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Lusca rasped, “I agree.” He closed his eyes, communicating with one of his subjects, I assumed. “The selkie Omega is in the sea, close to the island where we fought. His brother is still on the island he named Menthera. I cannot sense the Warlord, though he was returning to Pict.”

“Why?”

“At her command. He may be weaker than we are, brother, but the Warlord’s love was forged in loss. He is her warrior before anything else.”

I exhaled, blowing a command into the cold wind to find him, then leaped into the sky. “Take care of my… of our mate, brother. I will go and bring reinforcement knots.”

RADA

Iwasn’t sure if I was having a dream or a nightmare. If I’d been taken into paradise or if I’d died and gone to the lowest of the Goddess’s hells.

The world flickered from bright white to blazing red to a blackness so deep, there seemed to be no end to it. I felt bodies next to mine, hands and other things moving over my skin, cooling it, soothing me, filling me… and then the pain began again.

My body was on fire in one way, then another.

But even when the world was bliss, it felt as if a part of me had been hollowed out and replaced with an emptiness so vast, it could never be filled. What was missing?

Or who?

I was struggling to escape the endless haze of ice and fire, pain and unspeakable pleasure, when a voice glimmered in the fog. “Ratter. Little thief, you left something behind.”

I stretched toward that faraway voice. Yes. I had left something behind.

Someone.

If I concentrated, I could force the pain to extend from me, to become… what I needed, to fly to him. Them?

I tasted the pain again. There was so much. Too much for it to all well from one wound.

Them.

“Mina?” An indrawn breath. “Goran, can you feel her?”

Then an icy claw grasped me and dragged me down.

“Wake, little spy. My perfect hoard. Wake and comfort your worried mates.”

Skadi? Somehow, I opened my eyes. Skadi was there, hovering over my right side, his green-flecked eye leaking diamonds.

“Are you… crying?” I asked, or tried to. My throat was on fire.

“My Empress, drink.” Lusca was on my left, and he lifted an ice cup of water to my lips. I drank greedily.

Skadi had turned his head, and when he moved, I could make out the sleeping bodies of my selkie mates. They were naked, lying on a bed of gorgeous satin and velvet blankets with pillows piled up behind and around them. I sipped again, wishing I had the strength to ask what was going on.

“You do not need strength, beloved,” Lusca answered. “I am in your thoughts. We all are, now.”

“All?” He meant my mates. Memories began to reappear, surfacing like bubbles, one at a time. I’d been in heat when we escaped Pict. I’d been in agony, and we’d gone to the trench in the sea… and then to Menthera. Or had I imagined that? I’d seen my mates there. I’d asked them to do… something. To find someone.

Why couldn’t I remember?

“You have been in heat for almost two weeks,” Lusca said gently.

“Overachieving brat,” Lachlan rasped. He’d woken and moved next to Skadi, reaching out to touch my arm. “Of course you had to outdo any other Omega ever born.”

I beckoned him closer and whispered, “Why was Skadi crying?”

“Probably sad that I was the one who fucked you back to consciousne—oof! Damnit, Kellin!” Lachlan rubbed the side of his head where Kellin had smacked him.