Aaron rolled his shoulders. “You can believe I’m glad you got there as soon as you did.” He raised his head to meet my eyes again. “Thank you for sending her. It was the right call.”
“Remember that the next time you want to go off alone,” I said. “So what did you learn? What were they talking about? How close are they? Do we have to start preparing?”
He raised his hand to slow me down. When I went quiet, he tugged my wrist to sit me on the bed next to him. I wrapped my arm around his, watching his face as he started to speak.
“It sounded as though we should be fine as long as we’re here,” he said. “Unless, I suppose, we stay longer than they’re expecting. They’re settled in about a three-hour eagle-flight from here. The plans I heard, they were talking about waiting until we were on the move again. It was clear they assumed that within the next few days we’ll be leaving here and heading toward the feline estate.”
“That is what would make the most sense,” Nate said.
Aaron nodded. “They want to catch us along the way. Make an attack with the advantage of surprise, on terrain they feel will skew the odds even more in their favor.” He glanced at me to add an explanation. “Normally we’d make it a road trip so we could stop and meet with a few of the more distant communities along the way. We save the jets for emergencies.”
“We could make an exception in a case like this, couldn’t we?” I said.
“But then we’d lose our chance of confronting them. As soon as we reach Marco’s estate, they’ll have to make different plans. They’ll move into a new position.”
“Well, where’s this prime terrain they’re hoping to catch us at?” West asked.
“I don’t know,” Aaron admitted. “Either they’d already decided and didn’t see the need to mention it to each other, or they haven’t decided yet and are waiting to see what actions we take first. I couldn’t tell from the way they talked about it.”
Marco brushed his hands together. “Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? Now we know where they are. We’ll go deal with them before they can set up their little surprise.”
“I agree,” Aaron said. “But the difficulty is how. They’re monitoring the area around the estate. They’ll know if we set off straight toward their camp and scatter before we get anywhere near them. I counted around forty of them there. From what the rogue prisoner said, that might be as much as half of their remaining number. If we strike, it needs to be in a way that ensures none of them escapes. Otherwise we’ll just have to deal with them again later.”
“I’ve definitely had enough of that,” West muttered. “Enough with the constant fleeing and regrouping. As long as enough rogues are out there to stir up trouble, none of our kin are truly safe.”
“Ren won’t be safe,” Nate said. He moved to stand beside me, putting his hand on my shoulder. “They’ve gotten away with too much already. It’s about time they faced some consequences.”
“An excellent sentiment,” Marco said. “It still doesn’t answer the question of how.”
Aaron rubbed his mouth. He looked so tired I wanted to tell the others to leave, to let him rest, but I knew from the determination in his stance that he wanted this settled. He’d waited out the rogues and spent the rest of the night flying back just so we could have this discussion. So we could come up with a plan of our own. I didn’t think he’d be willing to rest until he knew the information he’d brought back could be put to real use.
“We do have some advantage now,” Nate said. “We know they’ll be trying to spring something on us.”
“The trek from here to Florida is pretty long,” Marco said. “We can’t be on full alert constantly. I’d like a way to completely turn the tables on them.”
An idea tickled its way into my head. I straightened up next to Aaron. “You know what? I think we already have the answer right here.”
Chapter 10
Ren
“I don’t know about this,” Nate said as we tramped down the stairs toward the basement holding cells.
“We don’t have a whole lot of options,” I pointed out. “What are you going to do otherwise—leave him locked up and drugged for the rest of his life? How is he ever going to prove whose side he’s on if he never gets the chance?”
“I’d rather he was proving it in a way that didn’t potentially risk your life,” my bear shifter muttered.
“We can protect ourselves, can’t we? We’ll have our own sentries. We can withdraw if we need to.” I stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned to face him. “Do you actually think it’s a bad plan, or are you just worrying about me?”
He frowned. “It’s the best plan any of us came up with. I won’t pretend it isn’t. But you can’t blame me for worrying.”
I patted his chest affectionately. “All right, I won’t. Just try to go easy on him. We want him to feel he can trust us, remember.”
Outside Orion’s door, Nate produced a key ring from his pocket. The guard on duty hung back as we stepped inside.
Orion jerked up at the movement of the door. He’d been sprawled on his back on the bench, his head lolling. The tranquilizer still glazed his eyes and dulled his reflexes. He swayed before managing to completely sit up. His gaze stayed on Nate, wary even though his narrow face stayed slack.
I could just imagine how his last conversation with his alpha had gone. But I didn’t want any grizzly behavior in here today.
I grabbed a stool from the hall and sat down across from the former guard. Nate loomed behind me, as if to give everything I said the extra weight of his authority. We’d decided it was probably better if I did the talking. Mainly because he wasn’t sure he could keep his temper.
“Orion,” I said, and the muskrat shifter’s eyes dropped to meet mine. “We might have a job for you. A way for you to redeem yourself with your alpha and your kin—to show where your loyalties really lie.”
Despite the vagueness of his expression, a spark of hope lit deep in his gaze. “What is it?” he asked. “What do you want me to do?”
“You’ve talked to the rogues before,” I said.
He nodded. “One of them.”
“So if we sent you out to talk to them, there should be someone in the local group who’d know who you are?”
“Yeah.” His eyes darted between me and Nate. “But I don’t know where they are. I told you.”
“That’s all right,” I said with a crooked smile. “We know where they are. You could just... happen to stumble into them after we pointed you in the right direction.”
He focused back on me, his head tipping slightly to the left. A furrow had formed in his brow. “And then what would I do?”
“Well, if you’re up for it... We’d pick a spot for you to lead them to. We’ll have a story for you to give them, something like that we’re going to be sneaking out of the estate and heading down a specific stretch of road, somewhere that looks good for an ambush. You’ll pretend you decided to side with them and you’re bringing this inside information to prove your worth. And then we’ll be the ones to ambush them.”