“Then I’m going to be there too,” Brock said, his voice flinty with resolve. “You go, I go.”
She reached up, cupping his jaw in her hand. “Lucky you, right? This is what you get for falling in love with a cyborg freak of nature.”
“You know I’ve been all in from day one,” he said, smiling. “No regrets, sweetheart. Not for a second.”
“I’m in too,” Micah said, the finality of his statement leaving no room for argument. Not from his parents or Lucan.
Most certainly not from Phaedra.
“Send me along with them,” she said, turning her attention toward Lucan. “If the crystals are still inside the ship, I may be the only one who can extract them without being harmed. I can also provide protection for the team, as I did last night.”
“And alert Selene and every other Atlantean to our location while you’re at it?” It wasn’t Lucan who objected, but Micah. She didn’t have to look at him to feel his disapproval practically burning her from the other side of the table. “We can’t risk tipping our hand, no matter the cost.”
“We can bring in some daywalkers,” Jax suggested. “Aric and his new team in Boston are only a few hours away.”
“Atlantean light isn’t the same as ultraviolet,” Zael pointed out. “Daywalkers will be just as vulnerable as anyone else, Breed or human.”
“Or any other Atlantean,” Phaedra added, feeling the need to caution him as well.
He nodded. “Phaedra’s right. Any team going near those crystals is going to need the kind of cover only she can provide. Without her, this mission is over before it begins.”
Lucan listened in pensive silence, then he exhaled a low sigh. “As if we don’t have enough shit to deal with already. We still need to respond to Opus for that fucked up UV ambush last night. Gideon, how are we doing on that lead you’re working on?”
“The software worm is ready to roll. All I need is a backdoor into one of Opus’s encrypted networks and it’s showtime. Once we infiltrate their digital link, there’ll be nowhere left for them to hide.”
“We need to make it happen,” Lucan said. “Jenna’s just given us a new Priority One but I don’t want us taking the heat off Opus for one bloody minute. Every one of those bastards is going down, and I mean hard.”
“For Eli,” Jax said, giving a solemn nod.
Every voice in the room echoed the vow. “For Eli.”
Lucan dropped his hand on the table like a gavel. “All right. I’ll make my decision on the Deadlands team and we can start putting that plan into motion.”
With nods and murmured agreements, everyone got up and started filing out of the war room. Phaedra waited until the rest of the group had exited before she stepped out to the corridor.
Micah was waiting for her after everyone else had gone, a look of barely couched fury in his eyes. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
She hiked up her chin. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Like hell you don’t.” Sparks flared in his lavender irises. “You’re not going on this mission.”
“I believe that’ll be up to Lucan, not you.”
She started to walk away from him, but Micah caught her by the wrist. The tips of his fangs glinted with his sharp, indrawn breath. “Goddamn it, Phaedra. I can’t have you out there with us.”
“Why, because you still think I’m hiding an allegiance to Selene? I suppose you still hold me responsible for what happened to your team in the Deadlands too?”
It hurt more than she expected to think he might believe she was his enemy. Didn’t he know she would never do anything that would put his life—or anyone else’s—in peril?
“Let me go, Micah.” When he didn’t relax his grasp, she pulled her arm free and started walking away.
“Phaedra.” A curse exploded out of him. Next thing she knew, he was standing right in front of her. “You say you can’t be harmed by the crystals, but what if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not wrong.”
“But what if you are? Have you ever tested your theory? The Ancients decimated the Atlantean population using those two crystals. Not even you could have held back the tsunami that took Atlantis down.” He stared at her, his gaze intense and unwavering. “Now, according to Jenna, those same crystals are somewhere on board a ship that’s rigged to blow to kingdom come. If we get this wrong and that fucking ship explodes, the crystals won’t protect you.” His deep voice lowered to a choked snarl. “I won’t be able to protect you, either.”
She swallowed, unwilling to imagine the potential annihilation, the total loss of life. The destruction of the entire planet itself. None of that changed the fact that she had to be part of the mission to retrieve the crystals. If anything, what he said only made her role that much more crucial.
