So I summoned all my energy and threw us to the side again, trying to find another rock, this time to knock us out and hope I would be the one to return to consciousness first.But she could read my thoughts, and she didn’t like that idea.She didn’t like that at all.
Which was how I ended up wrestling with myself in the dirt like a madwoman.
I probably looked like one, too, with my wild hair, filthy, torn caftan, and grunted curse words because she wasn’t...letting...go.Instead, she was trying to tell me something, but this time, I was the one not listening, because my brain was filled with, “We have to go, we have go, we have to go right now!”And then I got an idea and tried to Change, but she wouldn’t let me, batting back my wolf as if it was a misbehaving cub and making both of us furious!
This wasmybody!Mywolf!And I’d damned well Change when I wanted to!
Only I guessed I wouldn’t, because I didn’t go hairy, no matter how hard I tried.But my wolf was awake now and just as pissed as I was, and jumped her counterpart in the spirit realm.Allowing me to stagger back to my feet and scramble up the side of the cliff we were halfway down, trying to remember the direction of the highway.
And wondering why there were suddenly boots in my face—
Shit.
Chapter Forty-Two
Icame around to find myself being carried between two men, each having an arm under one of mine, with more mages clustered tight all around me.My shields must have fallen during the internal struggle I’d been waging, because I’d been hit with something that had left me as limp as a rag doll.Which explained why my feet were dragging across the rough ground behind me, and all I could see was dirt.
But I could smell.And even through the magical miasma crowding thick and close, there was one scent that was unmistakable: pack.But not mine.It was enough to rouse my counterpart slightly, and with her added strength, to let me lift my head enough to glimpse what lay ahead through strands of my hair.
For a moment, I thought I might be hallucinating, because despite what my nose was telling me, there was nothing there.Just the same thing I’d been seeing for hours: hard-packed dirt, small scrub, a huge bowl of pale blue inverted overhead, and columns of towering stone now viewed from up close.Then the scene shimmered and ripped apart, like the desert opening up to vomit something out, something that looked less like a single man and more like a whole clan.
Any number of them.
I stared at an encampment that must have held thousands, with enough RVs to stock a dealership, a forest of tents, and a few parking lots’ worth of camper vans, converted school buses, trucks with pop-ups, and SUVs with mattresses in the back.There was even a goddamned yurt!It looked like Burning Man without the big straw effigy.
No wonder Ulmer hadn’t been able to find the wayward clans.They must have already had this place set up; either that, or they’d been busy all week, because they were well supplied.Generators were chugging away, a couple of lines of Porta-Potties were standing like sentries on the sidelines, and somebody had brought in a water truck.They’d even set up a few sailcloths in between the reaching fingers of rock to provide areas of shade.
There was also a dirt road that Bleddyn had missed, perhaps misremembering the turn because he was usually driven about by someone else.It snaked off to the right, leading across the desert toward the highway, which explained how they’d brought everything in.And they’d needed it, as it looked like whole clans had moved here.
But no children, at least not that I could see, and probably none at all, as this was an armed camp.Not so much in a human sort of way, as the clans’ magical allies had wards that precluded the usual defensive needs, so there was a distinct lack of camo netting, sentry points, and sandbag walls.But in a we’re-about-to-go-cause-some-shit way, with rifles, mortars, and RPGs visible, as well as weapon crates spilling out of the back of several huge trucks, and a lot more trucks with armor plating, weapon mounts, and numerous antennas.
And nobody in all of that was happy to see me.
“What is this?”A huge Were I didn’t know came forward to meet the guys dragging me across the sand.“That’s Cyrus’s bitch!I can smell her!”
“Back up, and give us some space,” the mage on my right said.
The Were did not back up; if anything, he crowded closer, along with some of his friends.“What’s she doing here?”he demanded.“Are the clans coming?Are we about to beattacked?”
“You said we’d get a warning,” one of the others snarled.
“Warning, hell!”the first said.“We were told nobody knew about this place!”
“Get the clans formed up,” a third Were shouted to some others behind him.“Do it now!”
“She’s alone,” the mage holding me on my right said.“And you’re going to step back or—”
“Or what?”The first Were said.“What do you think you’re going to do?”
“Try me and find out.”
“He’s a liar!”the second Were spat.“She isn’t alone!No Were travels alone!”
“Well, this one did.”The mage tried to move forward, but a crowd had gathered, preventing him, and I guessed he was tired of talking.Because he threw a spell that split the ever-growing crowd in half, shoving them back on both sides.
“Try that again,” the first Were breathed, recovering immediately.“And I swear—”
“We will try it again, and worse, if you don’t back up,” the mage told him, with the assurance of someone who was heavily shielded.I could feel his protection humming against my arm, and then flooding over me, as he pulled me inside.And just in time, as one of the Weres who hadn’t spoken yet decided to let action do his talking for him.
