A lopsided grin broke through the apprehension on her face. The kids were taken care of. Her worries were over.

His middle throbbed with the power of her magic running through their soul link. “Stay safe. You are my soul mate. That is forever.”

Her grin grew. “You say skirmish, I say practice. No one messes with my kids and gets the nice Lexi.”

Daisy

Daisy looked between all the monitors, each showing a different portion of the house, inside and outside. They could see most everything from here. Most. She’d already identified four blind spots. Zorn would probably quiz her on them when this was over.

“Why haven’t I noticed these cameras?” she asked quietly, observing the large gathering outside. She remembered how blindsided Lexi had been when the Demigod’s shadow form had shown up near the house the other night. How hard it had been to get rid of it.

She shook her head.

“This isn’t a skirmish, Mordecai. Kieran always sounds super confident even when he’s in over his head. Our people are going to get slaughtered.”

Mordecai emitted a soft growl.

“Ew. Obviously I didn’t mean for real, come on. But this is bad. They need all the help they can get.”

He moved around and bumped up against Daisy’s thigh. He was probably trying to talk to her with his weird shifter movements.

“I told you, I don’t speak canine. If you want to communicate, you have to change. Not like we need a wolf in here, anyway. This place is tiny and no one is getting in.”

A moment later, Daisy was edging away from Mordecai’s nudity. Thank God there was a blanket right on the other side of the door.

Given the battle hadn’t even kicked off yet, she quickly unlatched the door, pulled it open, and snatched a towel from the shelf.

“Wrap up, dickhead,” she said, hiding a smirk. Mordie hated when she swore at him for no reason.

“Shut the door,” he said urgently.

She turned to do exactly that when the closet door swung open. The hall light flared behind a massive shape, cutting off her field of vision. Surprise punched her, and she slapped down on the handle.

“That’s Jack,” Mordecai said.

She paused in yanking the door shut, knowing Mordie was using his shifter smelling.

Sure enough, Jack filled the doorway with his large frame and massive arms. Through the glare she could just see him blinking at her, as though he didn’t really know her.

“What’s the matter?” she asked him, a small warning tickling up her spine.

“Come with me,” he said, his words wooden, his inflection off. He didn’t sound like the Jack she knew.

“Kieran put us in here…” Mordecai started, but Daisy put up her hand to stop him. Something wasn’t right.

“What are your orders?” Daisy said, dropping her hand back to the door handle. She didn’t know what was going on, but something felt off. If there was one thing Zorn constantly beat into her it was that she had excellent instincts. She should trust them at all times.

Jack reached out a hand like a Neanderthal. Like a big guy with a lot of muscle instead of a graceful shifter, waterborne or no.

Like someone would guess that was how Jack moved.

The warning screamed through her body: Now.

She slammed the door shut before fumbling with the latch. The handle turned. Daisy attempted to hold it shut, but she was no match for Jack’s muscle. It moved against her palm, then swung open with her still attached to it.

She staggered, but she was already reaching for her knife. Jack’s strong fingers curled around her wrist as she wrapped her palm around the knife hilt. He jerked her wrist away. The crack sounded bad. The pain nearly made her black out, raging up her arm and through every nerve in her body. He’d broken her wrist.

She bumped into the wall, trying to compartmentalize the pain, to get out from under it. Jack palmed her head and smashed it into the wall. Splotches of black clouded her vision and made her dizzy. Pain dominated her thoughts, blaring through her.

Mordecai screamed, not usual for him, and Daisy barely registered a huge fist reaching its zenith and crashing back down. A sickening crunch and Mordecai silently fell.

“No,” Daisy screamed, drowning in pain but struggling to the surface. “No! Mordecai!”

Jack stepped back, a bloody mallet in his hand. Something glopped off it and onto the floor.

Brains.

The word swam lazily through her mind. Terror rooted her to the spot. Anguish consumed her, and it wasn’t from her wrist or her head.

“Mordecai,” she screamed again, digging for her knife with her working left hand. But she wasn’t as diligent with her nondominant hand. She didn’t even get close to grabbing it.

Jack moved, and suddenly the back of his hand cracked across her ear and cheek, knocking her into the wall again.

Her thoughts dimmed and suddenly she was in the air, a band of steel around her middle, her body dangling from either side of his enormous arm. Tears she hadn’t realized she was crying dripped from her face as she howled silently through the pain, the horror.

Mordecai was her brother. Her lifeline. Each time she had a nightmare, he’d gently shake her awake and then sit up and talk with her until she felt safe to return to the darkness of her mind. Of her past. Before the Demigod, it had been just the three of them, Lexi, Mordie, and Daisy, struggling together. Mordie had been her partner in survival. Her only friend. Her only confidant. He was everything light and pure in the world. Everything good and wholesome. She’d promised him they’d train together until he was good enough to meet his pack. She’d promised she would stand by him one day when he assumed the role he’d been born to fill—the alpha.