Chapter 14
Three days later.
“Sunaya, don’t be foolish!” Elnos hissed from the tree line. “Come back here!”
“No,” I growled, stalking forward. My boots thumped along the dirt path that led directly to the back entrance of the compound.
Or, rather, the exit, as it was a metal door sunken into the back of a hillside, with no handle.
It could only be opened from the inside, as Annia had discovered when she’d tried to get in this way.
“I won’t let you do this!” Elnos dashed from the trees and grabbed my arm, pulling me to a stop. “Why set off the alarm and risk exposing us, when Lord Iannis will be back any moment now?”
“Iannis should have been back yesterday!” Angry, I ripped my arm free as I whirled around to face Elnos.
He was a good deal taller than I was, nearly as tall as Iannis, so I had to crane my neck in order to glare at him.
“It’s been three days with no sign of him, and we haven’t been able to discover any way into the compound.
All we’ve managed to do is ruin those two outgoing shipments yesterday! ”
“I understand your frustration,” Elnos said, and indeed, his own voice was brimming with the same emotion. “But charging in now and risking our safety is a foolish plan. We have time until Lord Iannis returns. Surely we can think of something—”
“Like what?” I propped my hands on my hips.
“We’re out of options. We’ve found no way to get past the wards, and eavesdropping on those guards in town hasn’t gotten us anywhere.
Impersonating them won’t do us any good, because you tried to breach the wards disguised as a human and you still set them off.
The ether pigeons we sent in to warn Noria and Annia didn’t seem to do any good either.
” They’d probably fizzled out the moment they’d touched the border, though they hadn’t actually set off the alarm.
“You don’t know that,” Elnos said tightly. “For all we know, Noria may have noticed our attempts to breach the barrier. She could be trying to engineer an escape attempt right now. What if we trigger the alarm and ruin her chances of getting out?”
“And what if triggering the alarm provides a diversion, and makes it easier for her?” I argued.
Elnos let out an annoyed sigh. “This is a ridiculous argument.”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed, spinning on my heel. Ignoring Elnos’s protests, I stalked toward the back entrance of the bunker. The scent of magic grew thicker the closer I got. I was just inches away from butting up against the wards.
“Sunaya.” Iannis’s voice resonated in my head, and I stumbled over a rock.
“Iannis?” I shot out a hand, bracing myself against a tree to steady myself. “Are you back?”
“Yes. Meet me at the camp with Elnos. I have urgent news.”
“Damn right you do. You’re late!”
“Sunaya?” Elnos asked, puzzlement in his eyes. “What’s going on?”
Sighing, I turned back to him. “Iannis is back. He wants us to go meet up with him at our campsite.”
“Thank goodness,” Elnos said, sounding incredibly relieved. Guess he was getting his wish after all.
We headed back to camp as quickly as we could—or rather, as quickly as Elnos could, since I couldn’t leave him in the dust. About ten yards away, I caught a trace of Iannis’s sandalwood and magic scent on the wind, and a smile curved my lips in spite of my irritation.
But the smile faded as I caught another scent, a familiar one, and I froze.
“What is it?” Elnos asked as I sniffed the air.
“No,” I growled. “No fucking way.”
I took off before Elnos could ask what I was talking about, tearing up the path as fast as my legs could carry me. Voices coming from the clearing became more audible, and I burst into the campsite, my heart pumping hard.
Not from exertion, but from anger.
“That was fast,” Iannis said, turning to face me from the middle of the clearing.
“Yeah, no fucking kidding.” I jabbed a finger in the air at the figure standing behind him, who I could only partially see. “You wanna tell me just what he’s doing here?”
“Hello, cousin.” Rylan Baine stepped out from behind Iannis, an unrepentant smile on his handsome face.
He was dressed in a red t-shirt, leather pants, and sturdy boots, and the gaunt, emaciated look had faded from his features.
My cousin was healthy and bursting with life and energy, instead of suffering like he should have been.
“I brought him here.” Fenris ducked out of Elnos’s tent, and I started.
I’d been so focused on Rylan’s scent that I hadn’t noticed his.
“Iannis called me from Parabas and explained the situation. It occurred to us to use one of the Resistance soldiers that we already had sitting around in Prison Isle to infiltrate the bunker, in exchange for a reduced sentence. Your cousin Rylan was the natural choice, Sunaya.”
“And I thank you profusely for that.” Rylan sketched a bow, his long, straight black hair swinging forward like a curtain as he did so.
“No way. This is not happening.” Ignoring Rylan completely, I squared off with Iannis. “How could you do this to me? How could you bring Rylan here, into our midst, on such an important mission, after knowing how he betrayed me?”
“Because Rylan loves you,” Iannis said simply. “It makes perfect sense to me to bring someone in who is emotionally invested, rather than a Resistance soldier none of us know, and who is just as likely to betray as they are to help us.”
“And how exactly do we know that Rylan isn’t going to follow pattern and betray us again?”
“Sunaya, please.” Rylan stepped forward, annoyance in his yellow shifter eyes.
He reached for my hand, but I backed away.
“You can be mad at me all you want, but I was only trying to protect you. And yes, I was a loyal member of the Resistance, but that was before I learned they planned to wipe out the shifters once they were done with the mages. I may not agree with the current regime, but at least the mages aren’t trying to annihilate us.
The human backers of the Resistance are just as much my enemy now as they are yours. ”
“I doubt that,” I muttered, giving him a nasty look. But I detected no lie in anything he said. Much as I wanted to spurn him, he believed what he said. And we didn’t have time to find someone else.
“Besides,” Rylan continued, “Fenris didn’t just pick me for my good looks. I happen to have inside knowledge of the compound.”
“What?” I gaped. That was way too coincidental for my tastes. “How?”
“My unit was sent up here to guard the compound back when it was being built,” Rylan said. “That was over a year ago, when there was no ward yet. Things may have changed a bit, but probably not too much. I’ll be able to get in, no sweat.”
“Sunaya,” Iannis warned, drawing my attention back to him. “We do not have time to debate my decision to include Rylan on this mission. Lord Logar will be arriving tomorrow. We must get Annia and Noria out before then, or they will be killed.”
“Fuck.” I expelled a harsh breath, then closed my eyes and reined in my emotions. My feelings about Rylan weren’t as important as rescuing Annia and Noria. I had to put them aside, at least until after this was over. Rylan and I would have our reckoning, but not today.
“Fine,” I said, opening my eyes and pinning Rylan, my beloved cousin, my closest childhood friend and family member, with the fiercest glare I could muster.
“I’ll work with you. But if I detect even a whiff of anything suspicious from you, I will rip out your guts and feed them to you. Is that understood?”
“Absolutely.” Rylan snapped his heels and saluted me. I bared my teeth at him, but he ignored me as he flashed another grin, looking around at everyone in the group. “So do we have a game plan, or what?”