The look on my face must satisfy him. He drops his forehead to mine.
“First light.”
“First light.”
He lets me go and turns back to the map.
I leave him there with the desk lamp catching the worried look on his face, the line of his shoulders pulled tight.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Lucas
Darius’s transports are coming in over the airfield.
He stands beside me at the edge of the runway, Reese and Hennessy two paces behind us. The first transport drops out of a low cloud and rolls up the strip with engines whining down. Three more appear behind it. The ramp on the lead aircraft is already opening before the wheels have stopped. Wolves pour off in disciplined columns, kits slung at their hips, shifting to human form as they hit the tarmac and form up in their squads.
One thousand of his men. Twice as many as promised, to match my numbers.
Darius’s second-in-command crosses the strip to us with the latest field report under his arm. He hands it to Darius, who skims it and passes it to me without comment. I read it.
The drone we put up over the compound this morning went down within ten minutes. Thermal imaging before the loss confirmed sixty fighters on the wire. Inside, still unknown. Every fighter the drone tracked displayed the same weirdness Bauer’s section reported on the one they observed. All of them, by the look of it, enhanced.
The drone wasn’t taken out with conventional fire. It dropped clean. Whatever they have inside that compound can reach a thousand feet of altitude and pull a metal bird out of the sky.
Darius points out, “Then we can’t drive. Or fly anywhere closer.”
I nod. “Reese pulled the route options last night. The western road is exposed past the ridge. Two thousand wolves on a road are going to be visible to anything that can see a drone.”
“Wilderness?”
“Twenty-four hours through the woods, under canopy. We hold at the outcropping above the compound for six hours, observe the rotation, move on the third shift change.”
“Why the third?”
“The first tells us their relief pattern. The second confirms it. The third is our window.”
He nods once. “Agreed.”
I turn to Reese. “Tell our line. Wilderness route. Departing in thirty.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
He leaves just as Sienna arrives with Violet beside her, both of them in dark fatigues, packs slung at their backs. Lydia is two paces behind them, her shoulder strapped under her jacket, her good hand swinging at her side. She refused every suggestion to stay behind with such finality that nobody is bothering to offer anymore.
Sienna stops in front of me. The pendant my mother wore is at her throat, the small, dark stone resting against the curse line, right where I want it. The black tendril on her collarbone has crept farther even since first light. I don’t let myself look at it for long.
She can read my face, though. “I’m fine, Lucas.”
“You won’t shift. You ride me the whole way.”
She starts to protest, but I stop her.
“Sienna. You said it yourself: the curse pulls hardest in your wolf form. Twenty-four hours of that and you won’t make it to the outcropping on your own legs.”
She considers my advice. Then, she nods once, her jaw tight.
Beside me, Darius has turned to Violet. “Same goes for you. You’re going to be on my back. There are too many people with us. I’ll feel more secure this way.”
