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“That’s where Grace was raised,” I said, the hairs on the back of my neck rising. “I came across it while we researched her lineage.” And if they’d gone there after finding it on a list for the Sons… “We have to go. Now.”
“Fucking Valor,” Lachlan growled. “If she’s going to throw her body into every battle, the least she could do is be transitioned!”
Fear and rage warred for control of my body.
“You’ve been there?” Hawke charged my way.
“Driven by,” I said, immediately holding out my arms. I’d been there. I could wend. It was only a matter of how many of my brothers I could wendwithme.
Hawke grabbed hold of my forearm before I even said his name. “Hawke. Saint. Dagon. Alek.” The deadliest of my brothers and the one who could mentally send back the location so the rest could follow after. Taking any more would leave me weaker than I wanted to be when I finally got to Grace.
What the fuck was she thinking, going after the Sons?
That her life is already forfeit.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm my racing heart as my brothers clasped my arms.
She was alive.
She had to be.
I would know if she had died. That shimmering tether that bound us as mates was still there, still vibrant, still…fuck, I could feel the echoes of her panic even this far from human territory.
“Here we go.” I focused on the house, the artful details of the Victorian architecture, and wended, dragging the weight of my brothers through space and time with me through the rush of frozen air.
My feet hit solid ground and I immediately shook off my brothers at the sound of gunfire coming from the house. They were here.
“Fuc—” Hawke’s mouth froze wide open as I threw out my hands, freezing time around me. That act had been enough to calm even my highest heart rates in the past, knowing that I had all the time in the world to stop whatever was about to happen, but my heart still thundered like a fucking drum as I ran up the stairs of the house and onto the porch, ripping the door from its hinges.
As long as I didn’t come into contact with another being, I could keep my time-bubble in place.
I scented the air and immediately tasted the notes of freesia and citrus that marked Grace’s presence. There were no thoughts, no plan, no strategy that came to mind, I threw away centuries of training and acted on instinct alone. She was upstairs, and I found myself on the second floor what would have been a second later, my weapon drawn as I kicked in one door after another. The first had two kids both clutching their covers, their hair flying as if they’d just awoken from the gunfire.
Grace was in the next one.
My heart stammered, its beat erratic at the scene.
She had thrown herself in front of two girls who stood cowering in the corner, holding on to each other as a gunman in his late twenties stared them down, the flash still evident from the pistol he had pointed at them.
The bullet was inches from Grace’s chest.
My entire being flexed with a blast of acute, painful panic.
Stay calm. Breathe.
Letting go of time would ensure my mate’s death, not just in the coming weeks, but in this very instant.
Wrath vibrated my bones as I walked toward her, careful not to brush the gunman as I slid between him and the child-size desk in the room.
“What the hell were you thinking, baby?” I whispered as I approached Grace, sure that the look on my face probably more than earned me her favorite nickname of Grim. Stark terror filled her eyes, but her chin was tilted upward, and something told me she’d made her choice before putting her body in front of the girls.
She’d chosen her own death over theirs.
I didn’t need to ask why.
She had weeks.
They had decades.
