Santiago greeted me onscreen wearing a maniacal grin. Gore smeared his face, and his hair was plastered to one side of his scalp with dried blood. Portia crammed in behind him and let Mags surface long enough to wave at me before tucking her back in where it was safe.
Call me optimistic, but I figured that meant their mission was also successful.
I wasn’t sure yet if that was a good thing or a bad thing beyond the obvious that I was grateful we had all made it out the other side unscathed. “Where’s Miller?”
Santiago cranked up his deranged smile into berserker territory. “Digesting.”
“I see.” The division of assets made a lot more sense once he put it like that. “Cole is too.”
“Cole is probably wishing he had a toothpick right about now. Miller doesn’t have that problem.”
Meaning . . . he swallowed his victims whole versus chewing first?
Not gonna ask. Don’t wanna know. I’m happy living here in Ignoranceville, population: Luce.
He peered around me but got an eyeful of headrest since I was holed up in the SUV. “Where are the others?”
“Cole is on aerial surveillance, Thom went cat in the driver’s seat to clean up, Wu is on the phone with Kapoor.” I spun the tablet around to give him an eyeful of Thom licking his unmentionables. “And I got the pleasure of checking in with unit two, which would be you.”
“Uh, no.” He laughed with an edge of challenge. “We’re unit one.”
Exhausted, filthy, and smelly I might be, but I couldn’t resist needling him.
“’Fraid not.” I tsked at him. “Cole and I are both here. That makes us number one.”
“I said we’re unit one.” Santiago’s face got a lot closer to the screen. “If we’re talking number one—”
“Are you two children really fighting over this?” Portia palmed his forehead and shoved him back. “Now?” She caught sight of my face and sighed. “Him, I get. I made peace with the fact he’s a man-child long ago. But I expected better from you, Luce.”
“I’ll try to behave.” I don’t think the smirk sold her on my contrition. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, report.”
“The nest was exactly where Sariah indicated. It was located in a warehouse district, which made it easier on us. One human was injured in the skirmish—a security guard on watch—but we left him at the hospital. We counted a dozen Drosera and maybe another dozen charun of various species. All local.”
Mixing ranks couldn’t be a good sign. “She’s recruiting?”
“You remember Veronica? The receptionist at the lab? The one you hid from to avoid having your feet kissed?” Santiago smirked at my unease. “There are fanatics like her on every terrene. Each member of the cadre is idolized. Some charun worship the four as goddesses. There are entire sects devoted to furthering your goals, and that means planting agents throughout the terrenes. All the cadre has to do is ask, and their vessels will sacrifice themselves on the altar of your ambition.”
“Good to know.” Pieces were shifting in the back of my mind, connections snicking into place, but I couldn’t afford to get distracted. “Anything else to report?”
“We won, obviously.” He snorted like it could have gone any other way. “Miller handled the runners, and we tossed the rest in the warehouse and set it on fire.”
“Two fires, two cities, and two poor arson investigators who are getting wakeup calls right about now.”
“Aren’t you glad you’re no longer one of the schmucks who gets lassoed into lending a hand?”
“I loved my job,” I said softly. “I would trade them for the honor any day of the week.”
The cat beside me paused his grooming, his sky-high leg drooping.
“But that would mean losing you guys.” I scratched under the cat’s chin. “I had that life, and it was a good one, but . . . ” I shook my head, “ . . . it was never mine. Not really.” I included Santiago in my smile. “This is what I was meant to do, to be, and I can’t regret learning how it feels to belong.”
“Even if it means ending your nights sticky in places you can’t mention in polite company?”
“What polite company?” Portia cackled. “You? Me? Mags, maybe. Okay, fine. Miller has manners.”
“I have manners,” Santiago snarled. “Want me to introduce you to them?”
“You didn’t, did you?” She gawked at his lap then started baby-talking his crotch. “Did he name you guys Manners?”
“What?” Blistering purple scalded his cheeks. “No, I did not name any parts of my anatomy Manners.”
