Wu pinched me, and I yelped. Cole snapped out his arm toward the greatest threat on reflex and fisted Sariah’s throat without decelerating.
“She feels real enough to me,” Wu said, ever-so-helpfully.
“Let her go.” I pried at Cole’s fingers, and he let me peel them away. “She didn’t try to hurt me.”
“Turn around and sit down,” he barked at her all the same. “Conversation can wait until we get back to the hotel.”
“Sure thing,” she croaked, shooting me a grateful look.
All hope for evaluating her intel went up in smoke, but I would bet money that wasn’t the reason for our extra passenger. Cole had defused a delicate situation by moving the lighter away from the tinder, nothing more.
“You won’t break through to that one.” Wu offered the advice in a matter-of-fact drawl. “Forget saving her.”
“I’m not—” The protest died in my throat when it occurred to me it might be true. Hard to tell if it was guilt on my part or deeply buried fondness from Conquest guiding me. And by fondness, I mean she wasn’t the only one who recognized a solid-gold resource when she saw one. One bound into our service made it even better. It meant even if we couldn’t earn her loyalty, we still reaped the benefits. “How do you know? Look at my coterie.”
“Your coterie was loyal to Conquest. Most were with her of their own volition.” The back of Cole’s head drew his eye. “Or they gave consent to be taken.” He tapped his fingers on the seat beside us. “You’ve given them a taste of freedom, and the fact you didn’t walk up and immediately snatch it back has earned you their goodwill. Adaptation isn’t the same thing as transformation.”
“You’re saying coteries are like packs of rabid dogs. The pack master can kick and beat and starve them, and the one time he shows up with a bone, all is forgiven. Even if it’s only one bone, and they have to fight amongst themselves to claim it.”
“You see the face they want you to see.” Wu’s fingers stilled. “The coterie you know is a fiction they’ve created, one that complements your goals and ideals, and you’d be a fool to trust your eyes.”
Thom explained to me how the first thing charun did on a new world was learn the food chain to integrate at its peak. They observed a society, selected its top predator, and then mimicked it. On this world, that meant humans. Charun were resilient. My own species, apparently, were the ultimate chameleons, selecting mates and then altering our biology to mimic them on a cellular level. But hearing his theory that the coterie had crafted personas to reflect mine set my teeth on edge.
I shook my head. “You’re wrong.”
Wu once accused me of believing my own propaganda, and maybe he was right, but this was a prime example of him doing the same.
Conquest was a title, not a person. That’s what he told me. Well, coterie was a label, and it was up to us how we defined it.
What mattered to me was they had been given fifteen years of freedom, and they had spent it building a quiet life for themselves. They had done no harm. At least not to humans. Charun politics were a river I was unqualified to paddle in, so I floated no opinions on the topic.
The coterie had evolved from whoever they had been, however she had molded them, to who they were now, a shape they defined themselves.
I was a blank slate gifted with a fresh start, so why shouldn’t they get the same second chance?
Secrets aside, I believed in my coterie, and I trusted them. They were being as honest with me as they could without compromising me or endangering themselves. And I was returning the favor. Ezra was the only skeleton hiding in my closet, and I couldn’t be certain they hadn’t watched me stuff him in there.
I had a theory that our bond flowed like a river between us, that wading in was what had eroded the touch-aversion that plagued me until I met them. And while I might have been oblivious to the current for the last decade and change, they had been swept along in my wake.
The coterie was, I speculated, fundamentally altered at its source. I was the fount, and I had been reborn. How much had my regenesis christened those waters? Had it anointed them with fresh purpose as well?
Sink or swim.
They had more than survived the swirls and eddies of change. They had thrived amid the chaos.
“I hope your faith isn’t misplaced.” Wu frowned at that. “None of us are who we appear to be.”
I patted his twitching fingers. “Most of all me.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Our arrival was met with groans from Santiago and glares from Miller. Portia was doing her best Maggie impersonation, and she winked to let me in on the secret in case I hadn’t seen through her charade. Whatever her game, I was glad Portia was the one playing it. I wanted Maggie far away from Sariah.
