“So, that counts as mountains around here?” Dante asked skeptically as he stared at the rise of land the river descended from.

“I never said it was mountains, only obviously elevated land,” Dean pointed out.

Not that the land had been smooth to begin with. Even if it wasn’t for the fact that the jungle was so overgrown it felt like it was actively fighting their every other step, there was still the land to contend with. It had dipped and risen seemingly without any rhyme or reason. Yet, it wasn’t nearly as elevated as the land that now stood before them. It was definitely no mountain range, but it was much higher than the surrounding area.

“Okay. Well if this is the ‘elevated’ land that you’re looking for, where do we go next?”

Dean could actually hear the quotes put around the word elevated. He had dealt with Dante enough to know that the man wasn’t being as snarky as he sounded. When it came to Dante, when he was being sarcastic or swearing a lot, you were okay. It was when he started brooding quietly by himself that you had to watch out. Honestly, he and Apollo seemed the least affected by the climate, even if they were as red-faced and sweat soaked as the rest of them.

“Let me double-check everything and get my bearings. I don’t want us to end up somewhere we’re not supposed to be.”

“Does in the middle of the jungle, with no idea where we’re at count as where we’re not supposed to be?” Dante asked, now smirking at Dean.

Refusing to take the bait, Dean shook his head lightly and pulled the map from his bag. If he was reading the compass right, they hadn’t veered too much off the intended path. He thought that should be a good thing, but somehow the idea that everything was going right for them so far made him uneasy. It was paranoia, since the last mission he’d headed had gone to hell so quickly. It still made him twitchy.

“Alright, so we’ve been heading mostly north, following the river,” he said aloud, the habit allowing him to think more clearly. “Which means, we need to head east from here.”

“East to where?” Apollo asked, glancing in the direction they were meant to walk.

“There’s apparently a grove of statues and flowers we need to find.”

“Flowers,” Dante said blandly.

“Dante, don’t be an ass,” Mikael grumbled at him, giving the cocky man a glare.

“What? I’m just saying that it’s a little weird that it’s flowers, so what?” Dante protested.

“What sort of flowers?” Apollo asked, not even bothering to pretend he wasn’t ignoring the other two.

“Big ones. They ‘make a rainbow’ and smell like ‘sugar-laced rotten meat’,” Dean told him, quoting the journal he had brought with them.

Silun leaned over to read the journal. “That’s pretty detailed for something you said was vague.”

“Yeah, it gets a bit weird after that. If it wasn’t for the fact that Nox was a shaman, I would have said he was high on something from the way he describes strange lights in the sky and smells that don’t seem to really be there.”

Silun raised a questioning brow, but added nothing else as he watched Dante and Mikael bicker. It was obvious to Dean that neither one of them was really feeling the argument, and they were just doing it to pass the time, or maybe amuse themselves. The only people Dante didn’t have an almost aggressive relationship with were Silun and Apollo. Silun because he seemed to have a soft spot for the younger werewolf, and Apollo because, in Dean’s opinion, it was next to impossible to be rude to the silent scout.

“You two are such children,” Katarina huffed, fanning herself with a leaf she had plucked from somewhere.

“He started it,” Mikael protested, belatedly realizing how childish the sentence sounded.

Dean shook his head at his mate, shooting him a small smile so he knew that he didn’t mean it. Mikael had been on edge as much as Katarina had, though his nervousness manifested as an unusual silence, as opposed to her perpetual surliness. Dean hoped that whatever had taken over Mikael’s frequent quiet moments wasn’t going to be a problem. It wasn’t like Mikael to keep something from Dean, at least not if it was something significant. He hoped they had moved beyond that.

“Well, now that we have that settled,” Dean said with a repressed smile. “Maybe we can get moving?”

With more grumbling from Dante, they continued moving deeper into the folds of the jungle. Dean had yet to risk reaching out with his senses again, but he would swear that the feeling of the jungle was growing stronger the deeper they went. There was nothing definite and it hadn’t reached the levels it had with even the lightest brush of his senses. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling of oppressive power around him as they ventured further into the jungle. The headache he had developed the day before hadn’t quite gone away just yet, sitting at the back of his head with a steady throb.