“Guys.” They ignored me. I tried again, louder. “Guys.”
“What?” they chorused, almost nose to nose.
“You’re overlooking a critical detail here.”
“Is that some kind of come-on?” Santiago frowned. “If so, no. You can’t overlook my details.”
“Guys. Parts. Details.” I spelled it out for them. “As in they’re all plural.”
They exchanged a puzzled look that sent heat rushing up my nape.
“And?” Santiago demanded at the same time Portia said, “So?”
“Never mind.” I closed my eyes. “I don’t want to know.”
“Well that answers that question,” Portia murmured.
Santiago glared at her. “What question?”
“Cole and her. Her and Cole.”
He rolled his hand. “What about them?”
Portia formed a circle with one hand while sticking the pointer finger of her other through the hole.
“Why didn’t you just say they hadn’t screwed yet?” Santiago thumped her on the forehead. “Besides, if they were having sex, we’d know it. We’d smell her all over him. You know how Otillians have to mark every damn thing as theirs.”
“I’m stepping out now.” I left the tablet on in case Thom decided to shift and engage them, but I was done. The fresh air did me a world of good as I hunted down Wu, who was tapping his phone against his chin. “Hey.”
“They’re pulling your leg,” he said, distracted. “Charun males have one penis.”
A sigh gusted out of me, leaving me limp with relief. Cole was not a small man, and—since he had been carved from a blueprint for humanity and not born into his body—I imagined he was proportionate. Everywhere. And let me just add that imagining said proportions was not doing great things for my focus.
“Well,” Wu started, rolling an elegant shoulder, “unless they’re in their natural form . . . ”
About to swallow my pride and just ask outright, I noticed the merry twinkle in his eyes.
I smacked my palm against my forehead. “Not you too?”
“Charun are always in a good mood after a melee.” His eyes lightened to gold. “I’m no exception.”
“So I see.” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “I’m not going back there and dealing with that.”
“We must organize our next move.” His entire being vibrated on a frequency I imagined resonating in my bones. His happiness—satiation?—was infectious. “We’ve proven Sariah’s intel is good. We should squeeze every drop from what she’s given us.”
Squeeze every drop? I squinted at him, waiting to see who cracked first. “That was not a dick joke.”
Wu raked his teeth across his bottom lip, but it did nothing to counter his shoulders as they jostled from laughter.
“You’re all impossible.” I threw up my hands. “I’m going to read until you guys tire yourselves out.”
“You feel it too.” He caught my wrist as I turned to leave, whirling me in a complex spin that belonged on a dance floor and left me facing him. “Your blood is humming.” He cocked his head, lashes fluttering against his cheeks. “I hear its song in the beat of your heart.”
“Invest in earplugs.” I planted my palms on his chest and shoved back, or I meant to, but my hands got stuck. Not literally. Not in a charun superpower kind of way. More like I couldn’t convince myself to let go. The reaction was purely physical, but not sexual, not wholly. “What is this effect you have on me?”
“Perhaps you’re attracted to me,” he murmured. “Is the idea so repugnant?”
“No.” I smoothed a hand up to his shoulder then down his arm, marveling at how the caress calmed me more than a hot bubble bath and a good book combined. “But I’m pretty familiar with attraction, and while you’re gorgeous—and you know it, so put up your fishing pole—this is not that. This is . . . I don’t know what it is. That’s why I’m asking.”
“We resonate.” He caught my hand as it was about to fall. “I feel it too. I have since the moment I first saw you. It’s the reason why I believe we can do great things together.”
“Cole and I also resonate.” There was no other word for how attuned we were to each other. “How does that work? He and I are . . . ” I searched for a comparison that wouldn’t get Wu’s back up. “We’re tuned to a different frequency.”
