Chapter 30 Avery
AVERY
For the next week, my quintet put our heads down and trained relentlessly. We were going to go into the August patrol ready for anything, and we’d finally clicked as a group of five, our fighting styles, both beast and blade, melding into a seamless machine.
I’d updated Ian and my dads on what Kit had helped us uncover, and they agreed that Elijah’s pursuit of what happened the night his fathers died would almost certainly lead us to more answers about Mom.
It didn’t matter that she was killed a year later in a completely different state. Following the belladonna was the key.
We’d get through camp, and then we’d find a way to bring justice to our families.
And I hadn’t forgotten that we also had to find a way to protect Clara. I was leaning towards just slicing her betrotheds to ribbons the second they set foot on the Proteus campus.
I said as much to Elijah as we stood in the parking lot of Peachtree State Park, surveying the staging of our base of operations for the first night of patrol.
“As if you could be any more perfect, Dove,” he purred. “I, too, have offered to introduce those mangy little felines to a violent end, but Heath won’t allow it. Maybe if you bat your eyelashes at him, he’ll change his mind and let us do it together.”
That little fantasy pleased me, and I hummed happily.
The Moon was a mere sliver tonight, and the cloud cover was thick. In our briefing with Kit earlier today, he’d told us that the Guardians’ scouting drones had picked up high wisp activity in this zone, which meant that we might have a large number of active rifts to contend with.
Our staging area was busy, packed full of tents and equipment.
Guardians strode purposefully around the parking lot.
The largest tent was our makeshift medical bay for the night.
Dr. Lee was on hand, as were several field medics, both professional Guardians and trainees.
Aisha, Dr. Lee’s student assistant, was crouched outside the medical tent, meticulously loading supplies into her pack, a large golden M stitched into her black uniform shirt.
Another large tent contained the command center, where computer screens and other communications equipment had been assembled on rickety-looking tables, tangles of cords and cables running in all directions.
Commander Moss stood at the entrance, arms crossed over his barrel chest, engrossed in a serious conversation with Cash and another professional Guardian I didn’t know.
A half mile to the west of our location lay the picturesque shifter town whose inhabitants we were tasked with protecting tonight.
A tall concrete wall marked its borders, the roads in and out blocked by wide iron gates that had been closed and locked for curfew.
Under the last Full Moon, ward security experts who worked for local law enforcement would’ve recharged the runes etched into the concrete and the gates.
It was because of those wards—and us—that everyone behind that wall was able to sleep peacefully in their beds.
Heath strode over, fiddling with the comms earpiece he’d been issued as our unit’s leader. It was designed to remain lodged in his ear even with a shift to his wolf.
He certainly looked at home in the Guardian uniform we all wore—the breathable black shirt that molded to his chest, the dark cargo pants and flexible combat boots, the leather strap of the harness that kept his saber on his back.
The seams of our uniforms were designed to split with a shift and could be stuck back together with some kind of magically enhanced Velcro—a rare and expensive perk for risking our lives for the good of our kind.
“Okay, gather ’round,” Heath barked at our group.
Aiden came to stand at my other side, and Wyatt’s big hand landed on the back of my neck. He dug his thumb into a knot there, and it took an enormous amount of self-control to bite back a shameless moan.
Our assigned Support Squadron spread out around us.
As a part of Ward’s ongoing campaign to butter me up, he’d given us Ian’s group.
Or Brody’s group, rather, as he was the highest-ranked trainee coming out of the semester behind Ian.
As a rising junior—one who wasn’t even supposed to be at camp—Ian didn’t get to wear the leader mantle. He was unbothered by this.
Brody’s group consisted of himself, Ian, Joon, Nico, Matt the hawk, and Andre the wolf.
The guys had worked with a lot of the Support Squadron trainees over the spring and summer, and their leadership had decided to give Matt and Andre a try with our unit tonight to see how they meshed.
Their group wore uniforms nearly identical to ours, though their shirts were gray with a black “S” embroidered over the chest where ours had a large golden “G.”
“We’re part of a four-unit group being sent to cover the south end of the zone,” Heath announced. “Twenty square miles, mostly within the state park, including the family camping area.”
