My beast echoes his demands, recognizes his frustration and fear, but the man inside me, the strategist, knows this is a bad move. If Rune goes into the rift, the chance of a seal breach doubles.
I hold fast to my friend. “Cora can do this, Rune. We have to trust her.”
I look up at Jasper and Leif, and we all fix our gazes on the breach. I can feel their agitation at our impotence, but all we can do now is wait.
Wait and hope.
Chapter Thirty-Two Cora
We’d been split up somehow. Maybe that was how these rifts worked. It didn’t matter. I needed to find the others. I was on a rise with forestland below me, and beyond that, to the east, were lights. It had to be their town or settlement or whatever.
I headed down the hill and into the trees, moving silently and swiftly, senses on alert for any movement that wasn’t mine. Any snap of bracken or shadow that indicated a threat.
For the first time since coming to Grimswood, I was in my element. Working solo, relying on me.
This was what I did best.
It was liberating.
Yeah, I was so not a team player. Not that working with The Elites wasn’t nice, but working solo, making spur-of-the-moment plays without having to consult anyone or look out for them, was freedom.
An empty stretch of land was visible through the break in the trees up ahead. A wooden fence came into view around eight to ten feet tall. I hurried forward and crouched behind a tree trunk, surveying the barrier. It was too dark to see how far the fence stretched out from the open gate. Fire pits spat sparks on either side of the entrance, lending enough light for me to see two hulking men standing inside the gates chatting.
This had to be the place.
Had Sloane and the others found it yet? I needed to get closer to do a survey. Thank goodness the moon was hidden by clouds. It provided enough cover of darkness for me to cut across the flat land, keeping low to the ground and upwind of the guys to avoid being spotted or sniffed out by their shifter senses.
I kept my eyes on them until I was up against the fence, and then sidled along toward the entrance. Not too close. I didn’t want to be spotted.
“We should kill them,” one of the guys said.
“Not up to us. Up to Vax. He decide.”
“Intruders are bad.”
“Yes, bad. Mean that more come.”
I recognized the voice of the stilted speaker. The huge blond guy who’d spoken to me when the varga had us surrounded at the hunt.
“We kill them, and it’ll be over.”
“No. More come.” There was annoyance in his tone.
My pulse raced. They were going to kill the shifter females? Why? What did they mean more would come? They’d brought the shifters here. The women hadn’t come willingly.
“The witches need to die. We can’t hold them in a null forever.”
Witches? Wait…Fuck. The Elites…They had The Elites.
“We wait for Vax.” There was a don’t-fuck-with-me edge to blondie’s tone now.
“Not long now. He should be back within the hour.”
“Hmmm.”
And then this Vax dude would make a decision on what to do with The Elites.
Shit, shit, shit.
I needed to get to them and get them out, and I needed to do it now.
The gate was a no-go, but…I rubbed my fingers together, calling my power forth. Strands of lightning danced between my fingertips. Okay, power was online. Now all I needed to do was get inside the settlement.
It was a risk. I had no idea what lay beyond, or if I’d be seen, but I closed my eyes and willed myself to a safe spot, a shadowy hidden nook.
I made the jump and landed on something soft and prickly.
Hay.
I was on a hay bale. There were several piled up against the inside of a fence and away from the many huts and fire pits that dotted the inside of this camp.
Damn, this place was old-fashioned. No electricity here. These were cob huts made of mud and straw. One of the random facts I’d picked up somewhere.
How primitive was this place?
Never mind, I needed to scope it out and find The Elites and the dire wolf females, and I needed to do it fast.
SLOANE
The room we’re in has one window with bars on it, a single exit that’s locked, and no furniture.
The fact we can’t use our magic means there are varga surrounding this building.
“Do you think Cora and Jasper made it?” Poppy asks from her position at the window. “They must have been spit out elsewhere or they’d have been caught by now.”
We entered smack bang into the camp and have since surmised that the rifts must have random drop-off points. We stepped through together and so we came out together. Cora and Jasper came after us. Hopefully they haven’t been spotted.
“You think they’ll find us,” Poppy asks.
“I’m hoping they don’t,” Jessie says. “Or if they do, they have the smarts to get the fuck out of here. You saw the camp. It’s fucking huge and filled with varga. There’s no way out.”
I’m not optimistic about our situation but I refuse to lose hope. All we need is a break in their security, a moment to tear a rift and we’ll be out of here, because now that they know we’re here, searching the camp for the female dire wolves is too dangerous.
Jessie keeps holding up her hands to test her magic, and each time nothing happens her expression darkens more.
“What I don’t understand is why they haven’t killed us already,” Poppy says. “They don’t seem to have a problem with killing people.”
She’s grinding her teeth again, eyes bright with tears over Danny. In usual circumstances I’d never have dragged her onto a mission this soon after a bereavement, but it’s not like we had a choice. We didn’t have a
