“Which is why you’re a warrior, not a politician.” olivia, his American mate, smiled.

Their affection, as always, wrapped them in a world all their own.

“I will, if you wish it,” Caden volunteered. “Though I think you have more experience to handle the difficult times ahead.”

Though gratified by Caden’s show of solidarity, Sabelle agreed.

“I formed the group with Bram,” Lucan offered, then swallowed. “But my mourning has just ended. My temper is … uncertain.”

Lucan spoke the truth. His emotions scraped closer to the surface than she’d ever seen. He revealed much with his gestures and expressions—too much to handle magical diplomacy now.

“I’ve been with this group less than a week,” Tynan pointed out, his gray eyes the color of a foreboding rain cloud about to burst.

A fitting metaphor, Sabelle mused. Tynan himself was a ticking time bomb.

Everyone had spoken … except Ice.

Drawing in a shaky breath, Sabelle braced herself to look in his direction. He was still staring at her, hot, intent. Something in her belly tightened again. Was she actually shaking?

“Who is wont to listen to a madman?” Ice challenged with a raised brow.

Duke cleared his throat. “Then it’s settled. We must resume fighting and weapons training again. Marrok?”

“Aye. Tomorrow at dawn. Everyone.”

Caden rolled his eyes. “oh-dark-hundred again. Great. I left the Marines, you know.”

“Foolish on your part. They were nicer,” Duke teased, then sobered again. “We’ll need to add security to the house. I’ve no notion how Bram’s magical defenses are holding up in his weakened state.”

“Not well,” Sabelle admitted. She could feel it slipping by the hour … just as Bram was.

“After dinner, we’ll develop a new network of magical security. This house is critical to our success. We need a place to meet, to regroup, to plan. Without it, I fear we’d be too disorganized to defeat Mathias. Does anyone disagree?”

Every man at the table shook his head.

Good. Another matter settled. Now if she only knew what to do about her brother’s diminishing health . . .

“. . . give us an update?” Duke asked.

It took her a moment to tune in to him, and she surmised that he asked about Bram. If he wanted new information, she had dealt with nothing else all day.

“Bram is resting, but weakening. Neither Conrad nor Millie know what ails him or how to heal him. I’ve no notion how to stop it unless we find Emma.”

“I’ve got a call in to Aquarius,” Sydney assured. “As soon as I hear from her, I’ll let you know. We’ll find Emma.”

Even if they did, could they persuade her to come care for the mate she’d taken in a night of passion and abandoned before morning?

Silence overtook the group again, punctuated only by the clink of forks and heavy sighs. Sabelle blocked as many thoughts as she could and ate a few more bites of her dinner before admitting defeat. Even the smell of food was making her stomach roil.

She stood to leave, and Lucan stayed her with a hand at her elbow. Ice growled and glared at Lucan’s touch. Ice wanted her, and an answering knot of desire grew again in her belly. He must suspect how she felt. If she ever found herself alone with him … nothing would be more dangerous.

“You cannot be finished,” Lucan chided, scowling at her still-full plate.

“I am.” She folded her napkin on the table. “I must get back to Bram. Thank you, ladies,” she said to Sydney and olivia.

Before she could extricate herself from Lucan’s grip and depart, bells chimed through the house. A magical calling card. A request to enter the premises.

From Anka MacTavish, Lucan’s former mate.

Beside her, Lucan tensed, his face a wrenching mixture of anger and yearning. Sabelle felt the intensity of his pain gripping her chest, sharp and panicky, like someone suffocating. No doubt, whatever Lucan felt for her paled in comparison to the consuming love he still harbored for Anka.

Marrok stomped out of the room and down the corridor. Sabelle heard him open the front door. “She is alone.”

Assured that Shock or Mathias and his Anarki hadn’t followed Anka, Sabelle released the last bit of security around the house so that Anka could enter the room.

The first thing Sabelle noticed was that the woman looked healthier than before … but not completely well. Was Anka not gathering enough energy in Shock’s bed?

Lucan’s gaze was still glued to his former mate. Despair tinged his thoughts, and Sabelle ached for him. She understood wanting someone beyond reach.

Anka glanced at Lucan, then at his hand upon Sabelle’s. Hurt flared across her face before her amber stare skittered across the table and rested on Duke. “I’d like to see Bram.”

Duke hesitated, cast a quick gaze at Lucan, who gave a small shake of his head.

“He’s not here,” Duke lied.

So, they’d surmised that because Anka was sleeping with a wizard they all presumed to be the enemy, she couldn’t be trusted? The witch’s thoughts revealed that, in throwing her lot in with Shock, she had run to the man most able to protect her and least likely to make demands after her ordeal at Mathias’s hands.

Anka tossed fat, blond ringlets off her slender shoulders, her broken magical signature still matching Lucan’s, indicating their severed mate bond.

“He doesn’t seem to be anywhere,” Anka said, clearly frustrated. “I’ve been calling for him since dusk.”

“Council business. What do you need?” Duke snapped.

Anka pressed her lips together, sent Lucan another uncertain glance, then addressed Duke again. “Earlier this evening, Shock told me some alarming things. I—I couldn’t keep this to myself. Not when there are so many people here I … care for.”

Duke gestured her to the chair at the far end of the table. Anka sat, as did Sabelle and Lucan. He didn’t relinquish his hold on Sabelle’s arm, and she knew Lucan needed the support. He might turn to her because she was convenient and would expect nothing in return—but his heart belonged to Anka.

“According to Shock, the Anarki plans to attack you here tonight, sometime before midnight.”

It was currently just after eight.

Sabelle opened up her mind a bit more to Anka. The woman wasn’t lying, and she truly had been trying to tell Bram all evening. They’d been ignoring incoming messages and summons, uncertain how to handle them. Bugger!

