Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Ryder locked the battery into the drone and tugged once to confirm it held. The launch mat lay on the grass beside Fate Mountain Lodge, close enough to the stone service wing that the building blocked his view of the upper slope.
Wind came across the ridge in cool bursts, carrying the smell of cut grass and stirring the pines beyond the lawn where the wedding ceremony would be held.
Below the ridge, Lake Fate flashed between the trees.
Steel Protection was guarding the wedding because the bride’s ex had threatened to sabotage it.
Dom and Blaze were watching the people on the ground.
Ryder pulled up the property map and checked the tree line above the ceremony site.
A strip of open grass ran between the woods and the stone wing.
Anyone approaching through the trees would have to cross it, but Ryder couldn’t see it from his position, and the slope blocked Blaze’s view from below.
Ryder put on his headset and started the motors. The drone lifted from the mat, cleared the lodge roof, and steadied above the building. From above, Ryder could see the wedding site on a cleared section of the ridge. Greenery and pale flowers covered the wooden arch.
Ryder checked the driveway and the parking lot. He then brought the camera along the north tree line. Music began on the lawn. Ryder could hear it from around the corner, but the wind made it faint and indistinct. Guests sat, and the first members of the wedding party gathered near the lodge doors.
The flower girl made it halfway down the aisle before she stopped and began picking up the petals she’d just scattered.
Her father came from the first row, took her hand, and walked with her while she continued dropping the petals one at a time.
Ryder watched through his drone camera with a smile on his lips.
Nell would love that. He would tell her tonight.
When he turned the drone toward the driveway, the battery had fallen below ten percent charge.
Ryder reached beneath the folding table for the spare case.
It wasn’t there. He had loaded the aircraft, controller, radio, and launch equipment while the spares finished charging.
Then Dom had asked him a question about the guest route.
Ryder had answered while thinking about Nell being frightened on the waterfront, and he had left without making the final check.
The installed battery couldn’t remain airborne through the ceremony.
Once he landed, Steel Protection would lose the view from above.
Heat climbed Ryder’s neck. This was a fuckup.
He pressed the radio. “I left the spare flight batteries at headquarters. I have eleven minutes before safe return.”
Dom replied. “Finish the drive and north tree line. Blaze, move closer to the lower opening.”
“Moving,” Blaze said.
Ryder checked the reserve, then looked over the equipment at his feet.
The spare flight batteries were gone, but the radio kit held two charged field packs for the portable camera mast, and the aircraft tool pouch contained the regulated tether adapter they carried for fixed overwatch.
The adapter was designed for this drone, and the field packs were designed to feed it.
“I have another option,” Ryder said. “The camera-mast packs will run the aircraft through the tether adapter. I’ll have to bring it down and convert it. The pack charge gives us about twenty minutes, but the tether limits me to the crossing.”
Dom keyed his radio. “Blaze, take the crossing during the changeover. Ryder, land at reserve.”
“Copy.”
Ryder completed the drive and tree-line pass, then brought the drone back while it still had a full safe-return margin.
Blaze moved uphill as the aircraft descended.
The landing gear touched the mat, Ryder stopped the motors, and he pulled the hot battery free.
The live view went dark. He set up the drone’s tethered power supply and secured the cable before launch.
“Connection secure. Power stable.” Ryder tested the tethered power setup, then launched the drone once he was sure it was working properly. “Test clear. Going to fixed overwatch.”
The drone climbed above the roofline, carrying the light tether with it, and stopped where the camera could hold the upper crossing and the outer bend of the drive in the same broad view. The processional music changed. The bride stepped onto the lawn with her father, and the guests rose.
At a bend before the parking lot, a gray sedan stopped instead of continuing into the lot. A man in a dark jacket and cap got out and crossed the roadside grass toward the north trees.
Ryder centered the camera on him. “Unauthorized approach. Gray sedan beyond guest parking. One adult male entering from the north. Dark jacket, jeans, and cap.”
“Blaze, lower opening,” Dom said. “Detain him.”
Blaze cut behind the lodge toward the lower edge of the trees while Ryder followed the man as far as the tethered position allowed. The man reached the first pines and disappeared under the branches.
“He entered the trees,” Ryder said. “Last direction puts him above the service path. I don’t have the canopy.”
Ryder moved the camera to the grass strip. The frame held the crossing, the gray stone corner, and the backs of the last chairs. He couldn’t search for the man under the trees, but the man couldn’t reach the wedding without crossing open ground.
The officiant welcomed the guests. The bride and groom stood beneath the arch with their hands joined.
“Crossing is clear,” Ryder said.
