I let out an irritated breath and closed my eyes. Slowly, sounds from the forest trickled in. This time of year, the insects were quiet, but the birds chirped at each other and smaller critters scurried through the underbrush. Even in the harshness of winter, the forest was alive.
The lake or Drudonia. If we separated, we could check both, but what if I went to the wrong place and it was Bastian who found her?
No. I didn’t want them spending any more time alone together. Rynn was mine.
I concentrated on the two places. When I thought about the lake, the tightness in my chest loosened a fraction, and my eyes flew open as the realization hit me. Not just about where she likely was, but what this fucking feeling was. Did she feel it too? Was that why Rynn was running from me?
Because in that moment, I knew two things with absolute certainty: Rynn had gone to Lake Malov, and a mate bond was forming between us.
“The lake,” I rasped. “She went to the lake.”
Bastian didn’t say anything, and when I glanced at him, I found his gaze on my hand still rubbing at my chest. I dropped it immediately, which only made him narrow his eyes further.
“Something you want to tell me, Ryk?”
“No,” I lied. Until Rynn had come into our lives, I’d never once lied to Bastian and the others. Now it felt like I lied to them constantly, and I hated it. They probably wouldn’t have cared about the two of us fucking, other than warning me to be careful about what I said to her. But a mate bond? They would never let me accept it.
Velesian mating bonds required all parties involved to accept them, and once they did, the bond was unbreakable.
Bastian and Cade would never let me tie my soul to hers, not with how things currently stood, which meant I couldn’t let them know about this until they truly accepted Rynn into the pack.
Also, I needed to get Rynn to stop hating me.
That felt like an even more impossible task, but the first step in all of this was finding her.
“Well, the lake it is then.” Bastian rolled his shoulders. “You shift. I’ll guard your back.
I nodded and tugged my pants off again, tossing them to him. He looped them through the drawstring of his pants as I shifted, and then we raced through the forest. Mile after mile flew by. We encountered a few Narchis patrols, but they just nodded at us as we passed.
A few old scents came to me, mostly howlers and devil cats, but nothing recent, which was strange. They were far more common in this area than farther north, where the more vicious predators roamed.
Rynn’s scent suddenly slammed into me, and I skidded to a stop, my paws digging into the hard earth. It was a couple of hours old, but there was no mistaking it: Rynn’s blood stained the ground.
Bastian slid to a graceful stop next to me, long daggers in each of his hands.
“Strigoi,” he spat.
I let out a growl, having smelled them as well. It was difficult to detect Strigoi. They moved like shadows, and it was like the forests swallowed their very presence.
If it hadn’t been for Rynn’s blood, I probably wouldn’t have noticed their faint scent at all in my haste to get to the lake.
“There’s more,” Bastian hissed.
We followed the blood drops through the trees, and when we reached a particularly large patch, I felt something I hadn’t since I’d watched my family get slaughtered by wraiths.
Fear.
“She just had to make it to the lake,” Bastian said tightly.
I stared at the dark stain. There were some traces of Strigoi blood too. Rynn had gotten some hits in. Although, I detected at least four Strigoi. Even if she’d found a weapon somewhere, those weren’t great odds.
I swear to fuck, Rynn, when I find you, I might actually strangle you for going out on your own like this.
“Come on.” Bastian rose from where he’d been studying the blood splatter. “The lake isn’t far.”
Five minutes later, we reached the shoreline. I shifted back, and Bastian passed me my pants. “She made it.” He frowned at the glyph embedded in the rocky shoreline. “Roth was here too.”
“Can you activate the glyph?” I looked at the dark waters of Lake Malov. There was something seriously fucked up about this place. For such a large body of water, it was too calm. It was like staring into a piece of glass.
