Marrok hooked an arm around Olivia’s waist and pulled her deeper into the backseat, against him.

“Was he like this before Anka?” she asked Bram.

He shook his head. “This can happen when a deeply-bonded magical man loses his mate. The stronger the bond, the heavier the loss. Whatever darkness and instability was in his soul before the mating rushes to the fore and is multiplied by the pain. After a time, it usually retreats. But if it takes over…”

“Anka?” Lucan demanded. His voice rasped as if he’d been possessed by something akin to evil. Then he grabbed Bram by the neck. And squeezed.

Marrok lunged forward.

“No!” Bram managed to get out. “Not here. Olivia….”

With her mind racing, she pieced it together. “Bram has a hand crushing his throat while he’s driving and he’s worried about me?”

With a grim nod, Marrok repositioned his massive shoulders between Lucan and her.

“We can’t just leave Bram to be strangled.” Olivia reached for Lucan.

“Do you wish to die?” he challenged, shoving her against the backseat.

“You want to crash?”

Olivia reached around Marrok for Lucan, who released Bram and turned those dark-as-hell-pits eyes on her. “Female? My Anka?”

Olivia froze. Tell the truth? Lie? Which was least likely to get her killed?

In the rearview mirror, Bram shot her a warning glance.

“Friend,” she murmured.

His eerie eyes widened. He sniffed her, and his eyes narrowed.

“Stop!” Bram warned. “His signature has gone completely dark.”

Lucan lunged for her, looking determined to tear her throat out with his bare hands, just as Bram stopped the Hummer in front of the manor and darted out.

Marrok tried to pull her away from Lucan and tuck her behind his broad back. But the whacked-out wizard had a death grip on her arm. His fingers bit into her cruelly. She’d have bruises tomorrow.

Lucan hurled his big body between the vehicle’s seats to reach her, his free hand outstretched toward her neck. Then he was on her. Marrok punched and pushed, drawing Lucan’s attention.

“Go!” Marrok urged her as Bram opened the back door.

Olivia hesitated, then realized the two men were having a difficult enough time containing the insane wizard without worrying about her safety, too. She darted out into the crisp evening air. “Help!”

Ice darted out of the manor a moment later. “What the hell? Why are they beating the piss out of MacTavish?”

She babbled a frantic description of their trip home, then turned pleading eyes to him. She barely knew him, and Bram didn’t trust him, but they were losing the battle to contain a crazed Lucan. A face hit the back window. Bram. He jerked away a moment before Lucan’s fist smashed through the glass.

Blood ran down the clear pane. Olivia gasped. Ice cursed and tore the Hummer’s door off. Bram struggled to pin Lucan to the backseat. Marrok sat behind him now and held his arms. But Lucan escaped their hold, let loose a spine-chilling war cry, and kicked Bram in the gut.

“My female!”

Ice peeled Bram off Lucan. Shaking his head, the bloodied wizard protested. But it was in vain. Ice cold-cocked Lucan with a mean right hook. Lucan’s head snapped back.

He went limp.

Ice looked up at Marrok with a grin. “Good thing I learn fast.”

A moment later, Ice and Marrok carried Lucan out of the Hummer.

As Ice trudged past with the unconscious wizard, Bram clapped a hand around his arm. Ice looked up with murder in his eyes.

“Don’t touch me!”

Bram let go. “Just wanted to say…thanks.”

“I didn’t dive in to rescue your sorry arse. If it were up to me, I would let Lucan tear you limb from limb while I made popcorn for the show. But Marrok is too important to our cause to let your git of a friend dismember him.”

Olivia swallowed her gasp as Ice and Marrok carried their burden into the house. No love lost there.

“What’s that about?” she asked.

Bram dabbed the blood away from his mouth, then winced. “Ancient history.”

Maybe, but time wasn’t healing the wound, and it clearly wasn’t open for discussion.

Beside her, Bram shoved a hand into his pocket, tossed a white rock into the air, then muttered, “Aunt Millie.”

A few moments later, a sprightly little woman with a hundred pounds of pale hair in a bun appeared in the driveway and walked with spry steps in their direction.

“Again, boy?” She stood on tiptoes to receive a very dutiful kiss from Bram on the cheek. Then she turned to Olivia. “Oh, hello, dear. I see you’re feeling better. Lovely.”

As Millie walked into the house, she turned to Bram. “She came when I was ill?”

“Yes. She told Marrok why you were unwell and gave him the choice of breaking your bond or keeping it and…serving you as needed. I should—” He gestured toward the manor house rising with stately glory in the moonlight.

“Of course. See to Lucan.”

Mind awhirl, Olivia followed him to the house. Marrok had chosen to stay with her rather than break their bond. She wanted to believe it was because he felt affection for her. But given his curse, she wondered if he’d done it for purely selfish reasons.

Inside, they followed the screams. Lucan had come around again. His wailing echoed through the house. She shuddered.

By the time she and Bram found the group, they’d commandeered one of the guest rooms. Someone had located or conjured up a set of restraints that looked right out of a BDSM club. Ice and Marrok were working to shove Lucan’s arms into the cuffs. Duke had joined the party and had one of his ankles. Lucan’s free leg was flailing everywhere. Bram dodged a lashing kick, grabbed the ankle and forced it to the bed.

Lucan snarled, a sound that threatened murder. But with a lot of grunting and straining of muscles and cursing, they got the rabid wizard restrained.

Bram swiped a hand across his tired face. “Go on, Aunt Millie.”

The little woman stepped from the shadows and approached the bed. She put a hand to Lucan’s brow. He howled, but she ignored him and made quick work of the buttons down the front his shirt. Her little hands roamed his chest with eyes closed. She breathed in and out.

