Page 114 of Kingdom of Aramis

“Whoa,” I hiss at them. “The last thing Nox needs is to be ambushed by a group of you. He’s obviously hiding for a reason, and seeing all of you on his front porch is a good way to send him running out the back door. Hold back and let me speak to him first,” I order them, and Gryffin goes to argue, but Brodie doesn’t let him.

“Gryff, the queen gave an order, and your mate is asking nicely.” He turns to me and smiles.

“Call out if you need us. We’ll be there in seconds.”

“Actually, I’ll be there quicker.” Gem fades out of view, and I sigh. I guess one of them is coming with me after all, but it seemsto make the other guys less anxious. Gryff nods and leans against the front bumper of the car, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Be careful.” Liam kisses me on the temple, and I start toward the front steps. The salty smell of the ocean reaches my nose as I get farther away from my mates, but I can still smell Gem’s ashy whiskey scent, even though I can’t see him. The sound of the waves crashing against the shore muffles the sound of our feet. I mount the steps, and in the moonlight that shines through the thick cloud cover, I notice the chairs that used to be there are gone, as are the surfboards and surfing paraphernalia. The deck is completely empty, and my heart sinks. I have a feeling when I knock on the door, I’m not going to get an answer.

Taking a deep breath, I do just that, but like I assumed, Nox doesn’t come stumbling to the door, sleepy and sexy like I imagined. There’s nothing but silence and the sound of the crashing waves. Gem fades into view and puts his hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

I sigh. “I should have known that once he saw I was the shifter queen, he wasn’t going to stick around for me to find him. Now what? He could be anywhere in the kingdom. Hell, he could have fled to another kingdom. That’s what I would do. That’s what I contemplated when I was first marked with these.” I shove my wrists out, showing the marks on them.

He frowns. “Yeah, but you realized there was no running away and stepped up to accept your responsibilities. This dude just keeps running. Being marked as part of a bond is supposed to be a privilege. It’s an instant family.”

I scowl. “I only stopped running after being given a stern talking to by the goddess who told me there was nowhere I could escape to. Don’t be angry with him, we don’t know what Nox has been through. There must be a reason he felt like he couldn’t be a part of something like that. Maybe he thought he didn’t deserveit.” I think about something he said to me. “But I have a feeling it wasn’t his family that made him that way. He mentioned his sister visiting.”

“Well, if he has a sister, then the equine village should be our next stop,” Gem says as we walk back to the car. “He’s not here,” he tells the others when we get there.

“We guessed he might not be, and I heard what you guys were saying. The equine village will be the best place for us to look next. Zalfari is quite a distance. It sits at the base of the Aramis Rift.”

“Can we take the car?” I look at it with hope, not relishing the idea of flying all the way there on Hunter’s back. It’s probably going to be pretty damn cold.

Hunter nods. “Yes. The neutral zone doesn’t actually separate the two zones completely. We can drive around it and go through one of the other checkpoints along the divide closer to the village.”

“We will have to stop when the snow gets too thick, since the roads aren’t plowed that far out, and go on foot. It’s already quite thick at that elevation, or it was when I was there last,” Gryffin tells me, and I frown.

“When were you there?” I ask. I remember him mentioning something when I told them about being their mate, but I had so many other things running through my head, I didn’t really pay attention.

“That night when I saw you in the stables, I had just returned from there. I was looking for our sixth, but it was weird. The alpha of the village was cagey, and you said it is supposed to be an equine village, but he’s a lion shifter, and I didn’t scent any equines close by.”

A rumble comes out of Liam’s chest. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“He said there was a curfew because of feral shifters hiding out in the Aramis Rift, but something just seemed to feel wrong about it. There is something off about that village. It was like they were just trying to get rid of me, and I had to get back so I didn’t really question it.”

“So we need to go in expecting trouble then? We didn’t bring any weapons with us.” Brodie shifts uncomfortably. “Should we return to watch headquarters and grab some?”

Micah shakes his head. “If we go through the checkpoint on the way there, then there is a military base where we can grab what we need.”

“We don’t really need weapons with the combination of shifters we have, and with Micah’s experience, we’re kind of a formidable team,” Liam points out, unable to keep his hands to himself any longer and tugging me against him. I smother the smile that wants to cross my lips at the fact that he can’t seem to keep his hands off me. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s going to be like when I’m bonded to all of them.

“Let’s go. It’s going to take a couple of hours to get where we need to, and I’d like to approach the town in daylight so we aren’t at a disadvantage due to the dark. Gem, you should probably do a fly over in stealth mode and see if you can spot any problems before we go in just to be sure,” Hunter says.

I thought Gryffin was the head alpha of this bond group, but it seems he and Hunter share the role. Perhaps being the general’s son gives him more tactical experience, and Gryffin acknowledges that. I don’t know, but none of them seem to take issue with Hunter’s orders.

We head to the car, and I look back at Nox’s cabin as we drive away, sighing.

“Don’t be sad, angel.” Liam tugs me against his side and puts his arm around my shoulders. “We will find your wayward mate, and all will be right with the world. Soon, all of this willbe behind us, and you will wish for excitement in your days of dealing with petty shifter squabbles.”

“With eight mates, I don’t think my days are ever going to be boring,” I mumble, closing my eyes as the car lulls me into a dozy state.

He chuckles, and his whole body vibrates beneath me as he presses a kiss to the top of my head. “No, you may be right,” he says as my eyelids drift closed, and I get more much needed sleep.

“Don’t wake her. I’ll just grab a few things, and then we can be on our way again,” Micah says, but it’s too late. Something disturbed my slumber. I’m not sure if it’s my stiff body from sleeping upright or the fact that the car stopped, but I yawn and stretch my back, getting off of Liam’s lap where my head somehow ended up.

“It’s okay. I would like to stretch my legs,” I mumble, wiping my mouth to make sure I haven’t been drooling on his crotch.