from their partnership. That wasn’t good, but Sven didn’t know how to fix it. Or, rather, he did, and it so wasn’t happening. Thus, the mental barrier.
Now, though, something was getting through: Danger . The thought-glyph that came from the animal was faint, but recognizable. And when he raised an eyebrow in Mac’s direction, the coyote chuffed a low bark. It wasn’t his “emergency!” howl or even his “get your ass over here and deal with this” bark; it was more a signal of “I think there might be something wrong but I’m not sure.” Mac’s instincts had proven damn good, though, and Carlos had drilled it into Sven’s head: Never disrespect your familiar.
He could bend the bond if he did it carefully . . . but if it snapped, he was screwed.
So, cursing under his breath, Sven lowered the mental block. As it fell, he muttered under his breath, “This better be for real and not just you jonesing to get out of the car.”
Then the magic took hold, aligning his senses with those of his familiar, and for a moment he perceived the interior of the Jeep from Mac’s point of view: the vehicle’s shuddering bounciness; the two men in the front, one excited the other reluctant; and an intense hit of eau de dirty laundry with a chaser of stale Mickey D’s. Then the connection locked in and he caught the mental stream the coyote was directing at him—not thought-glyphs but pure emotion: frustration, fear, and anxiety overlain with an image of a beautiful dark-eyed woman with a white skunk-stripe in her straight black hair.
Cara Liu.
“Son of a—” Sven broke the connection and glared, sending back a double-helping of the thought-glyph that meant “cold” in the tradition of the coyote bloodline, but for him and Mac had come to mean “chill out and knock it the fuck off.”
JT glanced over. “Problem?”
“Nope.” Sven faced forward, ignoring his familiar. He didn’t block the coyote’s mental stream all the way, though; it buzzed along his nerve endings and filled his mind with thought-pictures, one of which gelled. In it, Cara was standing at the edge of the training hall in the sleek gray military jacket that marked her as the leader of the winikin. With her dark eyes gleaming in challenge, her hair tied back in a slick ponytail and her hands behind her back in a parade rest that made her seem far taller than her fine-boned five three, she looked calm and capable, and nothing like the girl he’d grown up with. But then again, neither of them was the same as they had been back then, thank the gods.
“Guess I’m not the only one excited to get back,” JT said as they crested the last hill and the coyote’s whining got louder.
Sven didn’t answer. He hadn’t let on to JT that for the past few months Mac had been nagging that they needed to get back to Skywatch, that Cara needed them. She was fine, though—he had checked and double- checked. Not to mention that if she needed someone, her second in command, Zane, had made it real clear that he was taking care of business in that department.
Mac growled low in his throat, his attention fixed on where the training compound spread out in front of them at the bottom of the incline.
The stone walls that blocked off the open end of the box canyon were a lighter shade than the red-rock canyon walls, the mansion beyond a study of earth tones and white trim. Behind the sprawling, multiwinged structure, a small grove of trees butted up against the huge steel training hall that the winikin had claimed as their territory, no magi need apply. Beyond that were cottages, the firing range and urban warfare setup, and at the back of the canyon, nearly lost in the distance, the entrance to the Nightkeepers’ ancestral library. There were people scattered pretty much everywhere, reminding Sven how crowded things had gotten in the compound when Cara and her forty-some rebel winikin showed up, nearly tripling the population of Skywatch overnight. Granted, the Nightkeepers needed all the trained bodies they could get right now, but still.
Bracing himself for the close quarters and the feeling of being in the middle of a Nightkeeper-winikin standoff, Sven used his magic to drop a section of the ward spell that guarded the compound. “Door’s open.”
“You going to be okay?” JT asked as they drove through.
The question surprised him, as did his fleeting impulse to let off some steam in the other man’s direction. The winikin might be kind of a dick, but he always told it like it was, and Natalie loved him, which had to mean something. Problem was, JT was also one of the more outspoken voices among the rebel winikin, and Cara was trying to meld the traditionalists and rebels into a unified fighting force. The last thing she needed was a rumor linking her to the last bachelor full-blooded Nightkeeper. It wouldn’t matter that the link came through his familiar, because half the time the damn coyote echoed his emotions. There was no way he’d be able to convince the others that Mac was on his own in this one. Presto, instant rumor, and hello, political nightmare.
So Sven gave the “no biggie” shrug that used to be his trademark but now felt strange and awkward. “I’ll be fine once I’m not inhaling doggie breath up close and personal.”
JT might’ve kept going at him, but as they rolled to a stop in front of the mansion, the door opened and Natalie came pelting out. And JT was a goner. Grinning and thoroughly distracted, he swung out of the Jeep and made a beeline for her.
Mac barked but held his place until Sven waved at the open door. “Go on. Go find her, for Christ’s sake. Get your damned belly rub, and leave me the hell out of it.”
But although the coyote lunged out and hit the ground running, he didn’t take off. Instead, he made a wide circle around the Jeep, yapping like a freaking Chihuahua. And as Sven dropped down out of the Jeep, JT bit off a curse and turned back to him, face set in hard, harsh lines. “Mac was right. There’s a problem.”
Sven looked beyond him to see that Natalie’s face was pale, her eyes wide. And behind her, Anna, the compound’s only itza’at seer, hovered in the doorway staring at him as if he were somehow her only hope. “What happened?” he grated as Mac slithered to a stop at his heels and stood there, quivering.
It was JT who said, “Cara’s gone missing . . . and the teleporters can’t lock on to her.”
Which meant she was either belowground . . . or dead.
Praise for the Nightkeepers Series
“This series goes right to your heart! Jessica Andersen is a must read for me!”
—#1 New York Times Bestselling Author J. R. Ward
“Andersen ramps up the danger . . . mix[ing] action . . . with soul-searching, lust, and romance. Jade’s inner journey is particularly engaging, and while the background makes more sense to returning fans, even new readers will find plenty to latch on to.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Destiny and free will are on a collision course in this high-stakes romantic drama. Andersen delivers another exhilarating entry!”
—Romantic Times
“Intense . . . thrilling . . . a world that fans of any genre will enjoy.”
—The Romance Readers Connection
”Fabulous. . . will have the audience appreciating the skills of master magician Jessica Andersen.”
—Midwest Book Review
