Marcus

Ultiori Headquarters, Canadian Rockies

Present Day

When the devil's on your tail, the instinct is to run. Marcus wanted to run—time was not on his side and hadn't been for decades—but Elites like him had to set an example for the other Ultiori hunters in the compound.

He desperately needed to be with Evie now—before the man Fate had chosen as her mate came to claim her. And before the man Fate had chosen to be his torturer came to kill Marcus.

There was no way his master wouldn't bleed him dry the second he discovered Marcus had betrayed him. Marcus would happily accept his fate by the time Nikhil realized he'd been instrumental in Evie's rescue. He only had a few hours, at best, to see Evie before his world ended. To tell her one last time that he loved her. And to ask her forgiveness for bringing her to this place.

Nikhil was distracted for the first time since Marcus had served as one of the Ultiori leader's primary soldiers and enforcers. For the first time in five decades, the ancient man's dark mental presence wasn't lurking around in Marcus's head.

His master would come for him. And if the events of the last few hours were any indication of true hope, Evie's true mate would come for her.

He exited the elevator the very second the doors opened on the sub—level floor of the Alexandria Institute's Canadian headquarters. Only he, his master, and his fellow Elites had access to this floor, where the most valuable captives were held. But there was one cell Marcus lacked the clearance to open and he hoped he'd find one of the two people who could open that cell. Naaz and Sterlyn were the only ones who could give him access to see Evie.

Before he rounded the corner of the wide hallway, Naaz's deep voice reverberated faintly from the distance, then paused. In his mind, Marcus sensed his fellow Elite's unarticulated question to him. He sped up, heart racing with anticipation and hope that Naaz would be willing to do this one final favor for him.

A sudden, loud crash made him turn his head. One of the two thick polycarbonate cell doors on this corridor vibrated with the violent impact of the huge body on the other side of it. Marcus paused long enough to stare at the big, muscular ursa male who raged beyond the transparent portal of glass.

On the other side of the corridor, another figure moved into view beyond a similar thick door. He didn't have time for this.

The satyr on the other side gestured at Marcus and pointed toward the intercom on the side of the door.

Marcus scowled at the prisoner, prepared to ignore both interruptions, when Naaz pushed in front of him and tapped the button to activate the speaker.

"What is it, Calder? We don't have time for your apocalyptic bullshit today, or for Nicholas trying to tear down the goddamn mountain."

Naaz gave Marcus the weary look of a man who's been relegated to holding down the fort. For the last week, only Marcus and his fellow Elite Sterlyn had been out, carrying out their master's wishes.

"This is the last time I'll ask," Calder said, his deep, serene voice sending a trickle of ice down Marcus's spine. "Today was the day the currents shifted. The dark waters have been disturbed, enough for the river to split. You need to let me into Nicholas's cell one last time so he doesn't drown in the deluge when Fate's flood reaches us."

"Naaz, leave him. I need you to do me a favor quickly," Marcus said, unwilling to entertain the crazy satyr's cryptic rambling.

"I've got you, brother," Naaz said. "Just need your help to handle this crazy fucker first." He glanced over his shoulder at the opposite cell where the white—haired ursa male still pounded at the door, a little less destructively, but no less emphatic. "Not sure which of the pair are crazier, but at least we'll have some peace when we put them together."

Naaz quickly keyed in a code on the pad by Calder's door, then pressed his thumb to the small biometric scanner above it. As the door slid open, Marcus cursed softly and raised his hands, exerting his will to push the magic that had flowed through his veins for the last fifty years out through the centers of his palms. Naaz did the same, the magic coming from his hands manifesting as a red swirl of smoke that their prisoner inhaled along with the dark shadow of Marcus's magic.

Calder's pupils expanded until the deep blue of his irises were completely black, and his face went utterly blank, his knees buckling as the combination of Marcus and Naaz's powers neutralized him. Marcus knew what Naaz's power felt like mixed with his own—a combination of paralysis and overwhelming arousal, which was evidenced by the tent in Calder's loose—fitting drawstring pants as he sagged to the floor. His cock was the only stiff thing about him when Naaz and Marcus stepped in and hooked the satyr beneath the armpits. They hauled him bodily across the hallway to the door of the now more subdued ursa's cell.

Nicholas stood back and obligingly sank to his knees, indicating he had no intention of giving them trouble now that he saw his needs would be met.

"What do you think he meant about the currents?" Marcus asked, keying in the code to unlock Nick's door, followed by the final biometric scan.

"Something big's about to happen. He's only ever ranted like this when there were about to be major changes. He did it fifty years ago before you showed up, and two hundred years before that, just before the whole fiasco with Nick and his mother."

Marcus had only heard brief tales of the Ultiori's experiences after capturing the queen of the matriarchal race of bear shifters. The female had been the first ever to become pregnant in captivity after undergoing several of the Ultiori's experiments. The experience proved to the Ultiori how dangerously volatile a mother ursa could be when she escaped shortly after giving birth. It had taken two elites, Nikhil himself, and an army of Ultiori hunters to subdue the ursa queen long enough to retrieve the child. They had to give up on taking the mother back into custody after she'd killed half their soldiers, but they'd managed to keep the cub.

Marcus had witnessed the ursa male's periodic rages and the resulting damage that had prompted reinforcing all the walls of his cell, including installation of doors that were impervious to his strength. He never wanted to come face—to—face with a female ursa if his fellow Elite's stories were true and she had managed to be too powerful for them to recapture.