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“I don’t need my powers.” Alys wrestled against his hold. “I’ll rip her fucking face off with my bare hands.”
Yulia didn’t set up a protective circle against his sister. She didn’t even appear to try. True, the wards on the warehouse would stop any offensive magic, but they shouldn’t block defensive.
“Stop.” Joelle’s voice cut through the chaos. “We need to find Tai, and this isn’t helping.” She walked toward the woman who’d handed her over to Noxx. “Where was he last? What was he wearing? Who stayed with him? How do you know it’s the Order? We need to know everything you can think of to save your son.”
Staring at his mate, Yulia shook her head. “Why would you help me? After what they did to you on that ship?”
“Tai needs us—all of us. He’s not the only kid they took. You in this to help us rescue all those children?”
The mask that Yulia had held onto cracked into a trembling mouth and watery gaze. “Tai likes you. He made you a gift, and I tossed it because I couldn’t bear to think of what I’d done. My son’s the sweetest boy, the smartest. I did everything just to keep him safe, and I failed him.”
“We’ll find him.” His mate sounded unshakeable in her conviction.
“What if we’re too late? What if she does what she did to the other telekinetic on the ship? What if my baby—”
“You can’t think that way.” Joelle’s tone held firm reassurance that didn’t allow for contradiction. “What do you know about his disappearance?”
“After the ship, after we found you—” Yulia stopped, pressed her lips together. “After I realized what a huge mistake I’d made, I caught a flight beyond this kingdom’s boundaries until I finished my father’s business and could return home. Sergei—my ex-husband—stayed with Tai. Three hours ago, he called and told me to rush back to LA because my son didn’t feel well.”
Alexei noticed she hadn’t saidourson. No, she claimed the boy as hers alone. “Where’s Sergei now?” They would need to question him.
“Dead.” Yulia didn’t sound like a grieving widow—ex or otherwise. “I found him at the hotel suite amid the carnage the Order left behind. They decimated my best guards, men and women who had been with my son since his birth. The humans at the hotel either didn’t hear the battle or chose to ignore it.” Her rage came through with each accusation.
So much for questioning Sergei. “Did they leave any clues?” he asked. “Hints as to how they targeted Tai?” Or that the Order had been the ones to take him? Her kingdom had several rich and powerful enemies who wouldn’t hesitate to strike once the news had leaked that her safe passage in this city had been revoked.
“Sergei told me as he died.” Yulia’s accent cut each word short in spikes and jabs.
“I’m so sorry.” His mate’s soft heart had him wishing he could fly her back to the mansion and lock her there until he could wipe out the Order.
“I’m not.” The answer from the man’s ex and mother of his child seemed to shock the hell out of all of them.
Sure, Alexei hadn’t liked Sergei, but he hadn’t wanted the man murdered either. “Care to share why?” he asked, then rushed to add a condition before he invited an irrelevant rant. “If it helps us determine what happened to Tai.”
Yulia’s expression went from sorrowful to seething. “The bastard sold us out. He helped the Order, selling them information like how to find your telekinetic Kyle—may he rest in the most glorious hell dimension eternally—and his human mother.” She waved her hand in a slicing motion. “No, I didn’t know until after Sergei admitted he’d given Noxx information about Tai’s powers. Then I tortured the rest out of him before he could escape me with death.”
Joelle recovered first from the devastating betrayal of a demon hybrid uniting with humans who hated their kind. “What did he tell you about Tai?”
“That Noxx came and stole my baby. That she used the blood vow to somehow track us. In our blood, I gave her the tools to find and take my boy.” Her voice broke.
“You couldn’t have known,” Joelle said, more merciful than Alexei could ever be in forgiving the woman’s part in offering his mate as a sacrifice to save her own skin.
He concentrated on the present. “Did he tell you where they took Tai? Any locations the Order has used?”
She shook her head, her blonde hair falling out of its bun with strands matted in blood he had to assume belonged to Sergei. “The traitor didn’t know.”
Which put them no closer to finding those children than they’d been before she’d arrived. “There’s no sign of the Order. We’ve had contacts search every military, cargo, and merchant ship in a fifty-mile area. My guards and their teams have infiltrated over a dozen possible locations and run surveillance on even more. I have demon hybrids looking everywhere for them, and we’ve had no luck so far.”
Yulia stared at him as if she could make him take back his words and give her hope. “I don’t know where else to go for help or who else would even understand how little time Tai may have.” She threaded her statement with equal parts despair and disbelief. “If you and your mate can’t find the Order, then who possibly can?”
“I know a way.” Nita’s voice came from behind him. Alexei could hug the woman. Thank the gods he would have someone to make sure Alys didn’t start a war. He tossed his sister into her mate’s arms. The hacker looked paler than usual, her gaze sad as she looked at him. “But you won’t like it.”
He already hated it, but he wouldn’t blame her for whatever might be coming. “I likenothingabout this situation. Since the Order came into our lives, I’ve wanted Noxx dead. You giving me more bad news won’t change that.”
She nodded, holding Alys in a vise grip disguised as a lover’s embrace. While the woman couldn’t stop his sister from having the room writhe in pain from magic, she could keep her from a common brawl. “The editor ofThe Hex Reportsent a coded message to the general email I keep for Maronov business.”
Alexei stopped her there. “The gossip site is anonymous. No one knows who runs it.”
“True.” Except the hacker’s tone didn’t match her easy agreement. He could circle back to the lie later when people’s lives weren’t at risk. “The editor got an anonymous tip on their hotline and figured it was a prank, the cyber equivalent of a crank call, but she sent it through the email in case it was legit. The message said the Order had kidnapped a child, a demon prince, and they would negotiate an exchange for the child with you, Alexei. A follow-up came through after the editor engaged with the sender.”
