Primal Bonds

Andrea scratched between Ronan’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Ronan,” she said. “He’ll help you, but I need you to promise to let him live. He’s my dad, and I haven’t had time to get to know him yet.”

Dylan knelt on Ronan’s other side, put his hand on the bear’s shoulder. “Easy, lad. Let the Fae bastard try. I want you back with us, my friend.”

Ronan heaved another sigh, opened his eyes, and gave Andrea a long-suffering look.

“He’ll be all right,” she said to Fionn.

Fionn finished smoothing out the sand until a thin layer coated his hand. Then he slammed the hand, palm down, onto Ronan’s side, right where the arrow had gone in.

Ronan’s eyes popped open and a stifled roar came out of his mouth. Fionn kept his hand solidly against Ronan’s fur, flattening his lips in concentration as Ronan’s body began to heave.

“Hold him steady,” Fionn said.

“What is it doing?” Dylan asked.

Andrea knew before Fionn answered. In her mind’s eye, she could see the magic of the dust leach into Ronan’s blood, muscles, and bones, searching for the taint of poison and then eating through it like acid burning away rust.

It had to hurt like hell. Ronan writhed under Andrea’s touch even as she laced her healing power down to help him, his moans of pain almost howls. As the counterspell traveled through him, Ronan’s movements grew stronger, until finally he shook off Fionn and Dylan and sprang to his feet. He roared as he rose on his hind legs, all twelve feet of him, and he morphed into his human form in midroar.

“Ow, that f**king hurts! Enough!”

Andrea pulled the silk wrap about her as she stood. The cloth was soft as air but opaque, hiding her completely in its smooth folds. “You all right?” she asked Ronan.

Ronan shuddered, hands coming up to scrub his face. “What the hell was that? It was like being eaten by ants from the inside out.”

“A very powerful magic charm,” Fionn said, dusting off his palms. “Without it, you’d have been dead.”

“Oh.” Ronan rearranged his expression. “Thanks. I mean that.”

“I’d not have bothered, but my daughter spoke well of you. I did it for her.”

“No, really, don’t keep explaining. I’m fine. Thanks, Andrea.”

Andrea squeezed his big body in a hug. “Anytime. You saved my life out there.”

“Plus, the Guardian’s not here, so it’s just as well I didn’t die.” Ronan glanced around, as though Sean would come crawling out from under the nearest fern. “Where is Sean? I thought he never strayed two feet from you.”

“He’s not here,” Dylan said grimly.

“We need to find him.” Andrea chewed on her thumbnail, her anxiousness returning full force.

Ronan looked from Andrea to Dylan. “What the hell happened to Sean?”

“We don’t know,” Dylan said. “We found blood ...”

Fionn was the only one who didn’t look concerned. “You can find him, daughter.”

“How? Someone took him away, who knows where, and we don’t even know whether he’s alive.”

“You have the answer,” Fionn said. He gestured to the sword, which he’d left leaning against a tree.

Andrea glanced at it, waiting so patiently for the Guardian’s return. “What, I point it and say, find Sean?”

“It’s a magic blade, forged by a Shifter and a Fae, and the two of you are connected to those who made it. More importantly, you share the mate bond.”

She heard Ronan’s gasp of delight, but Andrea couldn’t look away from Fionn. Dylan rumbled behind her. “Is that true, Andrea? You and Sean have formed the bond?”

Of course Andrea felt the mate bond; it had been probing at her since the night she’d seen Sean at the bus station. Andrea had taken one look at Sean’s dark blue eyes and lost herself. She understood that now.

She smiled a little. “Yes. We share the bond.”

“Hot damn!” Ronan said. “Congratulations, Andrea.” The mate bond didn’t always happen between a couple, and when it did, Shifters rejoiced for them.

“How did you know?” she asked Fionn. “I don’t remember telling anyone.”

“I felt it when you healed me,” Fionn said. “I saw it in you, fierce and strong. I saw that in your mother too. For me.”

Andrea lost her smile in sadness. She’d known that her mother had loved her Fae, and Fionn had just confirmed it.

Dylan took Andrea’s hands, the tall, blue-eyed man who looked so much like his son. “Because you share the bond, you’d know if Sean wasn’t alive. You would know, Andrea.”

Andrea thought she understood. She didn’t exactly feel a tether to Sean, but she knew she’d feel its absence if the bond between them severed. Her entire body would know the difference. She realized now what Dylan must have gone through when he’d lost Sean’s mother—when the mate bond had been wrenched from him. The loss had scarred him so deeply he’d taken more than fifty years to heal.

“I think he’s alive,” Andrea said slowly. “But I still don’t know where.”

She went to the sword and lifted it, passing her hand over the runes that the long-ago Fae woman had etched with her magic. The sword was as bound to Sean as he was to Andrea, as they were to each other.

Ronan grinned. “So maybe you do just point it and say, find Sean.”