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“So are all of us.” Sawyer’s voice is weary and dry. “I mean, there’s only so many times a guy can watch underground rooms being imploded on themselves via remote cameras.”

“As usual, Folic Acid has a solid point,” cracks one of the brothers. “Especially because this place smells better than that fucking cave.”

His sibling, the one I’m pegging as the younger one, pushes out a grunt. “You live in Hawaii. Aren’t caves considered recreational fun there?”

“Yeah. Fun that stinks,” the guy retorts. “Especially if you’re comparing it to Pop Tarts.” He shakes his head with a wry chuff. “Swear to God, someone at that company is making full pension from my stepson alone.”

“And our girls.” Though Reece’s tone carries a chuckle, his face is all seriousness when I pull back and stare up at him. “Yeah,” he ensures, his gaze as gentle as the hand he cups to my cheek. “Our girls, baby—no matter what anyone else says.” He kisses me with awkward swiftness. “I—I only mean that if Mis and Ira are okay with it, and you’re okay with it—”

I cut him off by leading the way on our next kiss. Forcefully. Ruthlessly. I breach his lips with passionate zeal, offering everything I am to him. All the emotion in my soul. The adoration in my spirit. And more than anything, the connection to him that’s just grown in proportion to the expansion of our family. I guess what they say is true. Children don’t consume what already exists in one’s heart. They break down walls into new parts of a person…

And new depths of their love.

Like every new way I’m feeling the energy and essence of this man. Every new chamber of myself that’s being opened to him in return. Every joyous pound of our pulses, ignition of our bloodstreams, and whisper of our souls. Every new synapse of connection, thrilling me as if I’m riding lightning—and judging from the gobsmacked gasps from all the guys, am probably looking like it too.

Sure enough, as soon as I find the self-control to extract my tongue from my husband’s tonsils, I pull away from him on a self-conscious slide—to confront my fireball of a reflection in the office’s window. With the right kind of squinted glance and expanded imagination, one would almost think earth had just gained itself a twin sun.

Before I can start the strange rumination about what that would mean for Daylight Savings Time, Ethan Archer saves us all from the awkward silence in the room. “Well, damn. Guess I’ll only be retelling this one when I’m really shitfaced.”

Sawyer grunts out a laugh. “Damn good reason to get shitfaced, though.”

“Or maybe…that is.”

Nobody misses how Brother Number One has gone from swaggering to stupefied with his new declaration—as the air before us suddenly sizzles and crackles and whirls and burns.

Tzzzzzzt.

And then thunders and roars and rips and screams.

Thwwaaarrr.

And then breaks open. Wider. Wider still.

“Holy shit.” I sob it out as my blissful warmth jacks into terrified fire and my instincts flare into full awareness.

As the rift in the air spreads even wider.

And as Faline Garand, in all her high-heeled, catsuited, bow-to-the-bitch glory, strides through it.

As she bares her teeth, spreads her hands into electric claws, and sets a direct course toward us.

All right, not completely direct. Sawyer and all three of his friends spring into action, going for their concealed weapons. Ethan and his SIG get in a good shot to her chest, causing a two-step fumble before she whomps him to the floor with a ferocious power pulse. The younger Bommer brother lunges to do the same, but she’s ready for him with a deflection shield. The bullet ricochets and lands solidly in the chest of his big brother. But on his way down, the guy still delivers wicked damage, wielding a gleaming Bowie knife in a hand mottled by old burn scars. One deft flick and three stunning seconds later, the blade impales Faline’s left thigh with a sickening thunk.

The woman’s scream is one of the most awesome sounds I’ve ever heard.

Despite knowing what will follow in its wake.

Another outcry—this time, channeling her pain into pure rage. It morphs into a growl thick with the viciousness of hell. And then a savoring laugh, channeling the hot mire of Styx itself.

“Do you really think you’ve ended me, Team Bolty-Bolt? Do you think your dynamite and your do-goody-gooding have actually put a single dent in me?”

She jerks the knife out of her flesh, brandishing its blood-covered length in her hand riddled with glowing green veins.

“Think.”

And then stabs it back in, lower on her thigh.

“Again.”