off. Sean couldn’t let that happen.

  Dimly he heard cars squealing to a halt in the parking lot, and far away, the sound of sirens. Help coming?

  From the scent, the people who piled out of the cars were human. Ben had assured them that the human shooters they’d hired had gone, so were these friend or foe? Sean couldn’t afford to wait around and find out.

  He sprinted for the sword, knocking aside the Feline that had almost reached it. Sean’s Collar was sparking like fireworks and the later payback would be hell, but he didn’t have time to worry about that right now.

  Sean morphed to human as he rolled over the Feline, landing on his human feet and sweeping up the sword. The Feline backed off, looked up at Sean with red-rimmed eyes, and turned to dash back to the fight around Jared.

  “Jared, you gobshite. Run! Get out of it!”

  Jared continued to fight, and the Felines continued to savage him. They were in a killing frenzy, instinctively taking out the Lupine, the competitive predator. Jared, enraged at the interrupted challenge, was fighting for all he was worth.

  So this was Sean’s choice—again. Help Jared and risk the sword, or watch Jared die, just as Sean had with Kenny. Jared was nothing to Sean but the asshole who had persecuted Andrea, but the situation was the same. Sean guarded the sword, and others died for it.

  Sean dropped the sword and shifted. He bounded into the tangle of wildcats shredding Jared and fought them hard. The humans from the cars moved toward them. They had weapons, but they stood at the edge of the fight, watching.

  Sean shoved one of the Felines in front of him, snarling as he rolled over and over with him toward the five humans. Sean came out of the roll and barreled into the human men, scattering them like bowling pins. They cursed and shouted and then they started shooting.

  The sirens grew louder, nearer. Two of the gunmen ran, jumping into a car and peeling away. The other three remained. A bullet sliced across Sean’s chest, and he gave up trying to be nice.

  He took down two humans, raking claws across the arms that held the guns, digging deep. The men screamed, trying to get away, weapons dropped and forgotten. A few smacks from Sean’s huge paws put them out, and he turned to jump on the next one.

  The man rose and aimed at Jared, Jared’s Lupine form standing out among the Felines. He fired. Jared howled and fell, and Sean’s claws tore across the shooter’s back. The man landed on the ground with his fellows, and Sean smacked his gun out of his reach.

  The Felines converged on Jared, but Sean dove between them, flailing and fighting. The Felines were tiring finally, reacting to their Collars. Sean fought on but he knew his own pain would creep up on him soon.

  Two of the Felines morphed back to human, breaths grating, and started dragging the bleeding, mewling humans to the cars. Another Feline went for the sword, but Sean intercepted him, jaws snapping on the Feline’s spine.

  The Feline squealed and limped away, his fight done, but it was the end of Jared. One of the remaining Felines dragged a paw down Jared’s face as he lay unmoving, opening it to the bone. The Felines turned to look at Sean, faces bloody, sides heaving.

  Sean stood over the sword and snarled at them, the blade between his front and back paws. Two came back to Sean, circling him.

  Sean lunged at one Feline, and the wildcat backed off, tail swishing. The other tried to get behind Sean, but Sean was too fast, his paw catching that one and sending him to the ground.

  The sirens drew near. By tacit agreement, the Felines turned and made their painful way back toward the cars. Sean felt no triumph as he watched them morph into bloody, battered humans and crawl into their vehicles. They were giving up for now, but there was nothing to say they wouldn’t simply call others to come and take him while he was here with the sword and wounded. He needed to get the hell home, but it would be a long way for him to ride, broken and bloody, on his motorcycle. As if in response, one of the cars slowed where Sean had left his bike near the door of the bar, and fired five rounds into the motorcycle’s engine.

  Bloody bastards. Sean lay down, panting, the sword hard under his body, as the cars moved off and disappeared down the empty street. The sirens neared the scene and went past on the next block, never coming close. Whatever emergency the vehicles were responding to, it wasn’t this one.

  Sean couldn’t get his breath. He’d fought too long and too furiously, and the wounds in his side, plus the chunk taken out by the bullet, segued into the Collar’s payback pain. But if he passed out or even died here, he couldn’t risk anyone else picking up the sword.

  He scratched in the earth, using the last of his strength to dig deep. He moved as much of the wet earth as he could before shoving the sword into the hole and piling mud on top of it. The field was so gouged with the fighting, this last gouge didn’t look any different from the others.

  Sean morphed back to human, and then his world went black as the Collar’s agony took over. Vaguely he sensed another presence and smelled Lupine, not Jared, but nor was it Andrea.

  Andrea. Love.

  I love you.

  As Sean lost consciousness, he felt himself being lifted by the armpits and dragged away. Behind him, dying sunlight picked out Jared lying alone and bloody in the litter-strewn parking lot.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Dylan’s white pickup barreled through traffic on MLK Boulevard, and Andrea hung on to the swaying seat. Dylan’s face was set, his dark blue eyes almost black with fury.

