when he wakes up,” Danny promised with a grimace. “I wish he could fix my head.”
Kelsey glanced back to the door Erna and Dean had disappeared through. “Erna took both thrall stones, right? She picked them up and took them with her?”
“Yes.” Should I have taken them from the witch? I knew next to nothing about the magic that had bound my husband to Merlin Satanspawn. Could she do something with those stones? Could they tell her things we might not want her to know? “She’s got both of them with her.”
Kelsey knelt down and searched around in the dirt. “Damn it. I hate it when I’m right.”
“Right about what?” Daniel asked.
Kelsey stood and walked back to us. She held out a hand and there was a tiny bone there. “Right that Erna knows a lot about thrall stones for a reason. This came out of Dean when she was tossing that magic around. I don’t think she meant it to. She’s dangerous.”
I looked down at my husbands—one sleeping and the other fragile and human. “We have to get out of here.”
“I can’t leave Dean,” Kelsey said. “I need a little time to get to the kid and convince him to come with us. Zoey, you know we can’t leave him. I know we have to save Summer, but Lee is on the line, too.”
“Lee? What about Lee?” Danny asked.
At least I could finally talk to him. “I’ll tell you about it when we’re alone and Dev can listen, too. Kelsey, hide that thing. Maybe she won’t know it’s gone.”
“Is the Green Man all right?” Erna was suddenly on the porch. “You should bring him inside. Dean is resting. I need to find some herbs to help with his headache.”
Or she needed to investigate the ground to see if she could find the stone she’d used on him. She couldn’t simply shove another one in. Spells like that took time, and it would be infinitely easier to put the one she’d used before back in.
I gave her my brightest smile. “Yes, we were about to bring him in. Oh, Erna, I can’t tell you how grateful we are. You’re an angel. Seriously, anything we can do to help you, it’s yours.”
I knew how to play this game. I launched myself at the woman and gave her a hug. A hug that distracted her from Kelsey slipping the stone into her pocket.
“I don’t know, Your Highness,” Kelsey said in her sullenest tone. “Let’s see if Dev wakes up. Then maybe she’ll have my gratitude.”
Ah, we were slipping into good cop, bad cop roles. I could do that.
“Well, I am more than grateful.” Daniel held out a hand. “For this and for watching out for our daughter. It’s good to know that when we have to go home, we’ll be leaving her in good hands. Now we’ll get my partner inside. Once he wakes, he can help you with any herbs you need.”
Erna’s shoulders relaxed as I pulled away from her. “I can find what I need. But you should try to rouse him soon. You’ll need to get through that door. Go on, now. I won’t have Dean hurting.”
I nodded Daniel’s way and he moved to Dev’s head.
Kelsey snorted, an arrogant sound. “Hey, no more super strength. Take a leg and Zoey can take the other.”
Daniel sighed but did as Kelsey asked. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
We all hefted up my sleeping husband.
“Not at all, Your Highness,” Kelsey said with a sigh. “Not at all.”
We took Dev into the brugh and I knew our assignment had just gotten far more dangerous.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Summer
The alarm seemed to throb through the air, making me wonder if there was something more than tech to the thing. Marcus moved in front of me, though I could have pointed out that it wouldn’t help since we were being held in the middle of the room. If the witches were coming in, they would likely surround us before they took down the sonic shields that held us in. But I wasn’t going to point that out because I could feel Marcus’s anxiety. Somehow we’d connected on a deeper level, and I was in tune with the male. He was scared, and it wasn’t about himself. He was worried he couldn’t protect me. He feared letting me down, and I knew in that moment that he would do anything, risk anything, to keep me safe.
I didn’t want to analyze it. I didn’t want to think about the whys of