“Aye,” he agreed. “And determined.”

“A lethal combination.” She smiled as she leaned toward him, until barely an inch separated their mouths. “I never stood a chance.”

“Not for a moment,” he said. “And when you came back the next night by yourself, neither did I.”

As he kissed her and pushed back into her heat, he couldn’t help thinking that if they were a normal couple, they’d probably already be mated or well on their way toward it.

If he was a different man . . .

Rune shook the useless thoughts away.

Forever was something he couldn’t give Carys.

Hell, he hadn’t even given her total honesty. The blood bond would open his ugly past and shameful secrets to her. It would bind her to him irrevocably, and to the darkness he’d been running from nearly all his life.

It would bind Carys to the danger that could catch up to him at any time. As it had already before.

And that was something he would never risk, even if it meant one day pushing her away from him for good.

CHAPTER 4

Seated on a living room sofa next to his mate, Tavia, Sterling Chase did his damnedest to chat with their three houseguests without staring at the clock on the opposite wall every five minutes.

Tried and failed, if the look Tavia slanted at him was any indication.

As soon as he heard the quiet beep of the command center’s security system, indicating his patrol team had returned for the night, Chase murmured his excuses and strode out to the mansion’s hallway.

The pair of warriors he wanted to see appeared at the far end of the corridor, fresh from their night’s sweep of the city. “Anything to report?”

“Just a typical Friday night in Boston,” Elijah said in his smooth Texas accent. “Which is saying a lot, based on how things have been going around here lately.”

“And my daughter?” Chase pressed.

Jax shook his head, his almond-shaped eyes solemn. “No sign of her at La Notte, sir.”

“Was the cage fighter there?” At the warriors’ nods, Chase let out a sharp curse. “Then so was she. Carys probably hid from you the instant she spotted you inside the place.”

And Chase ought to know his daughter had the skill to evade anyone she had a mind to. The fact that she could bend shadows to her bidding was an extrasensory gift she’d inherited from him, after all. Damn it.

As he considered sending the men back out for another fly-by of the illegal sport club, just to get a visual confirmation that his child was still in the city and still in one piece, he sensed a shift in the air behind him.

Tavia had come out to the hallway now.

She smiled warmly at the two warriors, who greeted their commander’s blood-bonded mate with deferential nods. “Is everything all right out here?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Eli replied.

Jax’s head bobbed in agreement.

“They were just reporting in on the night’s patrol,” Chase said.

“You mean, reporting in on your nightly surveillance of our daughter.”

He didn’t bother to deny it. Tavia knew how concerned he was for Carys living on her own now. Not simply because she was his only daughter, but because of the dangers lurking in Boston and around the world of late. Dangers few but the Order were fully aware of.

Tavia worried too, but she must have been made of stronger stuff than he was. In the weeks since Carys had moved out of the family Darkhaven, Tavia had reconciled with the fact that their daughter was a grown woman who should be allowed to make her own choices.

As much as Chase hated it, there was nothing he could do. She was an adult, and he had to hope that what he’d taught her in life had not only stuck, but taken root.

He glanced at the pair of warriors and cursed. “Maybe I should send them back out to pick her up and bring her home where she belongs.”

Tavia crossed her arms. “And then what? Chain her to the banister? She’d never stand for us dictating her life like that, and you know it. We’d lose her for good.”

“We still might if we don’t keep her where we can protect her.”

“From what I’ve heard about her friend, Rune—”

“Friend?” Chase scoffed. “Gutter-bred, cold-blooded killer, according to his reputation. She can do a hell of a lot better than some cage-fighting bastard looking for another conquest outside of the arena.”

“Carys seems to see something more in him than his reputation,” Tavia gently reminded him. “Nathan and Jordana have spent time with Carys and Rune. They both said he appears to care deeply for her. That he’s protective of her too. It sounds to me like he loves her, Sterling.”

Chase nearly choked on the idea. “He’d better hope nothing happens to our girl—by him or anyone else he might associate with. As for Carys, I still say she belongs with us. Especially now. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten what happened to Cassian Gray last week, or the fact that Carys was nearly swept into that whole ordeal with Jordana.”

No, of course his mate wouldn’t have forgotten. Aside from the fact that Tavia’s unique extrasensory gift was a flawless photographic memory, no one in the Order would forget the circumstances of La Notte’s club owner’s murder by Atlantean soldiers, or the kidnapping of Jordana soon afterward.

Tavia rested her hand on Chase’s forearm. “We raised two very strong-willed, hard-headed children, my love. If we wonder where it came from, we only have to look in the mirror.”