Page 115 of Heir

“Right,” I said, not needing him to finish that sentence. But they had beaten her so badly that she didn’t have the strength to maintain the block. Then they attacked her and tortured her until they nuked her brain.

Drak cleared his throat. “Why didn’t we do this sooner?”

Maxar shot him a look. “I wasn’t sure if it would work. I’m happy to leave one off your head though, smartass.”

The vampire grumbled something and accepted the fire rope, tying it around his head.

I let Maxar place it on my head. Zandren did the same, but his ears kept twitching and it wouldn’t stay put. “Is it itchy?” I asked him.

He nodded his big fury head.

I tried tying it tighter, but he growled.

“Try to keep it on,” I said. “I’d hate for them to hurt you.”

He licked the back of my hand and kept it on as best he could, even though his ears continued to twitch.

We followed my big grizzly around the building as he followed his nose to the back door, then up a flight of metal stairs to a second door on an upper level. He used his claw to pick the lock and carefully opened it so it didn’t creak or squeak.

Maxar went in first, followed by Zandren, then myself, and finally Drak.

It was dark inside, but even I could feel the presence of the supernatural. Were these my new powers beginning to take shape, courtesy of my Mate-Bond with Zandren? I could also see better.

Bears had excellent night vision. Did this mean my night vision was superior too?

It felt like my sense of smell was stronger. The air smelled like damp fire logs and . . . death.

Arik said he couldn’t smell death—just demons and human—so I took solace that the death smell was simply the makeup of whatever evil demon thought it was okay to steal from a queen.

We crept along the metal grate that made up the second floor. If you hung your head over the railing, you could see down into the ground-level main part of the warehouse. I wasn’t going to do that though. If I saw Gemma chained up or hurt, I would lose my shit, and any semblance of our plan would be over.

We let Zandren lead the way, the soft pads of his paws silent on the grate. His breathing was heavy, but quiet enough they probably couldn’t hear us.

All the exposed duct work ran below the catwalk where we traipsed. There were a few sets of stairs that led elsewhere, all metal grates and rusty, but Zandren seemed to know exactly where to go, so we just kept following him.

We reached the end of the line, which was the landing for more stairs heading downward.

“What’s the plan?” I whispered, even though we’d gone over it in the minivan on the way over. I needed to hear it again.

“You go,” Maxar said. “Whoever is there needs to think that you came alone. As far as we know, they don’t know you have mates, or that you’re aware of your powers. They could be banking on your human side being dominant.”

“This is all speculation, of course,” Drak said.

“Of course it is, but we have nothing better to go on right now,” Maxar snapped while still whispering. “Everything is speculation. For all we know, it could be King Howar or Queen Anysa pulling the strings here because they want to usurp the throne from the demons once and for all.”

Drak glared at him. “Howar would never.”

Zandren snorted like he wasn’t so sure.

Maxar shot a skeptical look at Drak. “How well do you know your King?”

“Better than you know your Queen,” he retorted.

“Table the pissing match until after we have Gemma safe and I’ve killed some fucking demons,” I said with a hiss, glaring at both of them.

Thankfully, they actually managed to show a little remorse.

“A hybrid has never been documented. But the idea of a hybrid having a mate—let alone three—is so unfathomable that it’s a safe bet they’re not going to expect us.” Maxar glanced over the railing and down into the main ground level of the warehouse.

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