  “So where did they all go?” Andrea asked. Once she’d calmed down from the shock Dylan had given her, he’d ordered her to come with him, striding away before she could ask questions.

  “Callum and his clan declared war on Liam,” Dylan said in clipped tones. “Liam gave the order—all cubs and vulnerable Shifters to be taken to safety. But each family has to look after its own, because the collective hiding places aren’t safe, not when Callum and his faction know where they all are.”

  Which meant each family or pride or pack had gone to ground in their own secret hideaways. They’d have these places, because even though Shifters now lived in communities, the instinct to protect the mates and cubs from other Shifters still existed. Shifters worked together now, yes; but they all had private places into which they could disappear if they needed to.

  “What the hell were you doing?” Dylan demanded. “Liam wanted to take you to stay with Kim and Connor, and Ronan
tells us you forced him to let you go to that Fae. Liam decided you’d be all right with him, but he’s bloody pissed off at you. And Ronan.”

  “Don’t blame Ronan. I needed to talk to my father—to Fionn. He said that Fae were helping Callum. They want the sword—the Fae, I mean.”

  Dylan grunted, not sounding very surprised. “Betraying Shifters to the Fae. Callum dies for that.” A simple statement, but the chill with which he said it emphasized the walking danger that was Dylan Morrissey.

  “Sean was looking for Glory,” Andrea said worriedly. “I know some of the places she likes to go, but not all.”

  “Doesn’t matter; I know where Sean is. Or at least, where he was.”

  “You do? How?”

  “He called me. I was on my way to meet him when Liam summoned me and told me to stay behind in case you popped back out of Faerie.”

  He snapped his mouth shut, and Andrea didn’t have to be a mind reader to know how he felt about that. Dylan turned abruptly onto a little-used street that wound behind empty warehouses.

  “Sean told you he was out here?”

  “He said he was in the parking lot of a bar Glory likes to go to. He found her scent and some blood.”

  Andrea felt sick. “Blood?”

  Dylan was pale and drawn, his fear for Glory coming off him in waves. “Not enough to show Sean what happened.”

  “Where exactly are we going?”

  “Here.” Dylan jerked the truck into a parking lot.

  Andrea saw the familiar bulk of Sean’s motorcycle by the front door of the closed bar. Dylan glanced at it, and then tires screeched as he rode the breaks to avoid hitting the body of a man lying motionlessly on the pavement. The stench of burning rubber filled the air.

  Andrea was out of the truck and racing to the man’s side before Dylan switched off the engine. She dropped to her knees and pushed blood-matted hair out of the face of Jared Barnett.

  “Jared. What the hell?”

  Jared’s flesh bore the deep marks of the fully extended, razor-sharp talons of a Feline Shifter. The cuts went to the bone, Jared’s naked skin blue white where it wasn’t covered with blood. He was still alive, barely, his heart fluttering in faint, rapid beats.

  Jared opened his eyes, but they were filmed over, gaze unfocussed. “Andrea?”

  “What happened? Did you see Sean? Did he do this?”

  Jared swallowed, fighting for air. “Felines. Sean tried to save me.”

  “Sean tried to save you? Where is he? What happened?”

  “Gone. He was taken. The sword.”

  Dylan crouched on Jared’s other side. “What about the sword?” he demanded.

  “The sword,” Jared whispered. His eyes drifted shut, but breath still rasped in his throat.

  Andrea cast her gaze around the parking lot. Much blood had been spilled, red soaking into the crumbling gray asphalt. She smelled more Shifters than just Sean and Jared. Felines, several of them, some of whom had been in the bar with Callum.

  The parking lot ended in a field covered with weeds and tall grasses. A creek cut through the bottom of this field, ensuring the place stayed nice and wet. The field had been torn up by the fighting, leaving gouges of mud through the tall weeds, but no bodies lay here.

  Neither did the sword. Nowhere did she see a glint of sliver, the hump of its hilt, but as she stood at the edge of the field, she started to hear it. The familiar shimmering sound that the sword made when she neared it rang inside her head, growing louder and louder until Andrea clapped her hands over her ears. An instinctive move—one glance back at Dylan and Jared told her they couldn’t hear it.

  The sword was here, calling to her. Gritting her teeth, she followed its song, which grew louder and more joyful as she neared it.

  Andrea dropped down and dug in the grass and soggy earth. She had to go down a long way, covering herself in muck before her hand encountered something hard. She pulled it out of the gripping mud, the sword singing with all its might.

  So the sword was here, safe and sound. But where the hell was Sean?

  The ground around where the sword had lain was saturated with blood. Sean’s blood. The blood was drying, no longer fresh, but the dampness of the grass ensured that her fingers came away red.

  Andrea hoisted the sword, ran back to Dylan and Jared, and crouched next to Jared.

  “What happed to Sean?” she demanded. “Tell me.”

  “They tried to get the sword,” Jared whispered. “Sean fought them so hard. Drove them off.”

  “But what about Sean? Who took him away?”

  “Don’t know. Didn’t see.”

