“Told you we’d follow you anywhere, Cheyenne.” Tate thumped a fist to his chest.
Bhandi shrugged. “Hey, blood and honor, right?”
Cheyenne cocked her head. “Where’d you pick that up? Blood and honor.”
The troll waved her off. “Meh. Just somethin’ I’ve heard the rez refugees toss around once or twice. Sounds pretty badass, huh?”
“Yeah.” Guess it applies to magicals everywhere, even if they’ve never stepped foot on the other side. Cheyenne looked up at Jamal and Payton. “What about you guys?”
Jamal grunted. “No exploding crates, and I’m good.”
“We’re fucking here.” Payton shrugged, her scarred face expressionless beneath the black eyepatch. “There’s your answer.”
“Cool.” Cheyenne gestured at the side of the house. “Then let’s get going.”
“Hell, yeah.” Bhandi marched after the halfling, followed closely by the rest of the team hand-picked to handle the weirdness of the whole situation.
Cheyenne led them down the stone steps. Guess it pays to have friends in the FRoE. At least ones who don’t think I’m full of shit.
Chapter Sixty-Two
“Holy shit.” Bhandi looked around the manicured lawn behind the estate house. “Not gonna lie to you, Goth drow. For a second, I still thought you were fucking with us.”
Yurik shook his head and stared at L’zar, who was still sitting cross-legged on the lawn, unmoving and deep in meditation. “Just because you’re always fucking around, it doesn’t mean everyone else is.”
“Damn, Cheyenne.” Tate stared at the portal ridge. “Serious as a fell shot to the head.”
“Come on.” Cheyenne grinned at them. “Have I ever lied to you guys?”
The tattooed troll shrugged. “Well, you did tell us your name was Blakely.”
“Necessary evil, man.” Bhandi blinked. “So is this, apparently.”
The other FRoE team noticed the new group of agents first, and the already high tension on the lawn thickened. “What the hell is this?”
“Yeah, nice to see you too, Gruner.” Bhandi snorted. “You look like shit.”
“You look like a clueless fucking troll.”
Rhynehart shot Cheyenne a wary glance, then stalked toward his frayed, nervous, exhausted team. “New team to relieve you guys.”
“What?” An orc with a thin strip of yellow hair down the center of his head scowled at Rhynehart. “What the hell for?”
“Didn’t I say to relieve you?” Rhynehart stuck his hands in his pockets and nodded at the agents, who obviously didn’t want to be here but were offended by being replaced. “You’ve done good work, and you’ve been up here long enough. Time to take a break and get the hell outta here.”
The orc’s scowl moved from his team leader to the agents walking across the lawn with Cheyenne.
“Hey!” Rhynehart shouted. “That was an order, people. Move.”
Grumbling, the old team gathered their gear, slinging the straps of their duffel bags over their shoulders before heading out in a loose group toward the house and their car parked at the top of the hill. The new agents Cheyenne had asked for barely noticed the odd glances and frowns the other operatives shot their way.
Yurik had stopped to stare at L’zar’s back across the lawn. Tate gaped at Corian and Maleshi, who stood side by side and watched the change of shift impassively. Bhandi scanned the portal ridge, cocked her head at the sight of Bianca standing rigidly in front of the jutting black stones tearing across the lawn, then turned her attention to Persh’al. “Who are you?”
The rebel troll glanced at Cheyenne and Bhandi and shrugged. “Who are you?”
She slapped the front of her dampening vest. “The gear and the human shouting orders over there didn’t give it away?”
“Not really an answer.”
Bhandi scoffed. “You know what? I don’t need to explain myself to a fucking blueberry. What the hell happened to make you turn that color, huh?”
“Hey!” Lumil stalked toward them, her yellow eyes blazing in the near-darkness. “If anyone’s gonna call this blue troll a blueberry, it’s gonna be me.”
Persh’al raised an eyebrow at Lumil and stepped aside. “Didn’t know you cared so much.”
“Yeah, me neither.” The goblin woman stopped inches from Bhandi, who didn’t move an inch as she eyed Lumil. “But then you showed up. What the hell is this, anyway?”
“You tell me.” Bhandi cocked her head and stared at the thick scar encircling Lumil’s throat. “Nice necklace.”
“Yeah. Fucking rope burn. You should try it sometime.”
Cheyenne frowned as she watched both sides of her life as a halfling converge in her mom’s backyard. Corian approached her with his arms folded. “You trust them to handle this?”
“Yeah.” She frowned. “Maybe I should’ve set up a meeting or something first, huh?”
“They’ll either get it together, or they won’t. Same goes for us.”
“Holy shit.” Byrd stared at Yurik. “There some kinda goblin steroids I don’t know about?”
“How should I know?”
“How should you?” Byrd scoffed and rubbed his head. “Lumil. Would you look at the size of that motherfucker?”
For once, the woman didn’t reply with a snappy insult. She and Bhandi were too busy sizing each other up.
“Keep staring at me like that,” Bhandi muttered, “and this is the last face you’re gonna see.”
“Wanna bet?” The spinning red runes erupted round Lumil’s fists.
Bhandi smirked. “I like bets.”
“Jesus.” Cheyenne ran a hand through her hair. “I thought this was a good idea.”
“Like I said, they’ll figure it out.” Corian cast Jamal and Payton a sidelong glance as they stalked wordlessly toward the area where the previous FRoE team had set up their temporary camp. “Looks like those already have.”
Rhynehart walked toward them with a scowl, gazing at Corian before stopping on the other side of Cheyenne. “So, now what?”
She folded her arms and shrugged. “We let them sniff each other’s butts and figure out who’s gonna roll over and who’s not ready to play nice. Right?”
“First time I’ve heard anyone compare my agents to dogs.”
Corian focused his gaze on the portal ridge. “At least it’s not a comparison to cats.”
Rhynehart snorted. “Bet you get comments like that all the time, huh, nightstalker?”
Corian’s silver eyes flicked to the agent but didn’t quite land on Rhynehart’s face. “Careful, human. You’re outnumbered.”
“You think that scares
