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“You don’t think this is the last of the Shadow League, do you?”
“No, I don’t. Someone within the League will be looking to fill that power vacuum, and I’ve never been convinced that Strode was the puppet master. He was far too obvious.”
“Unlike you, who hid your true colors until doing so no longer suited your purpose.”
Hayden, who had been enjoying himself immensely, plopped down in the chair next to them.
“Are you planning to send a recon group back to the island?” he asked, tipping back a bottle of one of Colby’s expensive scotches.
“I thought it would be prudent,” answered Colby, looking between Brie and the hellhound. “What?”
“I don’t know about Hayden, but I’m not convinced we got them all. Specifically, I’m worried about the wolf who turned Adriana.”
“Her mate?” Colby said, perking up with a worried expression on his face.
Hayden nodded. “I don’t know that he’s dead. Maybe if he was hiding in the house, but he started running from the moment that first flashbang was tossed. Brie thought she saw a couple of them running down the stairs as we moved toward the room where they were holding Adriana, and as you moved out of the foyer heading for Strode.”
Brie nodded. “Rats deserting the sinking ship.”
“Damn,” said Colby under his breath. “If he’s alive, he’ll still have a bonding link with her.”
“But not as strong as ours. She wasn’t his fated mate. That sonofabitch turned her just so he could use her as a pawn.”
“When I spoke with Fallon, she reminded me that Cullen and Salem had said there was at least one other celestial key floating around.”
One of Colby’s men had brought up his fiddle and began to play a lively tune to which others were beginning to dance.
“All things to consider in the morning,” Colby stood, and drew her up in his arms. “But for tonight, I’m going to celebrate and dance with my mate.”
“Good idea. I think I’ll head home and do the same,” said Hayden as he shimmered out of existence, leaving only a trace of his grin behind.
Brie danced with Colby and embraced her new life with the man she had loved for so long until one of the men monitoring the communications system interrupted them.
“My apologies, Alpha. Deke Grayson would like an update and has a few questions he’d like answered before the leadership of the Resistance meets tomorrow.”
“Tell Deke I’ll be right down. Brie…”
“You go. I’ve got this.”
He kissed her cheek. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
She watched him leave and then scanned the room for Adriana. She was nowhere to be seen, but one of the doors leading to the outside from the dining room was open, and Brie suspected she was outside.
Adriana stood on the edge of the elegant courtyard, framed by the moonlight and looking out toward the sea.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? As rugged and wild as it is, I do think this section of the Cornish coast might be my favorite,” said Brie, coming to stand beside her.
“It is. I suspect you know… I didn’t kill him. I couldn’t. With all that the Resistance and the Shadow Sisters have sacrificed, I should have been willing to sacrifice myself, but…”
“What do you mean, sacrifice yourself?”
“Eoghan, the wolf-shifter who turned me, told me that if I killed him, magic or not, my soul was bound to his and I would die, too. I don’t want to die, Brie, but I don’t know how to live like this, either.”
“No one, and I do mean no one, at the abbey or in the Shadow Sisters would expect you to kill yourself. And I’m not sure that’s the way it works. Colby said something about witches having a fatal flaw and being unable to kill their mate.”
Adriana nodded. “That’s what he said.”
