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The brawny Giant nodded, then began barking orders to the others. Ellie’s lips tightened mutinously for a moment, hut then she fell into step like a good girl. Harper nodded, a hint of what might be approval in her eyes, and then jogged after Charlie and his Giants.

Mom and I shifted into full Fury form, serpents hissing and wing feathers fluttering in the evening breeze. Scott followed suit, assuming his large canine form and growling softly. I ruffled the fur on his head, then nodded. “Let’s find her.”

The terrain surrounding the valley was mostly forested hills, although parts were rocky and tough to navigate. Or would have been, had we been in mortal form. Scott had an easy time bounding over any rough patches, while Mom and I had only to use our wings to do the same. I glanced at the glowing BlackBerry from time to time, making sure we were headed in the right direction. Nervousness settled in my stomach again the closer we drew. Why wasn’t the blinking dot moving at all? She should have put as much distance between her and the burning valley as she could. That she’d gotten only a half mile away bothered me. A lot.

We topped a particularly steep rise, and I checked the GPS once more. “She should be on the other side of those trees.” I frowned. “Strange. I don’t sense her yet.”

Scott’s amber eyes glittered as he sniffed the air. Because he couldn’t speak in Hound form, he nodded toward the group of trees I’d pointed out. Which likely meant he smelled someone.

I fought back the nerves battering my insides and slipped through the trees, Mom and Scott fanning out to flank me. The wind whistled along the leaves, muffling the soft sounds of our passage. Pale white moonlight spilled down through the branches, lighting up patches of ground here and there. Goose bumps pricked my flesh, caused as much by the eeriness of the night as the cool breeze. Maybe more so.

Rounding the trunk of a particularly large oak towering overhead, I. noticed the ground dipping downward just slightly, culminating in a craggy mound of stone that spread out both east and west. The mouth of a cave slashed through the middle of the rock. Masking the glow of the GPS with my hand, I consulted it. The blinking red light indicated our target was straight ahead. Inside the cave.

The wind momentarily shifted, bringing with it a sharp, metallic odor. Blood. My body tensed. I dropped low to the ground and skulked forward, nose sniffing and eyes peering along the uneven earth. I sharpened my Fury senses and soon saw what I sought. Drops of sticky red liquid splattered every few feet on the ground. The patterns of blood grew steadily larger as they approached the cave.

“Well,” Mom murmured into my ear, nearly startling me into a shout. Which spoke volumes about how shaken up I was. “At least she found somewhere to hole up and heal her wounds.”

My breath exploded forcefully, tension spilling out along with it as hen words hit home. She was night.

That Nessa had found shelter while wounded was a
good
thing. I nose from my crouch and started forward, but then another scent hit my nose, this one even more disturbing than the first. The tinge of sulfur that marked Harpy.

Mom let out a low growl that sounded decidedly Houndlike. Her muscles bunched as she prepared to bound forward, Fury instincts screaming that the ancient enemy must be slain at all costs. My own instincts urged the same action, but I knew something she didn’t.

I grabbed Mom’s arm in a viselike grip. “Settle down,” I whispered. “The Harpies lost one of their own to the mad scientists.”

She let her body go slack, but her eyes looked pissed when they turned to mine. “And your point?”

“Ah, well, Calaeno and I have sort of an understanding.”

“You made a deal with our most hated enemy?” Yeah,
pissed
was an understatement.

“I return her missing Harpy, and she owes me a boon.”

Mom’s eyes widened. “You got Calaeno to promise an unspecified favor?”

Smugness laced my voice. “Yeah, I did. And I know just how to cash that chip in. But you’ve got to get hold of the Rage and let me handle things in there.”

Her lips tightened, but she nodded.

A low growl sounded nearby. Scott telling us to hurry the hell up. I took the lead again, creeping toward the cavern entrance as quietly as the rocky ground allowed. Rustling fabric was my only warning before a shadowy shape barreled toward me, I threw myself backward, smacking into Mom and sending us both to the ground. The figure launched toward me, but Scott’s canine body knocked it away with audible force. The stench of sulfur rose into the air again, and my dazed mind finally caught up.

“Sense?”

The Harpy pushed away from the snarling Hound, head swiveling toward the sound of my voice and body maintaining an aggressive stance. “Who sent you?”

