Page 23 of The King

“Oh, come now, Greer, I can see it in your eyes. There is a burning question you just cannot wait to ask.”

There was a slight pause. Ettie heard the shuffling of feet and felt a spike of unfamiliar Magic. No, it wasn't Wild Magic or even any Shifter she recognized off the top of her head.

It was like smooth, dry leather rubbing against Ettie's own Mysticism. No sooner had the thought drifted through her mind than the bright white light she'd avoided for more years than she wanted to count burst to life in the depth of her soul. Then, before she could even acknowledge the Mating Bond she shared with Max, the Magic of Lugh, of the Featherstone Aviary Shifters, and of the Empress Eagles of the Iolair Convocation filled every fiber of her being.

Things were happening faster than even she had anticipated. It was time to buckle up. Shit was about to get real.

Sitting straight up in bed, she tore her wrists and ankles from the silver-lined restraints and ripped the flexible tube from her trachea, past her vocal cords, and out of her mouth. Tossing it to the floor, she spun on her butt, flung her legs over the side of her bed, and reached for Pandora O’Baoill.

Bringing back a handful of empty air, her eyes almost popped out of her head as the petite blonde nurse with bright blue eyes wearing pink scrubs threw the doctor to the floor, put her hands around Pandora's neck, and hissed, "Time to talk bitch. Tell me where my brother is, and I'll kill you quickly. Make me work for it, and I'll make the pain last for decades."

6

PRESENT DAY

After three days of constant research, too much coffee, no sleep, and no time to Shift into his Panther to run off his frustration and gather his thoughts, Max was ready to pull his hair out. There was no doubt they were getting close, but the ticking of the clock echoed in the depths of his soul, a constant reminder every second his Mate was being held was another second she was in imminent danger.

Boom! Boom! Boom!The deep, rumbling beat of what reminded him of a timpani grew more intense with every beat of his heart. Louder and louder, more resonant and insistent – it was a constant reminder that his Mate was out there, somewhere, waiting for him to save her.

"Well, she'll never admit she's waiting or needs to be saved,"Casimiro chuckled, the raspy sound making Max feel better.“But we both know she’ll be glad to see us.”

“Which she’ll never admit either,”the King snorted.

Although their brief interlude made him feel better, it still bothered him that Bridgette had been taken on his watch. Right out from under his nose, from a place Max knew so well.

It was his job to protect her – even if she didn't want anything to do with him – it was still what he'd been born to do. She was a part of him. He had been made for her by The Powers That Be. Destiny demanded and would not be denied that he rescue her and complete the Mating that had started on the day they met.

He needed results – and he needed themnow.

Bridgette had been in the clutches of this Pandora O’Baoill for too long. If the recently discovered progeny of the megalomaniac the King had thought dead shared in her father's views and twisted doctrine, then Max's Mate was running out of time. The moment Pandora discovered who Bridgette was and uncovered her parentage and her unbeatable and unrelenting strength, all bets would be off.

“I pray she doesn’t already know,”Casimiro hoped.

“Me too, Old Friend. Me too.”

Max couldn't help but wonder why the most deranged among them were so hard to kill. And why did they always believe it was their God-given right to have as many children as possible? Even as they recruited and brainwashed everyone in their path, they tried to singlehandedly repopulate the Earth. They were quite literally hellbent on the genocide of anyone who didn't look like them, think like them, fall in line, and share their beliefs. They were always bringing people into the fold, turning them into soldiers for the cause, and building armies to overthrow whoever they thought was a threat to their way of thinking.

“Thankfully, old Tariq only had three, and two have already been dispatched to Hell right along with him,”Casamiro hissed. “We’ve known worse with more.”

“Yes, we have. So, I have to ask, do we know for sure there were only three?”Max countered.“Pandora stayed under the radar for THIRTY years. Had she not shown her hand by kidnapping Bridgette, I am sure she would’ve remained there indefinitely, doing only the Great Goddess knows what and leading us on one merry chase after another."

“But now we know, and we will stop her.”

“Oh, yes, she will pay for laying a finger on our Mate – and anything and everything else she’s done. We just need to find…”

Eyes scrolling yet another screen filled with monotonous information, he stopped midsentence. There it was. Buried in the minutia of bureaucratic bullshit. Something they'd all missed. Thank the Heavens Sophia had suggested they check each other's work.

Remarkably, it was something his incredibly detail-oriented, overly tech-savvy, brilliant sister had missed. A piece of the puzzle they were struggling to cobble together, so perfectly hidden in plain sight that even one of the most intelligent men he knew, a Dragon Guardsmen who was raised speaking this particular language, had failed to pluck it from the obscurity of the red tape that seemed to wrap all of recent civilization in a noose.

“Look here,” Max ordered. Setting the iPad on the desktop, he slid it toward Sophia and Juan Carlos with a flick of his fingers. Tapping the screen to enlarge the image, he ran the tip of his finger under the most important words he’d read in days.

"Yep, I saw that. It didn't ring any bells. It was little more than a footnote in everything we'd looked at. Sadly, there are loads of misfiled information, unapproved crap from one municipality or another, and sure signs of corruption that no one has given more than a cursory glance in decades. I figured it was just that and moved on," Sophia shrugged. "So, tell me, oh wise one, what makes Selgair, Inc. so important?"

“You mean other than the fact thatSelgairmeans Hunter in Gaelic, the Ancient language…”

"Of all Shifter kind, specifically the Dragons," Juan Carlos groaned. "How could I have missed it?"

"Because, unlike those Dragons, we no longer depend on or consistently speak that language. We have lived in this part of the world and adopted these customs and languages to blend in for many centuries. It was what we had to do – were instructed to do. As the Big Cats of La Pantera, The Powers That Be tasked us with protecting not only our own kin but all Shifters, humankind, and everyone else in this part of the world. We were, and are, the Southern Defense. That required blending in and keeping our secrets –everyone’s secrets- until the time was right and our abilities were made public. So, we adopted their culture and language.”

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