Ariel gave me a murderous glare and opened her mouth to curse me. I held up one finger and she choked on her words.
I waved to the west. “Tel Aviv is that way. If I feel you stop or turn back through our pack link, I’ll drain your life force.”
She made a motion to reach for the weapon Mike held, but he jerked it away.
“Get moving, bitch!” I said.
Ariel’s feet dragged in the sand as she fought my command, but my will was stronger. In minutes, she was over the next dune and out of sight.
“Why didn’t you just kill her?” asked Mike.
Was Mike testing my resolve? He’d been the one pleading with me to give her second chances. Now he seemed to disapprove of my not killing her outright.
Would I have acted any differently than Ariel, were our roles reversed? I liked to believe I was honest and virtuous, but maybe I would have acted the same.
Maybe I saw too much of myself in her for us to work together. Exile with a chance a survival was better than a fight to the death—a fight that might interfere with our primary mission.
Mike was waiting. I decided to go with the simplest explanation.
“I hate killing werewolves,” I admitted. “Female werewolves are so rare; it would be like stomping on the last lotus on earth. There’s always a chance she can reform.”
Mike shook his head. “You saved her life multiple times and all you got in return were attacks. I think you’ve made an enemy for life.”
“I’ll probably regret letting her live.”
Mike shouldered his pack and turned in a circle. “Nothing but desert all around. We have two canteens, some MREs, and no transportation.” He shrugged the pack into a comfortable position and smiled. “This is what we would call a ‘challenge’ in Special Forces.”
“How can you smile?”
“I have faith in Saint Luna. You’ve got werewolf stamina and a bag full of magic tricks.”
“I don’t have a spell that will get us out of this mess,” I protested.
Mike took a deep breath. “One thing at a time. First, we need to find a place to sit out the heat of the day.” He pointed to a distant boulder. “We can get some shade there. It looks like it’s about a twenty-minute hike.”
I nodded. “Good. That’s the way we need to head anyway.”
He started walking, and I followed. “How do you know the right direction?”
“Werewolves have an internal compass. Always knowing where the moon is, and the time, makes it pretty easy to calculate direction.”
I slipped in the sand and slid down about ten feet before starting up the next dune. “It doesn’t work as well near the north or south poles, but here it works well.”
“Built-in GPS,” said Mike. “Must be nice.”
“It’s not just that,” I said. “I can sense the hostages’ location through our pack link.”
“I thought that only worked when you were close.”
“No, I can feel Logan’s pain from anywhere on Earth.” Saying it out loud brought on the urge to strip and shift to wolf and race to save him. I pushed the impulse down. It was still hundreds of kilometers to his location. Racing off half-cocked would be a disaster.
We reached the rock, a boulder that stood about fifteen feet above the sands. It was like a huge egg, with the wide side down. No handy shelf to perch under.
We huddled down on the western side and drank tepid water from our canteens.
“It’ll be brutal at noon,” I said. “We won’t have any shade, and I don’t have any magic tricks to block the sun. Makes me miss the Alaskan tundra.”
Mike dug through his pack and pulled out some collapsed poles and a bundle of cloth in desert camouflage colors.
In a few minutes, he had set up the poles and draped the cloth over our spot. The tent was more netting than cloth, and its openings allowed air to flow while still blocking the sun.
“I didn’t think about using one of those.”
“You have your magic tricks; I have SEAL survivor training.”
It was already sweltering, even with the shade. Werewolves can handle temperature extremes better than most humans, but Mike would suffer. I gathered a tiny amount of air magic and set up a cooling breeze.
“A breeze,” commented Mike. “That’s nice and cool.” He jerked around. “Too cool. Is this you?”
“Yes. I set up a spell that shunts the hotter air molecules away and pushes the cooler ones toward our shelter.”
“How long can you keep it up? Don’t tire yourself out for comfort.”
“Indefinitely,” I said. “There’s lots of energy here to tap.”
“Won’t other genies sense foreign magic and attack?”
“This spell is tiny in comparison to the others I used. Also, after channeling the genie’s magic to make that globe, I have a sense for how to adjust my spells to make them like the local ones.”
Mike had a puzzled look, so I elaborated. “It’s like learning to add local spices to your favorite dish to make it similar to the local cuisine.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier to understand, Luna,” Mike said as he scanned the horizon for attacking genies.
“It’s hard to put into words, but I’m sure this spell won’t attract attention.”
Mike calmed and sat. He shook his canteen to see how much was left and took a careful sip.
“Luna, don’t get mad. But you’re not a good teammate.”
I hate when men say, “Don’t get mad.”
“What? Don’t be silly. Did you hit your head when I pulled you from that exploding plane? Or when I broke the spell that made you Ariel’s slave? Or that time—”
Mike held up a hand and tilted his head, an expression of infinite patience on his face.
I bit back a torrent of examples and took a deep breath. “Why do you think I’m not a good teammate?”
“I have no clue what you can do. You’re so secretive that I never know what’s
