He sighed against her lips and she gave a soft laugh. “It just never ends with them.”
He sat up and held out a hand to pull her to her feet. They were dusting themselves off, as they were covered by a thin layer of dust that had been displaced when the buildings had fallen, when their scouting party found them. They were joined by Caden and several other Anateri.
“Are you alright, Warlord?” Caden asked as he approached at a rapid pace.
“Somehow.” Fallon didn’t seem surprised at his presence.
Shea gave the two a suspicious look. She had a sneaky suspicion that the feeling of being watched all day hadn’t been in her imagination and that the man at her side had been the one to order it.
“What is Caden doing here?” Shea asked.
Neither man spared her a glance. Shea gritted her teeth. Figured.
She stalked off. If they wanted to keep secrets and play games, then that was fine. She would go be useful somewhere else and leave the plotting to Fallon and Caden.
Shea looked around, counting heads. Her group was all here.
“Buck, do you have everyone?” she asked.
He turned and counted. “We’re missing two.”
She saw that. Fiona and Clark.
“Anybody have eyes on them during the fall?” Shea asked.
“They got cut off and ran the other way. I lost track of them after that,” Johnny said.
“Let’s split up and look for them,” Shea said. “Eamon, you’re with me. Buck, you can decide the pairings for your team. Be careful of further collapses. We don’t know if their structure is compromised as well. Yell if you find something.”
She stalked off, not giving the Anateri or Fallon time to argue. She had no doubt he would order someone to follow her, but in the meantime, she would do what needed to be done. That included finding Clark and Fiona.
“Hold up, Shea,” Eamon said.
Shea bit back the sharp retort that wanted to spring to her lips. She was angry about the building collapse, frustrated that she’d felt something was wrong and hadn’t listened, upset that Fallon had once again kept secrets from her, and worried about the two who were missing. None of which was Eamon’s fault and yelling at him wouldn’t help anything.
Seeing the frustration on her face, Eamon held up a placating hand. “Look I understand you’re in a rush, but you need to slow down and go carefully. You could trigger another collapse.”
Shea took a deep breath. He was right. Worse, she’d rip someone’s head off if they had acted as recklessly as she just had.
“You with me?” Eamon asked.
She gave him a sharp nod before turning back to the search. This time she was more careful as she went, blocking out the anger, frustration, and desperation that tried to urge her faster.
The other men called out Clark and Fiona’s names as they moved. No voices returned the calls.
Shea moved further in the rubble, careful not to step anywhere that might start a secondary collapse. If the worst had happened and Clark and Fiona were buried under there, they might still be alive. Another collapse could kill them.
“Clark,” Eamon called at Shea’s side.
They made their way slowly over to the other side of the rubble. Shea wasn’t surprised when Fallon and Caden joined them. The Anateri were a silent shadow at their backs. Shea wished they would spread out and look too, but knew voicing that opinion would be a waste of time. They had the look of men intent on protecting their Warlord.
“If the boy and woman came this way, it is doubtful they would have survived,” Caden told Fallon.
Shea looked up from where she crouched and fitted Caden with an implacable expression. “Until we have their bodies in front of us, I won’t write them off.”
He nodded. The slightly sympathetic look in his eyes made Shea uncomfortable. It was easier when she could be mad at him. Without the heat of her anger, she had nothing to focus on but her increasing sense of hopelessness at Clark’s odds of surviving.
“Warlord, I found something,” Wilhelm said, nodding at something at his feet.
Shea and Fallon crossed over to where he stood. Shea crouched and brushed her fingers lightly against the ground. A footprint. Only half of one, but it was something.
She moved away and hunted for others. “Here’s another one.”
This one was a full print—the stitching from the person’s footwear making a distinctive mark on the outer edge of the track.
“This means he could have survived,” Shea said.
Eamon crouched beside her. “No, it’s not his. It’s too big, and these aren’t the marks that his boots make. See where the stitching is? Clark wears leather soled boots with treads on them. These are different.”
He was right. Damn it.
“Then, are they Fiona’s?”
Eamon shook his head and looked up, meeting Fallon’s grim expression. “No, these don’t belong to anybody in the Wind Division.”
Caden bent over them. “They look like something Rain might wear. Gawain’s men are used to the plains and haven’t switched to hard bottomed shoes.”
“Rain shouldn’t have been searching anywhere close to here.” Eamon stood and put his hands on his waist as he looked down at the print.
“What does that mean?” Shea asked.
Fallon bowed his head before looking up and pinning her with a fierce expression. “There’s a traitor among us.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SHEA CAUGHT up to Fallon as he left his war council. They’d reported back after finding the print. Clark and Fiona were nowhere to be found. Since it was getting late, Fallon made the decision to meet up at the rendezvous to regroup and send a larger search party out. Shea had wanted to go but had been vetoed by more than one person.
“When were you going to tell me?” she asked in a low voice as they walked. She didn’t want everyone listening. Fallon and Caden had decided that the possibility of a traitor was only to be kept among them until they decided how to proceed.
“And what is it that I was supposed to have shared?” Fallon asked, his voice equally quiet.
“That you had decided to seed those who might mean you harm into this mission,” she said through gritted teeth.
It was the situation with his brother all over again. Fallon had decided to draw his brother out into the open by leaving the appearance of weakness so those who plotted against him would be tempted to strike, giving him the chance to turn the tables on them.
“I always have enemies. It is best you assume they are always present.”
The sound that escaped Shea was very close to a growl. “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. Gawain, Rain. Why did you bring them? It’s obvious even to me that there is no love lost between you.”
Fallon’s chuckle slid against her like velvet. “Very few of the clan leaders have any soft feelings towards me. I threaten their power. Any one of them would be overjoyed to have my head.”