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Eira stared at me. “Elowen, I believe Earth is extraordinarily liberal.”

I laughed. “Not everywhere on Earth.”

She considered that, then looked around the garden. “You will have some difficulty persuading the Masters to permit a public bathing chamber here.”

“Oh, no. Absolutely not public. This one is just for us.”

Her expression relaxed as she picked up her pad again. “Can you draw this pool of yours?”

“I can, but you’re not allowed to laugh.”

She handed it over and leaned closer to watch while I attempted to draw it. It looked so bad that eventually I gave the pad back and described what I wanted instead. Eira was surprisingly good at drawing.

“You should’ve told me you were this good. It would’ve saved me the shame of the teddy drawings.”

“But you seemed so confident in the result. I thought that was what they were meant to look like.”

“Eira, they looked like deformed monsters.”

We were still laughing when the female guard approached us. “We must leave the garden, my lady.”

“Why? What happened?”

Eira quickly put her pad away. “Elowen, give me your hand.”

“A possible breach of the residential airspace, my lady,” the Alpha said. “We must take you to the protected rooms.”

I looked beyond her towards the quiet paths. Titus had stopped working; someone was leading him away from the greenhouse, and I could no longer hear the gardeners talking. My heart began to race as I took Eira’s hand, holding it much tighter than I meant to.

“What does Darius say about it? He’s still here, right?”

“Yes, my lady. These are his orders.” The guard moved to my other side. “Put your arms around our shoulders.”

Between them, she and Eira lifted me from the daybed and took most of my weight. I tried to match their steps, afraid of slowing them down, but they moved so quickly that my feet barely touched the ground. The male guard kept pace beside us, watching the garden as we crossed the path.

Six more guards came through the garden doors with their weapons drawn. Two turned to lead us inside while the others spread around us, leaving enough room for Eira and the Alpha to carry me between them.

We went straight into the sitting room, where so many more guards stood that I couldn’t see past them at first. Some were hurrying staff out of the room, while others carried huge metal panels between them.

I would have stopped if Eira and the Alpha hadn’t been carrying me. This was our sitting room, where I curled up with my mates and fell asleep on the sofa, and now it was full of armed guards. I kept looking from one to the next, desperate to see a familiar face.

“Where are my mates?”

“The other Masters are at House Vaelor,” Eira said. “We will contact them once you are inside the nest.”

“What about Leon?”

She tightened her arm around my back. “He is still there.”

I thought of the four of them getting home through whatever had made these people draw their guns. “Please get Darius.”

The female Alpha spoke into her pad, and I heard my name and the word nest.

“Lord Darius will come to you as soon as the threat has been dealt with, my lady.”

“What?” I looked from her to Eira, but Eira kept her eyes ahead. “No! No. You tell him to come right now. I need him!”

Around us, guards checked the adjoining doors. One stood by the lift while another directed the household staff into a side corridor. Livia had a hand against Ada’s back, and I tried to catch their eyes, but we were already moving past them.