Thaw's eyes close for one beat. "He cannot keep his hands off her. He's known that since the cargo box."
"Daron knows. Fen is overruling them."
"How?"
"With his voice. He told Daron he is coming. Daron is reporting that Fen sounds —" Dean stops. "Different."
"Different how?"
"Different like he has decided something."
I press my palm to the hollow. It is hot now, aimed. Whatever Fen has decided, my body knows before the rest of me does — he is coming, and he is not going to be stopped.
"Thaw."
"What."
"Let him come."
He looks at me.
"Jen, if he loses it —"
"Let him come. He has been the broken, but now he is communicating. Let him."
Thaw is silent staring at me.
Then he says, to Dean, "Tell Daron Fen comes. Tell Daron to keep eyes on him. Tell Daron to be ready to act if necessary."
"Yes."
"Crull stays with the truck."
"And tell Daron —" Thaw's voice goes quiet. "Tell Daron the alpha says Fen has the perimeter. The perimeter is his. Hold it."
Dean speaks into the radio. He listens. He looks at Thaw.
"Daron says understood. Daron says Fen says —" Dean's mouth twitches. "— yes, alpha."
The whole cab stops.
It is the first time Fen has called Thaw alpha since before the cell. But the bond at my sternum is flooded with what it does to Thaw and his gold eyes are wet.
"Out," he says. "All of us. We do not drive into an ambush. Dean takes Jen on the south flank. Harek takes me on the north. Daron and Fen come from the ridge above. Crull holds the truck below. Whatever is in those trees is going to find out it picked the wrong morning."
I get out.
The half mile to the campground is the longest half mile of my life.
We walk it in a staggered line through years of fallen pine needles that gives under every step. Dean is in front of me. Harek and Thaw are off to my right, twenty yards out, moving in the lateral pattern wolves use when they are flanking — half-step behind, half-step ahead, alternating, eyes scanning in opposite cones. I am the protected one in the middle. The hollow under my sternum is pulling north, toward the ridge above the campground, where Daron and Fen are coming in.
When the hollow flares, I know they have arrived.
A sharp warm flare at my sternum. Daron's forming thread going hot for half a beat. And underneath it, the hollow — here, close enough now that I could turn my head and feel where on the compass he is. North-northeast. Above me. On the ridge.
Then the first shot.
It comes from the south.
