Page 408 of Primal Bonds

“That you and me just wouldn’t work—and not only because you’re his sister and my clan would never accept you. But because you’re a river fada. You need water. Clean, fresh water to swim in as your dolphin.”

A slash of her hand. “You think I don’t know that? We could figure it out.”

“You’d move to Baltimore? Leave your family, your clan? Because I sure as hell can’t move to Rock Run.”

She raised her chin. “Yes.”

He shook his head.

“It could work,” she insisted. “If we both want it to. Baltimore has fresh water—Herring Run, Jones Falls.”

“They’re filled with trash. And when it rains, there’s run-off from the pavement. Raw sewage, when it rains hard.”

“Then I’ll go north every few days. I wouldn’t have to go all the way up to Grace Harbor. I can swim in the Chesapeake north of Baltimore.”

He ran some options in his mind. If he survived the next few days—and that was a big if—maybe they could work it out. There was still his clan, of course, although Marjani seemed to think they’d fall in line.

He wrapped his fingers around his quartz. It had warmed, the crystals humming an eager, yearning song.

Inside, the cougar snarled and scratched.

Mate. Our mate.

He released the quartz. “Tell you what. We’ll talk, okay? When all this is over.”

Her smile was wide. “Okay. Sure.”

He could’ve left it at that. She was happy. He’d all but agreed to mate-claim her. At least if he died, she’d know he’d really wanted her. But somehow his mouth was moving again.

“You wanted to know why I didn’t challenge my uncle for alpha.”

“No.” She squeezed his hand. “I know you, Adric. If you didn’t challenge him, then you had a good reason.”

He glanced at her. Tempted to agree, and then drop it. He didn’t explain himself to anyone, even Marjani. But he wanted Rosana to know the truth.

“Yeah,” he said with a bitter laugh. “I had a good reason.”

He stared out at the shadowed room, his fingers intertwined in hers. The silence thickened. When he spoke, it was with a low rasp.

“My dad was the first. After Leron killed him, he sent my mom to fight in South America in some stupid war between two fae. And then he took me and Marjani in, and we were supposed to obey him. Like we didn’t know what the fuck was going on. When I fought back, he beat me.”

She sucked in a breath. “Marjani?”

“He never touched her—which is why he lived as long as he did. But he treated her like shit. Both of us. By then, I think he’d realized I was alpha material.” His jaw set. “We never had enough food. We had to stay out all night spying on his so-called enemies. No schooling except what we picked up on our own. He even went after my friends. Fuck, I was counting the days until I was strong enough to challenge him. Then”—he swallowed hard—“he came to Jani, ordered her to whore for his second.”

“Holy mother,” she breathed.

“Yeah. His own niece.”

“Did—?”

He shook his head. “She’d have killed herself first.”

“Thank Deus she had you.”

He grunted. “It was the only thing that kept us going—that we had each other. You know what that S.O.B. did? Invited the night fae into Baltimore. He let them feed on us so he could stay in power. What kind of monster does that?”

He was gripping her fingers too tightly, but he couldn’t let go. He stared at their two hands, unseeing, caught in the nightmare of the Darktime.

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