“Tamisia told me about the trouble on the island a few months ago. The colony was very fortunate to have both of you on their side when Elyon’s collusion with Selene was exposed.”
Zael gave a grim nod. “All credit goes to Brynne, if you want to know the truth. Without her at my side, I wouldn’t be standing here today and Elyon would’ve escaped back to the realm to trade the crystal for Selene’s favor.”
Lazaro Archer, the dark-haired commander of the Order’s presence in Rome, gave a dry grunt. “Trading it to the Atlantean queen might’ve been the best-case scenario. Imagine if the traitor had decided there might be more profit in taking the crystal to Opus Nostrum.”
Phaedra’s skin prickled at the mention of the secret cabal whose escalating acts of terror had been making news around the world for months. The idea of a violent group like that obtaining the power of an Atlantean crystal made her blood run cold in her veins.
There were only five of the egg-sized, unearthly energy sources in existence, and no chance of there ever being any more. Phaedra felt that reality more personally than most. After all, her parents had been the ones responsible for creating the crystals long, long ago.
Brilliant scientists and alchemists, they had literally given their lives in devotion to their work. They’d been gone for many centuries, from the time Phaedra was just an infant, but she still felt their loss to this day.
“Who’s to say Selene and Opus aren’t working together?” The low-growled comment from the tawny-haired stranger drew everyone’s attention. “Someone’s pulling Opus’s strings. We can’t be sure it’s not the Atlantean queen.”
Lazaro let go of a quiet curse. “We’d better all pray to hell they’re not. The Order’s got its hands full enough lately putting out Opus’s fires. If they were to join forces with a madwoman like Selene—”
“It would be all-out war.” This time, it was Trygg who chimed in with a grave prediction.
Phaedra swallowed. Before the warriors had the chance to delve any deeper into Order business or the tactics of their violent trade, Tamisia pointedly cleared her throat.
“Please, forgive my manners. Phay, I don’t think you’ve met Tegan.”
“No, I haven’t.” The rest of the males halted their conversation, all of them staring at her now.
“Tegan, this is my dear friend, Phaedra.” She offered a reassuring smile. “Tegan and his son will be flying back to the States with Zael and Brynne after they return from the colony.”
He acknowledged her with a vague incline of his head and a perfunctory shake of her hand, as if he wasn’t accustomed to social gatherings, or had no patience for being friendly. Something weighed heavily on him. Phaedra could see the burden of it in the hard lines of Tegan’s beard-shadowed face.
It was hard to picture the hulking warrior as the father of a child, and she couldn’t help but wonder what kind of son a menacing-looking Breed male like Tegan might produce.
Breaking away from his sharp gaze, she glanced to Zael and his mate. “Thank you for offering to escort me to the colony. I feel terrible for imposing on you and Brynne.”
“I’m the one who should feel terrible,” Sia cut in. “And I do. If I hadn’t lost Phay’s crystal amulet at the bottom of the Mediterranean, she’d be able to teleport to and from the colony—or anywhere else—anytime she wanted.”
Phaedra shook her head. “Please, stop blaming yourself. I gave it to you willingly. Besides, if you hadn’t been wearing the crystal, you wouldn’t have been able to reach Trygg in time to save him. Seeing the two of you so happy together is well worth the amulet’s loss.”
Tamisia’s gaze warmed as it lifted to meet Trygg’s. The big warrior wrapped his muscled arm around her slender waist, drawing her against his side. If Tegan looked menacing, Trygg, with his shaved skull, scarred face and dark eyes bordered on monstrous. But there was a rugged handsomeness in his expression, especially when he was looking so smitten with Sia.
It had been a long time since a man had looked at Phaedra with such tender affection. Not so long, however, that she couldn’t recognize true love when she witnessed it—between Trygg and Sia, as well as Zael and Brynne.
“It’s an honor to escort you to the colony today,” Zael said. “I’d be pleased to do so even you didn’t need me just for my amulet. If you’re ready, we can leave at any—”
The jarring sound of a piercing alarm went off somewhere inside the mansion.
Phaedra shot an anxious look at her friend. “What’s happening?”
Lazaro Archer was the one who answered. “Someone tripped the security system down in the command center.”
“Micah.” The name was barely off Tegan’s tongue before the temperature in the room went a little colder and the air shifted as with the coming of a storm.
The source of that disruption was making his way toward the foyer. Uneven, heavy footsteps slapped on the marble flooring. Labored breathing huffed and hissed, punctuated with a low groan unlike anything of this earth.
With Tegan rushing out of the room ahead of everyone else, the others followed, Phaedra included. She hung toward the back of the group as they all poured out, gripped in a mixture of apprehension and curiosity.
Between the bodies in front of her, she caught fleeting, obstructed glimpses of the obviously pained Breed male who had staggered up from the warriors’ headquarters located below the mansion at ground level.
Even with his head slumped forward over his bare chest and broad shoulders hunched from obvious pain and weakness, there was no mistaking that he was easily as sizable as Tegan or Trygg. He prowled into the foyer like a wounded animal—and no less dangerous, Phaedra was certain. Menace rolled off him, along with an iron-willed determination that seemed to power him forward despite that he looked only a few steps away from death’s door.
Tegan rushed to his side, catching the equally immense male under the arms and lending support just as his bare feet faltered and his knees began to buckle.
“It’s all right, son. I’ve got you.”
This was Tegan’s son?
All her imaginings of him with a child went up in flames. His son was not a boy at all, but a full-grown, formidable man. Thick, tawny-brown hair in a soldier’s cut crowned his head, choppy and bed-mussed. Smooth golden skin covered in Breed dermaglyphs, which pulsed with mesmerizing, dark colors. All he wore were loose gray sweatpants that clung indecently to his thick-muscled thighs and the unavoidably distracting area of his groin.
Phaedra was far from a blushing maiden, but the sight of his raw masculinity flooded her senses with an intense, uncomfortable awareness. Cheeks overheating, she glanced down, embarrassed to be ogling an injured man who was also clearly suffering.
She heard Tegan curse low under his breath. It sounded less angry than racked with concern. “You shouldn’t be out of the infirmary, Micah. It’s too soon. You need rest.”
“Fuck that,” came the deep, snarled reply. Micah’s voice was all gravel, as if he hadn’t used it for a year. “I need to . . . feed. Need to get out of here.”
Phaedra glanced up again as Micah started to push forward. Tegan moved in front of him, blocking his path.