Whidbey Island, Washington, eighteen hours later, mid-afternoon…

"I don't want to stay in the damn motel," Rhiannon protested, while he pushed her into the room.

He gritted his teeth and tried to remember that she was exhausted, scared, and missing her child, because if he didn't, her stubbornness might drive him over the edge. He was tired, too, and that made for a volatile combination.

He closed the door behind them and locked it and then leaned back against it. "Look. I understand your impatience, but if they see you, they'll be ready for us, and I believe that the element of surprise is our only chance here."

She slammed her bags down on the hideous orange-and-purple bed coverings and then glared at him. If looks could kill, he'd already be vampire dust.

"She's my daughter," she snarled, biting off each word. "If you think for one second that I'm going to wait here while you—"

"It's our best chance." He waited for her to argue with him, but she said nothing, so he tried again. "This? Confronting dangerous opponents while strategizing for a successful outcome? They train us in Atlantis to do this from the time we're younglings. But she's your daughter, as you say, and you have no reason to trust a man 'you don't even know' to deal with this situation. If you want to come along, so be it."

He walked to the sink to wash his hands, so he didn't have to see her face while she thought about it. Also, so she couldn't see his. He hadn't realized her comment about how they didn't even know each other had struck home as hard as it apparently had. He'd thought she'd begun to trust him, but she must not have, and he didn't like it. He didn't like it a lot, which pissed him off.

He wasn't used to having emotional reactions to other people.

He didn't like it.

"This is a terrible place," she finally said. "It smells like gallons of urine and generations of despair."

"I would have said it smells like ass, but yours is more poetic," he said, drying his hands with a towel for a change, but only because it was sparkling white. At least they knew how to do laundry at this dump.

She started pacing the short length of the room, her hands jammed in her pockets, and her face fixed in a fierce scowl. How did she still look so beautiful when she was scowling? It was against the laws of nature for those golden eyes to be so very angry. She deserved to be happy all the time, after what she'd been through with that bastard Brock. It suddenly struck him like a bolt of summer lightning that he'd do anything for her, simply to see her smile. Anything at all.

Like, for example, take on an entire wolf-shifter pack all by himself.

Poseidon's balls, I'm a complete fool

Suddenly, she whirled around and stalked across the room to him, stopping only when she stood inches away. "I do trust you, you know," she said, grabbing his shirt with both hands. "I don’t know why, it's incredibly stupid, but I do. So, go find my baby. I'll stay here. For now. But if you're not back in an hour, I'm out of here."

"Two hours," he countered, and she bared her teeth and hissed but then nodded.

"Two hours, and not a second more. I'll take a shower and put on clothes that don't smell like ass—I'm stealing that expression, by the way—and wait for one hundred and twenty minutes. If you're not back, I'm going after her myself, and if I have to kill every single shifter in this state to get Stevie back, I will do it."

"I don’t doubt it one bit," he told her, marveling at her strength. She was so fierce she almost glowed, and he would have sworn that he could see the heritage of thousands of years of warrior women flowing through her veins.

She was glorious.

She was magnificent.

He needed to kiss her, or he quite possibly might die of the longing.

She was still clutching his shirt, so he reached up and covered her hands with his. "I want to kiss you more than I want my next breath," he rasped, his voice thick with longing.

Her eyes widened, and she inhaled sharply, but then those luscious lips of hers curved in a small smile. "I was just thinking the same thing."

Lucas kissed her, and the world exploded off its axis. He put his arms around her and pulled her tightly to him, unable to touch enough of her body with his, unable to stop kissing her soft, soft lips that tasted of honey and magic and, faintly, of beef jerky.

She spread her fingers but kept her hands on his chest, touching his heartbeat. His pulse pounded beneath his skin so hard that surely, she felt it, surely, she would draw away from him any moment, surely, she didn't really mean to allow the son of a traitor to kiss her with every ounce of need and want and hunger that must have been building up in his soul until this desperation threatened to topple him.