“I’m here to retrieve one of my missing sisters, but your Queen
did
ask me to keep an eye out for you.”

She stepped into the moonlight, yellow-green eyes flaring briefly. Her whipcord-thin body still held most of its earlier tension, but at least she lowered her razor-sharp talons. “Your sister?” She sniffed the air and then nodded. “Fury, then.”

“Furies,
actually.” I gestured to my mother, just in case the Harpy was tempted to give in to her own instincts. My voice took on a harsher edge than I intended. “My sister?”

Sense nodded behind her. “With the midwife. I smelled you Furies coming a mile away.” Hen teeth bared in a feral grin. “Though the Hound’s odor masked your own stench.”

“Midwife?” My pulse kicked into speed. “Why does she—”

Mom pushed past me. “Which midwife?” Urgency laced her voice.

Sense’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Eugenia Flowers. And you would be wise to remember she saved your sister’s life.” She flexed her fingers, drawing attention to the mini daggers that capped them off. I flashed back to her sister Harpy’s attack and the poison-smeared claws that had nearly ended my life, and goose bumps pricked my flesh.

Recognition flashed in Mom’s eyes, which seemed suspiciously wet all of a sudden. “Of
course
she saved Nessa’s life. Genie’s the only damned mortal in the entire compound that treated us as more than cattle to be experimented on. There’s a reason I named her Mac’s godmother.”

The Harpy’s head tilted, hand settling across her belly as she regarded my mother silently. The way she held her hand, as if cradling something precious, seemed familiar. My eyes widened.

“You’re pregnant.” She stiffened again and raised her hands threateningly. “Oh hell—and so’s Vanessa.”

Sadness, something I couldn’t ever remember seeing on a Harpy, flickered across her face. “She was?’

My turn to stalk forward and growl. “What do you mean, she
was?”

Sense beckoned toward the cave. “Come and see. And make it fast, Fury. There’s not much time?’ And with those dire words, she ducked back into the shadows.

Mom hurried after, and I made to follow. Magic played across my skin, and Scott rose from a crouching position, now garbed in mortal guise. “I’ll wait out here, just in case.. .“ He didn’t have to finish the sentence. I nodded, grabbed his hand and squeezed painfully hard, then scurried into the gaping mouth of the rocky beast.

DARKNESS WRAPPED AROUND ME IN A CHILLY embrace, bringing to mind my earlier visit to the morgue.
Now
there’s
a cheerful thought.
I struggled to concentrate on my surroundings. A narrow tunnel led steeply downward for a dozen paces, and the temperature grew a degree cooler with each step I took. Tons of suffocating rock seemed to close in on me, and just when panic began to demand I turn around
now,
the tunnel opened out into a cavern actually deserving the name.

The stink of death slammed into me with physical force. I stumbled on the uneven floor, barely managing not to slam to my knees. Mom and Sense heard my feet scramble for purchase and turned to check on me. The awful stench emanated from just past them, though neither was the source. That left either the pale-faced mortal seated on the floor behind them—or Vanessa.

I rushed forward and threw myself down next to her. “Nessa?” I swallowed the lump of fear welling up in my throat. No wonder she smelled so sharply of death. Tears streaked from eyes glazed with confusion and pain. Drab gray sweats covered hen from neck to ankle, dirt and blood caking the ugly gray cotton.

My eyes were drawn to the pool of blood collecting beneath her, and the lump came back in full force. So this was what the Harpy meant by saying she
had been
pregnant. She’d either had or lost the baby, recently by the look of it, and now. . . now she was just dying.

Tears slipped down my cheeks~ “Oh, Nessa, no?’

Mom’s hand settled on top of my head like a heavy weight. “I don’t think she can hear you, Manissa.”

The mortal gripping Vanessa’s hand choked out, “Allegra? Is that you?”

Mom knelt down next to me, gaze locking on the middle-aged woman staring at her in shock. “Hello, Genie. Miss me?”

The mortal—Genie Flowers—fell back on her rear, hand falling away from Vanessa’s. “Oh, God. I thought they killed you when you tried to escape! That’s what they told us, anyway.” Her eyes widened.

“Did Mac help you break out?” Mom arched a brow, and Genie flushed. “Well. I guess it’s better if I don’t know anything about that, anyway. Just in case. . .“ In case she had only helped Vanessa and Sense escape in order to find and recapture my mother. I could tell where Mac had learned to imitate a Scottish brogue so accurately. Genie’s voice was thick with it.