“Resonance is potential.” He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles, blood and all. “All it means is we’re compatible. That compatibility doesn’t mean we’re fated mates or destined to be lovers. It’s a component in most friendships, in all the best partnerships. There might be mutual attraction, but it’s difficult to parse an emotional attachment from the physical reaction. It’s why you should never enter into a relationship that resonates unless you’re certain that person is the hum you want in your bones forever.”
The hum in my bones.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re not psychic, are you?”
“No?”
His bafflement was not a great sign. It meant resonance was real, and even the word thrummed with a rightness within me. It had the ring of a thing once forgotten but now remembered. I had been thinking of the coterie along those lines, so maybe he was right. It didn’t have to mean Wu and I were fated to be more than partners. Maybe all it required was a certain level of like-mindedness. That would explain why Cole sparked with me when he hadn’t with Conquest.
“Do you want to . . . ” I rolled my wrist, “ . . . resonate with me?”
His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Are you asking if I’m interested in more than being just your partner?”
I searched his face, curious for his reaction. “Yes.”
“You love Cole.”
Love was . . . a big word. Huge. But there wasn’t an ounce of me willing to deny it fit.
I was in love with Cole Heaton.
More than shock, I felt . . . an overwhelming sense of inevitability. There was no path forward I could imagine walking without him by my side.
Until I met him, I had never been a big believer in fate. Now I believed our mating dance had already been choreographed. All we had to do was screw up the courage to hear the music and learn the steps.
“Yes,” I rasped, the confession ripped from my soul.
“You deserve whatever happiness you can find for as long as you can hold onto it.” Gold washed over his eyes, the metallic sheen reflective in the low light. “If Cole brings you joy, then you shall have him.”
The ring of permission being granted puzzled me. Wu was in no position to palm me off on Cole. Must be the battle high warping his poor little bird brain.
“I’m going to read.” I backed away from him. “Let me know when you’ve got a plan ironed out.”
Three steps into my retreat, I bumped into a wall that might as well have been brick for all the give there was in dragon hide.
An inquisitive noise rose in Cole’s throat as he snuffled me, taking his time at each point where Wu’s touch had lingered.
An angry gurgle bubbled up through my shoulder blades where they pressed against his side.
“Upset stomach?” I reached up and scratched behind his tab ears. “I would offer you an antacid, but it would take a gallon of Pepto to make a dent after your binge.”
The dragon sighed agreement then rubbed his cheek against mine, replacing Thom’s scent markers with his own.
God save me from males of the species.
Really, I ought to be grateful for their under-chin scent glands. A cheek rub beat getting sprayed each time one wanted to mark their perceived territory. Maybe that was the real reason why the NSB spayed them.
“Sariah is online,” Thom called. “She’s demanding to speak to you, Luce.”
“Of course she is.” I patted the dragon then pushed off and headed for the SUV. “I’ll take it.” Thom passed over the tablet, and my niece stared out at me. “What’s up?”
“Our plans go up in smoke if you don’t get your asses in gear,” she said, all business. “Santiago has called in the all-clear. We’re good to move forward with the attack on the third nest. Have you decided which target to strike?”
“The larger nest,” Wu said from beside me, saving me from having to choose. “We’re in no shape to go up against their best. We would win, but it would cost us.” All traces of his earlier flirtatiousness had vanished now that his blood was cooling. The dragon’s appearance probably had something to do with it too. “We have better fighters, stronger fighters. We can take out more of them than they can of us.”
“That works for me.” I checked my phone. “It will take us two hours to get from Greenville to Jacksonville.”
The screen split, Sariah’s image compressing as Santiago popped up beside her. “It will take us three.”
“You’ll be racing the dawn,” she warned us. “You’ll have to fight quick and dirty.”
“I’ve got it covered,” Miller said in the background.
Not one single person questioned him. Odds were good I was the only one dumb enough to wonder what he meant by that, but a stomach could only hold so many bodies, right?
