Andrea stroked the silver blade on her lap, the runes still whispering to her, trying to comfort her. She and Dylan sat silent a moment, as was traditional when a Shifter died, each sending a prayer to the Goddess.
“If Callum or his Felines took Sean, they wouldn’t have left the sword,” Andrea said as Dylan helped her to her feet. “So that leaves who? If it was someone trying to help him, then why did they leave Jared?”
“I don’t know, lass. Maybe whoever it was thought Jared was already dead. Or maybe they just didn’t give a damn. But we’ll find him.” Dylan’s voice held determination.
Andrea’s breath hurt, but with her fear came rage, a killing anger. They’d taken her mate. A female defending her mate was the most fearsome of Shifters, and whoever had done this to Sean didn’t yet know the meaning of terror.
Andrea and Dylan couldn’t leave Jared’s body behind for the humans to find. Though Jared had been an ass**le who’d made Andrea’s life hell, every Shifter deserved to be sent to the afterlife by the Guardian. Andrea helped Dylan wrap Jared’s body in a tarp and ease it gently into the bed of Dylan’s pickup. Dylan laid another tarp on top and secured the tailgate.
They followed Sean’s blood trail through the grass onto the pavement behind the closed bar, and there the trail vanished. By the scent, someone had backed a vehicle there and must have then driven away with Sean’s body. There were no tire tracks on the solid asphalt, nothing to indicate what kind of vehicle it had been or in which direction it had gone.
Andrea didn’t want to give up and drive away, but there was nothing they could do. Dylan started the truck, and Andrea held the sword in her lap, her hands around both hilt and blade, as though the sword would give her some clue. It didn’t; the damn thing only kept whispering musical words that she couldn’t understand.
When they pulled into traffic, Dylan’s cell phone rang. Andrea jumped, and Dylan’s hand shook as he pulled the phone from his pocket. He handed the phone to Andrea and went back to dodging traffic at its densest.
“Andrea?” Liam yelled into the phone when she answered. “Where’s Dad?”
“Driving. Did you find Sean?”
“What?” Liam stopped. “What do you mean, find Sean? I thought Dad would be meeting up with him after he found you.”
Andrea’s chest tightened. “Where are you?”
“Fighting. We need Dad. And Sean and the sword. Damn it.”
“I have the sword. I don’t have Sean.”
Liam’s voice trailed off into a snarl. “Tell dad to get here. We’re at home. Callum’s Felines are all over the place.”
“What about Sean?”
In the silence she sensed Liam’s terrible fear for his brother fighting with his duty as a leader. “Dad needs to take you to safety and get here. We’ll have to look for Sean later.”
The phone went silent. Andrea looked over at Dylan as she clicked it off. “He wants you to help him fight Callum.”
Dylan’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Then that’s what I’ll do.”
“We can’t stop searching for Sean.”
“I know that, lass, but I have to go to Liam. Or I’ll lose another son, and who knows how many others.”
“Then let me look for Sean.”
Dylan’s lips were white. “Like hell I’ll let you run around the city by yourself. Besides, there are Shifters following us, and I can’t risk taking you to Kim’s in case they aren’t on our side.”
Andrea looked back past the billowing tarp to see another pickup, this one dusty black, with two male Shifters she didn’t recognize in the cab. They didn’t do anything but follow, but they stayed on Dylan no matter how much he dodged through traffic.
“The Morrisseys’ safe house is Kim’s place?” Andrea asked, turning back. She’d been there once, a large, richly appointed human house with a terrific view.
“She has a state-of-the-art security system, a basement we can lock down like a vault, and if any strange Shifters go poking around her house, her human neighbors will call the cops.” His look turned wry. “Besides, she has cable, which we figured could bribe Connor to stay put.”
But with fighting like this, the cub must be chafing. Even the sword seemed to be anticipating battle, its singing excited.
“When we get to Shiftertown,” Dylan said, “you go to ground in the safest place you can find. I’ll keep them away from you and the sword. Callum’s obsessed with Felines only, Shifters only, and you’re both Lupine and Fae. He’ll kill you and bathe in your blood.”
Andrea was past caring about Callum. “I’d like to see him try.”
“Well, I wouldn’t. I’m aging, child. If you carry Sean’s cub, I want you alive to bring it into the world. I want to see Sean’s and Liam’s cubs grow up. If that means hiding you in the basement while we fight, I’ll do it.”
What he didn’t say was, If we’ve lost Sean, I don’t want to lose his offspring too.
Andrea fell silent as streets whipped by. Traffic was thick but Dylan navigated with the ease of long practice. As he drove, he directed Andrea to dial the cell phone and hand it back to him. Mostly Dylan got no answers, which meant the Shifters he tried to call were already fighting, on whichever side. Others simply hung up on him.
Dylan finally threw down the phone. “I don’t know who I can trust. Gobshites.”
He drove straight into Shiftertown, screeching the pickup to a halt in front of Ellison’s. As they got out, Andrea heard shouting, snarling, and enraged growls, the sounds of battle. The Shifters who’d been following them nearly slammed into them before they stopped, leapt out of their truck, and sure enough, tried to go for the sword.
Dylan tore out of his clothes and shifted as he attacked the other two. He might claim to be feeling his age, but his wildcat was still fast and ferocious as the three rolled and tumbled in fierce Shifter combat.
Andrea hurried across the street to look for Liam. The heart of the battle converged around the Morrissey house, about fifty or so Shifters battling it out in knots of fights that spread down the green behind the houses. The beasts were so entangled Andrea couldn’t distinguish one from the other, though she saw Eric shift to wildcat to fight near Liam. There were only a few Lupines—Ellison was one, Annie from the bar another.
Andrea still held the sword. Dylan had told her to go to ground, but there was nothing to say one of these Shifters wouldn’t peel off and follow her into Glory’s or the Morrisseys’ or Ellison’s place and kill her there. But if she stayed to fight, she’d have to shift and drop the sword. If she simply stood here, clinging to the sword in her human form, she’d be a sitting duck to the Felines who wanted it. She couldn’t hold on to the sword in her Lupine form, but she couldn’t fight as well in her human form. Sean had to make this kind of decision in every fight. No wonder being Guardian drove him crazy.