THE plane touched down and Helena managed to get everyone into a car and safely delivered to their Washington, DC, homes, where they all had personal security, and she and Faine joined the rest of the Others at a huge house owned by the National Pack.

“You should go to sleep.” Faine shouldered her bag once they’d entered the front gates and she let him. Too tired to refuse.

“I’m surprised there aren’t any protesters.”

“I suppose they may not know this location is Other-owned yet. Are you even listening? You’re dead on your feet. As usual. You should rest.”

She grinned at the agitation in his voice, for some reason cheered by needling him. Stupid, really, to poke at a giant beast wearing a man’s skin. But she liked to live dangerously. “No. Come on. I’m hungry.”

He frowned at her, but followed her into the house where the magick of all the Others inside greeted his senses, easing his tension.

“It’s so nice to be in a friendly space.” He watched as the frown lines around her eyes eased back and that made him feel better.

“I was just thinking that.”

Molly got up as they entered the main living room. “Hello, you two. Glad you got in all right. Come on upstairs. I’ll show you your rooms and you can put your bags down.”

They followed her up the stairs and down a long hallway to the end. Molly turned to Helena. “I put you facing the courtyard. The plants out there make me feel better. I figured you’d think so as well.”

The room was nice sized and had an en suite bathroom.

“Faine is on the other side.”

He nodded. “Thank you, Molly.” He turned to Helena. “I’ll be back in a moment and then you and I are eating some dinner.”

“There’s a huge kitchen here. Cade Warden sent a chef down so there’s a lot of food as well. Are you all right?”

“It’s been a challenging day,” Faine said as he came back into Helena’s bedroom. “We were chosen for an enhanced search at the airport. There was a fight between three security people, one of whom was an asshole but the other two, also human, were not. Sato had to intervene and make calls to get it moved along. The plane trip was long, but thankfully, as we took up the entire first-class cabin, we didn’t have to deal with much animosity.”

Molly looked to Helena. “But you felt it.”

Helena nodded, pressing her fingers to her temples.

“You can feel it?” He pushed his anger that she hadn’t said so down as far as he could. She wasn’t a natural sharer, this one, but he wanted her to lighten her damned load with him sometimes just the same.

It was Molly who spoke to explain. “A lot of negative energy, especially when it’s aimed at you and you’re in a confined space, is toxic. Planes tend to amplify our magick as well, so it’s a one-two punch.” Molly took Helena’s hands. “Why don’t you go out into the courtyard for a recharge? I’ll let the chef know you’ll be eating in a few minutes. But clear out all that bad energy, you’ll feel better and the food will go down easier too.”

Faine wanted to scoop her up and cosset her. He had no idea all the dirty looks and nasty comments people made under their breath would affect her like that.

“Is it all right if I come along?”

Helena shrugged. “Sure.”

Molly took them down a back staircase—slowly and carefully in her walking cast—and showed them through large French doors into an enclosed courtyard, full of life. Container gardens spilled with plants and flowers.

“Gage and I are in the living room watching movies when you’re ready.” Molly hugged Helena and then Faine and went back inside.

Faine settled on a bench and watched as Helena took her shoes and socks off, along with her sweater, leaving her in a T-shirt that showed the whipcord strength of her upper body. She freed her hair from the bun she’d been wearing, running her fingers through it as she did.

Then she wandered through the path, letting her outstretched fingertips brush over the plants, against the bark of the trees, through the rushing water of the water feature. She stepped up and then down into the bed of a large garden space.

He saw it then, the light of her aura as she drew all the magick around her. It settled against her skin like snowflakes and then seemed to melt into her. She breathed slow and deep as she walked. Occasionally she’d pause, burying her face in a bunch of leaves or flowers.

This side of her was soft. Lush and so achingly intimate it was as if he’d been spying on her. But she’d allowed it. Moved around knowing he was there watching.

A gift of her inner life and the weight of that settled. Not crushing. Anchoring.

She’d been sort of tattered when they’d arrived. Her spine hunched, the tension rolling from her in waves. But when she came back to him, settling next to him on the bench, that was gone. Her ragged spaces seemed to have filled in. Her aura was brilliant, sunny yellow, the blue of the sky at summer.

She stretched. “This garden is fantastic. Whoever tends it does so with love. Every leaf seems to vibrate with it.”

“You can feel things like that?”

“Not always. But living things most especially. My mother says we get it through her. Lark is much the same, though she’s got this crazy affinity with birds. We’ve always loved being outdoors. There’s so much ambient magick in a garden. If it’s tended by someone who truly loves the work, the magick seems to leap to you when you call for it. The energy, the life force of the plant life fills in all your empty spots. I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Seems to me you’re doing just fine.”

“I have a lot of plants in my apartment, but at the house I used to share with Lark, we had an inner courtyard like this and it was full of plants. After crazy shifts we’d often just sit out there and have a glass of wine, letting all the bad business wisp away. My mother is a big gardener. She loves it. All the stuff from her teas comes from her gardens at their house. I guess we do get it from her, though I’m not that gifted with green things. She’s special that way.”

He smiled. “Thank you.”

“For what?” She clearly had no idea.

“For letting me share in this with you. This private side of yourself.”

“Oh. Well. I figured you’d find something restorative out here too. Shifters have that connection with nature as well. Different, but it’s there.”

He snorted. “I’m not a shifter.”

She turned, a mischievous grin on her lips, and his heart lightened.

“You’re human and you shift into a wolf.”

“You enjoy poking at me, don’t you?”

She raised a brow, but said nothing else and he chuckled.

“I’m Lycian. I am a beast who wears a man’s skin sometimes. And other times I wear fur. But I am always who I am, no matter the skin I wear. I do not need the moon or the tides. If I bit you, you’d bleed, but you wouldn’t be infected.”

“Did I insult you?” Her levity was gone, her question genuine.

He snorted a laugh and took her hand, squeezing it a moment. “No. We’re related in a distant manner, to shifters. But we are not the same.”

“Thank you for educating me. There’s so much I don’t know about everything out there in the universe. I thought I did until the Magister. Not knowing things makes me nervous.”

“There’s so much out there. Miraculous things.”

“I envy you that knowledge.”

“I can share it with you. If you like. I already said we’d go to Lycia when there’s a lull of a few days. There are other places. Beyond the Veil, I mean. I can part it, we can travel so you can see it all.”

“I’d really like that.”

And so he’d make it happen.

Her stomach growled. “Shall we go in and eat?”

He leaned in close. “After.”

“After?”

He reached out, cupping the back of her neck as he brushed his lips over hers. He’d intended a brief kiss, but she opened, sighing into him. Once that breath entered his system there was nothing brief about it.