Page 309 of Primal Bonds

Had he’d been followed from Baltimore?

He peered around the corner. The lights in their room came on, visible through the cracks in the wood slats. His nostrils flared, but he couldn’t pick up a scent from that far away.

If only he knew who, exactly, was after them—fada or fae? Because a fada could track the two of them even if they ran.

His neck crawled. The backyard was too small, nothing but a narrow strip of grass between the B&B and the tall fence surrounding it. They had to get out of here before the bastards came looking for them.

He jerked his chin in the direction of the beach. “We’ll go over the fence,” he whispered in Rosana’s ear, “and stick to the backyards. Make our way to the bay. You can go into the water, and I’ll shift to my cougar and run along the beach. They won’t be able to track us in the water.”

Her mouth formed a shocked O. “You think they’re fada? Not humans robbing the place?”

He shook his head grimly. “They asked Mark where the fada were.”

And even if they hadn’t, his itching nape told him he and Rosana were in danger. He trusted that itch. During the Darktime, it had saved his life more than once.

“Once you’re in the water, head for Henlopen,” he told her. “I’ll meet you at the park.”

The Cape Henlopen State Park was a good mile away, but in his cougar form, he could sprint as fast as fifty miles per hour. It would take Rosana a little longer to swim there, but unless one of their pursuers was a water fada, she’d be safer in the ocean than with him.

Not even a wolf could track her in the water.

She worried her lower lip with her teeth. “You want us to split up?” she whispered back.

“Just for a few minutes—maybe half an hour. I’ll meet you at the Point. I’ll be on the beach that faces the Breakwater Lighthouse. You know it?”

“Yeah, but—”

Footsteps on the balcony above made her snap shut her mouth. As one, they shrank deeper into the shadows.

Adric risked a look. The man was scanning the wetlands behind the B&B. Tall and dark-skinned, and dressed in a black leather jacket and pants, he would’ve blended into the shadows if not for his cropped silver hair. His pointed ears stood out in stark relief against his pale hair.

A fae, then. But Adric had been expecting a night fae, and the only fae with such light hair were ice fae.

His brow furrowed. What the fuck was an ice fae doing in Lewes, Delaware?

The fae turned his gaze on the backyard. Adric dropped his eyes so the fae wouldn’t see them glowing in the dark.

“Ice fae,” he mouthed at Rosana.

She gulped. Then she raised her left arm, the one with the silver bracelet. “Protection charm,” she whispered back.

He nodded, relieved.

He fingered his quartz. A few months ago, he’d stumbled upon a new use for his Gift of hypnotism. He could somehow induce people to look right past him. It was similar to a cloaking spell, something the fae charged an arm and a leg for—if they’d even sell it to a fada.

But he’d never tried to cloak a second person as well. He wasn’t even sure if he could. Plus, it drained energy at a rapid rate, energy he might need to shift.

Still, if it came down to it, he’d try. He was not letting that fae bastard get his hands on Rosana. At least she had that protection charm.

“See anything, Jon?” A woman’s cool, aristocratic voice.

“No. But that doesn’t mean they’re not out here.”

Adric risked another look as the woman joined Jon on the balcony. She was tall and curvy with long hair the color of moonlight, her scent a mix of silver and something acrid.

Every hair on his nape rose. Only a night fae had that distinctive scent of metal and decay. His heart clenched with pure, unadulterated hate.

But she wasn’t a pureblood. No, that silver-blond hair spoke of an ice-fae ancestor, and the only ice fae/night fae mix Adric knew was Lady Blaer.

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