Miller had eaten people. No, skin suits. Most of them were buff guys or fit women. Fighters. I wasn’t clear on how digestion worked since there was a super gator stuffed in the hosts too, like some seriously fucked up turducken. But even if I downplayed the height and weight of the other coterie’s members, I was left with a disturbing gauge for Miller’s size.
Cole was large as a dragon, and his head was massive, but it was only as long as an average human body was tall. Hence the crunching. The rest of him—I hadn’t exactly whipped out a measuring tape. Reptilian tails could stretch two or three times the length of the body it was attached to, and that was certainly the case with him, but his whiplike tail alone had to be in the neighborhood of twenty feet.
And Miller was bigger. Much bigger.
“We’re heading out.” Santiago shot me a mock salute. “Don’t get started without us.”
His image disappeared from the screen, leaving me staring at Sariah, who gazed right back.
“You don’t look thrilled,” she observed. “I thought this would make you happy.”
“Death never makes me happy.” I closed the app before she drew me into another philosophical debate. I might feel I belonged with my coterie more than humans, but I was still an outsider with one foot in both worlds and no plans to change that anytime soon. “Load up.” I switched off the tablet and passed it to Thom. “We’ve still got a long night ahead of us.”
“Cole will join us there.” Thom kept his voice soft. “He needs to burn off some calories.”
“We need him to work up an appetite.” The better to devour our enemies. “Gotcha.”
Thom drove, and I rode beside him. Wu piled in behind me, his presence a tickle on my nape. Leaning my head against the window, I let sleep tug my eyelids closed.
I dreamed of verdant plants and walled-in gardens, childish laughter and the pitter-patter of tiny feet.
Jackson was a familiar stomping ground for me, and for the coterie. Finding our way around was simple enough without using the GPS. This time the Drosera had holed up in a condemned shopping mall, and that alone offered a chilling estimate of how many charun could hide within the warren of hollow stores and vacant halls.
We established our base in the parking lot attached to a grocery store about five blocks from our target.
“Having second thoughts?” Wu asked, his breath fanning my ear when he leaned forward in his seat.
“And thirds.” I swatted him away then got out of the SUV to stretch my legs. “And fourths. You?”
“This is a good sign,” he said, joining me. “A compound that size shores up our intel. So far, Sariah has been leveling with us.”
“The bangles seem to be doing their job.” A faint throb of what promised to be a migraine furrowed my brow, and I flinched when Wu smoothed it with his thumb. “Personal space.” I swatted him again. “Have you heard of it?”
“Luce enjoys her me space,” Thom said sagely. “Now he knows.”
“Thank you, Thomas.” I ruffled his hair. “You’re a clever kitty, you know that?”
Wu looked on, amused. “Is that the equivalent of telling a dog he’s a good boy?”
“Watch it, Tweety.” I pointed a finger at him. “Or I’ll let him use you as a scratching post.”
Feral delight gleamed in Thom’s eyes. “Yes.”
“Down, boy.” Wu stepped back when Thom sniffed at him and wet his lips. “Remember—” his fingers elongated, tapering into black talons, “—I have claws too.”
A sound that was a close relative to a purr rattled Thom’s chest. “I like when food fights back.”
“You’re not going to win this argument.” I chuckled at Wu. “Thom is a predatory feline. Like it or not, you’re a bird-man.”
“You liked my wings well enough,” he reminded me. “You looked disappointed when I put them away.”
“I was,” I admitted. “The coterie could use a new cat toy, but it’s not the same without the feathers.”
His flat stare kept the laughter rolling through my chest, and it felt good to have a moment of normalcy.
“We need to split into teams and secure the area.” Wu tilted his head skyward. “Can you sense Cole?”
“No.” I joined him in stargazing. “Usually it’s the wind that gives him away.”
“We have less than an hour until Santiago and the others join us.” Wu caught Thom’s eye. “Stick close to her and take zone five. I’ll handle zone four. Cole can have three when he arrives, and we’ll keep closing the net until the others get here.”
“Don’t take any risks.” I bumped Wu’s shoulder. “Find us if you need backup, and do not engage.”
