Chapter 64
Valens
Iknocked on the door of Kane’s office, unsure if he was still there after I missed the pack meeting earlier.
I hoped he was, because I had big news. I did it.
My heart pounded with excitement to relay what I’d discovered.
It had taken nearly a full week of late-night reading to figure out what I was missing, but I’d finally found what I needed in the guardians’ journals.
“Come in,” the high alpha called.
I stepped into the office, surprised to find him alone, bent over a map, covered in pins in various colors. He waved me into the chair across from his desk, and I sank into it.
Kane looked up from the map, focusing his full attention on me. “How is your project coming?”
I pulled the palm-sized silver device I’d created from my pocket and slid it over to him.
He picked it up, turning it over in his hands. “This is it?”
“It is. And it works.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You successfully removed a collar?”
I nodded. “From a cheetah shifter. And he had some interesting things to say once the fog cleared.”
Kane leaned forward, as excited as I was at the news. “Do tell.”
“There’s a camp. It’s only a mile past our farthest patrol, and the pixies are there.
ODL too. I asked if the ODL were also under the control of the devices, but he didn’t know.
He also had no information about Narcissa working with them, so I think they’re still completely separate.
He blanched when I mentioned her name. Poor guy has been gone for over a year. ”
“A year? Good Goddess. Even before they took the shot at my father, then.”
“Unfortunately, yes. And according to Kofi, he wasn’t the one held the longest. There are locals who’ve been missing for more than two years. This has been a long time coming. Who knows how long it took the pixie king to come up with the first prototype of the collars?”
Kane swore long and low under his breath. “A camp, though. That’s something we might be able to work with.” He rubbed the back of his neck, considering.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing. I had an idea, if you would consider it?”
“Anything. You made the discovery, you should get a say in how it’s used.” He gestured for me to speak.
“I was thinking we could take a small group of fighters, no more than four or five, and scout the camp. We might get the opportunity to free some of their forces in secret before the next attack, maybe figure out if Bastian, the ODL leader, is there.”
“Lucien thinks he’s been suborned by the pixie king, but personally, I think it’s more likely he’s been clapped in a mind-control collar too.
He’s the one giving the orders, and with his psychic abilities, he could command the whole of the ODL.
That makes him an extremely valuable target for the pixie king. ”
I sat back, considering that. “I think you’re right. It would explain why none of the ODL forces we’ve seen are collared, yet they’re all fighting. They’re still under orders.”
Kane nodded gravely. “If you could find Bastian and release him, that would take a huge chunk out of the attacking forces.”
I drummed my fingers on the desk. It was a tall order to find one man in the middle of a war camp we had no eyes inside of, but… it would be a game changer if we could pull it off. “I’m more than willing to try.”
“Good. Who do you want to take with you?”
I shrugged. “Who can you spare?”
Kane made a few calls, and within minutes, Gael, Samuel, and a wolf I’d never met before walked in, all dressed for battle and strapped with weapons to roll out. While I wasn’t fully outfitted, I always had my guardian’s sword on me these days. It was more than sufficient for a stealth mission.
A warm sense of approval hit me, as if the sword itself agreed I didn’t need any other weapons. Interesting.
“Gael and Samuel, you obviously know. This is Julius, my head enforcer in Pack Blackwater. He’s been holding down the fort in Alaska while we deal with all this abroad. They got in late last night because they traveled in with some members of the Dena’ina pack, who are our closest neighbors.”
We shook hands, and his steely eyes told me he’d seen and done plenty to qualify him for the mission. If Kane trusted him, that was good enough for me.
“Thank you all for coming.” I quickly filled them in on what I’d told Kane, explaining how to use the collar-removal tool, and their excitement visibly rose by the end of the update.
“Fuck yes. This is the break we’ve needed,” Samuel said, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Do we know what this Bastian fellow looks like?” Gael asked, more measured.
“Reed’s tech team pulled a recent photo for us.” Kane put a picture up on the wall. Bastian was an ugly bastard who looked like he spat nails, with a calculating gleam in his eyes. He’d be easy enough to spot.
“You’re going to be greatly outnumbered, and we only have intel from one source. If you can’t get in and out cleanly, hold off. Gather what information you can, and get back here before nightfall.”
“Yes, Alpha,” we all intoned together.
And then we were off.
We fanned out and ran through the woods in complete silence, each of us staying within eyesight of the men closest to us.
After we left our own border, we slowed, moving closer together and prioritizing stealth over speed. It didn’t take us long to spot the outskirts of the camp between the trees, because it was huge.
The outskirts were tents, hastily constructed campfires dotting the open spaces between the clustered shelters.
It was enough equipment that they had to be magically portaling it all in, or else our surveillance would have picked it up.
We split into predetermined pairs—Julius with me, Gael and Samuel together—and split to circle the camp in opposite directions.
About ten minutes into our circuit, I realized the gravity of the situation. The encampment was fucking enormous and teeming with supes. More than we’d even seen yet. I’d seen magical scorpions, nymphs, and what I was pretty sure were harpies. I didn’t even know those were real.
We moved in silence, observing the camp as was our plan, until Julius’s hand landed on my arm, stopping me in my tracks.
