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his heart beating beneath her ear.
    She snuggled against him, feeling the magic of the land seep inside her.
    It should have added to her comfort.
    The magic had healed her cat. It soothed the damage done to her human form by the damned collar. And with every passing second it was repairing the damage to her mind.
    All fan-fucking-tastic things, if there wasn’t something buried in the depths of her brain that was wigging her out.
    Something she wasn’t prepared to deal with. Not yet.
    “No one knows I’m here?”
    “No,” he swiftly assured her, nuzzling his face in her hair. He was such a cat. “But you realize they’re going to skin me when they find out I didn’t tell them you’re alive?”
    She grimaced. It wasn’t fair to force Bayon to choose between protecting her and his loyalty to fellow Hunters, but the suffocating dread that enveloped her didn’t give a shit. And for now she wasn’t strong enough to battle through it.
    “I’m not ready,” she muttered.
    Thankfully Bayon didn’t press, perhaps sensing she was still dangerously fragile. “Can you tell me how you disappeared?” he instead demanded.
    She paused, trying to sift through the memories that were a strange patchwork of perfect clarity and murky confusion.
    Now that she was home, she could clearly remember her childhood playing in this cave with Parish. And the day she’d taken command of the Hunters. And even eyeballing Bayon when he was too occupied to notice her fascinated survey.
    But the second she tried to concentrate on the events leading up to her kidnapping, her brain began to sputter and shut down. Like a computer with a virus.
    “It’s still fragmented,” she admitted, her voice tight with frustration.
    His hand continued to run a soothing path up and down her spine. “We thought you were dead.” He was forced to halt and clear his throat as he relived the day of her disappearance. “Parish could sense you were being attacked, then suddenly his connection to you was severed. He searched for you for months, but his cat was convinced you were dead.”
    She hissed with dark fury, knowing her death would have tormented her brother. It wouldn’t be enough for Parish to mourn her passing. No, he would’ve made certain he carried the full weight of guilt for having failed her.
    Damn, but she wanted to make those bastards pay for what they’d done.
    “I think they had some sort of black magic that blocked my connection to my cat,” she said.
    “That’s what Raphael said when he was ambushed.”
    Keira tilted back her head in surprise. “Raphael was attacked?”
    “Yeah, just outside the borders.” Bayon’s expression was guarded, as if he were hiding something from her. “He was shot with a dart by a human who was tattooed with a raven in front of a full moon.”
    Pain ripped through her head as a shard of memory pierced through the black hole that surrounded her kidnapping.
    “The Mark of Shakpi,” she breathed, squeezing shut her eyes as a wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm her.

 

     
    Chapter 3
     
     
    Bayon cursed as he felt Keira tremble in distress.
    Goddammit. The last thing he wanted to do was cause this female more pain, but they had to discover if her disappearance had anything to do with the attack on Ashe. For all they knew the bastards were already plotting another assault aimed to kill the vulnerable human and her precious baby.
    Now he feared he pressed the still-weakened Keira too far.
    “Keira.” He urged her head against his chest as he reached behind him for the blanket he’d been laying on. Gently he tucked it around her naked form. “Are you—”
    “I’m fine.” She sucked in a deep breath. Then another. “Just give me a minute.”
    “Take your time,” he murmured softly, savoring the feel of her in his arms.
    Yeah, she was only there because he’d been the one to rescue her, but his cat didn’t care. It only knew that he’d waited for an eternity to have this woman curled