  Andrea put her hand on Jared’s chest, again felt the flutter of his heartbeat, so swift and faint. It was useless to ask him any more questions. “Lie still. We’ll get an ambulance.”

  “No. Human hospitals will kill me.”

  He was probably right, and Andrea didn’t have the heart to argue with him. But she could try to help him at least. Jared was cruel and nasty and selfish, but he didn’t deserve to die in such pain and alone, so far from home.

  Andrea pressed her hand to his chest and closed her eyes, searching inside herself for the healing magic.

  Except that she already knew that her magic would not be strong enough. The threads that were Jared’s life force were snarled, too tangled to unravel. He’d been battered, bones broken, muscles and organs tattered by claws and by bullets.

  When she’d healed Ely, Andrea had boosted her power with the Fae magic of the sword. Shaking, she wiped as much of the mud and grass from it as she could, laid it across her knees, and wrapped one hand around the blade.

  The sword kept singing to her, not as loudly now, and she understood with abrupt clarity that the runes etched on the blade and hilt were forming words in her mind. They must be part of the spells made by the Fae woman long ago, and the words spoke of peace.

  The sword’s threads flowed into Andrea’s body then out through her fingers, joining with her own healing magic that she poured into Jared.

  But it wasn’t enough. The sword helped a little, but Andrea felt nowhere near the surge of magic she’d experienced when she’d healed Ely.

  Come on. Give me more.

  Even as she thought it, she knew that there would be no more. The missing factor from this healing was Sean.

  When she’d helped Ely, Sean had held the sword’s hilt while Andrea had held the blade. The sword had drawn from Sean’s amazing Goddess-touched aura and combined it with Andrea’s healing gift to make Ely whole again. Sean the Guardian was the second part of the equation. The magic of the sword’s original makers—the Shifter man and the Fae woman—had manifested again in Andrea and Sean. Both of them were needed to make the healing work.

  Beneath Andrea’s hand, Jared’s body weakened. She saw in her mind the faint threads of his aura suddenly fade and wink out.

  Andrea gasped. She plunged her healing magic again into Jared, but she found the threads brittle and black, snapping under her touch. Andrea, Jared’s voice came to her, sounding happy, and then he was gone.

  Andrea opened her eyes and jerked her hands from Jared’s body. Dylan leaned down and gently closed Jared’s blind eyes.

  “You tried, lass,” he said softly.

  “But it didn’t work. I wasn’t strong enough.”

  “He was already gone. You eased him into his death, let his end be painless.”

  Andrea stroked the silver blade on her lap, the runes still whispering to her, trying to comfort her. She and Dylan sat silent a moment, as was traditional when a Shifter died, each sending a prayer to the Goddess.

  “If Callum or his Felines took Sean, they wouldn’t have left the sword,” Andrea said as Dylan helped her to her feet. “So that leaves who? If it was someone trying to help him, then why did they leave Jared?”

  “I don’t know, lass. Maybe whoever it was thought Jared was already dead. Or maybe they just didn’t give a damn. But we’ll find him.” Dylan’s voice held dete
rmination.

  Andrea’s breath hurt, but with her fear came rage, a killing anger. They’d taken her mate. A female defending her mate was the most fearsome of Shifters, and whoever had done this to Sean didn’t yet know the meaning of terror.

  Andrea and Dylan couldn’t leave Jared’s body behind for the humans to find. Though Jared had been an asshole who’d made Andrea’s life hell, every Shifter deserved to be sent to the afterlife by the Guardian. Andrea helped Dylan wrap Jared’s body in a tarp and ease it gently into the bed of Dylan’s pickup. Dylan laid another tarp on top and secured the tailgate.

  They followed Sean’s blood trail through the grass onto the pavement behind the closed bar, and there the trail vanished. By the scent, someone had backed a vehicle there and must have then driven away with Sean’s body. There were no tire tracks on the solid asphalt, nothing to indicate what kind of vehicle it had been or in which direction it had gone.

  Andrea didn’t want to give up and drive away, but there was nothing they could do. Dylan started the truck, and Andrea held the sword in her lap, her hands around both hilt and blade, as though the sword would give her some clue. It didn’t; the damn thing only kept whispering musical words that she couldn’t understand.

  When they pulled into traffic, Dylan’s cell phone rang. Andrea jumped, and Dylan’s hand shook as he pulled the phone from his pocket. He handed the phone to Andrea and went back to dodging traffic at its densest.

  “Andrea?” Liam yelled into the phone when she answered. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Driving. Did you find Sean?”

  “What?” Liam stopped. “What do you mean, find Sean? I thought Dad would be meeting up with him after he found you.”

  Andrea’s chest tightened. “Where are you?”

  “Fighting. We need Dad. And Sean and the sword. Damn it.”

  “I have the sword. I don’t have Sean.”

  Liam’s voice trailed off into a snarl. “Tell dad to get here. We’re at home. Callum’s Felines are all over the place.”

  “What about Sean?”