“The hell you do.” Bowman pressed his side and groaned softly, but he knew he was already starting to heal. He was good at it; he’d had a lot of practice.

He and Jamie went out together. The sun was up, the woods cold, the ground filmed with frost. His trackers and Cristian were continuing to sift through Turner’s things. Pierce lay on a piece of tarp, eyes closed, his sheathed sword lying next to him. He was their combat medic and a good healer, but he always needed to rest afterward.

“Kenzie’s alive,” Bowman said from the doorstep. The others stopped what they were doing to look at him.

“How do you know?” Cade asked, his dark eyes hopeful and skeptical at the same time.

“I heard her.” Bowman shook his head and stepped down to the ground. “Maybe I dreamed it. I can’t tell. But . . . I know.”

He saw the uncertain looks, but he didn’t care. Ryan was right—it didn’t matter about the mate bond. He and Kenzie had a connection they’d formed the moment they’d first seen each other. They belonged together, and nothing could change that.

“Hey, Dad,” Ryan said, strolling to him, Gil behind him. “Feeling better?”

Bowman growled at them both. “What are you doing with him?” he snapped at Ryan.

“You always tell me we should keep our friends close and our enemies closer,” Ryan returned calmly. “Did you come up with that saying?”

“No.” Bowman couldn’t remember who had coined the phrase, though Kenzie no doubt would know. “But you were supposed to stay with Afina.”

“I know.” Ryan shrugged off his father’s orders. “But I had an idea, and I had to come out here to test it. Gil thinks it might work. I just need to . . .”

Ryan turned around and darted to Pierce. Before Pierce could come awake, Ryan had the Sword of the Guardian in his hands, struggling to unsheath it.

Pierce opened his eyes, blinked, then got to his feet with Feline speed. “Hey, don’t touch that.”

Ignoring him, Ryan ran with the sword to the place where Turner had come out of the mists. Gil, closest to Ryan, went after him and caught him.

“Whoa, slow down there,” Gil said. “You don’t know exactly what it’s going to do.”

“So?” Ryan struggled from Gil’s grasp and finally managed to pull the sword out of the sheath. “It’s worth a shot.”

“What is?” Bowman demanded, his voice thundering. “Ryan, put that down.”

A beam of sunlight broke through the clouds and thick trees and landed on the sword. The blade glittered brilliantly. Or was the sword itself creating the light? The lit runes seemed to dance.

Mists suddenly boiled up around Ryan. Bowman shouted and leapt forward. Gil seized Ryan and held him tightly as the sword shot forward, trying to pull Ryan with it.

“Damn it,” Bowman yelled. “Stop!”

Pierce was right behind him, shouting as well. Cristian came running, but Jamie bound past them all and reached Ryan and Gil before the others could.

Ryan cried out as the sword pulled at him. Gil held him, but the sword tugged hard, lifting Ryan’s arms straight out. Jamie reached them and wrapped his arms around both Gil and Ryan, trying to pull them back.

The mists whirled, and a wave of thick fog poured into the clearing, obliterating everything.

Bowman waved his hands in front of his face in the sudden whiteout, calling for Ryan. Cristian, beside him, yelled for him too, as did Cade.

“Aw, shit!” Ryan’s voice rose high and shrill above them all.

The fog shrank back, as though Ryan’s cry had slapped it apart. The dense whiteness lessened until it was nothing more than a dampening mist, and trees, Shifters, and Turner’s trailer swam back into view.

Ryan kept swearing, using words Bowman hadn’t known he knew. Bowman reached his son as Jamie and Gil set him down. Pierce was standing over Ryan in a towering fury.

“You dropped it?” Pierce yelled. “You dropped the Sword of the Guardian into an unknown, out-of-reach, magical world?”

The sword was gone. Ryan didn’t have it, Jamie didn’t have it, and Gil looked as baffled as the other two.

Ryan stared up at Pierce without flinching. “Not on purpose,” he said, meeting Pierce’s gaze. “Obviously.”

“Shit!” Pierce swung away, fists clenching, his face draining of color.

Cade scrubbed his hand over his short hair. “This can’t be good.”

“We must retrieve it,” Cristian said. His scowl was fierce, the man more troubled than Bowman ever remembered seeing him. “There is too much magic in the sword for it to be safe there.”

“No kidding,” Bowman said. “But how the hell do you propose to get it back?”

“Aw, crap.” Gil’s exclamation dragged Bowman from his irritating uncle-in-law.

Bowman’s impatience turned to fear a second later. Gil was standing by swirling mist, and Ryan was gone. A sweep of the clearing showed that his son was nowhere in sight—the others were looking too.

“He was standing next to me,” Gil said, stricken. “And then he wasn’t. Bowman, I’m sorry. I had him . . .”

The mist cleared again, revealing the trees beyond, as they’d stood in that woods for centuries. Tall, serene, silent, dripping as the sun began to dispel the early-morning frost.

The mists had taken Ryan, and now he too was lost.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“Mom!”

Kenzie lifted her head, which she found difficult. Grief was tugging her, profound grief, wanting to embrace her in its darkness.

Don’t give up, not yet, she told herself fiercely. There is a way out, a way back to Bowman. You’ll find it.

Shifters found grief debilitating. Loss was something they’d had to learn to live with, but getting through it was tough, and sometimes the Shifter didn’t make it.

Kenzie knew it could not be Ryan’s voice she heard. She’d seen the vision of Bowman and Ryan three more times, both of them waving madly to her and looking puzzled when she didn’t run to them. Each time, it had broken her heart.

Turner was dead meat.

“Mom! Hey! Help me!”

Kenzie closed her eyes. There were bad things in the mists, Brigid had told her—bloodsucking vampire-like creatures and other evils she’d never heard of.

“Geez, Mom! You can’t be that mad at me.”