Landon regarded the flowers for a moment, then looked at Clayne. “And I didn’t get you anything.”
Clayne growled. “Funny, but it’s not a present. It’s the reason we haven’t been able to find Declan and Kendra.”
Ivy bent down and picked up the flowers. She held them at arm’s length and sniffed, then groaned. “Dammit.”
Landon frowned, looking from his wife to Clayne and back again. “What am I missing here?”
Angelo wanted to know the answer to that, too.
“Declan and Kendra have been rubbing these damn flowers all over themselves for days,” Clayne explained. “To you guys, they probably smell nice, but to us, they’re overpowering as hell. A shifter—or a hybrid—wouldn’t be able to smell anything cloaked by this fragrance.”
“Then how do you know Declan and Kendra used them to mask their scent?” Angelo asked.
“It wasn’t too hard to figure out once I realized a plant shouldn’t leave a trail through the forest like this.” Clayne jerked his head toward the trees. “I went back about a mile or so and checked. This flower’s scent follows right along with the prints we’ve been following. Declan covered their tracks with a fucking flower, and it took us almost three days to figure it out. I’m not sure if I should be impressed with him or pissed at myself. But it’s them, I know it.”
Ivy picked up her pack. “Let’s get going. If we’re lucky, we might be able to catch up with them tonight.”
“No,” Landon said.
She swung around to face him, her eyes glowing. “What do you mean, no?”
Landon moved to put his hands on her shoulders, but stopped himself. Angelo felt for his friend. God, it really sucked that Landon couldn’t touch his wife in front of other people simply because the DCO had some stupid policy that said they weren’t supposed to be married.
“I want to find Declan and Kendra as much as you do, but we can’t go after them right now,” Landon said gently. “Derek needs more time to finish patching everybody up and we all need to rest some after that attack. Besides, we can’t go charging around the jungle willy-nilly anymore. We’ll have to move much slower now that we know the hybrids are trying to ambush us.”
Ivy looked like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t. Even in the dark, the frustration on her face was clear as she nodded. “You’re right.” She fingered the wedding rings Angelo knew she wore on a necklace beneath her shirt as she looked at Landon, then turned to Clayne. “Get something to eat. I’ll cover the perimeter.”
Landon started to go after her, but thought better of it. Instead, he stood there and watched her disappear into the jungle.
“Should I go with her?” Tanner asked.
Landon shook his head, tossing him an MRE—meal ready to eat—from his pack. “No. I’ll head out in a little while. Right now, she needs some time to herself. She has a lot on her mind.”
Tanner frowned, but sat down beside Angelo and tore into the MRE. “Did I miss something while I was gone?”
Angelo dug in his own pack and pulled out some food. Unlike Landon, he didn’t have any complete MRE pouches—the things took up too much space. Instead, he’d raided an extra case of rations back at the base camp, taking only the best parts—the main entrées and the cheese—which in his opinion was the best thing the food nerds had ever invented. Angelo tore the corner of an entrée at random and squished the stuff into his mouth like toothpaste. Chicken and egg noodles…maybe.
“We’ve been hit a few times by hybrids since you took off to look for those locals,” Landon replied to Tanner’s question as he sat down on the ground opposite them. “Nothing like the ambush they just pulled on us, but bad enough to slow us down.”
“Is that why Ivy’s upset?” Tanner opened the MRE. “Because she feels like we aren’t getting any closer to her friend?”
“That’s some of it,” Landon admitted, digging out another MRE. “But I’m guessing she’s still freaked out by the three hybrids we stumbled across earlier today.”
Tanner looked up from the mystery goo he was spooning into his mouth, his eyes sharp. “Why? What happened?”
Angelo picked up the story so his former captain could eat. “It wasn’t anything that happened. It was how they acted. One was a lookout, while the other two crawled around on their hands and knees, sniffing the ground like a couple of freaking bloodhounds.”
Tanner’s brow furrowed. “That’s strange.”
“No shit,” Angelo agreed. “They were so intent on sniffing the ground, they didn’t even notice us until we were practically right in front of them. It wasn’t until we put them down that we noticed the two bloodhounds had been carrying ripped up pieces of Kendra’s clothing.”
“Oh, shit,” Tanner murmured.
Her Wild Hero
Paige Tyler's books
- Beyond Here Lies Nothing
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- The Finisher
- A Quest of Heroes
- The Other Side of Midnight
- Her Dark Curiosity
- Die for Her: A Die for Me Novella
- The Lost Herondale
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- WHERE DARKNESS LIVES
- The Lost Herondale
- Among Others
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