Page 16 of How to Rescue Your Surprise Baby

Telos ignored him. Just as they were about to leave the parking lot, Mav caught Telos’ wrist. “Hey.” Telos glanced over with a frown. “About before. The judging. I shouldn’t have done it.”

Telos’ eyebrows went to his hairline. “Are you possessed right now? Should I look for an exorcist?”

Mav sighed deeply. “I’m being serious.”

“The Mav I knowneverapologizes for being an ass.”

Mav rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll take it back. I’m not sorry.”

A slow smile crept up Telos’ face. “That’s more like it.”

He settled back into his seat, shoulders looser. It eased the tension in Mav’s chest.

“Good,” Mav said. “Because we’re coming up on Uriel’s place. Time for Step One of the baby rescue.”

6

A DANGEROUS BOND

The mage’shome was warded to hell and back, in a way that impressed Telos.

“What the hell,” Mav muttered when he had to get out of the car a fifth time to hop one-legged on a small gray rock.

“Don’t get distracted with your muttering,” Telos sang. “You need to keep count. Ten, three, five, seven, one.”

“Fuck you,” Mav snarled, stepping off the rock so he could start over. “Are we rescuing your kid, or not?”

There was rescuing Estie, and then there waskeeping Telos sane because Mav was driving him nuts.Mav had been watching Telos like a hawk on the entire drive here, as though he was seeing something he shouldn’t. It made ants crawl under Telos’ skin.

“You were up to eight,” Telos said after the fact. “Besides, they’re not going to kill Estie. It’s in their best interests to keep her in good shape, so she can grow up strong enough to fight.”

It made Telos worried and hopping mad, too, but he wasn’t going to lose his cool in front of Mav. He’d already embarrassed himself enough.

Mav glared and stepped back onto the rock to hop the appropriate number of times.

The invisible barrier dropped. Mav swung himself back into the car, and they continued down the bumpy forest trail.

“If I had this much land, I’d be doing the exact same thing,” Telos mused. “But with wards that are actually fun.”

“I wouldn’t want to know your definition of ‘fun’.”

“Only because you’re as boring as stale, musty socks.Yourlair probably has dull, soulless wards.”

“And yours, what, makes every visitor twirl around twenty times?” Mav groused.

“Great idea. Remind me to look into that with Hilly-Billy.”

They drove down the winding dirt path between huge trees, until they found a tiny log cabin in the middle of the forest. Right before they reached the cabin, the car bumped into another barrier. Mav had to hop out and press his hands against two stones on a tree stump.

“What if a visitor only has one hand?” Telos mused. “Or what if they’re not human-shaped? They won’t have two hands for that ward. Can you put your cock on the other hand sensor?”

Mav grimaced. “Why is your first thought to put a cock on there?”

Telos shrugged. He wasn’t going to admit that he wanted to see Mav do exactly that.

The shield dissolved for a few seconds. Mav hopped back into the car, and Telos parked in front of the cabin.

They’d barely gotten out of the car when the cabin door opened, and a broad-shouldered alpha stepped out. He was smaller than alphas usually were, shorter than both Telos and Mav, and he had several scars on his arms and face.

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