“Rían warned me, but I didn’t believe him.” He reached into a pack at his feet and withdrew a tangle of nylon straps. “I brought a harness in case he wasn’t pulling my leg.”
Warmth spread through my chest that Rían had been looking out for me, erasing the embarrassment of confessing my shortcoming myself. Mostly. I could already tell from the looks I was garnering that I would never live this down.
The only thing that would have been worse was if Liam was here and in charge of the harness.
Pfft.
What was I saying? He wouldn’t have brought a harness. He would have told me to piggyback and hoped for the best. He might be nicer to me these days, but it was more of a sibling relationship from what I had observed in others. That meant he derived joy from needling me.
While I did my best to pretend this wasn’t happening, Dane helped me strap in and got Seamus to hold me up while another enforcer snapped us together. The end result left me facingout, dangling a foot or three above the ground. I imagined I resembled an infant in a papoose.
Color swept through Seamus’s cheeks as he did his best not to laugh in my face, but I was worried he might rupture something if he didn’t release some of his pent-up humor soon.
“Go ahead.” I granted permission with a wave of my hand. “Get it out of your system.”
“Much as I would love to, I’m afraid if I start, I won’t be able to stop, and I don’t want Sartori to hear us coming.”
The trip down went smoother than I expected, but I couldn’t speak to the view as I covered my eyes and pretended I was a kitten dangling safely by its scruff in its mother’s mouth. I didn’t look until a series of clicks released me, and my feet hit dirt.
“Give us a minute to put away our supplies, and then we’ll be ready to follow your lead.”
Careful to stick close, I gave myself a buffer away from the others then returned to the same mental picture I had used to, I hope, dampen my connection with Carmichael. I shut my eyes, imagined the spigot, and twisted my wrist to open the tap.
Within seconds, I could tell I was successful. A presence tickled the back of my mind where before there had been nothing but me and my own thoughts. The awareness slotted into place where it had always been, though I had never paid it much attention until now.
A faint buzz stung my thoughts, but I couldn’t tell if it was because I had reconnected to Carmichael or because he felt it and was searching for the source of the disturbance.
“We might not have long,” I warned them. “I can already sense him.”
“Can you tell distance or direction?” Seamus stepped up beside me. “Any small detail will help.”
All my life, I had noticed how Carmichael commanded every room he entered, how the pack faced him as if guided by aninstinct telling them where to find their alpha. They were so attuned to him, I began reflecting on how the clan responded to Rían in those scenarios. There were similarities, but I couldn’t deny Carmichael was more charismatic. He charmed people. He drew them in. He wove them in chains before they felt the bite of a lock clasping around their throats.
Rían was a different beast entirely. Literally. In a world of predators who used their natures for gain, he gave back to his community. He cared, and his kindness toward others earned him loyal followers. There was a gentleness to him that contradicted the fierce creature lurking at his core, and the control required to maintain his duality proved his strength.
The reverence shown to Rían by his clan illuminated the stark differences between those led by fear and those guided by hope.
Now I understood that the tug in our guts had been our hindbrains warning us a predator was near and that we were all prey in his eyes. Latching on to that sensation, I isolated the spot where those warning tingles originated and played another round of pretend.
Rather than imagining my faithful spigot, I pictured myself sitting in a chair at the front of a room, waiting for Carmichael to enter. I allowed myself to experience that sweeping moment of awareness that came from nowhere and everywhere, and I turned my head as if I expected to see him walk in the door.
Would he enter through the left or the right? Which direction did instinct point?
“That way.” I opened my eyes, found myself staring behind Seamus’s shoulder. “He’s that way.”
No one asked if I was sure. They knew as well as I did this was a stab in the dark. It felt right, though.
“You heard the lady.” Seamus issued a series of hand gestures. “We’re radio silent from this point on.”
Distance was harder to calculate. I couldn’t tell how far away Carmichael was from our location, but there was a chance I could get a better handle on it as we grew nearer. I was humbled at the level of trust, at the faith, these men and women had put in me. I refused to let them down.
A drone buzzed overhead, camouflaged so well I wouldn’t have noticed it if not for my keen hearing.
I wasn’t sure who was behind the controller, but I was certain of the people glued to the screen. I recognized the swirling manufacturer’s logo as Liam’s preferred model.
Rían and Sloane and Liam didn’t have to be present to watch over me. Their eyes in the sky did just fine.
Added pressure left me twitchy, so I ignored the noise, and the implications, as best I could. And I reminded myself it wasn’t only the folks back home who would be watching but Team Two. Should we find anything of note, it was their job to rush in and defuse the situation. They couldn’t do that without access to our intel, and a live feed enabled us to make those split-second decisions faster.