“Blaze has the lower path,” Dom replied. “Hold your view.”
The wind pushed at the aircraft, but the tether stayed aligned below it. Ryder corrected, re-centered the strip, and watched the field pack estimate fall. A dark shoulder appeared between two pines near the lower end of the crossing.
“Movement. Lower north trees, twenty yards above Blaze. Subject is angling toward the service path.”
Blaze changed direction before the man cleared the branches. Dom moved behind the last row of chairs, staying out of the guests’ attention while he cut off the route to the lawn. The intruder came out of the trees at a run.
Blaze met him on the service path. The man tried to turn uphill, saw Dom moving toward him, and swung at Blaze instead. Blaze blocked the strike, caught his arm, and drove him facedown onto the damp ground. Dom secured the other wrist.
“Contained,” Dom said over the radio. “Ryder, vehicle.”
Ryder shifted the camera as far as the tether allowed. The gray sedan remained where the man had left it. “Vehicle is stationary. No second person visible.”
Dom and Blaze detained the intruder and secured the area.
On the lawn, the officiant continued speaking.
A few guests in the back row glanced toward the service wing, but the bride and groom remained beneath the arch.
The threat hadn’t reached the ceremony. The controller gave a low external-power warning.
“Field pack is at reserve,” Ryder said. “Bringing the aircraft down.”
“Copy,” Dom said. “We’ve got the ex detained. He won’t be causing any more trouble today.”
Dom and Blaze escorted the man off the property while Ryder packed up the tether system. With the immediate threat gone, Ryder moved to the edge of the patio, where he could watch the ceremony and keep an eye on the lodge grounds.
The bride and groom were exchanging vows. The bride held both of the groom’s hands as she began. Her voice shook, and she stopped for a breath before trying again.
“I choose you in the life we planned and in the life we can’t plan.”
As the groom began his vows, the bride laughed and wiped her tears. Then the officiant pronounced them married and the guests rose with enthusiastic applause. The lodge doors opened and the reception moved inside and onto the patio.
Ryder remained nearby while the guests ate and the evening darkened around the lodge.
The band started the first dance. Ryder could see the bride and groom through the open doors.
She said something against his shoulder, and he laughed before turning her beneath his arm. Ryder wanted that with Nell.
The thought came so suddenly that it shocked him. He wanted to come home to her. He wanted ordinary dinners and shared mornings and whatever stories they collected during the day. Except Nell wasn’t his mate.
They had known each other for a year and a half. They’d spent countless hours together, eaten at the diner, hugged, touched, argued, laughed, and shared nearly every part of their lives. If there was going to be a mate recognition between them, surely it would have happened by now.
It hadn’t.
Nell was his best friend and nothing more. That was what she had always been. But after watching the bride and groom together today, Ryder could no longer pretend he was happy being alone.
At home, he changed into sweatpants, grabbed a beer, and settled onto the couch.
He pulled out his phone and opened mate.com.
Everyone in his pack had used the service to find their fated mates.
Ryder had wanted a mate someday, but he had never been ready to act on the desire.
He was still young. Though he wasn’t getting any younger.
He wished his mate could be Nell. But even if it wasn’t her, maybe it was time to find out who was.
Ryder started a profile. He entered his name, age, and shifter type.
In the public profile-name field, he typed Young Wolf.
He was the youngest kid in his family and the youngest member of Steel Protection.
The site asked for a photograph. Ryder chose one his sister had taken at a family barbecue.
Wind had pushed his sandy curls across his forehead.
The personality questionnaire moved through interests, values, and what he wanted in a relationship.
Then it asked which vegetable he would be.
Snap pea made Ryder laugh, so he chose it.
The final page asked for a short introduction.
Ryder wrote, drone pilot, camera guy, motorcycle rider, and youngest kid in a loud family and the youngest member of a louder pack. I like mountain roads, family barbecues, fixing equipment, and taking more photographs than anyone requested.
He read it once and submitted the profile.
A loading bar moved across the screen while the site compared his answers with its existing profiles. Then the results page appeared.
100% MATCH: Free Bird
Nell’s photograph filled the space beneath the name. Her dark chestnut hair hung loose around her shoulders, and she had the same smile she had given him when she reached him in the lobby at her graduation.
His wolf surged toward her with enough force to drive him out of the chair. The legs scraped across the floor, and Ryder turned toward the apartment door before he stopped.
Nell.
He wanted the familiar scent of her hair when she hugged him, the soft clarity of her voice, and the way her words quickened when something excited her. He wanted to drive the miles to Portland to be with her now.
Nell was his mate.