Crap.If Declan did that in the middle of hostile territory, what the hell was she going to do? Somehow, she didn’t think that smacking him across the face would be a very good idea.
She was just about to softly call his name when he spoke.
“There’s a small group of hybrids moving in this direction. We need to find cover.”
Declan started through the jungle. She immediately followed, checking to both their left and right as he focused on finding them another place to hide.
“Any chance we could just circle wide around them?” she asked.
He shook his head as he veered left and headed up the side of a rocky slope. She had to run to keep up with his long strides.
“There are at least two separate groups out there, maybe three,” he told her. “They’re scattered pretty wide, but we’d have to essentially thread the needle to get past them. We think the hybrids’ sense of smell isn’t very good, but I don’t have a clue what their hearing is like. It’s too risky to try to move past them in broad daylight until we know more about them.”
That answered the other question she’d been about to ask—whether Declan thought they could fight their way through the hybrids. God, she hoped the orchids they’d rubbed all over their clothes this morning still covered their scents.
Declan stopped when they got to a group of palm trees. Low growing, they had thick, brownish fronds hanging down to the ground. It wasn’t as good a hiding place as they’d had the previous night, but based on how fast Declan was moving, the hybrids were too close to give him time to find anything better.
They pushed their way into the palm trees carefully, trying not to break or dislodge any of the hanging grass. There wasn’t much space inside, so she and Declan were forced to crouch side by side.
Kendra slipped the muzzle of her M4 through the cover of their hiding spot, ready to shoot. “How close are they?”
He pointed toward the bottom of the slope they’d just climbed.
As if on cue, three figures came into view. She didn’t have to see the red in their eyes to know they were hybrids. They prowled more than walked, swinging their heads back and forth, noses in the air as if sniffing for something.Crap. One of them was the captain who’d killed his own man on the bank of the stream the night before simply for challenging his authority. The automatic weapon he carried looked like a toy in his hands, a waste of time compared to the claws he possessed.
She and Declan were barely a hundred feet away and upwind, as best she could tell. There was no way the hybrids wouldn’t be able to smell them, no matter how crappy their noses were, orchid perfume or not.
Her heart racing, Kendra slowly sighted the lead hybrid, ready to shoot the second he swung in their direction. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Declan doing the same. They had to put down the captain first—and fast—or they wouldn’t live long enough to worry about the other two. But even if they somehow managed to kill all three of them, the sound of gunfire was sure to bring every other hybrid in the area running.
This so wasn’t the kind of action she’d wanted to see on her first official DCO mission.
But while the creatures continued to sniff the air, they never moved any closer. After a few minutes, all three of them disappeared into the jungle.
Kendra slowly let out the breath she’d been holding. Carefully lowering her M4, she leaned back against Declan’s shoulder, the fear she’d been keeping in flowing out of her until she was shaking all over. That had been too close.
She closed her eyes, feeling Declan’s solid strength and warmth behind her. She didn’t care if he thought less of her because of it. She needed to steal some courage from him. He didn’t say anything or pull away from her. Instead, he sat there quietly and gave her time to get herself together. She sat up but didn’t look at him.
“We should probably get going,” she said.
“We’ll stay here a little while longer,” he told her. “Let the hybrids move completely out of the area.”
Kendra suspected the real reason Declan wanted them to wait was because he didn’t think she was ready to go back out there yet. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, but honestly, she wasn’t so sure. She peeked between the palm fronds to make sure the hybrids hadn’t come back, then relaxed.
“Does your family know you’re out here?” Declan asked quietly.
She turned a little so she could look at him. Her thigh pressed up against his and she could feel the heat of his skin through her pants.
“No way,” Kendra answered. “I mean, my parents know I work for Homeland Security, but they think I have a nice, safe desk job. Which I did up until a few days ago.” She gave him a small smile. “I told them I was going on a business trip for a couple weeks and that I’d call them when I got back. They’d be terrified if they knew I was running around the jungles of Central America with an automatic weapon in my hands.”
“Do they live in the DC area?” he asked.
She nodded. “Virginia. My mom teaches eighth grade history and my dad is a dentist.”
“Any brothers and sisters?”
“Just me.” Kendra pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “What about you? Does your family know you work for Homeland?”
Declan shook his head. “My parents don’t know what I do for a living. They don’t even know I’m a shifter.”
