Moonlight filled Misty’s room, the moon at the full. Moonlight was magical. Even Shifters, who didn’t much like magic, acknowledged that on the full moon, when the Mother Goddess was at her height, mystical things could happen.

Fae worshipped the Goddess too, just a weird aspect of her. Instead of the comforting mother figure, they liked the crone-like goddess who wove dark magics.

Shifter. You are mine . . .

Son of a bitch. Graham scrambled up from the bed. Everything in him wanted to go find the voice, to do as it commanded. He broke into a sweat as he fought the compulsion.

Was this what would happen to all Shifters? The Fae made a connection with the Shifter somehow—as Oison had with the water spell—then used the further connection between sword and Collar to make the Shifter come to him. To obey him without question.

Graham couldn’t. He needed to fight with everything he had. If Graham, one of the strongest Shifters alive, could be gotten at this way, what chance did the rest of them have? He thought about Dougal, and went cold.

Well, if Fae had magic, so did Shifters, of a sort. They had mates. The touch of a true mate could heal, and the mate bond could protect against many things.

“Misty,” Graham touched her shoulder.

Misty didn’t respond. Her breathing was deep but so soft Graham had to lean over her to catch it.

“Misty. Sweetheart.”

She didn’t wake. Graham shook her. Misty’s body moved, rubbery, and her skin was cool.

Fear lacing him, Graham shook her again, and again. She was alive, but slumbering deeply. Graham patted her cheeks then harder, but she never woke.

Oison must have done this—maybe the Fae’s connection to Misty through the water spell or the sword cut hadn’t been completely severed. Graham stopped shaking her and smoothed her hair, his hand unsteady.

“He can do whatever he wants to me,” Graham said in a hard voice, “but he’s not having you.”

He leaned down and kissed her, and the mate bond tightened in his heart. Graham kissed Misty’s forehead then her lips again, then he rested his fingers on her abdomen. If what they’d done this night and last had born fruit, Graham would at least have that.

Come to me . . .

The voice in his head was louder, more insistent, and Graham’s body jerked. The words were in Fae, but Graham understood them.

Moonlight beamed brightly through the window, bathing Misty and Graham in white. “Goddess go with them,” Graham whispered. He touched Misty’s face then her abdomen again, and left the room.

In the hall, he called Reid but got his voice mail. Graham growled a message at him and flipped his phone closed. He entered Misty’s room again, placed his phone on top of her dresser, then moved to her window and slid through it with Shifter stealth.

The pain inside him lessened as he left the house, the compulsion spell happy that Graham was moving in the right direction.

Graham took Dougal’s bike from the end of the driveway and pushed it into the street. The DX Security man stationed here nodded at him, seeing nothing wrong in Graham leaving when he pleased.

Graham pushed the motorcycle quietly around the corner before he mounted and started it, its throbbing loud in the stillness.

Come to me!

“All right, all right, I’m coming,” Graham said out loud. “Shut the f**k up already.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Misty woke when early sunshine slid its first rays into her window. Graham was gone, though the bed bore the indentation of his large body, and the covers were a mess.

She smiled, remembering the warmth of him around her, the wild passion of their lovemaking in the garden and later in bed. As her fog of afterglow receded, though, she realized she couldn’t hear his voice rumbling through the house, or sense his presence as she often could. She also saw, sitting on her low dresser, the black outline of Graham’s small cell phone.

Misty sat straight up. “Oh, God, no.”

She threw off the covers and scrambled out of the bed, and at the same time heard loud voices down the hall. Voices accompanied by frenzied yips.

Misty quickly pulled on shorts and top, finger-combing her hair as she ran out of the room and to the front door. Xav was blocking it, he red-eyed and dark-chinned from staying up all night.

“Misty!” Dougal tried to lunge past Xav, who barricaded the doorway with his body. “You’re all right.”

“Yes, why wouldn’t I—”

Misty broke off as two tiny wolf bodies hurled themselves at her, Matt and Kyle climbing up her to nestle in her arms and lick her face, their tails moving furiously.

“They came and found me,” Dougal said. “I was in bed at home—they kept trying to say you were in danger. They wouldn’t let me go back to sleep until I followed them. They had me worried.” He bent to the cubs. “See? She’s fine.”

Kyle lifted his muzzle and howled. Matt nuzzled into Misty’s neck, shivering.

“I’m all right, little guys,” she said. “But Graham’s gone.”

Dougal’s eyes widened, and he glared at Xav, his Collar sparking once. “Gone where?”

“No idea,” Xav said. “Never said a word to me. I saw him take the bike.” He gestured out the door where Dougal’s motorcycle had been replaced by the small pickup Dougal must have driven to get here. “I assumed he’d gone home. He left of his own accord, looking fine to me.”

“And you didn’t think you should tell me?” Misty joined Dougal in glaring at him.