The large male gritted his teeth. “Clear.”
His brother nodded.
Dominic recognized an Alpha male when he saw one. Didn’t matter. Dominic would kill them both if it came to it.
He took a deep breath. This was not how any of this shit was supposed to go. Not at all. His door slammed open and Kalinda came in, her yellow dress fluttering as she stalked into the room.
“Anybody want to tell me why Guardians are calling me to say the Lombardi Pack may be harboring fugitives?”
Fuck. Could this shit get any fucking worse?
Chapter Seventeen
“Are you shitting me? Silva?”
Kalinda stood in the center of the room, tapping her foot with her hands on her hips. Her glare touched all of them before she threw up her hands.
“You mean to tell me Silva’s sister is here, and no one thought, ‘Oh, gee. It might be a good idea to call the leader of the Trinity Council’, you know, Silva’s best friend?”
“We didn’t really have time, my love,” Romano soothed.
Kalinda wagged a finger at him. “Don’t you ‘my love’ me. This is sort of important. Especially when the Guardian force contacts me to simply make me aware they may be sanctioning my mate’s pack.”
Silva toed the floor, looking sheepish for once. “I’m sorry?”
Kalinda rolled her eyes. “Where is she?”
“Who?”
“I’m going to count to ten before I hurt you.”
“Asherah, can you come here?”
Asherah looked to Heath before she stepped around him to be more visible. “Hello.”
Kalinda stepped closer. Heath didn’t miss how Romano and Zahara stepped a bit forward, as if to protect Kalinda. “She was so hurt without you. I’m Kalinda, her Ales, mate to the blockhead over there, and official greeter of Encantado. Welcome to our city.”
Asherah looked Kalinda over. “I have caused great stress to your home. I am sorry for that. But Heath did not think we could leave without telling you what we learned. And I could not miss a chance to be reunited with Niamh.”
Kalinda sighed. “No, I guess you couldn’t. Niamh. Hearing it the way you say it is … pretty. And you are?”
“Asherah Danaan of the Sea, Princess of Seraph.”
Pride swelled in Heath’s chest. She was his Foraltae, his princess, everything he could have ever wanted. He knew she must have been nervous, yet she let none of it show. The blue sundress he got for her hugged every one of her curves, and he wanted to take her, even with all the tension floating around them.
“You mentioned you learned something?” Dominic hedged.
Heath nodded. “In the In Between, um, the Chaos Realm. When I saved Asherah, she was being held by Skuld, the Future Norn. We don’t know why Asherah was being held except to incite her to become a Fury and go after Silva. But I also learned that my memories of Silva’s direct involvement with my treatment was a lie, all of it. She’d tried to save us, but it didn’t work. Joran had her seal and used it to hold all of us hostage.”
“Joran?”
“Future Norn?”
“Seal?”
Silva, Dominic, and Kalinda all spoke at once until Silva flapped her midnight and violet wings in annoyance. “Joran held you?”
Heath nodded. “When you told him to free us, he didn’t. Instead, he used the seal he’d gotten off you to put our slavery into law.”
