by Barb Taub
Carey nodded fervently. “Yeah, the one who gives the wedding shower.” She shuddered.
Marley’s eyes lit up. She ran fingers through her hair, somehow shaping it in the instant-style move Carey had always envied, and stood up, brushing the dirt from the backs of her jeans. “Then we’d better take care of a few things first. We have to find Connor, protect Raziel, defeat Narcorial, and buy a lot of crepe paper. Let’s get moving people.”
“Iax and I can track Connor.” Peter’s voice was calm, but his eyes were on Claire. “We both have Bygul’s blessing, and I’m the Agency’s best tracker.”
Claire nodded to Carey. “Peter never exaggerates. He’s probably the best tracker there is.” Her sigh was equal parts annoyance and pride. “And that was even before he died, and Bygul…um…un-died him. Which…” She narrowed her eyes and spoke each word distinctly. “Will. Not. Happen. Again. So I’m going with him.”
“Also not happening.” Carey shook her head. “It took everything I had to get you through field training at the Academy, but you’re absolute crap in the woods. Peter, tell your girlfriend she has to stay with the group.”
Peter smiled. “So…the last time you gave Claire a direct order. How did that work out for you?”
Carey cringed. “New plan. You and Claire stay with the group. Iax and I will follow the trail, and we’ll keep in touch by text. Iax has a satphone, and if you stay up here on the hill, you should be able to get a signal. If we need help fast, send Anton on the bike. Leigh Ann can bring the rest of the team on the horses.”
Marley and Zach looked surprised, the imps were unconcerned, and Anton’s flat dark eyes looked slightly interested. But Peter’s face was appalled, and Claire frowned. Leigh Ann nodded. “Claire could spell my phone to the sat. So if you need us, text your GPS coordinates to my phone, and we’ll find you. But you shouldn’t get too far ahead. Why don’t you text every hour, and we’ll follow.” She stood up, and Carey wasn’t the least surprised to see a flash of timelessly ancient amusement in her eyes as Leigh Ann continued. “Oh, and who has what weapons? While we’re waiting, I need to make sure everyone is covered.”
Claire’s thoughtful look was back as she met Carey’s eyes. “We are so going to have a talk about this, Parker.”
»»•««
It was mid-afternoon before Iax put a hand on Carey’s shoulder and jerked his chin toward a fallen log. The trail they were tracking on foot had led them through stands of pine giving way to fir and larch, skirting open meadows and less dense groups of oak, aspen, and birch. The July sun was high in a cloudless blue sky as the trail they’d been following ended at the edge of a wide meadow. She didn’t miss the way his eyes swept the meadow, automatically looking for cover and potential ambush.
Half an hour later, they had circled the open space without finding any sign of a continuing trail. “My fault.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I should have sent Peter with you.” She paced back over the ground, looking for something they might have missed. “He’s a better tracker. Hell, I shouldn’t have given up my connections for that damn Metro.” She paced faster. “I should…”
“Carey.” He grabbed both of her shoulders, stopping her pacing. “You should take a drink of water, and then we’ll come up with a plan.”
She narrowed eyes at his automatic assumption of leadership. He grinned. “What I meant to say, of course, is that I know you don’t ever need to stop for a drink, but I’m only a man.”
She snorted but was reaching for the water bottle in his hand when her phone buzzed for a text message. It contained only a set of GPS coordinates and a single word. “Trap.”
His grin slipped. “Carey…” His fingers held the bottle for a moment before he released it. “Even if we find Connor, we don’t know for sure we can trust him.”
“Marley says he’s not…all good.” She stretched arms above her head, filling her lungs with the summer-sharp blended scents of the trees and the man beside her, fully aware that his eyes followed every move. “But then, I’m not all that good myself.” Shrugging, she tilted the bottle to expose the long line of her throat, and swallowed.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” His voice rumbled, full of sin and laughter.
She choked on the water, and he pounded her back. When she could breathe, they stared at each other for a long moment. Holding out her phone screen, she waited while he programmed the coordinates into his satphone. Silently, they moved in the direction indicated.
