“Understood. I’ll call Sebastian. He’s . . . well,” Reese sighed, “you know how he is. I’ll tell him to keep the knives sheathed.”
Nico managed a half-smile. “Appreciated.”
He hung up and turned to the others. Morgan stood in the doorway, her arms wrapped around herself, but her chin lifted in a show of bravado Nico couldn’t help but admire.
“It’s time,” he said gently. “Are you ready to meet your mate?”
Morgan’s eyes flicked to Miryam and Akira, then back to Nico. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
He forced a reassuring smile. “You’ll do fine. Sebastian’s a legend for a reason. And you’re tougher than you look.”
She rolled her eyes, but Nico saw the gratitude beneath her bravado.
He glanced at his phone again. Still nothing from Lyric except those two messages and the voicemail, which he couldn’t bring himself to play yet. There was an itch between his shoulder blades—a warning, or maybe just guilt. But for now, his duty was clear. Get Morgan to Kingdom of Fur. Then he’d deal with the rest.
The clock on the wall ticked down the minutes until their flight.
Reese exhaled and set his coffee aside, pulling up Sebastian’s contact. He doubted the man would bother to answer—he usually didn’t unless there was blood on the wind—but the news of a fated mate might rouse even a sleeping bear.
The phone rang once before a gravel-streaked baritone answered. “Reese. If this is about the den’s boundary dispute, I already told you?—”
“It’s not,” Reese cut in. “You might want to sit down.” He paused and considered how to tell a male who’d been waiting for his mate for several centuries that she was finally here. Wasthere really any special way to do something so monumental? Reese didn’t think so, all he could do was simply put it out there. “Nico’s on his way in, flying in now. He’s bringing a female.”
“Does she need protection?” Sebastian asked.
There was a long, loaded silence, broken only by the faint hum of the ceiling fan in Reese’s office in the background. “No. She needsyou.”
“Why?” The former assassin’s tone was clipped as he spoke. “Does she want to hire me? Because you all know I am no longer?—”
“Where are you right now?” Reese asked, cutting him off.
Sebastian’s voice was unreadable. “The airport.”
Reese forced himself not to smile because he knew the bear shifter would sense the smugness through the damn phone. “Going on a trip?”
“Don’t be a smart ass,” Sebastian snarled.
“You keep insisting you’re out of the game, yet you’re at the airport watching the planes fly in because it relaxes you? Or could there be another reason? Maybe you got afeeling?” Reese didn’t want to push too hard for a couple of reasons. One, he didn’t particularly feel like becoming Sebastian’s next target, and two, he knew that there were times when being a killer wasn’t necessarily a choice. Sometimes it was a divine task. Sometimes there was evil in the world that had to be taken out, and Sebastian had been the weapon Visata used. Reese had watched the almost friend, if anyone could really call Sebastian a friend, shoulder the great burden at much personal sacrifice. Sebastian didn’t speak right away and Reese didn’t push him.
Finally after several minutes, the bear shifter’s rough voice came through the phone. “Just got a feeling.” That was it. No further explanation. “When’s Nico landing?”
Just as the question was asked, Reese’s phone vibrated in his hand. “One sec,” he said, and then looked at the screen to seehe’d gotten a text from the shaman in question. Reese tapped the screen and opened the text. The first message was a time:8pm. The second text was an image: a picture of a tattoo of a bear. And then right after the image came another message:Because I know he’s going to want proof.
Reese made a copy of the image and then pasted it into a text to Sebastian. He held his breath as he hit send. Then released it and said, “He’ll be there at 8 p.m.”
“Is that a text from you?” the bear shifter asked.
“Yes,” Reese responded. “And you’re going to want to look at it now. I’ll wait.”
There was a long pause and Reese could hear Sebastian’s breathing increase. After more than a minute, the bear’s voice came back on. “Who gave her the tattoo?”
“Who did your tattoo?”
“Verion,” Sebastian growled. “A male inked her skin?”
“That’sthe question you’re asking right now?” Reese rolled his eyes. He’d never understand the possessiveness that Damarian shifters felt toward their females. It bordered on absolute lunacy.
“She’smyfemale, it’s a completely valid question,” Sebastian said calmly, a little too calmly. “Will Verion be accompanying them?”