What he wanted was to ask Silun if maybe he was sensing anything as they moved deeper. However, that would lead to questions from the others; questions he wasn’t quite ready to field. He appreciated their collective concern for his safety, but he didn’t need them hovering over him like he might collapse from overextending himself at any point. That first taste of the kind of energy this jungle contained had been enough to keep caution at the forefront in his mind.

Silun himself was growing almost as quiet as Mikael as they traveled deeper. It irked Dean that he would have to wait until they had a quiet moment before he could question the young shaman. If Dean was noticing subtle changes in their environment over time, he would bet there were changes to whatever it was Silun was able to sense.

He suddenly realized that they had stopped, the whole group staring at him. Mikael looked at him with faint amusement and Dante was frowning at him in annoyance. The rest were staring at him with a mixture of confusion and slight concern. Belatedly, he realized that Dante had been talking to him from the front of their party and had asked him a question.

“Sorry,” he said with a shrug. “What?”

Dante scoffed. “I asked how far we are gonna be traveling this time.”

“Oh. I don’t actually know. Damian didn’t give even a hint of how long he traveled when he wrote down the descriptions. I’d say that we’re gonna have to rely on your guys’ werewolf senses to find the next place, but I’m betting the place with the statues and flowers will be easy to find. I get the feeling it has a strong enough smell to it that even I could find it.”

“You’re not gonna find anything if you keep going off into your own little world,” Dante huffed, turning back around to continue leading them.

For the better part of the rest of the day, Dean did his best to keep himself from getting too distracted. It became increasingly difficult as their steady trek continued. The throb at the back of his head was growing stronger and his thoughts were growing harder to ignore. It was as if the energy of the jungle were infusing the power of his thoughts, making them as demanding and hungry to be acknowledged as the living things growing around him. He had never been so ill at ease with his own thoughts, nor had he ever felt as if he couldn’t control his own mind. It was a disconcerting feeling and he was quickly becoming worried that he might end up being a hazard to this mission rather than a help.

Before he could finish the thought, a horrific smell hit him. It was overpowering enough that all rampant thoughts in his mind faded to the background the instant he registered the smell. His face scrunched up and he staggered as he tried to follow the others, coughing as he tried to cover his nose.

“Holy hell, that’s awful,” he groaned.

“Hasn’t been any better for us for the past half a mile,” Katarina groused from behind him.

Dean glanced back, and caught Mikael’s eye, who simply shrugged. It hadn’t occurred to him that they would have been smelling it for far longer than he had. He didn’t know how they had tolerated it for so long, without even the slightest indication that they were smelling anything foul. Nox’s description of the smell was appropriate, he would give the dead man that much. It was the equivalent of taking several rotting carcasses and drenching them in sickening sweet syrup and tossing rotted sugar on top.

He was bound and determined that if they could tolerate it, then so could he. The smell seemed to settle into his stomach and curdle as they walked onward. There was a faint hope that it might eventually become one of those smells you adjusted to, but he wasn’t really betting on that happening. It was so pungent, he didn’t think there was any way for his mind to shut it out and pretend it didn’t exist.

“Silun? What is it?” Mikael’s voice asked from behind him.

Dean turned to see the young werewolf staring into the distance, having stopped walking. His eyes danced as he watched the air before him. Silun’s lips moved, as if he were speaking to himself.

“Silun?” Dean asked, stepping closer to him.

“There’s something here.”

Dean blinked at the response, turning around to stare in the direction Silun was looking. There was nothing there, but he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Ever since he had tried to connect with the jungle, he had felt a deep sense of unease that he hadn’t been able to shake. Now Silun was talking about something else being there and it was doing nothing to ease Dean’s nerves.

“A spirit?” he asked, hoping it was, and a friendly one at that.

Silun’s face shifted to a soft smile. “A bunch of them.”

From the way he was turning his head in multiple directions, Dean didn’t think he was exaggerating. Everyone else had stopped, with Apollo and Dante talking at the head of their group. Katarina and Mikael had stepped back from Silun, leaving Dean to watch him silently. There was always a sense of understanding from everyone else whenever Dean or Silun did their thing. Dean supposed that just as he would never truly understand what it was like to be a werewolf, they knew they would never understand what being a druid or shaman meant.

