Chapter 2

• Before he could take a breath and search for those two bastards, he found himself standing in the command center of Solrelm. He hadn’t taken the link off his wrist. Dammit.
• “Have you completely lost your mind?” Trendan growled at him from the other side of the desk.
• “Forever ago.” Bastian slapped his wand onto the desk and then hopped over the table to stand beside him. Why was he monitoring him during his downtime? He’d ask in a minute, right now he needed to get some guards to that location and find those two soul-stealing bastards.
• Bastian’s brother watched him tap the screen with more force than necessary as he brought up the location, then hit Tor and Ulric’s badge numbers. Dragging them to that location, he leaned over the mic switch. “Two from the lawless faction.” He scowled at the screen, “I need them alive to question.” He had to know how they knew about her. Huffing out a breath, he turned to look at his older brother. One of his two older brothers. This one standing here looking at him like he’d lost all touch with reality, he trusted. “I was visible when you jerked me back here.” That ought to be fun for some human counselors when their clients tell them about the disappearing man. He wanted to laugh but was still annoyed.
• Trendan rubbed his hand over his short, well-trained blond hair and frowned. “You had two closing in on you. You know they’re only visible on here,” he tapped the screen, “for a few moments and there you were running around like a madman.” He gave his head a quick shake. “Was there a reason for that?”
• Bastian looked around the control room, noting a few curious glances their way. “Yes. Was there a reason you were in the control room during your downtime?”
• Trendan scowled at him. “I was looking for you.” He gave those monitoring the screens a quick side-eye. “We need to talk.”
• Glancing down at the screen, he saw Tor and Ulric’s markers moving around the area he’d been yanked out of. She had to be all right. “Yes.” Bastian clicked his teeth together, “we do. Next time try phoning me instead.”
• He messaged Tor as we walked to his quarters, telling him to text as soon as he was back. Opening the door, he went in, leaving it wide open for Trendan to close.
• Shrugging out of his leather jacket, Bastian tossed it to the sofa and then took off his link bracelet and set it on the table. He ran both hands through his hair as he went over to the black cylindrical shelf in the wall. Opening it, he looked inside. It was empty.
• “You’re about six hours early for that,” Trendan said, sounding amused.
• Closing it, Bastian blew out a breath and went over and dropped down onto the sofa. “I don’t even know what day or time it is.”
• With his ever-serious expression on his face, his brother sat on the arm of the chair across from him. “You need some downtime.”
• Bastian snorted, “I need something all right.” Leaning his head back, he looked over at him. “Why did you need me?”
• “I found three more.”
• Bastian didn’t need to ask three more what, he knew exactly what he was talking about. The men that had been taken, their minds wiped and then records of their human realm visit erased. But it was so much worse than they thought. “How long ago?”
• “Two from a dozen decades ago, one of them from this decade.”
• Bastian sat up so quickly, he almost slid right off the cushion. Holding his hand out he narrowed his eyes at him, “this decade? So,” he jumped up and paced to the other side of the room, “so,” he spun around and looked at him, “we might have a chance in hell on tracking this one?”
• Trendan nodded.
• “Holy hell.” He put his hands on his head and blew out a breath. “Answers,” he mumbled, “we could actually get answers.” Dropping his hands, Bastian looked back at him. “We might be able to reverse what was done to him, restore his memories with it being so recent…”
• “That’s my thought too.” Trendan looked guilty, “I still think we should discuss this with—”
• Bastian shook his head, “no. Mother and Father can’t be brought in until we know more.” Neither of them wanted their parents to be in on the wicked scheme of hiding the fact their kind could indeed have a mate and child from outside this realm, but until they knew more, they couldn’t risk revealing their hand.
• “They can’t be part of it.” Trendan slid down off the arm of the chair and sat in it properly. “Being able to have children with others outside our realm would be a blessing, the female…”
• “No. We can’t chance others knowing.” Bastian rushed over and sat on the table. “I have the powerful royals from Alterealm assisting me, as well as FaTerra…”
• “You spoke to the FaTerra princess?”
• Bastian nodded, “yes, there’s some serious magic,” he waved his hand around, “juju in play here and no one has the juice like they do.”
• “That’s true.”
• Blowing out a breath, Bastian closed my eyes. “Can we get to him? The dad?” He looked at Trendan.
• “Most likely. We’ll have to enlist Tor and Ulric’s help and come up with a good plan.”
• Bastian waved his hand around, “they know.” Trendan’s eyes rounded; Bastian smirked. “We grew up with them, they’ve been attached to our hips as our guards since puberty, if we can’t trust them there is no hope in life left.”
• “Ulric is solid.”
• Bastian nodded, “as is Tor.” Getting up, he went into the kitchenette area and opened the fridge.
• “What about Sigor? We could call him back.”
• “No.” He perused the contents. “He’s still chasing down the barrier issue.” What was he in the mood for? “I think he’s in Aridon, helping them figure out where their barrier might be breached, or might have been,” he paused, “blown up or whatever that lunatic Arwan was trying to do.”
• “Yeah. Elyas is thrilled being the acting commander of the guard while Sigor is taking personal time.”
• “Now do you want to tell me what you were doing? Was it for the Alterealm Royals? The reason you were running about the human’s space.”
• Bastian grabbed a bottle of juice and then put it back and looked at the coffee maker. Did he need caffeine? Probably not, but it wasn’t like he was going to die from drinking too much. “No.” Did he tell him? Picking up the coffee pot, he went to the sink and glanced at him. He already knew how he was going to react to this, they’d run this gauntlet many, many times. “I found that soul again.” Bastian had honestly thought it was gone forever. Watching the liquid as it filled the pot, he closed his eyes for a moment. She had to be all right.
• Trendan didn’t jump on him, which was a first. Usually, when he brought up that haunting soul, he scoffed. The coffee was brewing before his brother spoke again. “The same soul you’ve been chasing through the centuries, across the universe? How do you know that this is the soul intended for you?”
• “I don’t. All I know is I must find it each time it is reborn. I feel more of a connection to it—more than anyone I’ve ever felt in my life. Even you.”
• “I’m missing something. We’re missing something. Why that soul?” Trendan leaned back and looked relaxed for all of three seconds before he tensed again. “Could it have been one of ours at some point?”
• “No.” Bastian frowned, “ours don’t…”
• “Wait.” Their cousin Aliria bolted out of Bastian’s bedroom.
• Bastian spun around, Trendan reached behind him and pulled out a knife.
• “Seriously, Liri, how many times do I have to tell you to announce when you’re hiding in here.” Bastian put his hand over his heart and tried to settle his breathing.
• “I could have stabbed you,” Trendan mumbled as he put the blade away.
• She shrugged, “it’s close to banquet time, you should know I’m here hiding.”
• Both his brother and he nodded, all of them made themselves scarce when the banquet season was near. Endless dinners, luncheons, and parties leading up to the parade of new eligible females. He’d offered her his suite as refuge years ago when she’d come of age. How she was still single, and his aunt hadn’t tied her to a partner, he really didn’t know. She might be better at avoidance than even he was.