“His mate is not dead. Distantly, I feel her alive in the bond.”

“Injured?” Bram asked, puzzled.

Millie paused. Frowned. “No. She’s broken with him.”

Astonishment reverberated through the room.

Duke broke the silence. “Do you think Shock somehow convinced her to break with Lucan and accept him?”

“No. Shock wants that above all else, no doubt. But Anka had been devoted to Lucan for nearly a hundred years.”

“Then, who…?” Olivia gasped. “Oh, God. Do you think Mathias captured her and forced her…?”

Bram clenched his fists. “That’s precisely what I think.”

“We have to find her now!” she insisted.

“Impossible.”

Marrok cut in. “You know what he will do to Anka. You have seen it.”

Trying—and failing—to resist the urge to flinch, Bram simply said, “I know.”

“Good God, man! We cannot leave her to suffer such a cruel fate.”

“And if you bring her back, maybe Lucan will be whole again,” Olivia argued.

Bram turned to Marrok. “If you were Mathias and the three things you needed most, Olivia, the book, and her key, were in one well-protected place, what would you do?”

Marrok paused for a long moment, then swore. “Stage a distraction.”

“Exactly. Marrok, you said yourself that Olivia must be protected, no matter what happens, no matter how many die.” He sighed. “I just never expected that statement to be tested so quickly or terribly.”

Hours passed. Aunt Millie left, proclaiming there was nothing more she could do. Lucan’s raw screams bounced off the elegant walls, the marble flooring. Tempers flared and nerves ran thin. Marrok took Ice and Duke outside to resume training. Beating the crap out of each other had soothing qualities.

From a chair in the corner, Olivia watched Bram, looking tense and pale, bend over Lucan’s still form. His brow knit into a frown.

“Is he going to make it?” she asked.

“My mate? Anka?” Lucan scratched out in that voice that made her shiver. Then he sniffed, and his eyes flew open, crazed and black. “Bitch! Where’s Anka?”

Olivia feared she knew the answer to her question.

“I doubt it, but what’s to be done is not my decision. We must call his next of kin.”

Stunned mute, Olivia nodded. She didn’t know Lucan well, but a vivid memory of him and Anka at Bram’s party—had that been a mere two days ago?—still haunted her. They’d looked so in love.

“Are you sure Mathias forced Anka to break their bond? Maybe…Lucan cheated on her.”

“Never. Once mated, a magical man relies on his mate for everything. Especially his energy. He will reject all others. Lucan will run out of energy soon, and if his family has not arrived…” He sighed.

“Energy? Doesn’t he eat for that?”

“For his body, yes. But to power their magic, witches and wizards need to connect with another, exchange strong emotion. We store up the energy gleaned during sex. But for the unmated, if the experience is not a powerful one, we must recharge this way often. With a mate, the sex is more meaningful, so the energy charge is stronger and will last longer. If anyone magical goes too long without repowering, they die.”

So Bram and Duke and all the unmated guys were frequently doing the wild thing with random women? “Oh. I—I thought…”

“That you and Marrok had cornered the market on needing sex? No, you need it more often because you’re storing up energy for your transition. Anyone about to enter transition needs extra, but because you are mated you require even more. After you grow into your powers, you still need to…um, be plugged in occasionally.”

“How much energy do you think he has?”

Bram shrugged massive shoulders, worry for both a warrior and his friend dragging at his noble features. “If he had a good charge recently, perhaps a few days, a week at most. But the darkness inside him will drain him fast.”

“What will he do without a mate for energy? You can’t turn him loose on another woman.”

“Indeed. It’s possible to get a charge in other ways. Engaging in anything that brings extreme anger or joy.”

“Fear?”

“Another possibility. But none lasts as long as a sexual connection.” Bram sighed. “If his family can’t get here in time, I’ll have to find someone to serve him and hope he doesn’t kill her for trying.”

Olivia was very glad she wouldn’t be that woman.

Bram closed his eyes, obviously focusing inward. A few moments later, Sabelle appeared in the doorway.

“Is Lucan coming around?”

“No. Can you go to his house, see if you can find anything that would suggest what happened to Anka? Take Duke with you. And see if you can find any way to contact his brother. No unnecessary risks, Sabelle. Go there and come directly back.”

She nodded. “Lucan’s parents are too frail to handle this. But his brother…isn’t he very young?”

“Caden is nearing transition. But he’d be a damn sight stronger than magic folks in their nine hundreds.”

On that grim note, Sabelle disappeared.

Olivia looked at Lucan, still thrashing on the bed.

“Can he heal?”

“With extreme will, perhaps. I have only theoretical knowledge of this, you understand. It happens so rarely.”

“Are there people who sell energy exchanges? Like magical…prostitutes?”

Bram cracked a smile. “We think of them as nurses. Such women would tend him without intercourse. It’s what unmated men who have extended a vow and been rejected must do.”

“Why?” She was completely lost now. “If their offer is rejected, they aren’t married.”

“Magic works a bit differently. If someone extends the vow, they have mated in their heart, regardless of whether the vow is accepted. If they’re refused, they must rely on these alternate forms of energy to survive. Shock would know more about this than I.”

At that moment, Sabelle poked her head into the room. She was so pale, chalk couldn’t compete. And her hair…She looked as if she’d survived a tornado. “Lucan’s house? Utter chaos. Anka put up a valiant struggle.”

Bram closed his eyes, and Olivia knew he was wondering if this was going to literally kill his best friend. She hurt for them both.

“Find anything about Caden?” he finally asked.

“He’s untransitioned, as you suspected.”

Bram’s eyes narrowed. “Did you teleport to the States and bring him here?”

“Texas, yes. What else was I to do?”