Rune’s lips puckered into a small pout before she rose onto her toes and kissed me softly. The bond hummed with affection, reassurance, and a promise of desire to be had.
“We’ll go on another date. One where you don’t get eaten by a shark,” she said.
“Do we have to tell anyone about that part?” I asked, grimacing a little.
She cackled, eyes glittering. “I mean,maybenot?”
I groaned. “That’s a yes, isn’t it?”
She just laced her fingers through mine and tugged me gently toward the path leading back toward the wayfaer portal within Fae’s Blessings. “Come on, reboot. Duty calls.”
I glanced back once at the waves and the faint smoke still curling where I’d reincarnated inside of a damned shark.
Apex Capital wasn’t just supposedto be safe—it was supposed to beinvulnerable.
Which was why my stomach dropped the second Jesper briefed us that a phoenix child who was only seven years old had been taken an hour ago.
The briefing room fell into a suffocating silence as the holographic screen behind him flickered with aerial footage of the Apex Capital, a city we all trusted. And yet, achildwas now taken.
My fists clenched before my brain even caught up because I knew the name of that child.
Asher Cinders
I knew his family.
Jesper’s voice cut through the air, snapping me back to the briefing. “The threat level is critical. We believe the Human Resistance Network is responsible. Their pattern matches the kidnapping.”
My heart seized.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Had they targeted someone I knew simply because I’d infiltrated their ranks?
Rune immediately shifted closer, her hand sliding onto my knee, a grounding heat blooming through me. “Koa,” she murmured, low so the others wouldn’t hear. “We’re going to find him. We’re not failing a child. Not today.”
I nodded, but the pressure behind my ribs didn’t loosen.
We entered the family’s home in the capital thirty minutes later.
The child’s mother, Agnes, was wrapped in her mate’s arms. When she saw me, her sobs grew heavier. “Koa,” she sobbed. “They stole our baby. Please,please,bring Asher home.”
I swallowed hard, grief burning up the back of my throat. “I will,” I promised. “I swear it.”
“Excuse me, ma’am, please take a seat. Let me heal your emotional distress so we can get more information from you.”Morgan, my mentor, stepped in and gently guided the mother to sit.
Morgan’s special power whipped around Agnes. Her magic soothed the worst of the panic. It couldn’t erase the terror in her eyes.
The father, Hayes, cleared his throat. “He was taken on the walk home from school.”
“There’s a fifteen-second gap in the marketplace cameras,” Slater murmured, having already hacked the surrounding security cameras.
Rune’s jaw tightened. “Hopefully they did a shitty job of it, unlike that fae in the Bizarre.”
“It’s definitely looped footage,” Corin muttered, brows pulling together. “And they knew exactly how to hide themselves from the enchanted cams.”
“But not from this,” Slater whispered, summoning Snakey, who hissed and dove into the corrupted footage through the screen.
Seconds later, Slater’s eyes glowed red with his connection to Snakey.