“As the lady wishes.” Wu touched his fingers to his heart then set out in the opposite direction.
“He thinks you’re his.” Thom frowned at him. “He doesn’t understand you can’t be owned.”
I waved him ahead, and we started our sweep. “Wu understands more than he lets on.”
“Cole will kill him if he tries to claim you.”
I tripped over air. “It won’t come to that.”
“No,” he decided. “It won’t.” Claws sprang from his fingertips. “I’ll kill him first.”
“Tell you what.” I drew my grungy falchion and refamiliarized myself with its heft. “If Wu ever tries to club me over the head and drag me into his cave, you have my permission to kill him.”
“And eat him?”
“And eat him.”
“Do you want me to save any of the feathers for the toy you mentioned?”
His earnestness slayed me, and I pretended to give it real consideration. “That would be nice. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The outer ring was clear of charun, and we crossed paths with Wu a short time later as we spiraled closer to the nest. Cole remained MIA, but he might have stopped to purge. The weight of flying with a full stomach might have slowed him too. There was no reason to panic. Yet. Right?
He was the largest airborne charun I had met. Wu might be able to outmaneuver him, but he couldn’t take him down without help. Lots of help. A whole flock’s worth of help.
On the boundary of zone one, we met Wu for the final pass.
Wu glanced behind us. “Still no Cole?”
I quashed the nervous quiver in my abdomen. “Not yet.”
“I’ll handle recon on the nest,” Thom offered. “We’ll meet back at the car.”
The others ought to be arriving soon, and we needed to intercept them but still . . . “Are you sure?”
“I will be careful.” He slid his cheek against mine. “Cole will return soon.”
As alien as Thom’s thought process struck me at times, I marveled at how well he read me.
Either he and I weren’t so different, or his innate healing gift extended to emotional wounds too.
“We’ll backtrack and intercept the others.” I put on a brave face. “We’ll be ready to hit the ground running when you report in.”
In the blink of an eye, he transformed from man to cat. The scruffy tom flexed his wings and settled them against his spine before he strutted off, nub tail swishing.
I watched until I lost sight of him then started the walk back with Wu. We intercepted three charun, one solo in zone two and a pair in zone three, and Wu dispatched them without giving me a chance to mount a half-hearted protest that I ought to pull my own weight. For that, I was grateful.
The others were gathered around our SUV when we arrived, which had me wondering if Santiago was tracking the tablet or the vehicle, and I walked into Maggie’s arms.
“You good?” I asked over her shoulder. “You can bow out at any time.”
“I’m having trouble breathing,” she gasped. “Otherwise, I’m . . . okay.” She buried her face in my neck. “I’m going to need time to process this. Later. But I can hold it together a while longer. Portia is keeping the worst from me.” Her voice lowered. “You should have seen Miller. He was . . . ”
Terrifying . . . Horrifying . . . A monster . . . ?
“Magnificent,” she breathed. “Like one of those heroes from your kissy books.”
“My kissy books?” I leaned back and scowled. “You’re the one who started sneaking me old school Harlequin novels when I was like twelve so I could avoid talking to Dad about the birds and the bees.”
“Okay, so I got you hooked, but you’re the one who started reading paranormal romance. It was never my thing.”
Just like the small-town romances she favored with normal boys falling for normal girls hadn’t been mine. Hard to relate when normal wasn’t your default.
“I have some books you can borrow.” I pulled back and grinned at her. “If you’re ready to switch teams.”
Mags rolled her eyes. “Now you’re my demon romance dealer?”
“I didn’t say anything about demons.” Innocently, I fluttered my lashes. “Any demons in particular I should search my shelves for?” Flares ignited in her cheeks, and suddenly I was looking at Portia. “Thanks for taking such good care of her.” I squeezed her hand. “And of yourself.”
