“Ow, that f**king hurts! Enough!”

Andrea pulled the silk wrap about her as she stood. The cloth was soft as air but opaque, hiding her completely in its smooth folds. “You all right?” she asked Ronan.

Ronan shuddered, hands coming up to scrub his face. “What the hell was that? It was like being eaten by ants from the inside out.”

“A very powerful magic charm,” Fionn said, dusting off his palms. “Without it, you’d have been dead.”

“Oh.” Ronan rearranged his expression. “Thanks. I mean that.”

“I’d not have bothered, but my daughter spoke well of you. I did it for her.”

“No, really, don’t keep explaining. I’m fine. Thanks, Andrea.”

Andrea squeezed his big body in a hug. “Anytime. You saved my life out there.”

“Plus, the Guardian’s not here, so it’s just as well I didn’t die.” Ronan glanced around, as though Sean would come crawling out from under the nearest fern. “Where is Sean? I thought he never strayed two feet from you.”

“He’s not here,” Dylan said grimly.

“We need to find him.” Andrea chewed on her thumbnail, her anxiousness returning full force.

Ronan looked from Andrea to Dylan. “What the hell happened to Sean?”

“We don’t know,” Dylan said. “We found blood ...”

Fionn was the only one who didn’t look concerned. “You can find him, daughter.”

“How? Someone took him away, who knows where, and we don’t even know whether he’s alive.”

“You have the answer,” Fionn said. He gestured to the sword, which he’d left leaning against a tree.

Andrea glanced at it, waiting so patiently for the Guardian’s return. “What, I point it and say, find Sean?”

“It’s a magic blade, forged by a Shifter and a Fae, and the two of you are connected to those who made it. More importantly, you share the mate bond.”

She heard Ronan’s gasp of delight, but Andrea couldn’t look away from Fionn. Dylan rumbled behind her. “Is that true, Andrea? You and Sean have formed the bond?”

Of course Andrea felt the mate bond; it had been probing at her since the night she’d seen Sean at the bus station. Andrea had taken one look at Sean’s dark blue eyes and lost herself. She understood that now.

She smiled a little. “Yes. We share the bond.”

“Hot damn!” Ronan said. “Congratulations, Andrea.” The mate bond didn’t always happen between a couple, and when it did, Shifters rejoiced for them.

“How did you know?” she asked Fionn. “I don’t remember telling anyone.”

“I felt it when you healed me,” Fionn said. “I saw it in you, fierce and strong. I saw that in your mother too. For me.”

Andrea lost her smile in sadness. She’d known that her mother had loved her Fae, and Fionn had just confirmed it.

Dylan took Andrea’s hands, the tall, blue-eyed man who looked so much like his son. “Because you share the bond, you’d know if Sean wasn’t alive. You would know, Andrea.”

Andrea thought she understood. She didn’t exactly feel a tether to Sean, but she knew she’d feel its absence if the bond between them severed. Her entire body would know the difference. She realized now what Dylan must have gone through when he’d lost Sean’s mother—when the mate bond had been wrenched from him. The loss had scarred him so deeply he’d taken more than fifty years to heal.

“I think he’s alive,” Andrea said slowly. “But I still don’t know where.”

She went to the sword and lifted it, passing her hand over the runes that the long-ago Fae woman had etched with her magic. The sword was as bound to Sean as he was to Andrea, as they were to each other.

Ronan grinned. “So maybe you do just point it and say, find Sean.”

Andrea drew a breath. “What the hell? The worst that can happen is I look like a fool.”

She wrapped both hands around the hilt and lifted the sword. She pointed the blade into the air and said, “Find Sean.”

The sword jerked to the right, nearly impaling Ronan, who jumped out of the way just in time. The blade dragged Andrea’s arms around before the sword sliced through the air with a white-hot light.

“Glory.”

Sean’s whisper sounded loud, even to himself. Glory’s answer was a soft groan. She was dying.

“I need to apologize,” Sean murmured to her. “For what I have to do.”

Glory’s eye cracked open. “Kick his ass, Sean.”

For a Feline to kill a Lupine pack leader was against all protocol and Shifter law. Shifter species traditionally despised each other, but they’d made it a policy to avoid fighting each other rather than wipe each other out. They’d have all died out long ago if they hadn’t.

Then again, if a Lupine was a clear danger to a Feline pride, then he was fair game. Glory’s words meant she would be witness to this, her offer tantamount to the pack’s acceptance of the kill.

The question might be academic, however. Sean wasn’t in position to kick anyone’s ass, Lupine or otherwise. His entire body was a mass of pain right now, and strength was a vague memory.

But he had to get them out of here and back to Shiftertown. Glory needed medical attention, and the Goddess only knew what Callum’s Felines were doing to Andrea—not to mention Liam, Dylan, Connor, and Kim. If Callum were daft enough to make a pact with the Fae, Shifters were screwed. The Fae were strong, treacherous, and deadly. They’d happily wipe out or enslave all Shifters and not worry too much about it.

Heartless, cold bastards. And stupid, stupid Callum.

Sean closed his eyes and directed all his remaining energy into shifting to his wildcat.

He spent the next ten minutes gasping in blinding pain. Shifting itself shot agony into his body, coupled with the pain of his wounds and the torture from his Collar. This is what I get for being compassionate. I should have let Andrea rip out Callum’s heart when she had the chance.

Andrea. Hell. Sean was supposed to be her great protector, and now here he was, weaponless, weak, and in too much pain to get himself free to help her.

Wade claimed he didn’t have a phone, so Sean needed to find out where Wade had stashed whatever vehicle had gotten them out here and go for help. That is, if Sean could get himself up off the floor.