Personally? I would put five dollars on Portia and Santiago hoping to provoke Sariah into an attack using fake Maggie as the sacrificial lamb. Predatory instincts were difficult to suppress at the best of times, and these were far from those.
Wu prowled behind Sariah as she strolled toward the desk Santiago had arranged as her workstation, close enough his breath must have hit the base of her neck. No wonder she sat down so fast.
Cole entered at my side, and we sank onto the couch to see who cracked first.
“I vote yes,” Santiago announced.
“No one’s asked a question,” I pointed out.
“You’re the let’s put it to a vote type these days,” he countered. “Trust me, it’s coming.”
“Sariah,” Wu intoned from his position beside her. “The floor is yours.”
“Mother has outposts in Greenville and Jackson in Mississippi, as well as in Alexandria and Monroe in Louisiana.” She stood and lifted the tablet Santiago had loaned her, proving they really did pour out of his ears, then indicated the virtual pins she had stuck in the map. “The Jackson nest is the largest. It’s about forty-five minutes from Vicksburg. But the nest in Monroe has the best fighters. It’s closer to an hour and a half away.”
She held everyone’s focus now, and she preened under the attention.
“I’ve already explained how the system works, so I’ll skip that part.” She paced between her chair and the wall, four quick strides that told me she thought best on her feet. “We’ve got two days to take out as many nests as possible. There are no direct lines of communication. Mother distrusts technology. Her grasp is only as firm as the hosts her soldiers have taken, and their understanding is too thin for her liking. She has no time to become proficient herself, so she’s sticking with what she knows best. She’s running scouts between locations. I have their timetable memorized. If we disrupt their lines of communication, we can, potentially, take out two of the four nests before she realizes what we’ve done.”
“This could be an ambush,” Miller said, tossing in his two cents.
“I’ve kept her offline,” Santiago protested. “She’s had no way to reach out and touch anyone.”
“She’s fresh from The Hole,” Wu agreed. “She was clean when she arrived.”
“She won’t betray us.” Cole dipped his gaze to her wrists. “Her intel is good, or it was prior to her incarceration.”
“Then the question becomes—” Thom exited his bedroom and crossed to my side, “—which two do we hit?”
“A forty-eight-hour window isn’t realistic,” Portia agreed. “We can only take out what we can hit in a single night. Otherwise, word will travel, and an ambush will really be waiting.”
After a brief debate, I became aware of all eyes falling on me. I was their leader, what was left of her, and it was my duty to make these calls. Or it would be one day. Call me a coward, but I wasn’t willing to shoulder the decision alone.
“What will give us the tactical advantage?” I posed the question to all of them. “Taking out more of her fighters or her better fighters or splitting the difference?” I looked to Cole, who had led them for so long, to get a read on which way he was leaning. He gave away nothing. Great. It was down to
me then. “I vote we strike the two weakest outposts. We’ll lose the element of surprise, which will cost us our chance at the bigger targets. But the fact is, we don’t know how far to trust Sariah’s intel. After Famine’s capture and Sariah’s disappearance, War might have initiated emergency protocols.”
“You’re throwing away your chance.” Sariah huffed. “Hit her hard and fast, take out the two prime targets.”
Seven of us, counting Wu, wasn’t going to make a dent in the numbers she implied. “I won’t risk the coterie.”
“We could split teams,” Wu offered. “Strike the weakest links simultaneously then regroup.” He eyed Sariah. “If we take out the scouts, we can isolate the remaining nests. We could take three out of the four in one night.”
“Given the opportunity,” Santiago grudgingly agreed, “we should take full advantage.”
There was always a chance the individual battles would take longer, that we wouldn’t have time to regroup or the means to plan another attack. A girl could hope, right? “I can live with that.”
“All in favor,” Cole said, lips curling with amusement. “Say aye.”
A chorus of ayes filled the room, Sariah’s the loudest.
“Aye—” I elbowed him in the ribs and immediately regretted my life choices, “—can’t believe you said that.”
