Reck was seriously sick for a couple of days the last time he got anywhere near the bushmaster. Not that I didn’t enjoy watching my elder brother writhe in pain via the cameras and monitors I’ve tethered myself to near obsessively. I’m still not capable of being in the same room as Reck without instantly wanting to hit him.
The sound of another motorcycle coming from the direction of Newport draws my attention to the road. “Time’s almost up to make a choice,” I say to Muta. “You need to eat. To hunt.”
I swear the fucking asshole snake huffs at me dismissively. But as Rath appears up the road on his bike, the death god slides down my arm, then leg, heading toward the unruly grass along the fence line. I haven’t seen him teleport since everyone but Zaya returned from the confrontation with our sperm donor.
Rath slides to a stop in front of the locked gate barring us from the long drive onto the estate. He doesn’t dismount or kill his engine.
My brother’s brown hair is so short it’s practically down to the skull. Unlike mine, which is constantly falling into my eyes these days. I also haven’t bothered to shave. If the hair and the beard weren’t getting annoying, I could go on not giving a fuck about my outward appearance. But I suspect I’ll have to shave it all off soon, like Rath.
He’s in riding leathers, like me. Also like me, he’s not displaying any affiliation. While the Outcast MC, through Grinder, are still helping us search for Zaya and fortifying the territory that surrounds the Gage estate, our allegiance belongs to our mate now. To the Conduit.
Neither of us are wearing helmets, Rath looks as though he hasn’t slept well for days. Eighty-seven days, to be exact.
My brother’s deadened gaze tracks Muta as the bushmaster slips under the fence and slithers through the wildflowers growing rampant across the open fields of the estate. I see purple larkspur in the mix, which is ironic for more than one reason. The color is almost a match to Zaya’s eyes as a teen, and Ingrid fussed about the plant being poisonous when Zaya had picked her a bouquet. In the late summers, since we’d all clearly demonstrated being entirely unbothered by casual contact, we’d often helped the mage harvest larkspur seeds, which hold the highest concentration of toxin.
And then … that last summer together. Reck whispering her flower-inspired nickname against Zaya’s shoulder as he gently removed blossoms tangled in her hair after we’d all …
Chest tightening, I shove away the barrage of recollections.
Rath finally shuts his bike down. The rumble from the engine fades, leaving us once again in the stillness of the dawn. It should be beautiful, life affirming. But it’s just another day without my mate.
“Did you test the gate?” Rath finally asks.
“I can feel the barrier from here,” I say, trying to not be pissy about the interruption of my morning ritual. And failing.
Rath’s shoulders tense, as if he’s stopping himself from leaping off his bike to test the gate for himself. “As her mate … you sealed the bond …”
“I know.” We’ve had this conversation a half-dozen times. Based on the research Rath crammed into the few precious hours that we had our mate back, he thinks I should be able to breach the estate barrier. As Muta can.
“The estate and Zaya are entwined, yes. Zaya and I are entwined, yes. But the estate is protecting itself. Like it did when Disa died.”
“Zaya is not dead!” Rath snarls. Then, seemingly exhausted by that abrupt outburst of emotion, he scrubs his hand over his face.
“The ongoing threat has to impact them both, Zaya and the intersection point,” I say mildly. “Hence the lockdown. Different layers of security, like I have on my systems.”
‘The ongoing threat.’ The Cataclysm is who I mean — but I don’t say the name out loud.
Rath never utters his name either, club moniker or not.
Not out of fear. Not now, not anymore. Now it’s unmitigated anger that keeps us from speaking of our sperm donor. Both of us need to be in control, especially because the last time Rath lost it — less than a week ago — I had to ask for Reck’s help to fucking rescue him. My elder brother’s life is the only one I’m willing to risk.
I had no idea we’d get so close to the Cataclysm after racing after Rath for the border. I have no idea how our sperm donor knew Rath had breached his territory. Presumably my half-brother, with us in pursuit, was spotted heading that way through the Cataclysm’s spy network, but it was the first time I’d seen him in the flesh for thirteen years … when he’d trailed Reck to the intersection point and snapped Zaya’s neck in front of us all.
Even after tearing off the celestial dragon’s fucking antler — in an attempt to wring his neck, I presume — our sperm donor fucking fled when faced with the three of us, crossing through some sort of fucked-up portal and leaving his enforcers to hold us off. I left Reck to unleash the slaughter and the fucked-up mayhem that comes naturally to him, and I dragged Rath away.
But I learned that the Cataclysm is wary of us three. As idiotic as it was for Rath to attempt to infiltrate the Federation on his own, forcing us to chase after him, it proved that one thing.
The Cataclysm isn’t ready to face all three of us. Not yet.
“How’s the head?” I ask Rath instead of rehashing any of that out loud, but unable to not still be an asshole about it.
My uncharacteristically reckless, verging-on-unhinged brother grimaces, then rubs the left side of his head. The same spot where, in his celestial dragon form, he’s still missing one of his antlers.
“You’re fucking lucky he didn’t snap your neck,” I say sourly.
Rath is also fucking lucky that when Doc Z totally ratted out his plan to go after the Cataclysm, I wasn’t so stubborn as to not enlist Reck. He’s even fucking luckier that he isn’t skilled enough to evade Coda’s tracking, letting us get to him before he could do more than just cross the border. But my own wing was barely healed from the first confrontation with our sperm donor over the barrens. Or more specifically, the confrontation with the dire mages in his employ. And Reck was so fucked up, he spent the bulk of the drive to Rath’s rescue passed out in the back seat of my truck.
“He can’t kill us,” Rath rumbles pissily. “Not without weakening Zaya.”
