is one of our best pilots. He’s made this landing a thousand times.”
“A little warning would have been nice,” I muttered, searching for how to unhook the harness that belted me in place.
Alexei reached across and unhooked my buckle. “Your brother likes to play jokes. Not everyone gets them.”
“Who’s side are you on?” Dimitri asked him, shaking his head.
“The printsessa’s,” he replied with a shrug of his massive shoulders.
“Don’t call me that,” I said with a deep sigh.
“Kiss ass,” Dimitri grumbled. He lifted the lever on the door and pushed it open. He jumped down and turned to help me.
I hesitated, looking at Tate.
“I’ll bring her,” Alexei assured me, already beginning to unhook her with nimble fingers.
I gave him a hard look. “Both of her boyfriends are friends of mine. And they’re probably going crazy worrying about her right now.”
He barely blinked. “That’s good to know.”
“She’s not looking for another boyfriend,” I said, wanting to be clear since Tate couldn’t speak for herself.
Alexei grinned, a dimple flashing in his left cheek that made him look utterly charming. “Sometimes the best things in life find us when we’re not looking.”
Touché.
I turned and let Dimitri help me out of the helicopter. When I landed on my feet, I looked around and my jaw dropped.
The room was huge, cavernous, and housed several other helicopters and an assortment of trucks, snowmobiles, four wheelers, and anything else you could need to travel up and down a mountain. The entire room had an industrial vibe, all metal and stone. A few people milled around, but they had all stopped and were now staring at us.
Alexei jumped down from the helicopter, Tate cradled in his arms. He barely jostled her when he landed.
“Alexei’s going to take Tate to her room,” Dimitri told me, nodding to his friend who immediately started walking away from us.
I opened my mouth to argue and took a step after my friend, not wanting to be separated from her.
Dimitri grabbed my arm. “You’ll see her soon. Right now, let’s go see if Dad knows anything about what happened yesterday at the Summit.”
Panic swept through me.
I needed to talk to Remy, or at least know where he was. When we were in the air, I had convinced myself he was fine. Everything was fine, and Dimitri had overreacted by taking me to his home for my own safety.
But now that I was about to find out for sure, my confidence was waning, and I was a wreck of nerves and emotions.
Dimitri came around in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders, bending his knees so we were eye level. “Remy’s going to be fine.”
My teeth ground together. “I know.”
I didn’t. My whole world could come crashing to an end in the next few minutes.
I swallowed, my hands starting to shake.
He gave me a careful look. “You ready?”
Not even a little, but I nodded, almost numbly, needing to keep moving forward. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
“Is this entire place built into the mountain?” I asked, unable to keep the note of awe from my voice as we turned down another hallway. We had been walking for several minutes, even taking an elevator deeper into the mountain. I hadn’t seen a window, but the halls were well lit and painted soft shades of gray with white trim, the floors a beautiful marble with silver and black veins. Artwork even lined the halls, a mixture of nature scenes and people in a variety of mediums.
If I hadn’t noticed the sky wasn’t visible, I would never have realized we weren’t above ground.
“A couple mountains,” Dimitri conceded. “The pack settled here almost a thousand years ago. They lived in caves for warmth at first, then slowly started digging out and hollowing the mountains.”
“So, you guys never go outside?” That seemed really depressing. At least when things went shitty in Long Mesa, I could go outside and stare at the sky.
A smile curled his lips. “We go outside all the time, Skye, but this place provides safety. It houses over a thousand people.”
I pulled up short, my jaw dropping. “There’s a thousand shifters living here?”
He paused, turning to face me. “No, there’s two thousand people. We don’t just have shifters who live here. The Romani clan lives here, and believe me, they like their space. We also have a few humans here.”
“You guys live with normals?” I could feel my eyes getting bigger. “But humans can’t know about us. It’s like, rule one of shifters.”
He shook his head, almost