Silun began speaking in a low voice, his words difficult to hear as he began to walk forward. Dean watched him, growing nervous again as Silun began to split from the group. It wasn’t the first time he had seen Silun talk quietly to the air. It was the first time he had done it in the middle of a strange area, walking away from them as he appeared to talk to himself.

Finally, when Silun was a good distance away, Dean stirred, “Silun! Don’t go too far, okay?”

The shaman didn’t appear to hear him, continuing to walk forward with that vague smile still on his face. Something at the edge of Dean’s senses piqued, drawing his attention. It wasn’t a feeling that he could define precisely, but it felt like something shifted all around them. His eyes widened as he realized he was sensing the jungle’s energies, even while refusing to open up his druidic senses. The strength of the jungle was escalating to the point that it didn’t matter if he refused to see it or feel it, it was apparent to him all the same.

“Silun!” Dean called, now beginning to move toward the shaman.

Mikael grabbed his arm as Katarina moved forward with a huff. “I’ll get him. Little idiot.”

“Dean?” Mikael asked in a concerned voice, pulling him closer.

“Something’s wrong Mikael,” Dean said.

“How so?”

A gust of wind blew through the plants and trees around them, making them wince against the force of it. The sky darkened and Dean glanced up to see that it was now filled with dark clouds. Wind burst through the foliage once more, bringing with it the smell of ozone and rain.

“What the hell?” Mikael asked, looking up with a frown.

Dean glanced over at Apollo and Dante, then at Katarina who was still stomping after Silun, and his fear grew. “Hey! Don’t separate!”

Before anyone could answer, there was a crack like an explosion from the sky above. Rain began to pour, falling in blinding sheets. Almost immediately, Dean could only see a few feet in front of him. There was a muffled shout of what could have been surprise or outrage from somewhere, but he couldn’t tell who it was. The mixture of the rain pouring down and the constant cracks of thunder was drowning out his sense of distance.

“Dante! Apollo!” Dean called, trying to make his way to where he thought he had last seen them.

Mikael held tight to him, keeping pace with him as they tried to find the others. The sudden storm showed no signs of stopping. It was as violent as it was sudden, and it made the treacherous terrain all the more dangerous. The soaked ground and plants caused their feet to slip, slowing them more than their near-blindness already had.

Another crack of thunder, and the air around them filled with a blinding light. Heat slapped across Dean’s face before what sounded like an explosion almost deafened him. He only had a moment to register the tree in front of them split in two before he heard Mikael shout in surprise from behind him. The hand at his elbow yanked backward, and he felt Mikael tumble. The two of them hit the ground, hitting the top of the slope they were on and tumbling down it with a chorus of shocked cries.

Plants slapped at his face as his body tumbled and rolled down the embankment. He didn’t remember there being that big of an incline nearby. Either they had walked further through the storm than he thought they did or they had missed the hill that they were on. It felt like they tumbled for miles before they reached the bottom, Dean slamming into Mikael’s prone body and flopping over him gracelessly, then rolling a bit further.

He spat out the mud that filled his mouth with a curse. “Mikael!”

“Here!”

If it wasn’t for the fact that he could see the dim outline of his mate, the muffled sound would have made him think that Mikael was further away from him. Mikael was pushing up from the ground, checking himself over as best he could with water pouring down his face. He shook himself as he tried to help Dean up, who struggled to get out of the patch of thick mud that he had fallen into after rolling off Mikael.

“We have to find the others!” Dean yelled, having no other way to be heard over the sound of the ferocious storm.

“We can’t! Not in this storm,” Mikael shouted back.

Dean growled out another curse but nodded so that Mikael could see him. There was no way they would find anything in this storm. They couldn’t see much more than a couple of feet in front of them and had to scream to be heard. Their chances of finding the others, especially after falling down as far as they had, were low.

“Shelter?” Dean yelled.

Mikael nodded vigorously as he turned around, probably in the hope of finding something that would serve as shelter for them. When he began to walk, Dean reached out and gripped onto his arm. Mikael looked back and smiled, looking water-soaked and handsome as he tried to lead them to what would count as a shelter.