She pulled away, just the distance of a breath, and rested her forehead against his chest. "Lucas. I don't—I didn't—what just happened? How can you affect me like this?"

He tilted her chin up, so he could see her eyes. "I don't know. I don't understand it, either, this feeling that you are the piece of my soul that has been missing for so long, but I've watched you and seen your courage. Your strength. Even your grace under the most terrible of circumstances, and I couldn’t help but admire you more than I have ever admired any person, man or woman, Atlantean or human."

She stiffened and released his shirt. "I'm not very admirable right now, standing here kissing you when every second we waste is another second that my child is gone."

"I'm going now. Your directions were very clear, and I can be invisible when I need to be. I'll scout out the situation, find your daughter, and then come to get you. Acceptable?'

She bit her lip but then nodded. "Yes. Go now."

He turned to leave, but she stopped him with a touch. "And, Lucas?"

He waited.

"I admire you, too. Maybe…maybe we can continue this conversation when we have Stevie, and we're far away from here."

He bowed, suddenly remembering his palace manners, suddenly needing to honor her with more than just a nod. "Yes. We will."

And then he grabbed the car keys and ran out the door.

It was even worse than he'd imagined.

Not the scouting; that was easy. As an Atlantean, being able to use water magic to travel as mist meant that nobody ever saw him unless he wanted them to see him. He hovered in the trees, high over the settlement of log cabins deep in the woods. The west coast of Washington coast was a study in contrasts; beautiful wilderness spaces lived side-by-side with enormous cities snarled with traffic congestion and angry, stressed-out people.

But this wilderness sanctuary inside Deception Pass State Park—this was one of the most stunning vistas of natural growth old forest that he'd ever seen. And Deception Pass Bridge was spectacular, seeming to float in midair across the space from cliff to cliff, high over the swirling water nearly two hundred feet below. It was breathtaking, even to an Atlantean.

He wasn't here to play tourist, though. He studied the scene before him and soon figured out who the key players were in this farce. At least twenty-five people, by rapid count, were spread out around the communal space in the center of the semi-circle of homes. Most of them were busy chopping wood or preparing food. Two of the women wrapped gifts with shiny gold paper and chatted about the upcoming feast.

Feast?

Lucas's gaze snapped to a light-haired man sauntering around like a rooster among hens. He wore a dark shirt, jeans, boots, and an attitude of smug entitlement. This would be Brock. On the other side of the clearing, an older woman who looked so much like Brock she must be his mother, Tannis, barked orders to even more women who were chopping vegetables.

There was no sign of the child.

Tannis's phone rang while Lucas tried to decide what to do next. She spoke with the caller briefly, and then she started shouting and waving her arms to get her son's attention. "They're almost here! I'm going to see my granddaughter in only ten more minutes!"

Brock pumped his fists and whooped. "I still can't believe that slut thought she could keep my kid away from me. I've lost four years of her life. If Rhi dares to show up, and you know damn well she might, she's going to pay."

Lucas had never wanted to kill someone so badly that he ached with the effort to restrain himself. He knew, though, that if he dropped into the middle of their village or commune or whatever in the nine hells this place was, they'd warn their kidnapping friends to stay away, and he might never find Stevie.

Stevie, a four-year-old child with the same golden eyes as the woman who'd staked a claim on Lucas's heart. He studied the layout, and he watched but stayed back when they brought little Stevie, who was rumpled and crying, to her grandmother, who rushed her inside one of the cabins.

Although it nearly killed him, he didn't rush in to rescue her, because the odds were stacked so heavily against him. If he got Stevie hurt or killed while stupidly trying to be the hero that Rhiannon so mistakenly thought he was, he'd never forgive himself for it.

And once Rhiannon found out, he wouldn't live long enough to forgive himself.

So, instead of rushing in, he watched, listened, and learned for another hour or so, careful not to miss Rhiannon's deadline. The last thing he wanted was for her to show up here on her own. If they dared to touch her—if Brock dared to touch her…

Inside him, the berserker opened scarlet eyes.

Somebody is going to pay.