The door closed on him and Callum remarked, “You want to get to your mate.”

He gave the wolf his eyes. “And you want to get to yours.”

Callum smiled and crossed his arms on his chest.

That meant yes.

Callum was also right. Abel wanted to get to Delilah.

But there were a few things to cover first.

“Can phantoms attack from the sky, and are there mermaids who can attack by sea?” Abel asked.

Callum’s smile got bigger, but it was Lucien who answered.

“Phantoms can attack from the sky, but The Dominion has an invisible electronic net shielding that area. This net would not entirely stop them, but it would hold them back long enough for us to prepare.” His lips quirked before he concluded, “There are no such things as mermaids.”

“Well thank fuck for that,” Abel murmured.

“My wolves are making camp on the grounds,” Callum told him, and when Abel looked his way, he saw he was now deadly serious. “You undoubtedly sense the vampires filling the rooms of the compound. What you may not have noted was that The Dominion has soldiers in guardhouses lining the fences. They, and I, have wolves and vampires infiltrating the local towns. The wraiths are doing the same. This is for the humans’ safety as well as ours. Our adversary would have to concentrate a foolish amount of their forces here in order to penetrate our current defenses and claim The Three.”

“That makes me uneasy and easy at the same time,” Abel told him.

“As you should be,” Callum replied, “for that means they can concentrate elsewhere.”

“And we have people out there concentrating on elsewhere?” Abel asked.

“We do,” Lucien replied, “as well as the United States military being aware of the situation and on high alert for attack.” He threw out a hand Abel’s way, indicating his body which, since their earlier situation, had fully healed. “We immortals can sustain many injuries. But this doesn’t mean modern weaponry is futile against our kind. Far from it.”

“Will they fight fire with fire?” Abel went on.

“Likely,” Callum grunted.

“So we’re at war. We’re just waiting to see what they do next,” Abel surmised.

“We’re also trying to discover what they’ll do next in hopes of being in position to stop it,” Lucien told him.

“And these Prophesies,” Abel kept at them. “You know of them?”

Both men nodded, but Callum spoke.

“They’re unfortunately vague. They’re also unfortunately vaguely dire. There are no conclusions. We don’t know what will happen definitively. We don’t even know what will happen to lead up to the ultimate campaign. We just know the stories of The Three have all come true. So we know they are not just words written on paper by the Ancients.”