He stalked closer, the silver in his eyes expanding. “Perhaps we should practice,” he coaxed, his voice deep.
A throb of yearning tugged on me, but I straightened and put a hand on his chest. “Not while you’re bound,” I reminded him quietly.
His eyes dropped half closed and his mouth curled into a tiny, satisfied smile. “I was referring to the shielding, Captain.”
“Sure you were,” I whispered. I bit my bottom lip and his gaze zeroed in on the motion. His muscles locked tight before he growled something under his breath. He pivoted away before he spun back and opened his arms, a challenging light in his eyes.
“Torran,” I protested.
“Are hugs forbidden now, too?”
With the way I felt right now, they probably should be, but I just shook a warning finger at him. “A hug only.”
“On my honor,” he agreed quietly.
I eased into his arms and knew immediately that this had been a mistake. Because under all of the hungry looks and burning desire, there was a deep well of care. And my heart was far more susceptible to caring than it was to lust.
He held me lightly, gently, and when I remained tense, he ran a soothing hand down my back and played with the ends of my hair. “Relax, Tavi,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble.
I wanted to hear it again. I gingerly laid my head against his shoulder and demanded, “Tell me something about yourself. Why did you join the military?”
“It was expected,” he said. “My father was a general, a decorated war hero, as was my grandfather. I learned strategy from the best.” He sighed. “I rose through the ranks quickly and everyone assumed it was nepotism. And it was, of a sort. I’d been taught by two of our greatest military strategists. They didn’t have to help me get promoted because they’d already taught me everything they knew.”
“You were one of our primary targets,” I admitted. “But you never got close to the front lines.”
His chuckle had a bitter bite. “I spent plenty of time at the front,” he said. “Telekinetics, even generals, are not to be wasted. But we didn’t announce my presence. I’m not that bad at strategy.” He paused, as if weighing his words, then admitted, “I was on Rodeni the day you attacked.”
I leaned back and met his eyes. “Really?”
He nodded. “I was a few kilometers away from the blast, organizing the assault that would’ve wiped out the remaining FHP forces.” His eyes darkened. “The attack on civilians changed my plan.”
I thought of Lexi’s words about how every story had two sides. I wanted to explain more of my side, but it wasn’t only my life on the line if word got back to the FHP. I clenched my teeth and stared at his chin.
Torran’s fingers ghosted along my jaw. “Someday, when I’ve earned your trust, I would like to hear the truth of what happened. It will go no further than me, I swear it, but my decisions that day haunt me.”
I closed my eyes against the agony of memory. “That day haunts me, too.” A piece of the truth slipped out. “I lost half my squad trying to disable the bombs, and the rest of us barely made it out because Command left us to die. I resigned the same day.”
Torran frowned. “But they flaunted you for months after that.”
A bitter, self-mocking smile twisted my lips. “I’m aware. It was the only way to save Eli, Kee, and Lexi.” I slid out of his arms and away from the horrors of memory. “So you will need to shield us. Can you shield everyone?”
The change of subject wasn’t subtle, but Torran didn’t call me on it. His fingertips hovered in the air for a second before he dropped his arm. “I can’t shield all of you and communicate and fight. We’ll have everyone pair up. My team members are strong enough to shield multiple people, but it’s easiest one-on-one.”
I turned back to the blueprint. “How many Valoffs are we going to find in the bunker?”
Torran’s expression hardened. “I hope none.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Does that seem likely?”
“No.” He stared at the display. “Two or three mid-level civilian telepaths is most likely. In the worst case, it’ll be at least two telepaths and a telekinetic, all military trained.”
I rocked back and forth between my toes and heels. The thought of a telekinetic waiting for us in an underground bunker was the stuff of nightmares. “Can you subdue another telekinetic?”
His smile was quick and fierce. “Yes. But it is highly unlikely that it will be necessary.”
I pointed at the cross-section of the underground bunker. Lexi hadn’t been able to uncover a floor plan, so this was all we had. It didn’t tell us how wide the bunker was, just how deep. “If you were using this as your base, where would you be?”
Torran pointed at a large room in the middle. “Somewhere on this level. It’s easily defendable from either direction and most likely where bunks are.”
I nodded my agreement. That’s where I would set up, too. Now we just had to figure out how to get in without getting killed.
Our first training session proved that the Valoffs were so used to telepathic communication that it was going to be a problem for the humans in the group. Sure, my team could communicate with our comms, but more often than not, we ended up going a completely different direction than Torran’s team because our base strategies were so different.
Lexi flatly refused to accept telepathic communication from any of the Valoffs. It was her decision, so after a few experiments, I became the link between the two teams. Kee fitted Torran with an earpiece so he could hear our comms. It had a built-in mic, but he forgot to reply aloud often enough that we eventually nixed it. Instead, Torran looped me in to his telepathic orders, and I relayed them over the comm to my team. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked well enough.
Luckily, the Valovian armor was much easier to get used to. It was lighter and more flexible than the armor we normally wore, and the protection was even better. We didn’t look very much like Valoffs, not with our curvier builds and variable heights, but at least we were unrecognizable.
And it might be enough to cause another Valoff to hesitate.
It took several tries, but we finally moved enough as a team that we successfully cleared the shared hallway and all of its various rooms without anyone stepping into the line of fire or moving in the wrong direction.
Torran led, and I was positioned directly behind him. Half of his commands I could relay via hand signals and skip the comms altogether. Everyone had paired up with the most vulnerable team members—Kee and Havil—roughly in the middle. Lexi and Nilo were behind me, followed by Havil and Anja, then Kee and Varro. Eli and Chira brought up the rear.