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“She said something about Caelan’s gunshot wound, and I just—” My hands clench. I search for the words to explain, but can’t find them. I hang my head and mutter, “I lost it.”

“Dax,” Riven’s voice is soft, like he’s comforting an injured animal. Which is laughable. If I’m an animal in this situation, it’s a fucking velociraptor.

It makes the guilt a thousand times worse.

“I know, okay? I know what you’re going to say. That I’m better than that. That I’m not the kind of male who goes after defenseless Omegas.”

I finally look up and meet his eyes. “Except you don’t know her, Riven. She’s not defenseless. She tricked Caelan. She got him hurt—nearly killed. I can’t trust her.”

Please leave it alone. Please don’t push this.

I don’t want to have a moral discussion tonight. Not after what happened at HQ. I stare at my friend, begging him without words to have mercy.

A long moment passes, then he hums in agreement. “Alright.”

I can hear what he’s not saying. That wasn’t an ‘Alright, we’ll forget it.’ That was an ‘Alright, I’ll drop it for now, but we’re going to talk about this later.’

Riven’s expression turns thoughtful.

“So this is the list,” he snatches a printout. “And this is the map that correlates,” he grabs one of the larger maps, then uses pins to hang it on the wall.

He spins and plucks a marker off the table, yanking the cap off with his teeth and spitting it onto the floor. Then, with no explanation, he starts drawing lines across the map, like he’s playing a fucked up game of connect the dots. Except he’s the only one who can see the godsdamned dots.

I lunge for him, determined to pull him back before he ruins the whole damn map. I mean, it’s not like I can’t get more, but for fucks sake.

“What do you think you’re doing, you Fates-damned idiot?”

His arm whips out, preventing me from coming closer. “Chill out, Captain Constipated, I’m making a fucking point here.”

He glances over his shoulder, making shooing moments with his hand away like he’s dealing with an annoying child.

Throwing my hands up in defeat, I fall into my seat and wait for him to finish doing… whatever the fuck he’s doing.

I chew absently on my thumbnail, listening to his marker scratch over paper while he hums an unfamiliar tune. When he’s finished, he’s successfully turned my carefully calibrated data into a map that looks like a toddler found a box of Sharpies and tried to teach himself how to draw lines.

Poorly.

Bold slashes intersect in no discernible pattern, some curving up while others curve down or to the side. It looks like a lousy attempt at Baby’s First Cartography.

I reach for the whiskey and pour myself another drink, raising the glass in a mocking toast. “Great. That looks terrible. Mind telling me why you took your feelings out on my map?”

“These,” Riv motions to the lines with his marker, “are ley lines.”

I scrub a tired hand down my face. “Ley lines. Fairy-tale bullshit. That’s just…perfect.”

“Not fairy-tale bullshit. Ancient lines of energy. Energy that the blood remembers when your mind and books forget.” He taps on the map again, as if I can look away from it.

“The world is a living entity, Dax. And like all living things, it has veins. Arteries. Pathways older than anything you or I could conceive of. They transmit power from one part of the world to another. Like currents.”

He takes a seat, but his focus stays on the map.

“Every ancient culture on this floating rock has mapped them. The Egyptians, the Mayans, the Celts, the Chinese. They built temples, pyramids, and shrines on top of these lines. They call them Dragon Paths in China. Australians call them Dream Paths.” He smirks, “In Ireland, they call them Fae Chords.”

I scowl. “That tracks. Considering Fae are also fairy-tale bullshit. That entire country believes find a circle of mushrooms means a nymph will appear and whisper Gaelic riddles until you trip into an alternate reality ruled by independent kingdoms where the seasons never change.”

Riven ignores me. “They’re lines of energy that run beneath the surface, connecting sites of sacred burial, worship, magnetic and polar anomalies. And also,” His expression turns impossibly smug. “The exact coordinates where your anomalies have been popping up the last few days.”

I scoff. “There’s no way.”