“You have a choice, Bane,” Zion said from her other side. “Continue to let yourself be distracted, endangering you and your woman in public, while I invade the warehouse alone or help me as planned. You can’t do both.”

Feeling feisty, Nola flipped him off. “You two go in together and guard each other’s back. And you had better return to me or there will be dire consequences. Understood?”

She loved that the two warriors were kinda sorta friends now. She had a sinking suspicion neither man had enjoyed many friendships in his long, long life, never knowing who to trust. But. Unless they found a way to stop the war or Zion took the Mark of Disgrace, their friendship wouldn’t, couldn’t last.

Ignore the sense of foreboding. It hadn’t fled, had only grown stronger. Ignore your churning stomach.

Zion cast Bane a quick glance. Voice laced with amusement, he said, “Shouldn’t you get your woman in line?”

“Hardly,” Bane quipped. “The man who gets his woman in line is the man who sleeps alone.”

Nola rewarded him with a spontaneous kiss on his neck, where his pulse raced. “I’m so proud of you. You’ve learned so fast.”

His fingers clenched on her hip bone as he gave her a strange look—a soft look, setting her aflutter.

When an obviously drunk man plowed into her, she gasped, startled. If not for Bane’s stalwart hold, she would have pinwheeled to her butt.

“Are you all right?” he demanded.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“Good.” The next thing she knew, he was barreling after the drunk man.

To issue an order, or not issue an order? “No, Bane. No. Please come back,” she called, opting to go with not. Would he heed her request or plow ahead anyway?

Plow ahead. He grabbed the offender by the scruff and hauled him to the other side of the street, away from her. Thank goodness! Killing Micah had been self-defense and revenge. Killing Erik, who kept endangering Vale, Bane and Zion, would be straight up self-defense. This would have been cold-blooded murder.

Zion used the opportunity to quietly say, “You are so at ease with Bane, and yet my prophetic dream has not changed. One day, you will kill him.”

“No way.” Shaking her head with enough force to rattle her brain, she replied, “I won’t. Your dream must be symbolic of something else.”

A frown. A cant of his head. “How can you be so sure of this?”

“I just am.” Her feelings for Bane ran too deep.

He returned to her side, his eyes narrowing as he glanced between her and Zion. Sensed the new tension, did he? Either way, he made no comment. He couldn’t. They’d reached their destination. A seemingly abandoned warehouse.

The lights were off, and no one loitered about. Bars covered the windows, broken glass scattered over the ground.