“And Santiago, and Miller.” She flicked her wrist. “Boys are so helpless. They’re all ‘this Drosera is eating my spleen’ or ‘have you seen my pinky’. Losing a finger sucks, I’ll give you that. But come on. No one even knows what a spleen does. Miller could have lived without one until it grew back.”
Panicked, I searched beyond her to where Santiago cradled his hand against his chest. After patting Portia on the shoulder, I crossed to where he leaned against our SUV and held out my hand. He snarled at me, hunching over his injury. Someone had the presence of mind to bind it, but I wanted to see the wound for myself. Instinct was pushing me to be certain my people were intact.
“Stop being a baby.” I grabbed his wrist and took care while unwrapping his injured hand. I stopped, blinked, then blasted Portia with an incredulous glare. “You put his pinky on backwards.”
“Are you sure?” She widened her eyes and cupped her mouth with her palm. “I’m ever-so-sorry.”
“Son of a bitch.” Santiago curled his lip over his teeth. “You did that on purpose.”
“I’m not a doctor.” She shrugged. “How am I supposed to know what goes where?”
“You’ve got a hand full of fingers,” he snapped. “That’s how you know.”
“Okay, kids.” I rubbed my finger gently over the fused seam. “What do we do now?”
“It will have to be cut off and regrown.” He shook his bloody hand at her. “That will take forever.”
“A week tops.” She cocked a hip and crossed her arms over her chest. “You heard Luce. Stop being a baby.”
“You do realize we’re kind of in the middle of something here.” I pegged her with a glare I would never turn on Maggie in a million years. “Why would you do this?”
Chin jutting out, Portia said, “He told us our butt looks big in our fatigues.”
Oh yes. Adrenaline had our hormones blasting off like fireworks. I’ve got to admit, it made me feel better knowing I wasn’t the only one skirting the edge of conflagration. A five-dollar word I learned from my kissy books, so there. “Santiago, why were you looking at their butt in the first place?”
“They told me to kiss it,” he said innocently. “I was debating where I ought to plant one when I noticed the options were endless.”
An inhuman snarl clawed up Portia’s throat, and her fingers hooked into talons.
“Let it go.” I stepped between them. “He’s not worth ruining your manicure.”
Portia stuck out her tongue at Santiago, who responded by lifting his hand and biting off his pinky. He spat it in his palm then hurled it at her. The digit bounced off her forehead, leaving a smear, and she caught it in the vicinity of her cleavage.
“That’s as close to copping a feel as you’ll ever get.” She tucked it away in her pocket. “Nice try, though.”
“Quiet.” The single command zipped all our lips as Miller coalesced from the darkness, his stride loose and his face serene. All he needed was a lit cigarette to complete the picture of postcoital bliss. A full belly was rare for him, from what I understood. Satiation wasn’t a bad look on him. He strolled right up to Portia and peered down at her. “Show me.”
The color drained from her face. “Miller . . . ”
He leaned in closer, and Santiago palmed a dagger as he hissed, “Show. Me.”
Maggie swam up to the surface, her ascent slower than usual. A sign of her reluctance or Portia’s?
I mirrored Santiago’s stance, falchion in hand, and watched Miller for signs this was about to go bad.
“Hi, Miller.” Mags licked the pad of her thumb then wiped a piece of God-only-knows-what off his left eyebrow with a trembling hand. The reminder of what she used to be, of all the tiny faces she had once cleaned with equal care in her classroom caved my chest beneath the pressure of my guilt. Those smudges had been dirt, not blood, but his lost boy expression brought out the nurturer in her all the same. “I can’t be here.”
“You make it better,” he said simply. “Your light lessens the darkness.”
“You’re not alone.” Maggie extended her hand to him, and this time it didn’t quiver as she squeezed his shoulder. “The only way the darkness wins is if you let it convince you otherwise.”
“Go,” he rasped. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
Portia blinked into awareness, lowering her arm, and Miller shuttered his expression.
