Page 114 of Heir

I’d get in a car to save Zandren too.

Nodding, I took a deep breath and said, “Okay.”

We piled into Bauer’s minivan, which had Cheerios on the floor, a sippy cup under the seat and so many children’s books shoved into the pockets behind the front seats.

“How many pups do you have?” Maxar asked.

Bauer snorted in mirth as he pushed the start button for the van. “Six. Two are grown though. Four are young pups, and my mate is pregnant with our second set of twins.”

“Jesus,” Maxar murmured. “That’s . . .”

“Dogs for you,” Arik finished from the front passenger seat. “Almost as bad as rabbits.”

“Fuck off,” Bauer said with a grin, as he pulled away from the sidewalk and out into traffic. “We’re just lucky.”

“And fertile as fuck,” Arik added.

I had to work on not holding my breath. Zandren sat beside me, our fingers laced together. Maxar was on the other side of me against the window and Drak was in the back, kept company by his perpetual bad mood. We made sure to give him another capsule before we left and also stashed one in his pocket, just in case we were gone longer than four hours. The last thing we needed on this raid was for him to get distracted with the need to jump my bones again.

What normally would have been a twenty-minute drive across town was closer to forty because of the morning rush hour traffic. I was on pins and needles the closer we got to the warehouse. The area of town was still quite industrial, unlike where my apartment was located, which used to be the industrial district, but was now residential and commercial.

Bauer parked his minivan in front of the meatpacking plant and unrolled his window. Arik did the same.

They both sniffed.

“They’re here. So is Gemma,” Arik said.

“Can you tell if she’s still alive?” I asked, fear ransacking me until my voice and body shook. “I can feel her fear, but . . . I need you to confirm it.”

Arik nodded. “I believe she still is. The body does smell different when dead. And I don’t smell death here.”

“Which says a lot, considering it used to be where they packed dead animal meat,” Bauer added.

“Good,” I breathed, only feeling a modicum better.

“We’re going to leave you here,” Bauer said.

I nodded. I couldn’t really argue with him. I’d been orphaned. That was the last thing I wanted to do to either of these men’s children or mates. They agreed to help us, but they also had a code. And I needed to respect that code. Without them, we’d still be searching for Gemma. So at least we knew where she was now.

Maxar, Zandren, Drak, and I piled out of the minivan, thanking the wolf shifter and hunter mage for all their help.

It was a foggy, gray day and rather drizzly, so the fact that we were dressed in black even though it was the morning, wasn’t as redundant as I thought it might be.

Zandren sniffed. “I can smell them too.” He dropped to all fours and shifted.

I’m not sure I’d ever tire of watching him shift. It was still really new to me, but it was so fascinating to watch that I hoped the novelty never wore off.

He was my big, ferocious Pooh Bear in seconds, instantly nuzzling my side with his muzzle.

“So . . . like what do we do?” I asked, glancing around for signs of people. There wasn’t anybody around, but steam rose from various warehouses, indicating that businesses were still running as usual.

Despite my world coming to a full stop when Gemma was kidnapped, the rest of the world kept turning. People kept living their lives, caught up and making the best of their daily grind.

“Well, you put on these first,” Maxar said, making four orange flame ropes and waggling his fingers over them like he was enchanting them with some kind of spell. “I figure if putting this rope on Raewyn stopped her from frying our brains, the same principle should apply if we wear them. It should stop the demons inside from trying to fondue our gray matter.”

“I thought you could block demons?” I asked.

“I can. But we don’t know what kind of demons we’re dealing with.” His expression turned sad. “Delia could block them too, but—”

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