Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Lucas
Darius’s transports are coming in over the airfield.
He stands beside me at the edge of the runway, Reese and Hennessy two paces behind us.
The first transport drops out of a low cloud and rolls up the strip with engines whining down.
Three more appear behind it. The ramp on the lead aircraft is already opening before the wheels have stopped.
Wolves pour off in disciplined columns, kits slung at their hips, shifting to human form as they hit the tarmac and form up in their squads.
One thousand of his men. Twice as many as promised, to match my numbers.
Darius’s second-in-command crosses the strip to us with the latest field report under his arm. He hands it to Darius, who skims it and passes it to me without comment. I read it.
The drone we put up over the compound this morning went down within ten minutes.
Thermal imaging before the loss confirmed sixty fighters on the wire.
Inside, still unknown. Every fighter the drone tracked displayed the same weirdness Bauer’s section reported on the one they observed.
All of them, by the look of it, enhanced.
The drone wasn’t taken out with conventional fire. It dropped clean. Whatever they have inside that compound can reach a thousand feet of altitude and pull a metal bird out of the sky.
Darius points out, “Then we can’t drive. Or fly anywhere closer.”
I nod. “Reese pulled the route options last night. The western road is exposed past the ridge. Two thousand wolves on a road are going to be visible to anything that can see a drone.”
“Wilderness?”
“Twenty-four hours through the woods, under canopy. We hold at the outcropping above the compound for six hours, observe the rotation, move on the third shift change.”
“Why the third?”
“The first tells us their relief pattern. The second confirms it. The third is our window.”
He nods once. “Agreed.”
I turn to Reese. “Tell our line. Wilderness route. Departing in thirty.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
He leaves just as Sienna arrives with Violet beside her, both of them in dark fatigues, packs slung at their backs.
Lydia is two paces behind them, her shoulder strapped under her jacket, her good hand swinging at her side.
She refused every suggestion to stay behind with such finality that nobody is bothering to offer anymore.
Sienna stops in front of me. The pendant my mother wore is at her throat, the small, dark stone resting against the curse line, right where I want it. The black tendril on her collarbone has crept farther even since first light. I don’t let myself look at it for long.
She can read my face, though. “I’m fine, Lucas.”
“You won’t shift. You ride me the whole way.”
She starts to protest, but I stop her.
“Sienna. You said it yourself: the curse pulls hardest in your wolf form. Twenty-four hours of that and you won’t make it to the outcropping on your own legs.”
She considers my advice. Then, she nods once, her jaw tight.
Beside me, Darius has turned to Violet. “Same goes for you. You’re going to be on my back. There are too many people with us. I’ll feel more secure this way.”
Surprisingly, Violet doesn’t argue. She just nods.
Darius’s jaw eases slightly.
“Lydia, you’ll be on somebody’s back, as well. You haven’t healed enough yet.”
My words have Lydia nodding. “I was going to say the same thing.”
Finally, we move out. We run as silently as possible through the forest, the wolves spread in long, flexible columns that adjust to the terrain without breaking formation.
Darius’s soldiers are on my right flank, my own on my left.
Sienna’s thighs grip behind my shoulders, her cheek against the side of my neck.
Violet rides Darius. Lydia is a few feet behind us on a Moonvale soldier’s back.
The sunlight moves through the tree leaves above us as the miles go by under our paws. After resting overnight, we reach the outcropping above the compound at the end of the second day.
I crouch behind the lichen-covered rocks. The valley opens through a thinning of the pines, a clear view down to the wire. Sienna slides off my back carefully, one hand still gripping my fur as she lands. My ribs are stiff from holding her weight. I don’t tell her.
My wolves drop behind the rocks in their long line, shoulders heaving, eyes on the perimeter below. They remain on four legs; I want them coiled and ready to move on the first signal.
I shift and dress where I am. Darius does the same, ten yards off. Violet stands next to her mate. Lydia comes through the line behind Sienna. The five of us are the only ones in skin. Everyone else around us is wolf.
I look at the compound.
A shallow bowl of cleared land, trees pushed back a hundred yards on every side. High chain perimeter, watchtowers at the four corners, two guard positions at the gate. The central holding building squats gray at the center, two outbuildings flanking it, a service road running north into the trees.
Twelve at the fence. Two on each tower. Four at the gate. The rotation is tight, the men spaced in even thirds along the wire, no slack.
