About three miles up, after climbing over fallen logs and following the trail deep into a forest of ponderosa pines and aspen, they found the waterfall. It wasn’t huge, but it was tall enough that the sound of roaring water eclipsed that of the aspen clattering in the breeze.
Ace snapped a dozen pictures, getting different angles on the light, with him and without him. He took out his phone and grabbed a pic of her. The green of the forest and the late afternoon sun hitting the water made the glen seem magical. He could have sworn he saw a glow coming off her.
She set her camera down and sat on a rock to unlace her boots. In almost no time, she’d shucked her jeans, jacket, and tee, leaving her wearing only a pink and black eyelet bra and panty set. And Jesus Christ, how she filled out that bra.
He looked around to see if anyone else was near, but of course there wasn’t. It was midweek on a school day. They had the trail to themselves.
She took his hand. An electrical current whispered like a breath up his arms and across his neck. “Come in with me.”
“I can’t.”
“Of course you can.”
He shook his head. “I’m carrying. Guns and water aren’t friends.”
She laughed. “Guns plural?”
He locked his mouth in a thin line and glared at her. She turned away and went for her camera. The panties she wore were high cut, baring the most enticing half-moons of her ass cheeks. She brought the camera over to him.
“Will you take a picture of me in the water?”
“I’m not a photographer.”
“It’s just like staring down a scope. Just point and shoot.” She showed him the button. “Use this one.”
Look at the camera, not her chest, asshole, he told himself. It was a hard argument to make when her breasts rose in generous mounds above their cups. She reached behind herself and unfastened the hooks of her bra. He focused on the camera’s details so he wouldn’t think about the girl.
He caught just a glimpse of her breasts before she turned, presenting him with her graceful back…and the most stunning body art he’d ever seen. Some incredible artist had etched a butterfly that covered her entire back. The bottom of the wings stroked her hips, and the upper tips of the wings hugged her shoulders.
Val went cold. Fucking ice cold.
“Why a butterfly, Ace?”
She arched her back and looked over her shoulder at him. “Do you like it? I just had it done recently.”
“It’s beautiful. But why a butterfly?” God, was she the one Jafaar had said he was sending to infiltrate the team?
“They are fragile and mystical and change the world with their paper-thin wings. They represent rebirth, transformation. They’re powerful beings.”
He lifted her camera shot a few images, then took some with his phone. Holy fuck. He hoped he wasn’t going to have to pick between her and his team, because there was no choice to make. He never wanted to see her beautiful butterfly ruined by a bullet, but his team would always come first.
*
Kelan spent the evening in the bunker, working with Rocco on the cryptic documents from Bladen’s library. Rocco quit about a half-hour ahead of him. When Kelan couldn’t make sense of what he was reading anymore, he decided to call it a day. He had reached a collection of documents that talked about a War Bringer, but in these documents, the War Bringer was an enemy of the Omni World Order. This War Bringer was no unifier; he was a destroyer. The legends Kelan was reading pegged this guy as someone the Omnis feared and were ever on the lookout for.
“You’re the War Bringer…the true one,” the old man from the tunnel had said. Was he referring to this legend?
Kelan leaned back in his chair and rubbed his thumb and forefinger over the bridge of his nose. Nothing with this group made sense. Nothing the Omnis did was straightforward. Nothing meant what it meant.
He stood up and stretched. Tomorrow, he’d write up an analysis of the papers he read today. He checked his watch. It was almost midnight. Fiona was hopefully sound asleep. If she wasn’t in his room, he’d join her in hers.
Max came out of the ops room, catching Kelan before he left. “Hey, bro.”
“Night, Max.”
Max shook his head. He looked troubled. Kelan frowned. “What is it?”
“Fiona bought a car online earlier today. A real piece of shit. Why would she do that when you just gave her the Acadia?” He lifted his shoulders. “I just got that alert…and the one that said she emptied out her bank account at an ATM in town.”
“Fuck. Where is she now? She here?”
“Yeah. Her room, I think. I know she came back from town, but I don’t know if she’s being good about keeping her tracker on.”
Kelan took the stairs to the den three at a time. He felt a wash of rage, such a foreign emotion to him. Even fighting an enemy never summoned anger. Lethal intent, yes. Rage, never.
His chest was expanding and contracting in rapid waves as he walked down the hallway to the living room stairs. He looked across Blade’s stately living room and had the insane urge to tear it apart. He fisted his hands into tight balls and went up the stairs to the bridge.
Outside her room, he paused. Blood was pounding in his head. He was deaf to any sound and not certain he could even form words in his current state. Instead of making matters worse by confronting her now, he decided to wait and cool down a bit. He pivoted on his heel and went to his room, right next to hers.
God. Damn. He wanted to break something. He paced the length of his room. Spreading his fingers out wide, he focused on his breathing. Anything he broke out of sheer rage would never be whole again. Only he could dissipate his anger, and he had to do it before he saw her again. He forced his breathing to slow until his blood wasn’t drumming in his ears anymore; it had returned to the source of his emotional explosion—his heart.