I wrapped an arm around his waist and held him tight. I’m not sure I had ever side-hugged anyone, except maybe Maggie, but he looked like he needed one, and the instinctive unease I usually felt when maintaining contact failed to surface.
That’s how Cole found me a quarter of an hour later.
Without breaking his stride, he prowled over to me. Prying me from Miller, he wrapped me in his arms. He buried his face at my neck and just breathed. Allowing him to settle, I scratched his prickly scalp and wondered at the texture. It must be time for a haircut. He usually kept it as stubble across his head, but I felt maybe a quarter inch of growth. It made me wonder how he looked with hair and if I would get to see it long one day.
“We’re running out of time.” Wu plucked his upper lip while he stared at a tablet screen. “Recovery took longer than expected.” He passed the device back to Santiago. “We can call it now, go back to the hotel, and dream of War’s pissed off expression when she realizes what we’ve cost her.”
“Or—” I caught the drift of his motivational speech and filled in the blanks, “—we can take down one last target and cripple her.” I stared at the others over Cole’s shoulder and hated that this was only the beginning. “But skilled fighters can only do so much against sheer numbers.”
“Nice.” Santiago slow-clapped for me. “Now I feel all pumped up about our odds.”
“I should have left the speechifying to Wu.” I rested my chin on Cole’s shoulder. “Sorry, guys. What I meant to say was ‘Rah, rah! Go team!’”
“Shake your pom-poms for me,” Santiago suggested. “Maybe that will motivate me.”
Portia slapped the back of his head. “Pig.”
“Oink, oink,” he deadpanned.
“How have you put up with them for so long?” I whispered in Cole’s ear. “I would have strangled them by now.”
“I duct tape their mouths, hands, and feet once every six months, so I can enjoy the quiet.”
“Smart.” I laughed against his skin. “How are you holding up?”
“I can manage.” He straightened to his full height. “We need to finish this then get Miller and me back to the bunkhouse before we crash.” His expression tightened. “We’ll be out of commission for a few days.”
Snakes, depending on their size and the meal they consumed, could spend days or weeks digesting their prey and then go months without eating. I was guessing charun biology must speed up the process, or else there was no way Cole or Miller would be able to down a second helping. But I wasn’t going to ask.
The same man whose breath on my throat gave me chills had devoured entire people.
At least he chewed them first. Did that make it better or worse than what Miller must do?
And did I really want to know? The portion of my brain still convinced I was human was screaming. It had been for a long time. Hours or days. Hard to tell at this point. I figured eventually it would get tired and shut up, but that hadn’t happened yet. Each fresh horror I witnessed gave it a fresh lungful of air, and here we go again.
Tomorrow I would have to sit Maggie down and judge her level of okayness for myself.
Maybe we both ought to take Kapoor up on his offer of counseling. I was coping, but it was costing me. I wasn’t as sure about Mags. With Portia acting as a buffer, she might be fine. But with Miller so invested in her, I couldn’t afford not to take precautions.
Bad enough for one-quarter of the upcoming apocalypse to love her and want her safe. Toss in an infatuated being with world-ending capabilities, and Maggie just might be the single most important person on the planet.
“We stick to our teams.” Wu seized control of the op when it became obvious the rest of us weren’t interested in calling more shots. “Portia, Santiago, Miller.” He snapped his fingers at them. “Cole, Luce, and me.”
“Wait.” A cold knot formed in my gut. “What about Thom?”
“He’s not back yet.” Wu met my eyes when he said it, like that might soften the blow. “We’ve waited as long as we dare.”
“What about his com?” I spun on Santiago. “He was texting Cole earlier. Can we check in?”
“His signal went dark about twenty minutes ago.” He raked his hands through his hair. “The tech is jury-rigged out of scrap. Just an idea I had on the fly. I’m surprised it lasted this long.”
“We don’t know if the tech failed or . . . ” I shut my eyes, breathed. “We have to get him back.”
“Fuck,” Santiago spat, summing up my thoughts exactly. “This just became a rescue mission.”