Neal seemed to understand. His voice was gentle, without its usual Lupine growl. “The answer is, we don’t know.”

“Well, what the hell good are you, then?”

Reid and Neal glanced at each other, neither taking offense. Graham was terrified, and he knew Neal smelled that. Neal would also smell his weakness, plus the Fae curse that was killing him.

“The Guardian’s mate in the Austin Shiftertown,” Neal said. “She’s a healer. I’ve already called her.”

“She’s half Fae, right?” Graham stopped and took a breath as more pain flashed through his side. “That’s all we need, more effing Fae.”

Neal didn’t answer. There was no reason to. The woman would come, and Graham wouldn’t stop her having a look at Misty. Graham knew things were bad when he would welcome a Fae-blood’s help.

“Why don’t you sit down until she comes?” Reid said. “You can’t do anything for Misty standing over her, breathing on her.”

“Shut it, Fae. She’s my mate.”

Neal blinked, turned his head, and pinned Graham with a Shifter stare. Guardians could get away with looking alphas in the eye, because Guardians were a whole other hierarchy of Shifters. They followed the dominance line of their packs and clans, but they had their own rules, and they got away with shit no other Shifter did.

Graham had no idea why he’d blurted out that Misty was his mate. Except that it was true. Misty was the mate of his heart. He knew it. His heart knew it. His brain just needed to catch up.

“You’ve mate-claimed her?” Neal asked.

“Yes. Right now. I claim her as mate, under the sun, the Father God, and in front of witnesses. That would be you and Reid.”

Neal gave Graham the ghost of a smile. The man was taciturn—hell, dead silent most of the time. But right now he looked almost amused.

“The Goddess’s blessing on you,” Neal said. “Both of you. Your Lupines are going to be pissed off.”

“They can bite me.”

Another twitch of lips from Neal. “They probably will.”

“You still need to lie down,” Reid said, giving Graham a scowl. “You have a gunshot wound, freshly reopened. Dying of it won’t help Misty.”

“If I lie down, I’ll sleep,” Graham said. “If I sleep, I’ll dream, and Oison will be there. Who the hell knows what he can do to me then?”

“Have you tried surrounding yourself with iron?” Reid asked.

“Our whole lives are surrounded by iron,” Graham said. “Or steel. Doesn’t seem to help, does it? Besides, you smacked him with the tire iron, and he laughed at you. He shouldn’t have been able to grab that bar, but he did. He was only hurt by it because you turned it into bullets. How did you do that, by the way?”

“I’m an ironmaster,” Reid said. “At least, I was in Faerie. That cave is a little piece of Faerie, so I could work my magic there. I can make iron do whatever I want in Faerie. That’s one reason the hoch alfar hate the dokk alfar.”

“I bet there’s more to it than that,” Graham said. “What I don’t get is how we got there. I wasn’t asleep. And you teleported to it. I thought you had to see a place before you could teleport there. But you never said you’d been to the cave.”

“I hadn’t,” Reid said. “I do have to see a place, yes—unless I’m moving along a ley line. Then I follow the ley line’s pull. Several ley lines intersect in that basement, I discovered. I suggest you seal it up and build the house elsewhere.”

Ideas came together in Graham’s head. “When the cubs disappeared down there, they must have followed a ley line that came out . . . at Misty’s store?”

“I haven’t had time yet, but I’ll go down and see where they all lead,” Reid said. “One goes to the cave in the desert—which can be there or not, as Oison chooses, it seems. He must be working some powerful spells, including ones to help him resist iron.”

“Great. Iron is the badass magical weapon against Fae,” Graham said. “Without that, what have we got?”

“Spells that help resist iron are temporary,” Reid said. “And Fae can’t resist iron when it’s embedded in their brains.”

Neal gave a short laugh. The man was opening up in a big way today. “Wish I could have seen that.”

“I don’t know if I killed him,” Reid said. “Since Misty and Graham are still hurt, I’d say I didn’t.”

“Too bad,” Neal said.

“Tell me about it.” Graham dragged in a breath that sent agony through him. “You can leave. I’ll stay with Misty until the healer gets here.”

Reid and Neal exchanged a glance. “You sure?” Neal asked.

“You want me to rest. I’ll rest with her. But I won’t sleep.”

Another glance. Goddess, they were like nannies. Finally Neal took up his sword and buckled it onto his back. Reid gave Graham a last look, and the two men left the room together.

“Thought we’d never be alone.” Graham sat on his big bed, swinging his legs onto the mattress and adjusting himself to lean against the headboard. He wore only jeans, his feet bare, the bandage squeezing his side in an annoying way.

Misty didn’t respond. Her hair was sweaty and damp, still in the ponytail. The first night Graham had met her, at Coolers, she’d worn her hair in a softer style, with wisps curling around her forehead. She’d regarded Graham with her dark brown eyes, unafraid, and asked him if he was a Shifter.

And look what he’d done to her.

Misty should have run from him that night and never come back. But she had come back. She’d met him the second time by chance on top of a parking garage at the county courthouse, and then she’d sought Graham out in Shiftertown to tell him a bad man had asked her to spy on Shifters. That night, Graham had kissed her for the first time.

He’d never been able to forget the taste of her. Graham had drunk her last night as well, finding an even sweeter taste between her legs.

If she died, Graham would force his way into Faerie, hunt down Oison, and chop him into a million tiny pieces.

Misty’s wound wasn’t very deep, so Neal had said when he’d cleaned her up and bandaged her. But with Fae wounds, it didn’t matter how deep they were. A scratch could be deadly.