He pointed his fingers to his eyes, then ahead to an area on our track, and I saw the reason he’d stopped us.
A returning patrol. Two ODL enforcers, two pixies, and a couple of lesser fae bringing up the rear.
They were chatting and walking without worrying about how much noise they made, clearly not concerned about an attack.
We waited and watched as they wandered back into the camp, then resumed our circuit more carefully. I lost track of how much time had passed before there was a break in the small outer tents that allowed us to see farther into the camp.
I caught Julius’s eye and nodded toward the break, indicating I wanted a closer look. He nodded, and we inched closer, using trees and brush for cover. Eventually, the foliage ended, and we had to risk hiding behind one of the tents.
We peered around the edge, and I spotted the biggest, most ornate tent I’d seen yet, alone in the middle of a clearing.
“What do you want to bet me that somebody important is in there?” I whispered.
Before he could answer, Bastian himself strode through the tent flaps, a pixie flying out alongside him, hovering at eye level with the general.
No, I corrected myself. Not just any pixie—he wore a tiny golden crown, the rest of his body also adorned with white robes and an absurd amount of golden jewelry. This was the king. The troublemaker in chief behind the entire damn war.
Who apparently thought himself the next Julius Caesar. I resisted the urge to snort at the ridiculous way he was dressed.
Unfortunately, they were in the very heart of the camp, and there was no visible collar on the ODL leader that we could see.
I stepped back behind the tent out of sight and turned to Julius.
“We found him, but we can’t get to him in the dead middle of camp in broad daylight.
As many magic users as they have with them, there has got to be some shielding around here too.
” Julius had a rifle slung over his shoulder, but we’d all agreed it would be a last-ditch option.
Firing off a shot would alert everyone to where we were, and it also might not work.
Any time we’d faced the ODL, their most powerful attackers had shields that took time and energy to break through.
From the tent at our side, a chainsaw snore ripped through our quiet conversation. Julius grinned. “But what if we could?”
Five minutes later, we’d tied up and gagged both of the tent’s occupants and donned their uniforms. Mine fit pretty well, but Julius’s was baggy. He’d lost rock-paper-scissors, and his sour expression said he was still salty about it.
He peeked out of the front flap of the tent. “Okay, so, we’re just trying to get close and keep an eye on the general, until we get a chance to get him alone. Other than that, we’re avoiding cats and any other supes that could identify us by scent.”
“Yep,” I agreed.
“Let’s do this, then.” He ducked through the flap, and, after a deep breath, I followed.
To my eternal delight, no one looked twice at us in the borrowed uniforms. We did our best to stay downwind of anyone we approached in case we needed to dodge anyone who might scent us, but the wind was pretty dead, which made it easier.
We wound through the tent city toward the center of the encampment, moving slowly to blend in with the other off-duty soldiers ambling about.
It took us a while to get eyes on Bastian again, and I knew Gael and Samuel had to be wondering where we were by now.
He was in a group of uniformed enforcers, so we passed him, doing our best to be inconspicuous.
After we made it fully out of sight, we doubled back, lurking behind a nearby outhouse. The reek of it kept most other people away.
You’d think with as many supes as they have here, one of them could have used a little power to deal with their shit in a less disgusting manner.
“Should we try to get closer?” Julius asked, grimacing about the stench.
I didn’t blame him. My wolf was pissed about it too. “Yes, but I think we should wait until the people he was talking to leave, or he leaves. We don’t want a crowd.”
“He’s psychic. He can call for help whenever he wants, and we can’t stop him,” Julius reminded me.
“Well, fuck. At least we’ll have a few seconds, then. If we knock him out, he can’t call anyone else while we search him for a mind-control device.”
“It’s as good a plan as any.”
With that settled, we headed back Bastian’s way, cutting in closer this time. He was only talking to a single enforcer, and Julius and I exchanged a look.
Go time.
We both turned toward them, strolling their way. Ten yards out, close enough to hear the conversation, it got harder to walk, like my legs were trapped in quicksand. A panicked glance Julius’s way showed he wasn’t faring any better.
“You there! Soldiers! Why are you in the restricted area without your clearance medallion?” Bastian snapped, glaring directly at us.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Of course there was a magical trap. They had supes of all kinds here; they’d obviously put their talents to work.
“Uh, must have left it in yesterday’s uniform. Sorry, sir.” Julius grinned, affecting a drunken mannerism. “Won’t happen again.”
“No, it won’t.” Bastian strode across the space, scowling as I tried and failed to back away.
My legs were locked in place now; I couldn’t move them at all.
“Because you aren’t Jameson or Creed.” He inspected the name patches on the chest of our stolen uniforms. “They’re drunken losers who don’t have clearance to this area. ”
The sound of running feet hit me a second later, and I knew we were up shit creek.
A second later, I felt the pinch of a needle stabbing into the side of my neck, and the world tilted on its axis.
As everything started to go dark and I lost control of my muscles, I caught a silver flash under the sleeve of Bastian’s uniform, a single bright sigil dancing before my eyes as everything else faded.
I’d confirmed the general was wearing a control device, but it was too little, too late.