Just under fifteen minutes later, he pointed to a broken branch. They spread apart and eased forward. They’d only taken a few steps when Iax held up a hand for her to pause. He raised the crossbow he’d taken from the battle outside Jeremy’s house in Whitman. Slowly ranging the scope over the trees ahead, he stopped and pointed.
She followed his lead with her own bow scope. There. Where the leaves and branches were unnaturally thick, she could barely make out a dark figure. The trap?
They fell back to the woods, and began a circle of the spot. It was a painstaking twenty minutes before they pulled back again. He held up two fingers and pointed to a bushy clump at the far end of the little clearing. Another two fingers indicated a boulder with a fallen log beside it.
She nodded, and held up four more fingers, pointing one at a time to the original tree soldier and three more. It was a good trap, eight well-hidden soldiers waiting to ambush their prey. She raised a questioning eyebrow. He shrugged, and pointed back the way they’d come. Fifteen minutes later, they were texting their GPS coordinates to Leigh Ann.
There hadn’t been any sign that they’d been seen, but taking no chances, they swung up into the branches of an exceptionally leafy white oak. Carey paused as she spotted Iax above her, his back to the trunk and legs braced into the V of two thick limbs. He raised an eyebrow in challenge, and her answering smirk was pure evil. The corners of her mouth turned up at his breathed “Mercy!” when she settled herself into his lap.
She wriggled to get comfortable, and his arms banded around her as he sighed a groan into her ear. She smiled and leaned her back against his chest. Minutes passed, and neither spoke. Finally, his hand came up to cup her cheek. She tilted her head back to meet his eyes, watching as his head came down until their lips almost touched.
“Carey?”
“Yes.” She lifted her lips a fraction until they were a breath from his. “But you’d better not ever…”
“Never.”
“Okay, then.” She closed the distance, whispering against his lips. “If I know Claire, she’s already figured out our direction and hasn’t waited for the last hour’s GPS. I’m guessing we have half an hour at most. Probably closer to fifteen minutes. What do you think we can do in a tree for fifteen minutes?”
“Not nearly as much as I want to.”
She captured his moan with her mouth, her hands smoothing down his body, laughing softly as she felt him peel off her T-shirt. Keeping your balance in a tree, she realized, wasn’t nearly as easy when your hands had other priorities. And your lips. And tongue. And when you needed to touch those priorities—his face, his chest, and… “Who the hell puts buttons on jeans? That’s just sadistic.”
His answering laugh was shaky. “Slow. Just take it slow. There’s only so far we can go in a tree.”
Slow? His hands made him a liar as they seemed to be everywhere, pushing aside her thin camisole, shaping her breasts. She hoped he appreciated that her jeans had a zipper, a very accessible, easily opened one. His lips were against her ear, whispering that she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever imagined, that he’d always need her. Always want her. Always love her. Always.
Carey froze. For a long beat, neither moved. “Yosh?”
“I get you, Carey Parker. I get that you’re bossy, and that you pretend you’re not sulking when you don’t get your own way. I get that you’re cheerful at disgustingly early hours of the day, and that you need coffee, long showers, and to shoot things. I get that it’s hard for you
to love, hard for you to lose, and impossible for you to give up on someone once you let them into your heart. So I get that even though I screwed up and made the stupidest mistake in the history of the world, you still love me, and that means you always will.”
She stared into the face so near her own. She knew him too. She always would. “You might be right.” And their lips were sharing everything else. Know you. Want you. Love you. Just…you.
A soft whine broke them apart. Bain stood with his front paws up on the tree, mouth panting in a happy Aussie gotcha grin. Carey pulled her T-shirt on as the others approached, and slid down to greet her ecstatic dog. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the warning, Wigglebutts. But would five more minutes have been too much to ask?”
“It’s not brain surgery.” Less than ten minutes later, Carey looked up at the faces crowding around the circle she’d scratched on the ground, with an X marking the ambush positions for each of the eight hidden soldiers. “We start with a diversion. And, I’m sorry, but I think it’s got to be the ones who are going to be least useful as soldiers.” She looked at Zach and Leigh Ann. “Are you willing?” Zach nodded, but Leigh Ann just looked at her nails. “I don’t suppose this cancels out my community service?”
