Page 82 of Dark Rebel's Reckoning

"Say that again." Din's voice had lost its sleepiness, replaced with a razor-sharp focus that Max remembered all too well.

"I found Fenella," he repeated, more slowly this time. "She transitioned after we were together fifty years ago, and now she is immortal."

Another pause, shorter this time. "Where did you find her?"

Max exhaled, relief flooding through him. Din was still on the line, which was more than he'd dared to hope for. His tactic had worked—curiosity about Fenella had overridden five decades of stubborn silence.

"In Iran," Max said, leaning against the terrace railing. "We were on a rescue mission to extract Jasmine's mother, you know who I'm talking about, right?"

"I know who Jasmine is. I don't know anything about her mother."

Fair enough. The news about the rescue mission must not have reached Scotland yet.

"Jasmine's mother, Kyra, was being held in a compound in northern Iran. Syssi had visions about her, and we mounted a rescue operation. When we got there, I found Fenella imprisoned in the same facility."

Max deliberately kept his tone neutral, sticking to the bare facts. Din didn't need to hear the details of what they'd found—the state Fenella had been in, chained to a metal bed and heavily drugged. That was Fenella's story to tell, if she chose to.

"Is she okay?" Din asked.

"She's fine, physically," Max said carefully. "But she's been through a lot." He paused, uncertain how much to reveal. "She's worried about Doomers going after her family and she asked me to call you so you can check on them."

"She did? She remembered me?"

"Vividly." Max didn't add that she'd called Din an asshole. It would have been counterproductive right now.

There was another long moment of silence. "Why would Doomers target her family?"

Max grimaced. There was no delicate way to explain this part. "The Doomer who held her captive was trying to create his own breeding program with the two immortal females he'd found, Kyra and Fenella, and he also abducted four of Kyra's nieces because he figured out they were Dormants. Toven got him to reveal that he sent his buddies to collect more of Kyra's family members, and even though he didn't mention doing the same in regard to Fenella's family, she's worried her brother's children might be in danger."

"Fates," Din muttered. "How did he know about her family?"

"She told him that she had only one brother and no sisters, and that her mother had no sisters either, but she was drugged during interrogations, and she's concerned she might have said other things. You know how it is in situations like this. People say what their captors want to hear just to stop the pain."

"She was tortured?"

Max winced. He'd said too much, but it was too late to take it back. "Yes."

"Where is she now?" Din's voice sounded slurred, and Max imagined his friend's fangs punching over his lower lip.

"She and the other rescued women are at the keep in Kian's old penthouse but will be transferred to the village soon."

"I'll check on her brother and his family," Din said. "And then I'm booking a flight to California."

A big grin spread across Max's face. "Good. That's what I wanted to hear. It's about damn time you removed the stick from your ass and did the right thing. If you'd done this fifty years ago, we might have realized that she'd transitioned, and you could have been with her this whole time."

The unspoken hung between them—all the hardships Fenella might have been spared if they'd known about her transformation and brought her into the clan's protection.

There was another long moment of silence, and Max imagined Din's face hardening after hearing the uncomfortable truth.

"Are you sure you're not interested in her yourself?" Din surprised him with the question. "You always were a competitive bastard, and immortal females who aren't our relatives are too rare to give up so easily."

The question was fair, given their history. "I have absolutely no interest in Fenella other than friendship. I'm only interested in Kyra. In fact, I think I'm falling in love with her."

Din snorted. "You? Falling in love? I'll believe it when I see it."

"A word of warning. Fenella is just as snarky as she was fifty years ago, maybe snarkier, if that's possible."

"That was one of the things I loved about her," Din admitted. "It also made her intimidating as hell to approach."

---