CHAPTER ONE

For an instant, like a single beat of wings, Annika scented the sea, heard the voices lifted in song. Here then gone, a blur within the blur of color and speed, but it swelled in her heart like love.

Then came a sigh, and the echoes of sighs, another kind of music. Bittersweet. And this washed through her like tears.

So with joy and sorrow mated in her heart, she fell. Tumbling, spiraling, spinning in a breathless rush that added a reckless thrill and a quick panic.

A thousand wings beat now, a thousand and a thousand more, with whipping wind, a wall of sound. And color flicked away into the dark as she landed abruptly enough to lose her breath.

For a moment she feared they’d landed in some deep, dark cave where spiders would crawl, and worse, much worse, where Nerezza waited to strike.

Then her vision cleared. She made out shadows, what she knew as moonlight, and felt the firm body beneath hers, the arms wrapped tight around her. She knew that shape, that scent, wanted to snuggle right in, Nerezza or not.

It was a wonder, a star-struck sea of wonder, to feel his heart beat, so fast and strong, against hers.

Then he shifted a little, and one hand slid up, then down her hair. The other skimmed wonderfully over her bottom.

She snuggled right in.

“Um.” Both hands came to her shoulders now, but his voice spoke close enough to her heart that his breath tickled it. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Everybody okay?”

She remembered her friends—not that she’d forgotten them, not ever. But she’d never lain so intimately on a man before—on Sawyer—and she liked it very, very much.

She heard grunts, short groans, some cursing. Doyle’s voice, close by and annoyed, clearly said, “Fuck me,” which she knew wasn’t an invitation to mate, but an oath.

She didn’t worry about Doyle. After all, he was an immortal.

“Sound off.” That was Bran, somewhere a few feet away. “Did everybody make it? I’ve got Sasha. Riley?”

“What a ride!”

“One you finished with your knee in my balls,” Doyle added.

Annika heard a thump, which she interpreted as Doyle shoving Riley and her knee aside—as balls, she’d learned, weren’t just the round toy that bounced, but a man’s sensitive area.

“I’m here,” she called out, and experimented by wiggling a little on Sawyer’s sensitive area. “Did we fall out of the sky?”

“Not far from it.” Sawyer cleared his throat and, to Annika’s disappointment, shifted again and sat up. “I couldn’t slow it down. I’ve never taken six people this far. I misjudged, I guess.”

“We’re here, the six of us, and that’s first on the list,” Bran stated. “Now, are we where we aimed to be?”

“We’re inside,” Sasha commented. “I can see windows, and moonlight through them. Wherever we are, it’s still night.”

“Let’s hope Sawyer and his time-and space-bending compass got us where and when we want. So let’s find out.”

Riley pushed to her feet. The scientist—archaeologist. Annika rolled the word in her mind as her people, the merpeople, had nothing to compare. They had no lycans either, she thought, so nothing and no one quite like Riley existed in Annika’s world.

Dr. Riley Gwin—tough, compact body, wide-brimmed hat that had somehow stayed on her head—strode to the window.

“I can see water, but not the view from the villa on Corfu—we’re higher up. A road, steep, narrow. We’ve got steps leading down to it. I’m pretty sure this is Capri, and this is the villa. Bull’s-eye, Sawyer. Kudos to the traveler and his magic compass.”

“I’ll take them.” He stood, hesitated, then held out a hand to help Annika up. Though her legs were strong and agile, she let him.

“Let me see if I can find the lights,” Riley began.

“I can help with that.”

Bran, on his feet, an arm around Sasha, held out his hand. The ball of light hovering over his palm illuminated the room.

Seeing her friends lifted her heart as the song had. Sasha, the seer, with her hair like the sun and her eyes of the sky, and Bran, the sorcerer, so handsome with his magick lighting him. And Riley, one hand on the butt of the gun on her hip—at the ready—her dark gold eyes looking everywhere at once as Doyle, a warrior through and through, stood with his sword already drawn.

And Sawyer, always Sawyer, with the compass of the traveler in his hand.

They might be bruised and bloodied from the last battle, but they were safe and together.

“Is this our home now?” she wondered. “It’s very pretty.”

“Unless Sawyer dropped us at the wrong address, I say this is the new HQ.” Though her hand stayed on her gun, Riley moved from the window.

The room had colorful cushions on a long bed—no, Annika reminded herself, a sofa. And chairs and tables with pretty lamps. The floor—they all had reason to know—was hard, with large tiles the color of sun-beaten sand.

Riley moved to one of the lamps, turned the switch and, with the magic of electricity, it lit.

“Let me get my bearings, make sure we’re in the right place. We don’t want a visit from the polizia.”

Riley moved out of the room through a wide, arched opening. In seconds, more light poured through. Sheathing his sword, Doyle moved out after her.