Duke froze. “You’re certain? Tonight?”

She nodded. “I warned you as soon as I could.”

“Why should we believe you?” Ice asked impassively.

Her amber eyes burned. “I’m risking my life to be here.”

Given Anka’s fierce expression, Sabelle didn’t doubt her in the least—and she admired the other woman for her grit. But there was something Sabelle didn’t understand.

“Why are you fucking the enemy if he works for the monster who raped you?” Lucan snarled. “Especially if you’re stabbing him in the back?”

“Clearly, you haven’t been alone, either,” she shot back with a fiery glare. Hurt blasted from Anka’s every thought before she folded her hands on the table in front of her and collected herself. “You don’t understand what Mathias did to me.”

“I know what he did.” Regret tinged Lucan’s tone. “I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know that I wasn’t there to protect you.”

“What Mathias did changed me. I—I can’t remember all of our mating, can’t just resume life as the happy mate. I cannot pretend I’m not damaged—”

“The past doesn’t matter. Nothing he did changes you in my eyes,” Lucan vowed. “What you’re doing with Shock—”

“You’re expecting me to be the same woman I was before I was taken. I’m not. I can’t undo that fact, even for you.”

“You think I can’t handle it? or you no longer trust me to protect you?”

Anka bit her lip. “I can’t discuss this now.”

“Soon.” Lucan stood so suddenly, his chair toppled over, clattered to the floor. Then he left, slamming the door in his wake.

Anka sprang up to chase him … then thought better of it. But the way Anka watched Lucan’s retreating back, her thoughts riddled with both sadness and indecision, made Sabelle’s heart wrench.

Duke cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. Go on.”

Anka looked ready to cry. “I’m sorry to cause problems.”

“Not at all. What else can you tell me about the attack? How many? Where around the estate? What do they seek to accomplish?”

“A large force. Shock didn’t say how many. I don’t know how they plan to get in. Maybe Shock knows a way . . .” She sobbed.

Clearly, seeing her former lover while turning on her new one wasn’t easy.

Like Lucan, Sabelle had wondered why Anka remained with Shock. Now she understood that between his low station and low expectations, she found him “easy” to be with during this difficult time.

“They want the Doomsday Diary,” Anka murmured.

Sabelle squeezed her eyes shut. Damn Morganna le Fay for creating a weapon that wizards had been willing to fight and die for since its rediscovery less than two months ago. Fifteen hundred years in hiding had swelled the book’s legend so much that people would do anything to get their hands on it.

“Mathias can’t use it,” Sabelle pointed out. “And he knows it. He’s not female.”

Anka nodded. “They plan to take one of the females from this house.”

“He will not take her.”

Sabelle turned toward the booming declaration. Ice. His protective gaze was as tangible as a caress. She swallowed.

“Of course not,” Duke assured. “Sabelle is too important to our cause.”

Ice stormed around the table until he hovered beside her, mere inches away, his body heat pouring over her. “If there is a breath left in my body, he will not take her.”

Duke turned to her with a silent question, but Sabelle ignored him. Ice’s protective nature was similar to a mate’s. Naturally, Duke would be curious about anything between her and Ice. A mating between them would be nothing short of shocking.

Ice was long rumored to be mad. Many whispered that he possessed a murderous temper. Sabelle didn’t know why exactly, and she hadn’t seen Ice behave erratically, but Bram had gone to great pains to keep distance between her and the warrior he saw as a necessary evil. Servants avoided him, refused to meet his challenging gaze that silently laughed at their fears. But when he looked at her, his stare held another sort of challenge altogether.

Sabelle stared anxiously at Duke’s face, praying he and the others would ascribe Ice’s possessive behavior to his alleged insanity. Whatever his motive, she couldn’t accept anything Ice might offer … no matter how much everything inside her wanted to.

“I’ll be all right,” she whispered to Ice, daring to glance at him over her shoulder.

Still, he lingered beside her, so close she swore she could hear his heartbeat, smell his body, a musky blend of sage, cedar, and raw earth. That scent weakened her knees every time.

“Thank you, Anka,” Sabelle said. “We’ll take care to protect the house and the book.”

“There’s more,” Anka said, then turned to Duke again. “Shock said that Mathias has decided the quickest way to ascend to power is to win a seat on the Council.”

That made Sabelle’s heart stop. “There are no open Council seats, haven’t been for decades.”

Anka’s thoughts assailed her, and the devious truth made Sabelle gasp. She turned to look at Duke, who suddenly wore a grave expression.

“He’s going to assassinate a Council member?” Sabelle’s voice trembled.

“The plan is to start with one. But eventually . . .”

Mathias plotted to kill them all. How else would he gain complete control of the Council? That meant if he hadn’t already targeted her brother, Bram was now on his hit list.

Her knees wobbled. Her stomach revolted. The stunning revelations came one after the other … and she melted toward the ground.

Before she came anywhere near the floor, she felt strong hands beneath her, assisting her to her feet, then lifting her into iron-band arms. Sabelle looked at her rescuer, but already knew she’d find a bare stubble of black hair and vivid green eyes penetrating her all the way to her soul.

Gently, he set her in her chair. “You’re overdoing. Enough.”

Clearly, her efforts weren’t enough if Bram wasn’t improving and Mathias was plotting to take down the Doomsday Brethren, steal the diary, and kill Council members. None of them had done enough.

“You’re certain?” she asked Anka, her voice weak.

Biting her lip, Lucan’s former mate nodded. “I ran to tell you. I know you have no reason to trust me. My association with Shock in no way transfers to Mathias. After what he did to me, I hope he burns in hell, and I’ll do whatever I can to help, even pass information.”