“Yes.”
Storm squatted down, studying her exposed knee and bloody jeans where claws had clearly ripped open the material. He lifted shredded flaps of material aside and touched the swollen skin gently until she hissed. “How bad is it?”
“Tolerable, but it’s healing by the minute.” She avoided putting more weight on her leg, and shrugged. “It’s sore, but I can walk through the pain.”
His shoulders relaxed when he stood. He lifted his fingers to her face. “I don’t like seeing you hurt.”
Her heart squirmed under the look he gave her, as if he wanted to maim anyone who harmed her. “I need to get moving to figure out where Tristan went. How’d you find me?”
He scanned around them while he answered. “I had some help. I gave it an hour once I left you around midnight, then I contacted Nicole and asked her to locate the amulet.”
Evalle hadn’t wanted to involve Nicole, especially since Nicole’s life partner, Red, didn’t like Evalle and hadn’t been happy about Evalle bringing Storm in jaguar form around Nicole two nights ago. “You woke up Red? She’ll give Nicole grief over this.”
Storm’s gaze stopped wandering around and met Evalle’s. “I’d have dragged Sen out of bed to find you if I’d thought I could make him tell me anything.”
How was she supposed to hold onto any anger when he said things like that? “But Nicole only put a temporary invisibility spell on this amulet when we borrowed it. I don’t understand.”
“I put a protection spell on the amulet the last time I saw you.”
That’s why the thing had been warming and glowing right before something had attacked her. Storm had been trying to protect her from a distance. “But how did Nicole determine where I was this quickly?”
“She used a scrying bowl to narrow the location of the amulet to this region, and I had access to a private jet.”
Who did he know with a private jet? But she didn’t want to waste time by interrupting.
Storm shrugged, saying, “I grew up in Chile and roamed all over this country. Once I got here it was just a matter of tracking you by the majik I used on . . .”
When his voice drifted off, his lips tightened into a frown of remorse.
But she’d caught his slip, which reminded her that she had a serious beef with him. “Speaking of the majik that changed my aura—what’d you do? It’s gold!”
He heaved a sigh. “I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer. Fix it.”
“Not sure I can, but you don’t have time for that right now anyhow if you intend to find Tristan. I’m assuming you had some plan in mind while traipsing around with him.”
That blasted Tristan.
Sure, he’d patched up her leg, but he could have teleported the whole time they’d been together. If he’d spirited them away from the demons, she wouldn’t have suffered a crushed knee.
And he hadn’t shifted. Had he been saving energy to teleport?
She let that go in favor of getting on the move. “Tristan knows where the other Alterants are in Atlanta and agreed to help me locate them.”
“He was lying to you.”
“Maybe about helping me, but I believe he was telling the truth about the Alterants being in Atlanta.” Even though Tristan had lied by omission he hadn’t taken her dagger again or left her stranded, when he could have. She hadn’t figured that one out. Why had Tristan stayed with her? No time to waste on that right now. She glanced around, defeat closing in on her with too far to travel in little time. “Any chance you’ve figured out how to track teleporting?”
“No. If he was headed back to Atlanta, call Tzader or Quinn so they can start looking for him while we head back.”
“I can’t ask anyone for help, especially them. The Tribunal forbade it.” Then a thought struck her.
She hadn’t tried any of the gifts because she could only use them for the explicit reason of finding the escaped Alterants and bringing them in.
“What, Evalle?”
“The Tribunal gave me three gifts.” She got excited. “I think I know how to track Tristan.” In her mind, she had to find Tristan to locate the missing Alterants, therefore she could call upon a gift.
