“Fine. Point made. You can leave.”
“No. Haven’t said what I came to say.”
Zach turned on him. “Then say it.”
“Braden’s back is against the wall. He’s likely to try something today. So I need you to stay alert.”
“He’ll come for Laura?”
“And Jessie.”
Zach frowned. What wasn’t he getting here? “But isn’t Jessie safe from him?”
“Only if she transitions without him interfering.”
Zach was confused, and must have looked like it, because Kade grimaced, and added, “If he mates her before she transitions, what we’ve done won’t take. So he has a small window left to claim her.”
What the hell? So Jessie wasn’t safe. Zach glowered at the Were.
“Hey, I don’t make the rules,” Kade said. He stepped fully into the barn, between Zach and the lawn mower. “I’ve also heard from the lawyer.”
“What lawyer?”
“The one the council appointed to you.”
“Oh.”
“Apparently the police have decided you had nothing to do with the women disappearing.”
Zach grabbed his crescent wrench and tapped it against the workbench. “Good to know.” It surprised him just how little it mattered.
“He said you can pick up your phone and iPad whenever you like.”
Zach nodded. He just wanted Kade to go away. To leave him in peace.
Something whirred by the barn. It was far too loud to be a bird. It sounded almost mechanical. As Zach turned toward the sound, it returned.
And flew in the open door.
He only had time to register the dim outline of multiple rotors whirring at the end of long arms when Kade hit him like a freight train. The Were drove him back across the barn. They impacted the fresh straw in the nearest stall hard enough to almost bury them.
Just as the world heaved and shook and dissolved into flames.
* * *
Jessie examined the puzzle. The ship and the Kraken were fully assembled. They were down to the sky and water.
“Do you think this is a cloud?” Kitani asked, showing her the piece in her hand.
A pulse of anger through her fledgling connection to Kade distracted Jessie from the question. Kade was at the barn. Talking to Zach.
Zach. She’d sensed his presence, once or twice, when she and Kade had been together. And now, she caught glimmers from him. He was pissed off. He was talking to Kade, so that made sense. But why could she feel Zach too? Was it because of the linking they’d done?
“It might be a wave.” Kitani turned the piece around as she contemplated it.
Jessie had just leaned forward to take a look when she got a surge through the connection from both Kade and Zach. A split second later, the ground heaved beneath her feet. There was a tremendous, thunderous bang, and the crash of shattering glass.
Despite being pregnant, Kitani moved like lightning. Caught up in the pulse of shared pain and rage from the two men, it took Jessie a moment to follow her through the kitchen and out the door. Where they froze in horror.
