“What the hell,” Jeff said, slapping at the branch. It was toofast, snapping back into place and waving in the breeze as innocently as ever. He regarded the towering shrub with suspicion. “What exactly was that, Camellia? Did you put some kind of spell on that plant? Some hex? Illusions don’t smack you in the back of the head.”
“Don’t be such a baby, Jeff,” she replied, giving a little sniff of pure disdain. “I’m sure the wind gusted a little. Didn’t you feel it? How could I have possibly caused the branches to move like that? I was—er—occupiedwith other much more important things.”
“Like what?” Jeff demanded.
“Looking into Jonas’s beautiful eyes. Don’t you think he has the most beautiful eyes in the entire world?” She poured dreamy into her tone. It was really difficult not to laugh when Jeff and Kyle exchanged a disgusted look.
“Pull your head out of your...” Jeff started, then stopped abruptly when Jonas made a single growly sound. “Out of the clouds,” Jeff corrected. “Are you even monitoring when those scouts are getting close? We have to alert our brothers in the field.”
“We need to know if the advance scouts are enhanced,” Jonas said, sobering instantly now that they were talking about their mission. “Crawley said the leaders of the battalion were enhanced. He claimed he didn’t know about the scouts, and no amount of questioning changed that answer.”
Camellia froze, one hand on Jonas’s face. “You just used the word ‘battalion.’ That implies a far different number than ‘troops,’ Jonas. When were you going to tell me you were facing a hundred to two hundred men rather than ten to twenty men? At the most, I thought forty.”
Jonas looked down at his hands and then back up at her face. “It didn’t occur to me these people would send a battalion after us, Camellia. Not once did I think that. I said ‘troops’ because I thought ‘troops.’ I considered the same numbers as you. It’spossible that’s where you got those numbers, right out of my head. When we questioned Crawley, we found we were facing at least a hundred men, possibly two hundred, all mercenaries Abrams and his banker friends hired. Abrams is a billionaire. He’s got so much money it’s sick. He and his friends—and all of them went to school with Whitney—formed a conglomerate together. They’re probably one of the most influential conglomerates in the world. They buy and sell governments. Take down presidents. I mean that in the true sense of the word. They have such a sense of entitlement by this time, they think they’re unstoppable.”
“They sound worse than organized crime,” Camellia said.
“That’s because they are,” Kyle agreed.
Jeff nodded. “These people have no problem hiring contract killers or sending soldiers on missions to be killed if it suits their agenda. They would trade lives in a heartbeat, wipe out entire villages or even a city of people in order to achieve their goal. They’ve done it before. They’ll do it again.”
“Sending a battalion to murder every man, woman and child of Teams One and Two is absolutely nothing to them. They want to rid the world of all GhostWalkers deemed flawed and, at the same time, teach Whitney a lesson. With Lily and Daniel in their possession, they’ll have something to bring him in line,” Jonas said.
“They sure don’t know Whitney if they believe that,” Camellia said.
“And they don’t understand GhostWalkers either,” Jonas said. “Because these assholes have no loyalty, they don’t understand it. They think because Teams Three and Four aren’t flawed in the ways we are, they won’t care what happens to us. They couldn’t be more wrong. If the conglomerate succeeds in taking us out, Teams Three and Four will hunt them to the ends of the earth. Once you’re a target of a GhostWalker, it doesn’t end until you’re dead.”
“What Whitney, the conglomerate or the other GhostWalkersare or are not going to do isn’t the point, Jonas.” She scowled at him. “The bottom line is you, Kyle and Jeff wereknowinglyplanning—just the three of you—to sneak into the enemy camp, find the enhanced leaders of the battalion alone and kill them right under the noses of hundreds of armed men. And you want me to stay here, hiding, too far away to help you the best way I can, while you three put yourselves in that kind of danger?” Camellia couldn’t help feeling a little outraged. She wanted to shove Jonas right off the porch.
The towering shrubs around her home rustled and quivered in response to her emotions, branches shaking. At first the shuddering was no more than a slight shiver, but the motion increased in strength as she became more agitated. She paced away from Jonas and the other two GhostWalkers, stepping off the porch to walk back and forth on the small path between the plants. The branches dipped so the blossoms brushed her face and hair as if to reassure her—or calm her—but she paid no attention.
“Honey, calm down for a minute and just listen to me,” Jonas said.
She held up her hand without looking at him. “Not a good time to talk to me right now. I did listen to you. That was before I realized you were deliberately putting yourself in danger. A few troops, okay, I knew you could handle it, but this isn’t even reasonable, and you know it. All of you know it. Right now, if any of you speak to me, I’m going to zap you so hard with an electrical charge you will think you were sitting in the electric chair, so don’t talk to me until I calm down.”
The three men looked at each other. Jeff raised his eyebrow at Jonas. “Can she really do that, bro? Because if she can, you’d better think twice about marrying that woman. She’s got a nasty little temper, and you’re about as mean as they come. That combo is going to get you in more trouble than you can possibly handle.”
Kyle stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I really like her, Jonas. And I thought for sure she was your match. You’ve got to have someone who can handle you. I never thought there was a woman alive who could do it, but I have to agree with Jeff. Camellia not only can handle you, but I think she can seriously kick your ass. Do you even have any idea what she’s capable of?”
“She’s capable of hearing you, I know that much,” Jonas assured. “So if you don’t want to get zapped, stop acting crazy. I like my woman feisty. She has every right to be upset at me. I should have come clean with how many soldiers we might run into. Crawley gave that up and I didn’t tell her. I told her we’d be partners, that means keeping her in the loop.”
“You were protecting her. We have the right to protect our women,” Jeff decreed, raising his voice to the normal range and glaring at the back of Camellia’s head.
The moment the words were finished coming out of his mouth, she raised one hand over her head, fingers poised in the classic sign, flipping him off. At the same time, just briefly, fireflies danced in the night, sparking little lights all around Jeff’s body. They never seemed to actually land on him, but he winced and then jumped to one side and then the other.
“Cut it out, you little monster.”
Camellia turned around slowly, looking very innocent—too innocent. “Are you addressing me, Jeff? What are you accusing me of?”
“You know darn well what you did.”
“Other than wanting to kick Jonas, which I haven’t done,” she replied in a pious voice, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Kyle burst out laughing. “You aren’t going to win this one. None of us are.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I had no idea there was a battalion either until Crawley let it slip in questioning. We’re all guilty of wanting to protect you, Camellia. Maybe ‘want’ is not the right word. ‘Need’ might be better.”
She tilted her chin at him. “Because you need a healer for the teams.”
Kyle looked genuinely puzzled. “A healer for the teams?” he echoed, sounding as puzzled as he looked. “No, babe. Because it’s you.”
