Free Claiming Valeria by Rebecca Rivard Page A

mate. Okay, there was no sign
of the mate bond, but that wasn’t unusual in someone as young as him. It would come
when he was ready—and then she would feel it too. Meanwhile, he refused to stand
by and let Dion starve her of the sunlight that was the stuff of life to her.
    So he’d given Adric the coordinates that he and the sun fae had
used to rescue her, even though he knew that it was a betrayal that could get him
banished for life—if his brother didn’t kill him outright. But he’d never expected
Cleia to take Dion with her. And it hadn’t even occurred to him that the earth fada
might use the coordinates to attack Rock Run.
    Now the clan was in an uproar, trying to get Dion back and at
the same time prepare for an attack from either the sun fae or the earth shifters—or
both.
    Tiago groaned and dropped onto the bed, his head in his
hands.
    All he knew was that Cleia was his mate. He felt her—a
constant ache in his heart. If he hadn’t helped her, he wouldn’t have been able
to live with himself.
    But what the hell had he done?
    One thing he could fix. Opening the top drawer of his
nightstand, he removed the chunk of quartz hidden at the back. It was a cleverly
engineered smartphone given to him by Adric, its smooth, milky white face a screen
that lit up at the touch of a finger. Crouching down, he smashed it against the
rock floor. It broke into a handful of shards laced with a metal that appeared to
be gold. He swept the pieces into his hand and hurried down the hall and to one
of the river exits, only to be stopped by Davi.
    Tiago swallowed a groan. No one would leave the base without
permission tonight.
    “What’s up?” the tenente asked.
    He concealed his fist at his side. “I need to get in the water
for a few minutes. My animal—” He shrugged.
    Davi waved him in. All their animals were edgy. Sometimes water
was the only thing that soothed them. “You can have five minutes. Hugo’s in the
river, patrolling. Stay where we can see you.”
    “I will.” Tiago saluted and dove in. He swam a few yards
before looking around for Hugo. He was a hundred yards away, swimming as a dolphin.
    Tiago dove deep and released the quartz pieces into the fast-flowing
stream. They spread out and drifted downward, settling on the bottom with the
other stones. Then he changed to dolphin because his animal did need soothing,
and dove back down. Even though it was mid-June, the deep water was cold,
bracing.
    His panicked heart stopped racing and he was able to think. All
he could do now was to support the effort to rescue Dion. And then he’d better start
making plans to leave. Because when his brother discovered what he’d done, he was
a dead man.
    Hugo appeared nearby. He whistled a hello, which Tiago returned.
They brushed by each other, a companionable touch. Then Hugo prodded him with his
beak, indicating he should return to the base. Tiago obeyed. He was in deep-enough
shit already.
    Back on land, he shifted to man and returned to his room. As
a novice warrior, he wasn’t involved in the preparations tonight, but he’d been
ordered to get a good night’s sleep because tomorrow he’d be taking a turn on guard
duty—if the clan wasn’t fighting the earth fada.
    As he entered the quarters reserved for unmated males, his best
friend Chico hailed him. “Tee. Wait up.”
    Tiago lifted a hand. Despite his name, Chico was as American
as they came, his mother a fada who’d grown up in Rhode Island, his father the first
child born at Rock Run after its founding some eighty years ago. He had his mother’s
clean-cut Anglo features and his father’s dark hair and olive skin, and like Tiago
and the other younger members of the clan, spoke English for the most part.
    He reached Tiago and bumped his shoulder in silent sympathy.
“Sorry about your brother.”
    A hot rush of guilt made his reply curt. “We’ll get him back.
And if the Baltimore shifters try anything, we’ll be ready.”
    “Hell, yeah. There’s