Page 63 of My Orc Package Deal

I was shaking my head as I hung up on my brother. “I wouldn’t.”

“Good,” she called over her shoulder as she hurried toward the bedroom. “Because those are my babies out there, and I’m going to find them.”

Chapter Fourteen

Kesha

I could feel Korrad’s panic, and I wasn’t sure how or why. For some reason, I wasn’t panicking; instead, I felt a sense of calm certainty. Sure, this was the first time Milo had been in any real danger, but I knew Jay was with him.

And I knew I’d find them.

In fact…

Korrad and I didn’t climb into his truck. Instead, after hurriedly throwing on jeans and boots, we jogged down the game trail the boys usually followed through the woods behind us. Korrad repeatedly called their names, sometimes crashing into the underbrush as he followed a scent trail I couldn’t detect.

But I just kept heading northward. Towards the cliffs.

Soon, in the distance, I heard someone calling Milo’s name, and then Korrad sped up to pass me. “That’s Brak. I’ll find out where he’s checked,” he called, and disappeared ahead of me.

I went to follow him but came to a fork in the trail. To my surprise, my legs turned down the left path…opposite the route Korrad took.

I didn’t understand why, but I knew my sons were in this direction.

Trusting my instincts and Korrad to find us, I kept going, alternating between jogging and—when my body couldn’t handle the jostling any longer—hobbling onward. Man, for someone who’d been regularly rollerblading, I was still really out of shape, huh?

To my surprise, I burst out of the woods at a location I recognized: the edge of the clearing for the Eastshore Isle Lighthouse. Jocelyn had given us a tour a month ago, and I had a vague understanding of its proximity to us, but I hadn’t understood that we could walk here.

The boys are here.

In a sort of daze, I headed toward the tall tower.

Korrad had kept us apprised on how the plans were going to do the actual moving of the structure, and from the equipment gathered around, I could tell it was nearly the deadline. If the boys’ secret fort was here, perhaps they’d been avoiding it during the last week because of all the commotion here? If so, they’d likely see a Sunday afternoon as a prime time to visit again, since the construction work would have halted.

The door was unlocked.

I wasn’t sure if it should be locked, but I pressed my palm to the wood, about to push it open, when I heard my name being called.

When I turned over my shoulder, I saw Korrad hurtling toward me. From a different direction, Brak and another male I didn’t recognize were jogging toward us.

“They’re here?” Korrad asked, skidding to a stop beside me, tipping his head back to peer up at the lighthouse tower. “I can smell them, but how did…?”

“How does she know?” Brakkor barked, shaking his head as he arrived.

The other male, who had a horrible scar up one side of his face and tattoos over both forearms, grunted only, “Mothers are powerful.”

Korrad shouldered them both out of the way in order to take my hand. “Dkaar, you can feel them, can’t you?”

I met his eyes—still glowing that eerie green—and nodded. “They’re up there. Come on.”

“Lead the way,” he said softly, squeezing my hand.

So I did; that tug pulled me right up the main stairs of the tower, spiraling around the outside wall, to the little room at the top where the lighthouse keeper—one of Mr. Frapp’s ancestors—would have been tending the light. But as I stalked around the small central space, I knew something was wrong.

“They’re not here.”

I didn’t give Korrad a chance to reply, but glanced at the door, where both Brakkor and the other male were waiting—There!

An innocuous little access panel—maybe two feet wide—beckoned me. I rushed over and placed my fingertips against it, then glanced at the two males.