It was a nightmare. Her worst nightmare. Ivy felt like she was underwater, lead weights hanging from every limb. Every sound seemed muffled, apart from the terrified pounding of her heart.

“The police are on their way.” The Earl’s face was grim and cadaverous. Behind him, security floodlights bathed the entire front grounds in stark, brilliant white. “The staff are still searching the property, but I don’t expect they’ll find anything.”

Ivy was shaking so hard, she could barely get words out. “Did the security cameras catch which car they left in?”

“Vehicles were going in and out of the front gates freely, dropping off late arrivals.” The Earl clenched his fist, looking as if he too was having to fight down the instinct to simply run blindly into the night in search of his son. “I have my people scrutinizing the footage and cross-referencing against the guest list, but it’s slow work.”

Lady Hereford hurried up, her high heels unsteady on the graveled drive. “I’ve told the guests that there’s a bomb scare, and that they need to stay put. They’re all locked in the ballroom.”

“What about the injured?” the Earl asked his wife. “The ones that monster caught on his way out?”

“The paralysis is wearing off. They’re confused and distressed, but don’t seem to be hurt.” Lady Hereford’s pale face crumpled suddenly, like tissue paper. “Edward, I let him in—he had an invitation. This is my fault.”

The Earl wrapped his wife in his arms, holding her firmly as she clung to him. “His false identity was rock-solid. You couldn’t have known.”

“I did know,” Ivy said numbly. Every part of her felt cold as ice. “I sensed it when Gaze attacked. But I was too far away to get back in time.”

There was no one who could hold her and tell her that it wasn’t her fault.

Because it was.

The Earl looked at Ivy over the top of his wife’s head. “You’re his true mate. Can you track him?”

“We aren’t fully mated. All I can tell is that he’s alive. He’s hurting,” oh God, “but he’s alive. So’s Hope. But I know someone who can track them. You need to call the Phoenix. Fire Commander Ash, of the East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service. He’s got a pegasus shifter named Chase Tiernach in his team. We have to get him out here.”

It was a slim hope—she knew from experience that Chase’s pegasus senses could only track people over about five miles. But she clung onto it anyway. If Gaze was taking his captives back to his home base in Brighton, Chase might intercept him on route. Or the pegasus shifter might be able to fly a search pattern and pick up the trail that way.

And if that didn’t work…her mind shied away from even contemplating that.

“If you know these shifters, wouldn’t it be better for you to call them?” the Earl asked, his brow furrowing.

“They won’t talk to me. But they’ll come for Hugh. They’re his friends.” Ivy turned away. “And anyway, I’m going to be busy.”

She rippled into scales, letting the strength and rage of the wyvern fill her. In a single leap, she was airborne. A few of the staff searching through the parked cars nearby turned their heads, blinking in the wind from her wings, but their eyes passed over her unseeingly. Mythic shifters were invisible to ordinary humans, although she noticed that the Earl’s gaze did follow her emerald form as she spiraled into the sky.

Her wyvern wanted to head in the direction of the main road. Spit, kill. Destroy everything, until we find our treasures.

Ivy kept control over their shared body, reining in the beast’s murderous instincts. Tearing apart random cars wouldn’t help to find Hugh and Hope. Instead, she arrowed toward the boundary of the estate.

We hunt, she told her wyvern, picturing the black backs of the hellhounds.

It was clear now that the pack had been deliberately drawing her away from the house while Gaze infiltrated the ball. But she might be able to turn the tables on them, if she moved fast. Her sense of smell was keen as a snake’s, and hellhounds had a very distinctive sulfur-and-wet-dog reek.

Which, she suddenly realized, she could smell right now.

A large canine shape sat in plain sight, right outside the front gates to the estate. It was howling like a wounded wolf, over and over, flames showing in the back of its throat.

She practically fell out of the sky in her haste to land. The hellhound sprang back stiff-legged as she crashed next to it in a spray of gravel. The next instant, she had it by the throat, her jaws pinning it down and her tail poised to strike.

*WHERE ARE THEY?* Ivy snarled telepathically.

The hellhound stared up at her, fiery eyes wide in non-comprehension. Cursing herself, Ivy realized that it hadn’t heard her. Hellhounds were a type of faerie creature, just different enough from mythic shifters that they couldn’t easily communicate mind-to-mind.

Ivy released the hellhound from her jaws, though she kept her stinger arced and ready. The other shifter made no attempt to escape. It just rolled onto its back, whining and showing its belly in an obvious display of submission. There was something gangling and adolescent about its long legs and slightly too-big paws.

Never taking her eyes off the hellhound, Ivy shrank back into her human skin. She jerked her gloves off the instant she had hands again, showing the cringing hellhound the venom glistening on her palms.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she warned. “I can kill you just as easily in this shape. Now shift so that we can talk.”

The coal-black shape shimmered, shrinking down into an ebony-skinned girl, her hair braided into close cornrows. White dust from the gravel marked her black motorbike leathers. Her hands shook as she raised them above her head in surrender, but her full mouth was set in determination.

“You!” Ivy recognized her—it was the girl who’d been watching Hugh’s house, the one Hope had claimed was her friend. “You’re…Betsy?”

“Betty.” The girl’s voice quavered, but her hazel eyes met Ivy’s without flinching. “Though only Hope calls me that. I'm Jezebeth Black. Don’t kill me, I’m here to help you!”

“Like hell you are.” Ivy didn’t lower her hands. “You’re the one who lured Hope into Gaze’s clutches in the first place.”

Betty’s shoulders hunched in her leather jacket. “No, I never meant—I didn’t know he was going to—please, there isn’t time for this! You just have to trust me!”

Acid filled her throat. “Give me one good reason.”

“Hope’s my…that is, I think she’s…“ Betty squirmed, her voice dropping to a reluctant, sullen mutter. “Look, I’m pretty sure Hope’s my mate, okay?”

Ivy stared at her.

Betty glared back, her jaw setting in teenage stubbornness. “Don’t you dare tell her.”

The girl’s clear mortification convinced Ivy more than any fervent declaration of love ever could have. Shifters usually couldn’t recognize their true mates until they were full adults, but there was a hardened maturity in Betty’s direct gaze that Ivy recognized. She’d seen it in the mirror when she’d been seventeen. Betty might be young, but life had clearly made her grow up fast.

Ivy dropped her hands at last, straightening from her combat crouch. Part of her was gibbering in denial—Hope’s seventeen! She can’t have a mate! She’s supposed to be focusing on her studies, not dating!—but there wasn’t time to freak out about that now.

“Okay,” she said. “We’ll uh, talk about that later. Do you know where Gaze is taking Hope and Hugh?”

Betty nodded eagerly, pulling a cellphone out of her pocket. “Gaze doesn’t know about me and Hope. I was real careful to constantly complain about having to hang out with her, so that he wouldn’t suspect the truth. Anyway, I was able to find out his plan, and get a place with the group that was assigned to distract you. He’s taking them back to his most secure location. It’s an old warehouse on the outskirts of London. Here, look.”

Ivy swore under her breath as she studied the map on Betty’s phone. The marked address was a long way from Brighton, and Gaze had the advantage of a head start. Even flying at top speed, there was no way Alpha Team would be able to get there in time.

But no one was faster in the air than a wyvern.