A drone whizzed by overhead and disappeared into the trees.
Heath watched it go and then continued. “We head out at 11:00 p.m. on the dot. As a reminder, the most active time for wraiths is between midnight and 3:00 a.m. We report back here at 4:00 a.m. unless we have injuries and need to return earlier. As usual, Wyatt will be our primary beast combatant, with Aiden and I shifting as needed. Avery will fight in human form, and Support Squadron can also shift as needed. I don’t care that leadership discourages it outside of healing. Follow your beast’s instincts.”
Andre the wolf gazed at Heath with stars in his eyes.
“And a final reminder that Elijah will not be shifting unless things get out of hand, in which case, you need to stab whatever is in front of you and then get the fuck out of Dodge.”
Andre went a little pale at that, and Matt swallowed audibly. Even Nico and Joon shifted on their feet, looking uneasy.
Elijah chuckled. “Don’t worry, friends. I’m sure we will have things well in hand tonight.”
On cue, a chorus of high-pitched screeches and chitters echoed from deep in the woods. Swarmers, always the frontline attack, climbing their way through the thin veil between our realms.
A shiver hit my spine, as it always did at the first sign of wraiths. Wyatt gave my neck a comforting little squeeze. The tiger flicked her tail, somehow both keyed up for some killing but also luxuriating in Wyatt’s hold. She was a multifaceted beast.
The golden starbursts in Heath’s eyes flashed as his wolf was called to battle.
Another shiver, another flick of the tail.
“All right, you have one minute to get your asses out into the field!” Commander Moss shouted through the bullhorn he held in front of his face. “Make me proud and do not die!”
“Motivational,” Aiden said dryly.
“Let’s do this,” Heath said, clapping his hands. “Loose formation.”
Brody’s group quickly spread out, forming a wide, arching semicircle facing south. Heath stepped into place about ten feet behind Brody in the center, and the rest of us took our posts at the four corners behind him, creating a loose pentagon shape.
More screeching sounded in the distance. I hopped on my toes, cinched the straps of my harness tighter across my chest, then unsheathed my swords and twirled them quickly, loosening my wrists.
It’d been far too long since I’d hacked the head off a live wraith and watched it ooze into the ground. There was a rightness to this that burned deep within my soul—the beast and the human. I knew with some mysterious, unwavering certainty that I was meant to be here, doing exactly this.
With these men, I admitted to myself. The Moon had all but slapped me in the face with it.
On Heath’s command, we took off running into the woods.
Over the next few hours, our Support Squadron had most of the fun.
We’d run into several dozen swarmers as we traipsed along hiking paths, waded through the ankle-deep water of a creek, and clambered up a steep rocky hill, all in the near pitch-black, aided by the sharpened night vision of our beasts.
A pair of Rippers had surprised us at the top of that hill, but Heath, Aiden, Wyatt, and I were able to put them down without anyone having to shift.
Masculine shouts and eerie screeches echoed all around us. Our fellow campers were keeping busy.
After we traversed the top of the hill for fifteen minutes, Heath touched a finger to the comm in his ear.
“Shit,” he barked. “We’ve got a new rift opening near the family camping area. Half a mile up ahead.”
We scrambled down the rocky slope in an unorganized fashion, reformed our group, then sprinted through the trees. Minutes later, we emerged onto the campgrounds.
Dozens of picnic tables sat under a large open-air pavilion.
A nearby rectangular concrete building contained the bathrooms and showers.
In the distance, the spacious RV park was deserted, a single chain draped across the entrance to the gravel parking lot.
Looming in front of us was a huge playground, its multicolored towers and slides muted and sad under the cloudy dark sky.
Floating right behind the playground, as high as the tallest slide, was a rift.
“Fuck me,” Ian whispered.
Our entire unit slowed to a stop for a moment, taking it in.
As many times as I’d been out during curfew, as many wraiths as I’d killed, I’d never seen a live rift.
It was something the Guardians assumed correctly—wraiths didn’t tend to spawn in the city.
There weren’t enough shifter souls there to draw them out of their realm, and the ones that did rampage through our streets usually came from the more active neighboring zones.
From the looks on the faces of my unit, this was a first for all of us.