Inside is still the unknown. Intelligence said sixty fighters. I’d put it higher now, maybe a couple hundred. A place this big with only sixty doesn’t make sense to me. They might only have counted that many, but I bet there are a lot more inside.
The wind has picked up. I can smell wood smoke from the compound—along with a rancid stench underneath it.
Lillian is in there.
I let myself feel that for three seconds. Then, I push it down.
I turn to Darius. “Six hours?”
He nods once. “The men need it. So do we.”
He passes the order down his line in the low, pack-bond pulse alphas use when there is reason not to say it aloud.
The wolves nearest him settle in waves, bellies on the ground, ears still up.
Mine do the same seconds later on my own pulse.
The wolves go quiet in stages until the only sound at the outcropping is wind.
Sienna sits down and leans against the rocks a few steps away. Her knees pull up. She rests her cheek against them, eyes closed for a moment, and I see the toll the run has taken on her at last, the strain from the curse she has been carrying without complaining about it.
I lower myself beside her. My arm goes around her shoulders. She leans into me without opening her eyes.
“Lucas.”
“Sienna.”
Her fingers are threading through mine. “If we don’t make it out, I want you to know that I really do love you.”
The fear behind her words weighs heavily on my heart.
“We’ll make it out, Sienna.” I assure her. “We’ll break the curse, as well. You and I will not let history repeat itself. We’re going to have many years together. So much time together that you’ll get bored of me.”
She chuckles softly. “I don’t think I could ever get bored of you.”
I press my lips to her temple, my voice low. “When we return, I’ll hold a grand mating ceremony for us. I will officially make you my luna, and we’ll have beautiful children with your eyes and your smile.”
She burrows into my chest. “I like that dream”
“It’s not a dream,” I tell her firmly. “I will make it so.”
I feel a small movement of her hand on my thigh—her thumb at the inside seam of my fatigues, slow, the same touch she gave me in this same posture just before the start of the run.
Her hand comes up to my jaw. She turns my face toward her. Her eyes are dry, and her lips aren’t. Mine finds hers without thinking.
The kiss is slow.
She gets all of it. Everything I’ve ever held back from giving her.
Her mouth softens against mine, and a sound breaks out of her that I feel in my teeth, in the hollow of my chest, down low where the bond sits.
I keep my mouth on hers, and the curse line at her collarbone is warm under my fingertips when my hand finds it.
She exhales when we break apart. “Don’t die in that compound, Lucas.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise you.”
“And you bring me out with you. Both of us.”
“Both of us. I promise you that, as well.”
We stay like this for a long time, quiet, the bond between us open wide. I drink in the warmth of her as I place my cheek at the hollow of her throat, where my mouth finds the mate mark and rests there.
She is asleep within minutes. My arm goes around her. The bond settles.
After five hours, she stirs.
Her eyes find mine. The composure settles back over her face within a single breath. The softness she let me hold, she puts away now, and I watch the strategist take over.
“How long?”
“One more hour.”
She nods. We crawl forward to the lip of the outcropping to join the others.
I run them through the rotations I tracked while they slept.
Sienna corrects me on two timing windows I had wrong.
Darius’s mouth tugs without him looking away from the target.
Violet is on Sienna’s other side, on her back in the moss, listening.
Lydia is behind Violet, her good hand pressed open in the dirt.
The plan is clear. Darius takes the south; I bring my line down the slope. We hit hard, draw the compound out, and on my howl, the north team moves through the service door.
The sixth hour comes.
Darius reaches for Violet. He pulls her against him by the back of the neck and presses his forehead to hers, his eyes closed. I can’t hear what he says to her. Whatever it is, her mouth tightens. She nods three times.
I turn to Sienna and take her face in both hands. “Behind Lydia and Violet. You see Zion, you go the other way. Once you’ve got Lillian, head north. Don’t double back. Don’t look for me. Run.”
“I’ll do it.”
Her hands have come up and gripped my wrists. The pendant catches the light at her throat.
“I love you,” she murmurs.
The bond opens wide between us. I pull her in and kiss her, hard.
“Come back to me,” she whispers.
I let her go. I look over at Lydia. She holds my eyes, her face pale and set.
“See you soon, Lucas,” she says quietly.
I nod.
I strip and bind my clothes to my left arm, the cord drawn tight at the elbow joint.
Darius does the same beside me. We shift at the lip of the outcropping, the line of wolves at our backs ready to move with us.
The Silvercrest wolves pour after me down the slope toward the wire.
Darius’s gray form breaks south with his line.
The two waves split clean.