Vanessa let out an agonized moan, and my heart skipped a beat. I glared at Mom and Genie as a sudden rush of Rage swept over me. “Save the reunion for later. Vanessa’s fucking dying here!”

Mom sucked in a breath, redness tingeing her cheeks. I focused all my attention on the Fury bleeding out her life force in front of me. Something didn’t seem right about the way her twisted body lay on the rocky cavern floor, broken and alone. My eyes narrowed in sudden realization. “Why aren’t her serpents healing her?”

Serise crouched next to me. She reached down, causing me to tense my body, but I forced it to relax when she simply raised one of Vanessa’s sleeves. Shock slammed into me with sickening force. Her tattoos were gone!

“They have to be here somewhere!” My eyes searched the surrounding floor for the sign of emerald splashes of color. And found nothing but bare rock.

The Harpy eyed me with another uncharacteristic expression. Pity. “They
were
healing her, Fury. Until an hour or so ago, when they just—disappeared.” Her voice echoed with the remembered loss of her own Amphisbaena—a her Rage-crazed hands when she’d Turned.

Genie moaned, head nodding up and down rapidly. “I was horrible. One minute they were there, doing their best to heal them, and then they let out the most godawful shrieks and they—turned to dust.” Her fingers shook as she pointed to a spot between hen and the bleeding Fury. Sure enough a large pile of what I’d taken for crushed rock littered the ground. And that’s when I had to admit the unthinkable Vanessa wasn’t going to come back from this.

Anguish clogged my throat, tasting bitten in the extreme. I dropped down on all fours and let my head lie across Vanessa’s chest. “Oh, Nessa,” I said again, tears spilling out in a sudden flood. “How could I find you only to lose you again?”

Something whispered against my hair. It took me several seconds to realize it couldn’t have been the night breeze, seeing as how we were in the cave. Which co only mean...

My head jerked back and Vanessa’s eyes met my own, momentarily lucid. Her hand reached out and I grabbed it

out of reflex. It felt cold, painfully so, but still, it was so damned good to have her there with me, actually aware of who I was, and most definitely not a Sidheborn clone, that I almost started bawling like a baby.

She licked her lips before speaking again, no doubt repeating whatever I hadn’t quite heard the first time. “Riss. I knew you’d come for me.”

I bit the inside of my mouth so hard the salty tang of blood ran over my tongue. “Of course I came, Nessa. You’re my best friend. My sister.”

Her lips curved into a smile. “Sisters forever, isn’t that right?”

“You know it.” My voice grew husky, and I cleared my throat. “I’m so sorry I let you down. Should have been here sooner.”

She shook her head, wincing in sudden pain. “Not your fault, Riss. They’re the ones who.. . forced me into labor at the start of their evacuation. It was awful…” Her voice trailed away as a fit of coughing overtook her body.

Genie picked up the thread of conversation. “The bastards could have waited until they got her moved and done C-section, but for some sick reason they put her through agony instead. And the evacuation messed up the plans for escape Sense and I had already made. We had to improvise. I helped Vanessa through the labor as best I could, but it didn’t take long to realize something was wrong. Very wrong.”

I frowned. “Was the baby breech?”

Genie’s voice faltered. “N-no. Worse?’

Vanessa’s eyes bore into my own as I tried to figure out what could have been so horribly wrong. “My baby is half-fury, Riss, but only one-quarter Sidhe. The other quarter is Warhound.”

Realization zipped across my body like a lightning bolt. One-quarter Warhound. Mother Hounds always gave birth in their canine form-to very large, not-at-all-human shaped pups, though once born the pups shift to human form. And Furies cannot risk shifting shape during physical and magical onslaught of childbirth. Oh gods. That certainly explained all the blood. She saw the horror in my eyes and nodded.

“By the time they realized the baby wasn’t in human form, it was too late to turn back.” Her lips suddenly trembled. “The worst part was, they didn’t even let me see my daughter before they took her away.”

My gaze softened momentarily. “Her?”

A small smile brightened the pain on her face. “Yes. M little girl.”

“What—” My voice came out too husky to und’~ stand, so I cleared my throat and tried again.

“What’s h name?”

Vanessa’s eyes fluttered open and closed like butter] wings. “Olivia.”