Chase’s grin had frozen on his face. “No.”
Hugh held onto Chase even though the pain of prolonged contact was near-blinding. “I know this will be hard for you, but—“
“No,” Chase said again, flatly. He jerked his arm away, anger glittering in his eyes. “It’s not hard, Hugh. It’s impossible. That creature hurt my mate.”
“That creature is my mate!”
“Shield-brother, sword-brother, what is amiss?” John had caught up with them, stooping to fit his seven-foot-tall bulk through the door. “If shield-brother Hugh has found his true mate, surely that is—”
He saw Ivy, and froze just as Chase had. “You.”
“What is it? Why’ve you all stopped?” Tall as Neridia was, even she couldn’t see over John’s shoulder. “John? What’s going on?”
John caught his mate as she tried to duck past him. His expression had settled into grim lines. Hugh had a nasty suspicion that if the sea dragon had been carrying his sword, it would have been in his hand by now.
“Stay back, my heart,” John said to Neridia, keeping his body between her and Ivy just as Hugh was protecting his own mate from Chase. “That is the wyvern shifter who poisoned Chase’s mate. The merest brush of her skin brings death. She taints the very air she breathes.”
Hugh’s fists clenched. Even though Ivy was behind him, he could sense her shame and misery.
“She’s my mate,” he snarled, hating them all for the way they were staring. “And she needs our help.”
“I won’t ask you to choose between a friend and your mate, Hugh.” Chase turned on his heel, pushing past the others. “Don’t ask me to.”
“Wait,” Ivy called after him, stepping forward. “You don’t understand, Hugh needs your—“
Hugh caught her hand, squeezing it in warning. They’d agreed—though Ivy had argued against it—that they weren’t going to tell the team that Gaze was after him too. It would lead to too many questions about why.
“Let him go, Ivy,” he said in defeat. “It’s for the best.”
“I am sorry, shield-brother,” John said, still holding Neridia back. His deep blue eyes were filled with regret. “I owe you my life, and I will gladly assist you in any way that I can. But at the moment my duties to my own mate and Empress take precedence. We too must depart.”
“John!” Neridia exclaimed, pushing futilely at his arm. “You’re being abominably rude. If this is Hugh’s mate, then of course we’re going to help her. More than that. We’ll welcome her as a new friend, like everyone welcomed me.”
“My Empress,” John said, turning to her. “You carry our child and the future of the whole sea under your heart. As your Champion and mate, I will not have you in the same room as someone as dangerous as her. We are leaving. Now.”
Neridia could only fling a helpless, apologetic look over her shoulder as John steered her out. “I’m so sorry, Hugh, Ivy. I’ll try and talk some sense into him.”
“In this, you cannot command me, my Empress,” John said. He cast a glance at Hugh. “But you still have my sword, shield-brother. Once my Empress is safe under other guard, I will return.”
“Don’t bother,” Hugh spat, incandescent with fury. “If you can’t be civil to Ivy, then I have nothing further to say to you.”
John bowed his head, his eyes shadowed. “I understand, shield-brother. But you too must understand. No shifter could stand to expose his mate to such danger. I am sorry, but you cannot ask this of us.”
Ivy’s hand was trembling in his. Hugh gripped her harder, pulling her closer against his side.
“Well?” he said, glaring across the room at Dai, Virginia, and Ash. “Anyone else?”
“Pretty,” Morwenna announced from his shoulders. Leaning over, she stretched both chubby fists toward Ivy’s green-streaked hair. “Want.”
Ivy flung herself out of the toddler’s reach, even as Dai lunged. The dragon shifter collided with Hugh, knocking all the breath out of him.
Morwenna wailed in protest as Dai snatched her away. “Noooo! Wenna want!”
Dai’s green eyes were ablaze with dragonfire. A hint of red scales rippled over his bare forearms with the instinct to shift to protect his daughter.
“Virginia,” he growled, thrusting Morwenna at his mate. “Go back downstairs.”
Eyes wide with alarm, Virginia clutched her struggling daughter tight to her chest. “Dai—“