"Puppy? Puppy!? I'll show you puppy later," Colton murmured under his breath.
Rheia leaned in close to him. "Challenge accepted."
Colton growled and bit a roll in half.
Meryn wiped her eyes with her napkin and looked over at Darian. "You look more relaxed than I've seen you in months. Did you enjoy shower time, too?"
He simply shook his head.
Amelia played with her roll. "He watched me get ready for dinner. A lot of husbands will sit in on their wives' makeovers. I've been told by many of them that they found it soothing."
"There is nothing soothing about trying to peel glue off your mate's eyelids," Aiden grumbled.
Amelia chuckled at the image of Meryn with one eye closed. "I think you encountered an extreme case."
"I enjoy watching Beth brush her hair at night. I agree, it is very calming," Gavriel admitted.
Aiden glanced down at Meryn's pixie and sighed. He looked around the table. "I got a phone call from my father. The council is returning the original necklace from our gooey corpse and the necklace from Penny's father to us. They want us to go over them again."
The men groaned. "Why? What in the hell do they think we'll find? We've been over those things a thousand times," Colton complained.
"I happen to agree with you; however, at the moment, they are our only lead regarding our rogue ferals. So we'll go over them again." Aiden sat back looking as frustrated as the rest of his unit.
Amelia frowned.
Rogue ferals?
She spoke up. "I'm sorry, but what do you mean by rogue ferals?"
Aiden exchanged surprised looks with Gavriel and Colton. "Your brothers didn't tell you?" he asked.
She shook her head. "They tend not to tell me the grittier stuff. Caiden did mention a lot of kidnappings going on in this area, which is why he wanted me to come home right away."
"When was the last time you were home?" Gavriel asked.
"Last year. I moved back to Storm Keep after having lived in Atlanta for a few years, but I couldn't sit still. So I packed a bag and my makeup case and decided to visit each of the other pillar cities. I traveled around the country for a while, this was my first city to visit."
"Fate hard at work again," Beth said.
Amelia turned to her. "What do you mean?"
Beth smiled. "The same thing happened to Meryn and me."
Meryn laughed. "In my case, I threw a dart at a map."
"So I was brought here?" She stared up at Darian who didn't say anything.
"We're all being brought here. The spell was cast, so the warriors get mates. I, for one, am grateful." Beth looked over at Gavriel. He raised their joined hands and kissed her knuckles.
Amelia wanted more information on the ferals. She reached beside her and tugged on Darian's shirt. He looked down at her, surprised. She could tell he hadn't expected her to touch him.
"What is going on with the ferals?" She couldn't keep the tremor from her voice. Growing up, she had had nightmares about the vacant-eyed monsters her brothers fought.
His reaction to her fear was immediate and without thought. He reached to his side, pulled her hand away from his shirt, and clasped it in his. "You fear them?"
She nodded. "More than most, I think. All I had growing up were my brothers, and all three of them are unit warriors. If there was anything that could take them away from me, it was ferals. I hated and feared them as a child."
Darian looked over at Aiden who nodded. "She needs to know, now more than ever, especially since she's your mate. She could end up a target like Beth or Rheia."
"Target?" she squeaked.
Darian took a deep breath. "Last year, we noticed that ferals started behaving strangely. They were attacking in groups with visible leaders, taking orders, and had higher brain functions than normal. Some wore necklaces that we now know allows them to somehow retain the abilities they should have lost when they turned feral; it gives them abilities they should never have, like becoming invisible. When Meryn arrived, she started compiling information and saw patterns that we had missed. She discovered that shifter couples were suddenly going missing, especially couples expecting babies. When she widened the search, we saw that the disappearances weren't limited to just the counties around Lycaonia but were occurring all around the country.
"Thanks to Rheia, we were recently able to figure out that the necklace not only gave them new abilities but also halted the decay of their bodies. They no longer smelled like a feral and could for pass as a normal paranormal."
Amelia felt herself begin to shake. "How come our people don't know this? They have a right to know."
Darian squeezed her hand. "Because they would panic, and because there's nowhere safe they can go."
"Darian," Aiden chastised.
Darian shook his head. "It's true, and you know it. The women have been attacked here twice, Rheia at the clinic twice. With those necklaces, they can come and go undetected. I'll say what we've all been thinking for months: We are strictly on the defensive, and not doing a good job at that either. We have to wait for them to strike because we cannot take the fight to them." Darian dropped her hand and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration.
Amelia looked around, incredulous. "Why haven't you created a detection spell?"
Keelan shook his head. "Elder Airgead has tried and says that it is impossible. What would the spell detect? Blood from a blood spell? We all have blood in us."