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she’d never met. But it wasn’t any of those things she saw in her mind’s eye when the shield winked out of existence and the dark mage unleashed his final salvo. It was the glint of a hawk medallion, one she’d known long before she knew who wore it or what it meant. A wash of desire raced through her, the remembered echo of something that hadn’t turned out the way it should’ve. As she braced herself for the burn of bullet strikes, his name whispered in her heart.

    Oh, Nate.

    Red-gold light suddenly detonated nuclear-bright, and a shock wave of displaced air knocked her back. The incoming bullets scattered in the blast, and two familiar figures slammed to the ground in front of her.

    Nate Blackhawk, with the king at his side.

    Both clad in black-on-black combat gear, tall and dark, and larger than life like all full-blooded Nightkeeper males, Nate and Strike should’ve looked similar, but didn’t.

    Strike was solid and stalwart, with a close-clipped jawline beard and shoulder-length hair tied back at his nape. Cobalt blue eyes steely, square jaw set, he stepped forward and threw a shield spell around her attacker, his god-boosted powers cutting through the rattle of twisted magic and startling a cry out of the enemy mage. Fighting magic with magic, the Nightkeepers’ king looked like something out of a legend, a man of another age transplanted into the twenty-first century to battle the final evil.

    Nate, in contrast, was wholly a man of the day, with short-cut black hair accentuating his strange, amber-colored eyes and aquiline nose. Instead of the black T-shirt most of the others wore under the thin layer of body armor, he wore a black button-down of fine cotton, open at the throat to show the glint of his gold medallion. The combination probably should have looked odd, but on him it looked exactly right, the melding of a successful businessman and a Nightkeeper mage.

    Expression thunderous, he crossed to Alexis and threw a thick shield around them both. His magic was stronger than hers, damn him, and the shield muted the sounds of fighting as the king fireballed the enemy mage, who blocked the attack.

    Nate glared down at her. “Do you still have the statuette?”

    It took a second for the question to penetrate the relief, another for her irritation to rise to match his. She scowled and struggled to her bare, bleeding feet and waved the suitcase at him. “It’s in here. And I’m fine; thanks for asking.”

    “Don’t start.” He snagged the case from her, got her by her uninjured arm, and hustled her to the king as dark magic rattled, signaling that the enemy mage was gearing up for transpo.

    The muddy brown mist gathered, enshrouding the chestnut-haired man. The last thing Alexis saw was his startlingly clear emerald eyes, locked on her. She heard the echo of his words on a thread of magic. See you soon. . . .

    Then he was gone.

    Sirens wailed in the near distance as the mist cleared, leaving the three Nightkeepers standing in the middle of the shoreline drive, near the mangled guardrail and a spray of broken glass.

    Strike glanced at Alexis. “You okay?”

    She nodded, suddenly unable to trust herself to speak. In the aftermath of the fight, her warrior’s bravery snapped out of existence like it’d never been, and she had to lock her muscles to keep from trembling.

    “We should go,” Nate said. “We’ll have company in a minute.” He nudged her closer to the king, whose teleport talent allowed him to ’port himself, along with anyone linked to him through touch, as long as he had enough power to draw from.

    Nate and Strike clasped hands. Power leaped at the contact, and the hum gained in pitch as Nate boosted the king’s magic, helping power a three-way teleport.

    As Strike closed his eyes to find their way home and lock onto their destination, Nate glanced at the crumpled guardrail, then down at Alexis, his expression fierce. “Let me guess—that wasn’t a Hyundai, and