“I’ll speak to Director Jeffers.” Returning to her dirt diagram, she pointed with her stick. “Anton, Peter, Iax, and I will take out the ones in the trees here, here, here, and here. Peter and Iax have the longest shots, so they’ll use crossbows. Anton—how are you with the knife?”
He pulled a sheath from his boot, unrolling it to show six carbon steel knives, each about six inches long. With their razor tips and perfectly weighted, non-handled blades, they were almost shuriken-like in their balance and throwing power. Her fingers itched.
“Nice.”
She held her water bottle out to Claire. “I know they take poison, but we need to at least try to keep some of them alive so we can find out if they know where Connor is. Is there any way you can spell some of this water so they go under immediately instead of taking several seconds?”
“It would have to be a lot stronger than I’ve ever managed before.” Claire looked at Leigh Ann, who shrugged.
“All my community service.”
Carey looked at the imps. “If you each had a needle of the spelled water, do you think you could take the two behind the bushes?”
The four imps looked at each other, before Mike nodded. “Bargain, Car.”
“What about me?” Marley was pale, but her familiar cold smile was back.
“You and Claire will be lookouts on either side of the clearing. We don’t know if this trap is for Connor or if they already have him and they’re waiting for us. I think that with the ones we took out last night, we’ve already made a deep cut into the number of people they have in the area. But we have to be careful that this trap isn’t actually a decoy and there is another force waiting to attack when we show ourselves. You two will be the only warning we have.”
Without waiting for either to respond, she scratched two more X marks. “That leaves the two behind the log and boulder here and here. With the diversion, each of us will take out our tree-target and then try to make it over to take out the last two. Hopefully, before they kill Zach and Leigh Ann.”
Leigh Ann looked alarmed. “Am I the only one who sees a flaw with this plan?”
Carey tried to hide her frustration. “With them in place waiting to spring their trap, there’s no way we’re going to be able to pick them off one by one. We don’t have any other trained fighters, so we just have to wing the last part.”
“That’s not…quite…true.” Claire’s voice was slow, her eyes fixed on Peter’s. “We do have one more asset.”
Peter smiled. “Bygul?”
“I’m still too young a witch to summon her directly. But there has to be a reason she marked both of you. It’s worth a shot.”
Pulling out the amber pendant she wore beneath her shirt, Claire held it to the light. “Peter and Iax, it might help if you each hold your mark to the amber while I try to contact Bygul.”
She closed her eyes, and nobody breathed for several moments.
“So…” Leigh Ann looked around. “Is she here in more of a spiritual sense? Like she’ll give us moral support or something? ’Cause I’m not seeing any giant cats.”
Claire’s shoulders slumped.
“Okay, back to Plan A.” Carey ran everyone through their targets once more while Claire and Leigh Ann prepared the spelled water. After moving the horses and Peter’s bike well back from the trail, she fastened Hell securely into her carrier. Stepping back, she shook a finger at the tiny dog, who somehow always seemed to escape from any carrier she didn’t want to be in. “Stay here, you. You’re not big enough yet to handle real bad guys.” A pink tongue lolled, and Hell made a big show of curling up for a nap. Carey didn’t buy her act for a second.
She returned to the rest of the group as Claire handed needles to each of the imps, cautioning, “I don’t know how well or even if this will work. So be ready to fight if they don’t go under right away.”
Everyone emptied their water bottles and Claire carefully transferred a tiny amount of spelled water into each.
Carey looked at the group before her and cleared her throat. “I didn’t want any of you to come.” Ignoring Claire’s snort, she continued. “As usual, none of you listened to me. And…I’m glad.” She hesitated, but at a nod of encouragement from Yosh, she continued. “I think all of you would say you’re here for different reasons. But mostly, I think you’re here for love. Like the imps’ love for each other.”