“We’re a democratic coterie these days.” Amusement glinted in his eyes. “All I did was save you the trouble.”
“All opposed,” he called, still grinning. “Say nay.”
“Nay.”
We whipped our heads around in sync. Miller stood with his legs braced shoulder-distance apart, and his arms fisted at his sides.
“Miller?” Cole and I rose in tandem. “What’s the problem?”
He tagged Portia with a gaze harsher than any he would ever turn on Maggie. I still imagined her cringing inside, even though I had no clue if she was cognizant of what happened while she was waiting her turn.
“Let’s discuss this somewhere private.” Anything we said in close quarters would be overheard. Crossing to my friend, I hooked my arm through his. “Come on. Stop dragging your heels.” I trailed my fingertips down Cole’s arm. “We’ll be downstairs. Give us a few minutes.”
We left the suite and took the elevator down to the lobby. There was a plush sitting area, and we put it to use.
“Portia is climbing the walls.” I twisted so we faced each other on the couch. “She needs an outlet.”
“Maggie is untrained.” He shook his head. “Her fear will cause Portia to doubt, and they’ll both get killed.”
“Portia has been training, which means Maggie has too. Even if she’s not an active participant. Muscle memory will have kicked in, and all Portia’s knowledge is right there if she takes over.” I crossed my legs and started kicking to burn off energy. “I don’t love this idea either.” I held his worried gaze. “You know I would do anything to keep Mags safe. I already have.”
“I know,” he said softly. “Let me have their back?”
“Santiago is usually Portia’s partner, isn’t he?” It was a hunch, but it made sense.
“Yes.” He tipped his head back and stared up at the ceiling like he might glimpse Mags through all those layers of wood and plaster. “They’ve always worked best together.”
“Then it makes sense to let the pairing stand.” I squeezed his hand. “He knows her weaknesses, so he’ll be there to shore them up, and he’ll be the first to notice if she falters.”
“I hate logic.”
“Me too.” I sat there a moment longer. “I’ll give him a direct order to get her out if she defaults to Maggie. I’ll let Cole have the honors if you think he’ll listen better if the news came from him.”
“Santiago isn’t sexist.”
“No, he’s Luceist.”
Miller chuckled, a ticking time bomb defused. “We’ve got an odd number. Who gets Sariah?”
“I hadn’t planned on allowing her in the field.” Funny how he was shifting all the big decisions onto me. “It seems dangerous. One look at her, and it’s as good as beaming an SOS to War. Any survivor will tell War who led the charge and who was with her. She’ll suspect Sariah, but she won’t have all the pieces unless we hand them to her.” Figuring the rest of the coterie would be getting twitchy, I uncrossed my legs and stood. “I guess that leaves you the odd man out.”
He spread his hands. “Guess so.”
“Looks like you’ll have to play third wheel for someone.”
He glanced up at me. “Guess so.”
“I told you—” I took his hand and hauled him onto his feet with me, “—I’ll do anything to keep her safe. You can’t get in the way of Santiago and Portia, but you can act as backup, and you can do me the huge favor of keeping an eye out for Mags.”
“Portia isn’t used to sharing,” he agreed. “She’s the dominant personality. For now. She ought to be able to hold on, especially if Maggie gives her permission.”
“But emotions run high in battle, and attentions slip.” I nodded that I understood. “We need to make sure Portia doesn’t lose her grip.”
With that settled, we rejoined the others, who were deep into planning our various infiltrations. Guess they weren’t all that concerned Miller might go kaboom after all. As much as I wanted to take credit for that, he was the stalwart one.
Miller joined Santiago and Portia in their huddle while I joined Cole, Thom, and Wu in theirs.
Asking Santiago for a favor was almost as smart as sticking your head in a lion’s mouth, but I took a quick minute to text him my request all the same. He angled his head toward me, lips pursed in thought, then gave me a terse nod.
“Everything settled?” Cole shifted so that his arm brushed mine, drawing my attention back to him. “Miller seems calmer.”
“We’ve come to an understanding.” I cast my gaze around the group. “Are we all going in together?”
