His chest tightened as he glanced around at the carnage on the floor of the cave and couldn’t help thinking that he’d rather go another hundred rounds with those wendigos than tell his best friend that he’d broken their oath with their other best friend.
Mace felt like shit.
Physically, he was A-okay. Sort of. Still had to keep his heart rate down.
Mentally, it was a whole other thing.
Like a jerk, he’d thrown fuel on the fire between Wraith and Talon. And between Talon and him. Not that he cared much what Talon thought of him. Not really. There had been a time, when he was younger and dumber, that he’d wanted a relationship with his brother. Had loved his brother. And maybe he still did. But Talon had made it clear that he didn’t consider Mace a part of the family, let alone his sibling.
Still, the family drama accounted for only a fraction of his anxiety. He was also agitated by the situation in Alaska. He was sure his friends were all right, probably having the times of their lives battling freaking wendigos. But he hated being away from them. Hated not being a part of the team. Hated not partaking in the glory of a battle. Scotty liked to say he had major FOMO.
Fair enough. He supposed he did have a fear of missing out. But he also wasn’t good at being alone. Unlike Blade, Mace didn’t do the solitary thing well. He never had.
Making everything worse, he was sickened by what was happeningto Logan and Eva.
Mace had lived with Logan at the compound for years before he met Eva, but even before that, Logan had been a friend. His parents, Regan and Thanatos, were tight with Mace’s family, so he’d grown up alongside the son of the Horseman known as Death. They’d gone to school together, had trained on Ares’s island together, and now, they worked together at DART. Mace hated seeing Logan’s anguish as he hovered at Eva’s bedside, counting every breath as if she didn’t have many left.
And from what Mace had heard, she didn’t.
His steps were heavy as he traipsed past the compound’s pool on his way to the rear entrance. With the restrictions on his heart rate, he probably shouldn’t even get in the hot tub. At ninety percent healed, he was almost as good as new, but his brother had been adamant about the low-heart-rate thing, and since Mace didn’t want his ticker to blow up, he supposed he should follow the rules, no matter how much they sucked.
Maybe he could de-stress the way they did it back in the caveman days. On a Nintendo console, playing Super Mario Bros.
The kitchen and living areas were empty, but that wasn’t a surprise. Mace had seen Sabre at the hospital, Rade was probably at work, and given that it was three o’clock in the afternoon, Crux was either training on Ares’s island or in his room, taking virtual college courses. Assuming he was feeling better, that was. Poor kid’s pre-transition episodes were getting more frequent and severe. Mace cringed just thinking about it.
He grabbed a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge, and as he twisted the cap off, Blade and Scotty filed through the back door. They looked exhausted but freshly showered, wearing their gym clothes from work. They often dragged themselves into HQ to report to Tayla or Kynan immediately after an assignment, and if they were in bad shape, covered in blood or guts or whatever, they’d shower before the debriefing. No one cared if they donned their gym clothes for meetings, because at least they were clean. And not smelling of sweat and bowels.
“Hey.” He grinned so hard his face hurt. He didn’t think he’d ever been so happy to see them.
“Hey.” Blade’s smile seemed forced, as if it was fighting the dark crescents under his eyes. He held up a plastic bag. “Brought you a souvenir from Alaska.”
Scotty, her damp ponytail clinging to her neck, rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t my idea, I swear.”
“This ought to be good.” Eagerly, Mace snatched the bag fromBlade and peeked inside. An eyeball, inside a clear globe attached to a fine silver chain, looked up at him.Okaaay. “What the hell is it?”
“Dunno,” Blade said. “We found it inside the wendigo’s lair. Probably some sort of talisman.”
“And you thought bringing an unidentified, undoubtedly evil talisman here was a good idea?”
Scotty punched Blade lightly in the shoulder. “I told you we should have given it to Aleka to study.”
Blade shrugged. “I just didn’t want Mace to feel left out of the hunt.”
“Um, thanks, I guess?” Mace tossed the bag onto the couch. He’d definitely give it to Aleka later. Keeping that thing around likely wouldn’t be the smartest move. He knew from experience. A painful, embarrassing one. “So, how did it go?”
Blade and Scotty exchanged glances, but it wasn’t playful or the kind that said, “You go first.” It was more…surreptitious, and Mace’s Spidey-senses tingled.
Had something gone sideways?
“It went the way it usually goes,” Blade said, sounding enough like his usual self that Mace figured he must have read more into their glances than there was. “We kicked ass.”
“We did,” Scotty followed up. “But forget that. How areyou? We didn’t get any news until Kynan filled us in. We were worried sick.”
Mace glanced down at his calf. “No big. Leg is almost better.”
“When did you get released from the hospital?” Blade opened the fridge and tossed a water bottle to Scotty before opening his own.
“I just got home.” A low, throbbing pulse in his thigh told him he’d been standing too long, so he hobbled over to the couch before his heart rate ramped up from the pain. “And dude, you’ll never guess who Raika brought into the ER.”
