She didn’t laugh. She squeezed his hand, and the corner of her mouth quirked sideways in perfect understanding, which was better and worse at the same time.
A figure dismounted from the helicopter: a black man with striking green eyes. Moss spoke without thinking.
“Lance?”
Lance MacInnis met his eyes and hesitated, shock flashing across his face for a microsecond before he resumed striding towards them.
“B-boss, this is—”
Carol’s stutter was back. Moss pulled her closer instinctively, and Lance’s eyebrows came together as he noted the protective movement.
“Moss Taylor. We already know each other. Friends of friends,” Lance said flatly. “Isn’t that right?”
How much had he seen? The power writhing around him as the helicopter approached? The darkness dancing beneath the waves, waiting for the chopper to come close enough to strike?
From the sharpness in Lance’s eyes, he’d seen enough.
Moss felt as though a door was clanging shut behind him.
The two halves of his life were coming together. And the people who’d met the version of himself he’d fabricated were about to discover how little they truly knew about him.
24
Carol
They were all alive. She made Lance repeat it until even the most scared corners of her heart believed it. Everyone had survived. The plane was severely compromised, but Ames had made an emergency landing, and they had all made it.
They’d thoughtshewas dead, too, until two shifter women had bullied their way through the phone lines from HQ and told them their missing people were stuck on a rock in the South Pacific.
*They didn’t seem as convinced of your mate’s friendliness as you are.*
The roar of the helicopter made talking out loud a problem, even through the headsets the seats were equipped with. But that clearly wasn’t the only reason Lance was choosing to speak privately.
*He isn’t a threat.*
*His cousins disagree.*Lance gritted his teeth. *A kraken shifter? I didn’t want to believe them. And what we saw on the beach—*
*Was only an aspect of the kraken’s power.*
Lance cursed, a wordless grumbling yowl that sounded more snow leopard than human. *An aspect of it? That wasn’t his full form?*
*It wouldn’t have fit on the beach if it was.*
The conversation halted as Lance stared unseeing into the middle distance.
*If you think that’s bad…*
Lance’s eyes snapped to hers. *Out with it, Zhang.*
Unease curled in her gut. *This is something everyone needs to hear. And I’m not the right person to say it.*
His lips thinned, and the rest of the journey passed in excruciating silence.
Even Moss was silent. She’d smiled at him as they boarded the helicopter and he’d smiled back, wanly, like a man walking to his own execution.
He’d only had his powers a few days and had pushed himself so far, thinking it would be the last thing he ever did. And now he had to keep going.
Her chest twinged. They all had to keep going. No matter how much it felt like their legs would give out beneath them, or their chest was too heavy to breathe into.
