Her Wild Hero

“Aren’t you going to eat?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Nah. I wasn’t kidding about all the food I ate before coming down here. I can go without eating for a few days if I have to.”

Declan didn’t tell her the real reason he wasn’t eating was because they hardly had any food in their packs. Foraging for food sounded like a good idea, but it wasn’t going to be that easy with hybrids on their tails. Thankfully, Kendra didn’t press the issue. He picked up a few of the cinnamon-scented flowers and rubbed down her pack while she ate.

“Those smell nice, kind of like spiced apple cider. How did you know it’d fool the hybrids?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t know. But the odor has always been overpowering for me, so I hoped it’d be as bad for them. It’s so strong that it could trick a shifter with a good nose—like Ivy. And based on how little the hybrids used their noses back there at the stream, I think their sense of smell is worse than mine.”

She regarded him thoughtfully. “I’ve always wondered about that. Why do bears generally have such an amazing sense of smell, but you don’t?”

Declan set down her pack and picked up his. “I don’t know. It’s just not something I’m good at.”

He tried to keep his voice casual, but it actually came out sharper than he intended. Maybe because it was Kendra asking and he knew she’d take it as one more reason to think he didn’t measure up.

“Guess that makes sense,” she said. “How did you learn so much about flowers? Is it something you picked up when you were a forest ranger?”

The question caught him off guard. He would have thought that since she had access to his personnel record, she already knew everything there was to know about him, including where he’d learned about flowers.

“My mother has a huge greenhouse. She raises all kinds of exotic plants and flowers, but orchids are her favorite. I used to help her when I was a kid—planting, watering, weeding, that kind of stuff.”

Kendra smiled. “Sounds like you and your mom are close.”

Declan grunted. He wasn’t going to tell her that his mom had all but disowned him when he’d dropped out of MIT.

Kendra finished her energy bar and shoved the wrapper in her pack, then took a quick drink of water from her canteen before digging around for a small canvas pouch. He watched in surprise as she picked up her M4 and started breaking it down. They’d gotten the worst of the mud off their weapons, but the M4s would need a detailed cleaning to keep them from malfunctioning later. That she was cleaning her weapon now wasn’t nearly as surprising as the fact that she was doing it in the near darkness of their shelter. Sure, he could see fine—he was a shifter—but she was doing it all by feel. Just another indication that she was way more comfortable handling a weapon than he’d realized.

“Something tells me you’ve done that before,” he remarked.

She didn’t say anything.

“Don’t take this wrong,” he continued, “but I watched you kill several men today, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the first time you’ve done that, either.”

Her hands stilled on the M4, then went back to work, moving with more determination this time. When she didn’t answer, he thought about pushing but changed his mind. He was the last guy to complain about someone keeping secrets. He had his share.

Declan picked up his own weapon. He’d pulled out the rear takedown pin and had the bolt halfway removed before her soft voice stopped him.

“It’s not the first time I’ve killed. The first time I’ve killed a man, yes, but not a hybrid. I’ve killed them before.”

How was that possible? “When? The DCO only learned about hybrids when Ivy and Landon found them out in Washington State.”

“I know,” she said. “I was there.”

Declan was glad it was dark or Kendra would have seen how stupid he looked with his mouth hanging open. He’d seen the reports. Ivy and Landon had taken on more than forty hybrids and lived to tell about it. Except now it turned out that Kendra had been there, too.

It certainly explained a lot. Like how she’d identified the hybrids on sight while the rest of them had been caught staring at the moving blurs. It also explained why she’d been able to calmly fight something out of most people’s nightmares.

“Is that why John sent you with us?” he asked. “Did he know there were hybrids down here?”

Kendra dropped the bolt of the M4 back in the upper receiver, then ran the carbine through a function check, reloaded it, and flipped on the safety before setting it aside.