The imps shifted uncomfortably until Mike muttered, “It is our bargain, Car.”
She smiled. “Or Anton’s love for Jacob.” His dark eyes didn’t flicker, but the corners of his mouth turned up slightly.
Carey grinned. “Love’s not something I know a whole bunch about, but I want to say thanks. Oh, and I should probably also say I hope none of you die. ’Cause that would be a real mood killer.”
“Well, I certainly don’t love any of you, but I’m in favor of the not-dying. Let’s get this over with.” Leigh Ann folded her arms across her chest. Zach gave her a disappointed look, and she rolled her eyes.
“And on that note…” Carey picked up her backpack and eyed the group. “When Leigh Ann and Zach are in place, the go-signal is ‘now.’ The important thing is that we all take out our targets simultaneously on their signal. Good luck.”
Carey wriggled along the tree limb until she had a clear sightline to her target for the knife she was dipping into the drops of spelled water. Seconds crawled by. What was keeping Zach and Leigh Ann?
Finally, she heard footsteps crashing through the quiet woods. Drawing on a lifetime of training, Carey welcomed the cold, calculating core that was her harmonia warrior birthright. Her hand holding the spell-dipped knife could have thrown to her target even if she was blindfolded.
Leigh Ann’s voice carried over the sound of their steps. “Well, I don’t care what my Daddy says. If we love each other, we should be free to show it.”
Zach’s voice was an indistinct mumble.
“No, you’re wrong. I know where there’s a little clearing up ahead, and it’s perfect. We can spread out the blanket and be alone at last. Or, don’t you love me anymore?”
His mumbles took on an alarmed note.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You want to go back to that bitch, Sue Marriot, right? You were only using me to make her jealous?”
“Oof.” Zach sounded like an elbow had jabbed his stomach. “Um…no?”
Leigh Ann and Zach stepped into the clearing, where she promptly burst into noisy tears. “What’s Sue Marriot got that I don’t? Are hers better than mine?”
As Zach shook a bewildered head, Leigh Ann yanked off her T-shirt, revealing heaving breasts in a pale pink lace bra. He made a strangled sound.
“Well, how about her ass, then. Is that it?” She slowly unbuttoned her jeans and
began sliding them down her legs. “Do you want me to show you mine now?”
Carey’s knife flew, and her target slumped. Around her, she heard the other Outsiders falling from their tree ambush. From the far end of the clearing, there was scuffling behind the bushes, but she didn’t hesitate. Swinging down from her tree, she raced for the final targets behind the log and boulder. Her peripheral senses told her that Peter, Yosh, and Anton were doing the same.
When she came around the boulder, she froze. A soldier was on the ground, his gun arm gripped by Bain, his other raised to protect his eyes from the infuriated miniature hellhound barking smoke and tiny flames toward his face. And crouched on his back, a lion-sized Norwegian Forest Cat spat defiant fury.
Okay, that just left… A scream from Leigh Ann had her whirling back to the clearing in time to see the stable manager, Joe Decker, place a gun to Zach’s head.
“All of you. Drop your weapons or I’ll drop the kid.”
Carey looked at the others and nodded. She threw down her knife, sword, and gun. From around the clearing, she heard weapons hitting the ground. Raising her hands, she stepped toward the man holding Zach. From the corner of her eyes, she knew Iax, Peter, Claire, and Anton did the same. But all stopped when he screamed in rage, the gun shaking against Zach’s head.
“What do you want?” She kept her voice calm.
“You’re the only one I want. Come over here, nice and slow, and nobody else needs to get hurt. The rest of you all move back, and get close enough to touch each other.”
“It’s okay.” Keeping her hands raised, she ignored Yosh’s low snarls as she started forward, speaking in a low, soothing voice. “You don’t need to hurt him. I’m coming.”
Carey heard the others moving together as ordered, and was careful not to get between Decker and her team. She stopped a few feet from him and tried to look helpless. In a surprisingly quick move, he pulled her in front of him, clubbing Zach viciously across the temple and then putting the gun to her head as her cousin fell.