“Apparently, Felix got a text from your mom,” Conrad said quietly as Kylo forced the SUV around corners too tight for speed. “The text appeared happy—expressing surprise that Selina had sent a car for her and your dad at the airport—but your mom was expecting to be home in less than an hour when she sent the text. That was two hours ago. Did you even know they were coming home today?”
Shaking his head, Kylo slowed the SUV as he reached the gates to the family homestead. “I’ve been busy. Distracted by the mess with Devil and then with you. Then Mom stopped texting me her comings and goings a couple of years ago, because I’ve always been too busy to answer. How the hell could I have been too damn busy for Mom?” Pulling the SUV to a stop, he turned off the engine so quickly the key almost snapped in the ignition. “Why would Selina do this?”
“You can ask her when we find her.” Conrad got out of the passenger seat, but instead of coming around the vehicle, he started tugging off his clothes.
“What the hell are you doing? We don’t have time for that shit.” Kylo cursed the way his body responded.
“We need to get to the death house,” Conrad said calmly as he pushed off his pants, exposing his muscled legs and butt. “Dragon flight is faster than any car. When I shift, climb on, and hold tight around my neck.”
“But my brothers…” Kylo wavered. His brothers would need him to soothe them, protect them, and come up with a plan to find and thwart Selina once and for all. Something sensible that required copious amounts of talking. Damn it. There was a dragon on his mom’s immaculate lawn for the second time in two days, and the need to save his parents was higher on his list of things to do than anything else.
Scooping up his mate’s clothes—Conrad was not meeting his mom naked. Kylo scrambled onto the dragon’s back just as Mao came running out of the house. “We’re going to start tracking that bitch from the death house,” Kylo yelled at his incredulous brother. “Get the boys and meet us there—bring every freaking weapon you can find.”
“So much for talking things out or making a plan,” Mao muttered, but Conrad had clearly decided actions spoke louder than words, and Kylo yelled as the dragon’s wings spread and he took to the skies.
Fucking hell.Kylo had a mental image of his cat, tense and scared, clinging on by his claws as the air whooshed around his ears. It took a bit of fiddling because Kylo didn’t want to drop Conrad’s clothes in the jungle foliage below. He learned that Conrad’s pants made an excellent form of harness around the dragon’s neck, and while he got the impression the dragon was laughing at him through their bond. Kylo leaned over, holding on as best he could, scanning the jungle floor for signs of life.
There were none. And that right there told Kylo magic was at work. On normal days, the jungles came filled with life. As the dragon skimmed the trees, there were no signs of birds, insects or any animal life that usually lived among the vegetation. The closer they got to the death house, the more anxious Kylo became. That edginess that Conrad had identified as a ward, compelling him to stay away from the death house, was ten times stronger now, permeating the air and making his skin crawl.
As the house came into view, Kylo could feel the magic pushing against him—literally pushing him away. Suddenly, there was a loud pop. Kylo yelled as invisible forces thumped his chest, forcing him backward. He grabbed at the pants he’d been using to brace himself and fell…fuck, I’m falling!
Kylo’s cat scrambled to get free, but Kylo was damned if he was dying in his cat form—he’d likely end up on the jungle floor fucking naked. Just as the thought registered, there was a whoosh, and the dragon was beneath him—wings spread wide to catch his fall.
“Damn it—we should’ve taken the car.” Kylo was crying, clinging to scales, his mind desperately trying to process his relief. “Put me down. On the ground. I need… I need…”
Conrad landed on the lawn by the death house, and Kylo almost fell a second time getting to the ground. “Oh, my gods, Oh, my gods, Oh, my fucking gods.” If he’d been alone, Kylo would’ve kissed the grass. Instead, he jumped to his feet, glaring at the now naked Conrad.
“I heard a fucking pop and then you dropped me.” He pointed to the sky. “From fucking up there. You dropped me.”
“Actually, the wards pushed you off my back.” Conrad was coming closer, his hand outstretched. “My animal spirits can withstand magic to a certain degree, and that pop you heard was my body breaching the actual ward, which is a lot bigger and stronger than it was yesterday. What I hadn’t foreseen, and I accept responsibility for that, is that you didn’t have the same ability to get through the ward, which is why you fell. In my defense, I’ve never had a passenger before, and I caught you before you fell too far.”
“Yes. Well. Clearly I got through it, now—maybe falling to certain death does something to the ward,” Kylo huffed.
Conrad was right, and if the assassin was going to be in the habit of always being right, it could get annoying. “We haven’t got time for any snuggles or anything else you might be thinking of. We’ve got to find my parents.”
“I was actually reaching for my pants.” Conrad plucked them out of Kylo’s hands. “Good skills in holding onto them and my boots, Mon Bebe. I’m impressed.”
Flustered, Kylo brushed past his mate, stalking towards the house. He already knew there would be nothing in the ballroom or whatever the killing room was officially known as. He also knew, thanks to his cat, who was still rattled from the falling incident, that neither his parents nor Selina were in the house.
“We’ll have to go to the airport and try tracking them from there,” he muttered as he strode through the other rooms in the house, Conrad matching his strides. Sitting rooms, a huge formal dining room with a giant table, and an office space he’d already been through with a fine-toothed comb. “I don’t think they’ve been here at all.”
Kylo came to a stop outside the library, and then dropped to the ground, sniffing the floor, taking care not to actually touch the area where the scent he was looking for was the strongest.
“You getting something, Mon Bebe?”
Sitting back on his heels, Kylo looked up at his mate. “Back when Roiu first found Selina, he used to tell us how fascinated she was with the magical books he had collected. Roiu was another cat shifter, but he had a morbid curiosity, I suppose you’d call it for other paranormal beings—especially magic users. I never saw those books, but the force of the magic that threw me off your back… it got me thinking. Devil…” he stopped. Swallowed. And then said, “When I checked this house after the carnage, the library was in pristine condition, and it seemed James had the same fascination with magic that Roiu had and noted in Selina.”
“Which makes sense,” Conrad said, nodding. “And you’re sniffing the floor because…?”
“You don’t have her scent. I do. She hid behind her wards yesterday, and you only heard a female voice coming from a man’s body. Not actually Selina herself. You know what it’s like with the way we scent out our prey, food, or even mates. Every smell is unique and almost impossible to describe specifically. I wanted to check that Selina’s hasn’t changed in some way. She was here this morning.” Kylo waved at the floor area he’d been sniffing. “You can pick up her scent from here.”
“And we couldn’t sniff a chair, or a book, or something similar instead?” Conrad got down on his knees and took in the scents from the floor, despite his question.
“Books and upholstery absorb all kinds of smells from the air, and they accumulate over time, which would make it difficult to get a clean scent. The floor is marble—it doesn’t absorb anything. That scent right there is pure Selina.”
“That’s smart thinking, Mon Bebe, and I will be able to use that smell to track that woman and your parents down.” Conrad got up, holding out his hand, which Kylo took as he stood up too. Although, instead of heading back outside, Conrad pulled him close.
“Just take a minute,” Conrad suggested. “You’ve had another two shocks, and our day has barely started. Lean on me for one minute, and then we’ll find them.”