“Yes.” Thom stared at Wu, unblinking. “This evens the teams. Three and three.”
Three plus three didn’t equal seven. Even I could do that much math.
“Great,” I grumbled. “I’m the liability.”
“You’re the bait,” Wu corrected me. “Her coterie has their orders. War might want to take another swipe at you, but she won’t shed a tear if someone guts you before she gets her chance.”
I rubbed my stomach. “You guys are big on disembowelment, huh?”
“Yes,” Thom answered, distracted. “It’s fast and simple, a solid strategy.”
A bullet between the eyes was fast and simple. Evisceration was up close and personal. It allowed them to get their claws wet, and I couldn’t say boo about it. Brutality was in their nature, and the same was true for our enemies. I couldn’t leash my coterie when War allowed hers to roam unfettered. “Do we have our marching orders?”
Wu caught my eye. “Are you ready for this?”
“I have to be.” I rolled my shoulders, but his judgment weighed on me. “We passed the point of no return a few miles back.”
Wu dipped his chin then vanished into the hall with the cooler in one hand and the note to Jay Lambert’s mother in the other. How he ended up with either of those things mystified me. Light-fingered indeed.
“I don’t like this,” Cole murmured.
“Which part?” I leaned closer. “That we’re using Sariah’s intel? That we’re raiding War’s nests? That Maggie is going out on her first mission? That Portia is sharing consciousness with a civilian?”
“I meant the part where you have to fight.”
“I could say the same for you.” I rested my cheek against his upper arm. “You’ve all got this feral core, I get that, or I’m trying to, but I don’t want this for any of you. You might enjoy a good brawl, but it terrifies me that I might lose one of you.”
“We’ve been doing this a long time.” He kissed the top of my head. “It might not seem like it, but this plan is low-risk.”
“I’ll have to take your w
ord on that.” I cut my eyes toward Sariah, busy arguing with Santiago about who knows what. He would fight you on any point, no matter how trivial, if he didn’t like you. Since he didn’t much like anyone, cue histrionics. “What are we doing with her?”
He had his answer primed and ready. “You’re going to order her to remain here.”
“You’re that confident the bangles will compel her into good behavior?”
“She can’t disobey a direct order while wearing them. She can find loopholes and manipulate those, but she must follow your instructions to the letter.”
A shiver rolled through me at having that much power over another person. I could tell the coterie what to do, yeah, but they could argue. They could fight back. She couldn’t do either of those things if I forbade them. No wonder Lorelei wanted them destroyed ASAP.
“Good to know.” I almost wished I had the option of ignorance here too. “There’s something . . . ” A headache throbbed behind my right eye. “I get a migraine if I look at them too long. That can’t be good.” I blinked clear of the pain. “They didn’t bother me at first. Maybe it’s from too much exposure? Can they affect me?”
I might have a charun core, but I still thought like a human, and I still wore a human shell.
Cole’s answer came slower this time. “Do you have a long-sleeve shirt she could wear to cover them?”
“I’m sure I have a spare in my bag.” I rocked back on my heels, waiting to see if he had anything else to add. “I’ll go dig that up then get her settled. I’ll pop some ibuprofen while I’m at it. Maybe that will help.”
“Santiago is setting her up with what he’s calling an unhackable tablet that will link her to his party and ours. We can check in with her and coordinate with each other through the White Horse app.”
“That’s one heck of a handy app.” And they called me chameleonic.
“Santiago reprograms it for every occasion.” A smile tugged at his lips. “You better look fast. This incarnation won’t last the night before he shreds it and starts weaving the strips into something new.”
Shaking my head, I went to raid my clothes and left the coterie to finalize our plans. In my room, I found a pleasant surprise that punched me in the feels. A pair of black tactical pants and matching long-sleeve shirt was folded on the duvet, waiting on me. I ran my thumb over the white war horse stamping its front hoof embroidered above the pocket. Heavy tread boots waited at the foot of the bed with black socks sticking out of their tops like tongues flapping. The nylon belt clashed with my leather shoulder holster, but I couldn’t care less. I suited up and left the room grinning like a fool.
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