Page 337 of Primal Bonds

But Fane was proving useful. His wayfaring Gift meant he could slip in and out of places as well as the night fae, and as an envoy, he’d been inside all of the major fae courts—sun fae, ice fae, and most importantly, the night fae. As a sign of good faith, he’d drawn Adric maps of all three courts, with key buildings and rooms marked.

Fane leaned forward, letting his long blond hair curtain his face from Marjani. “I’ll take care of her,” he murmured. “Lady B will have to go through me to get her.”

Adric kept his expression blank. “Oh?”

“Don’t worry—Jani doesn’t know for sure. She just suspects. She is a Gifted strategist, after all.”

Fuck. “She can’t know. No one can. I want your word on that.”

“I won’t lie to her.”

“I’m not asking you to. Just keep your mouth shut.”

Fane inclined his shiny blond head. “Then you have my word.”

Adric took a gulp of beer. “Thank you. And not just for keeping your mouth shut, but for being the mate she needs.”

From the other end of the table, Marjani regarded them with narrowed eyes. Fane winked at her.

“I’m the one who’s thankful,” he murmured, and then asked Horace to pass the hot sauce.

Adric blinked. The thick stew was already spicy enough to burn a hole in a man’s stomach.

An evil grin split Horace’s broad face. “You sure?”

Fane stuck out a hand and the cougar fada placed the bottle in it.

While Fane recklessly risked his stomach lining, Adric took a thoughtful bite of shrimp.

Good thing he’d already decided that tonight was the night.

If Marjani suspected something was up, then he had even less time than he thought. Because he was going alone. His sister had a mate now, a chance at real happiness.

No way would he let her risk that.

He’d failed her once, let those river fada get ahold of her. He wasn’t going to fail her again.

Fane got up and took Marjani’s plate, filling it with another helping of étouffée before Adric could.

Something tightened in his chest. He had to admit Fane had turned out to be a good, caring mate. His sister was a lucky woman.

Their brother-sister bond would never be the same…and that was how it should be.

But it was a bittersweet feeling, knowing that it was now Fane she turned to, not him.

By the time Adric left for his den, an icy rain was falling. Cursing under his breath, he headed across town with a ground-eating lope. He didn’t scent Luc or Blaer—or any fae at all—but just in case, he intermittently used his quartz to cloak himself. The energy drain was too great to use it constantly unless absolutely necessary.

He zigzagged through the concrete and granite towers of the business district, circled the Inner Harbor. As he left the harbor behind, the streets emptied, becoming an industrial wasteland of warehouses and parking lots.

To the south was the Seagirt Marine Terminal, its hulking cranes like metal giants backlit against the night. There’d been a time right after he made alpha when the clan had been so poor that some of his men had hired themselves out loading coal at the nearby CSX railyard.

Adric himself had worked for the fae. He was a Gifted tracker. Smart, dogged and with that magical something that meant if he wanted to find you, you couldn’t run far or fast enough. The fae were willing to pay stupid sums for his services. He’d poured the money back into his hungry, impoverished clan, making sure everyone was fed and clothed. The remainder had gone to developing the quartz smartphones.

He could leave for Virginia with a clear conscience, knowing the clan was in a much better place than when he’d taken over as alpha. That his sister was healing.

His only regret was Rosana. He slowed, pressed the heel of his hand to his heart, which literally hurt for her…a constant, low-level ache.

Shaking his head at himself, he shoved the hand in a pocket and picked up his pace again. A few minutes later, he entered a neighborhood of shabby rowhomes with worn marble stoops. A couple more turns and he was on his own street of small detached houses, half of them boarded up with the rest locked up tight for the night.

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